Feldon 
And so it begins…
Double XP Weekend started last night promptly at Midnight (Pacific time) and will run through Tuesday, January 1st @ 11:59pm PST (that’s Wednesday, January 2nd @ 7:59 GMT).
EQ2Wire Asks
Now that the Group XP penalty is gone and you get as much XP with 6 people in the group as you do solo, will you be leveling different this weekend? How many levels / AAs are you planning to get? After I get the last of my alts to 95, I’ve got a 35 mystic with 180 AAs that I’ll be working on.
Since mercs still take half your XP, will you be using them this weekend, or trying to get in groups? It will be interesting to see what zones people try out. No doubt Skyshrine will be overstuffed to the gills with people scrounging for every last mob, as no doubt will Kingdom of Sky contested zones. Is all of this XP grinding really necessary or is it time, as Dellmon of EQ2Talk has mentioned several times, for an Instant Level 90 button (for alts)?
1- 90 is the fun part. More than happy to go through that the long way any number of times.
Now, if you’re talking about an instant 90-95 button, then I’m listening.
Leveling up a new character and seeing what skills and abilities you get is the most fun part of an MMO. Not sure why companies keep taking the shortcut routes to get people thru it faster other than they are too lazy to make content for mid levels. its easier to just make high end content and get everyone there as quick as possible. The problem is that a lot of players, myself included, get bored at max level and aa and just stop playing.
I have to agree with Trueflight here…. If there was an instant way to get from 1-90, a lot of people would take it, and most of the content previous to it would be meaningless. Not only that, but there would be so many new players choosing it and not knowing even knowing how to use an ability…..
Meaning completely new players to MMO gaming, that is.
Not sure why MMOs still have levels anymore. They keep doing their best to get people to avoid them.
I’m pretty sure eqnext will be more level agnostic, looks like they at least were thinking about it with the dungeon maker leveling stuff. I’d figure as level agnostic as guild wars 2 had the whole auto mentor stuff wouldn’t be too far out there.
Personally I’m old school, I like a LONG leveling, way longer than it is now, but I’d like more cross character benefits than just an xp bonus.
The problem is, level 1-90 in EQ2 is entirely about one-shotting mobs, even against yellow ^^^ group mobs and even con raid targets. Gear and AAs have completely trivialized the content.
I have run through the new questline three times and I am working on my fourth. That being said I still had to grind just to get to level 94 after running the questline just so I could be able to get into a group for the new zones. I have three 95/320 toons and four 92/320 toons and wouod like to start another just so I have more variety to play and more options for groups. The XP earned by doing the questline seems a little low to me and would be fun to do with a group but many of the quests are absolutely impossible to do as a group such as the one where you have to find the scouts and run back to the Southern Camp (seems buggy to me) . I think if you run the questline at least you should be able to gain a little more XP to at least be able to get closer to max level, since they only added three more. To top it off you have to mass kill mobs for a chance to get an Obol which can take a while to get ten just to buy access to Harrows End. The XP curve is very steep from 90-95 IMHO. Or at least if you run the questline with a merc you should still get full XP….this only seems fair to those who are not all fable geared, as some may not have the time or plat to raid or buy gear.
I know that SOE wants to keep thier players busy so that they have time to create the next X-Pac…and I don’t expect them to give handouts or have an “insta-level 95 toon” as Dellmon would say, but maybe a better XP reward if you run the questline. I am sure that the player base is sick of grinding SS, SoS, and Chelsith. It seems that if players are having to grind for levels just to get into groups for the new zones then something is wrong.
Well so far the xp event have been so and so, everyone tries despreately to get into a DM/SK/Experimantal group for fast xp, Skyshrine is absolutely crowded, and with the xp nerfs over 90 there is really no other good place to go to level.
Get a good group go to keal get an enchanter to charm a mob and hold on your in for a wild ride thats my 10 cents worth
To me i love leveling up but as Feldon says its just so easy it needs to be toughed up and made a little harder,jeepers even 2 shotting a mob at this point would be a bit more fun.
I suspect EQNext will be borrowing heavily from EVE on a number of fronts. I further suspect this will wind up being a good thing, if done well.
Sigtyr: What I and my friends did was go thru older instances. Loping Plains, Commonlands, the Guks, SF, etc. Even if the quests had already been done, there were always the dailys for whatever item (Marks of Manaar, etc). I’ve leveled two toons this way, and it’s not that bad of a run There’s also the gear that’s L90 which is good to transmute and salvage for T10.
I think the ease of leveling alts is a bad thing because of the social dynamics of the game. If everyone has 25 max level characters at the press of a button, you don’t know who is who, and everyone wants everything. If you put in the time, they can be easy, but instant button would be horrible.
The extreme class specialization of eq2 rewards the effort you put into maintaining a few alts, because the group may need a specific class or role filled. But those characters all need to be geared and adorned and spec’ed and actually played regularly, and they are thus recognizable as well.
Making extra characters require a reasonable amount of effort is necessary to avoid a situation where you can’t recognize anyone, and they all want everything to throw on unmaintained alts that they never log in and can’t play, because frankly max level and max aa doesn’t amount to much all by itself.
i agree with enrico.
Too many alt is not a good thing, you should have a penality of 20% xp for each alt you get not a bonus. So people would be more dedicaced to play their main.
@Madcat – Not all players (myself included) dedicate their entire game play to one/main character. (Personally only playing one toon bores me to the max.) Playing alts provides understanding of other classes and what you can expect of that class while in a group.
We have the ability to have more than one toon. Many options of class and race and the play of each class being different allows a player to fully immerse them self into more than one way to play. EQ2 is game that’s rich in content… why not see how it plays with more than one type of character? Why limit yourself? If you’ve been playing any length of time, I would hope you know how to play your main by now.
Make an alt and have fun learning again.
Instant lvl 90 button ? Only as a bonus to players with 2 or more max level characters already, or +2 yrs account age. I would want them to ‘know the game first’, and not have to put up with total noobs in grp’s or players having only adpt 1 spells and trying to run in groups, as a minimum. It’s bad enough already.
I just don’t understand the continual nerfing of level 90+ XP zones. Who cares if players level fast?
I don’t see the problem with fast leveling, or slow. People should be able to play the game how they want. Only thing i have a problem with is that there is no real reason or benifit of doing the quests. From a leveling point of view it is slow and boring once you have done it the first time . There really needs to be a real reward for doing the quests, somthing that you can use to up your dps end game or better heals or somthing!
As for peoples complaints about noobs being lvl 90+ and not knowing how to play there toon, well how many people do you know that are playing at say lvl 20 and looking for a group ? Only way to play is to get to end game, get some gear and fail over and over and over until you get better . That is of course unless some one wants to go back to darklight woods and train all the nubs as the pop up LOL. On top of all that, the game changes dramaticlly in terms of how you play from lvl 1-95 .
SOE GIVE US A REAL REWARD FOR DOING QUESTS PLZ 🙂
Too much content for the number of truly new players. It’s the source of the problems worth low level content…mentoring fixed or not.
By encouraging everyone to play the max level content SOE is concentrating in one place so the game feels more full.
Balanced and rewarding level agnostic game play could help, but only in conjunction with am effective way to form groups (because everyone would be scattered).
Note: effective forming tool doesn’t have to be automated, just has to meet needs of people who would form a group. SOE lost their way on SF.