EQ F2P- Returning Players & Current Content

TJT

TJT

Mr. Poopybutthole
<Gold Donor>
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So I just started a Beast Lord on test. I used to play a Cleric and always wanted to play a Shaman or BL so here we go! I must say it is quite fun, although some of the new places are a bit disorienting to me and the merc system is slightly confusing. So I have some returnoob questions.

How many mercs can I have at a given time? And which mercs are not worthless? The Cleric one is pretty hot so far, but I am not killing shit as quickly as I'd like with the BL, but that is perhaps because I am in the wrong spots/poor gear/etc.

How often do the hot zones shift?

What are some places for efficient leveling?
 
Sterling

Sterling

El Presidente
12,991
7,898
I haven't played the newest expansion so it may have changed some since then, but what you want as mercs go is the journeyman version (The tier1 journeyman version is better than the tier 5 or whatever apprentice). Also most people like the tank merc at low level since it's a monster that just rapes face. Hotzones are generally good for leveling in, and hotzones shift like every 6 months or something.
 
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Tilluin

Molten Core Raider
135
118
You can only have 1 merc at a time (I think) and I'd definitely recommend the journeyman tank merc as like Sterling said, they rape face. I am not so comfortable with the newer zones so I didn't stick to hot zones so far - I did tower of frozen shadow for 30 - 40 (took about 2 hours), SolB until 45, the hole until 48 or so (I got bored) and I've just moved in to Seb!
 
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Uzi_sl

shitlord
87
0
I've tried several occasions to get back into eq on a regular server, and it was pretty fun leveling up at a fast pace but I just kinda drifted on to other games before I ended up getting anywhere close to end game. You can do 1-50 in one day with absolutely gear money or outside help, as long as you can get that j1 merc, it rapes that hard. I think what querty doesnt get about the emptyness of fay is that 99% of people just start in the tutorial, which leads to cresent reach and the hotzones are all basically in a straight line from there. You can find groups easily there, because its where the best xp is (nothing new about that). They haven't changed in like a year and a half and I doubt they ever will again tbh.

Tank merc will solo mobs 5-10 levels above you while you do absolutely nothing and get like 20% of a level per kill. Going sight seeing in old zones is fine the first time back (I just had plenty of nostalgia recently with p99 and progression servers and such) but don't expect to find a soul in any of the old continents or even kunark or velious. Funny enough the old dragons and bosses like AoW still get farmed constantly and are never up.
 
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qwertyqweqwertwqert

<Banned>
1,678
149
It's not that I don't get it, it's that I don't like it. Also you seem to revel in the idea of getting 50 levels in a single day, and a merc that 'rapes'. To me that's just blasting through content that I would have enjoyed actually playing. It's like getting a 3 course meal and then chucking it all out the window so you can just eat dessert.

Uzi_sl said:
Tank merc will solo mobs 5-10 levels above you while you do absolutely nothing and get like 20% of a level per kill.
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And on that note, I'm outta this thread.
 
Swagdaddy

Swagdaddy

There is a war going on over control of your mind
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1,870
Probably gonna get some hate for this, but I tried an honest attempt at Test server and live EQ is just some twisted nightmare of what I remember it being.

"Yeah bro the merc will solo mobs for you until 70" that sounds retarded and not fun, I think SOE never realized less is more and now when anyone who hasn't played in a long time checks in it just seems like a clusterfuck of random features, at least that was how I felt.

EQMac feeling a lot more like home for me personally.
 
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Eggplant_sl

shitlord
37
0
Xeldar_sl said:
Christ are AAs fast to get, boxing a 59 mage/bard (what should I 3rd box with it?) and I just afk'ed at bottom of The Hole, went to bed, came back to 30 AA's saved (can't go over; never knew about this).
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How do you setup this for AFK? Do you use mercs/pets? Does the exp not get cut to nothing? Been a while since I've played.
 
Xeldar

Xeldar

Silver Squire
1,546
133
Eggplant_sl said:
How do you setup this for AFK? Do you use mercs/pets? Does the exp not get cut to nothing? Been a while since I've played.
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Have tank merc + heal merc, at the bottom next to the stone door thingamajig, there's 2 fast spawning gargoyles + 2-3 roamers that come by. Position your troops with back on the wall and... free afk AA. Ran out of shit to buy at 59 w/ around 150AA. Can only save 30 AA.
 
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Ebris_sl

shitlord
34
0
Does anyone know a good way to raise skills? I've been power leveling a SK to tank with, but leveling skills is... annoying. Does anyone have any effective methods?
 
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pointyboot

Bronze Knight of the Realm
167
3
Ebris_sl said:
Does anyone know a good way to raise skills? I've been power leveling a SK to tank with, but leveling skills is... annoying. Does anyone have any effective methods?
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If on live server you can mount up in Arena and cast on your pet. For melee you can duel another toons pet for melee skills.

On test server there are dummy NPC's in arena you can do the same for.

I use software called AutoMacroRecorder to record mouse clicks for afk skill training.
 
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EtadanikM_sl

shitlord
37
0
Swagdaddy_sl said:
Probably gonna get some hate for this, but I tried an honest attempt at Test server and live EQ is just some twisted nightmare of what I remember it being.

"Yeah bro the merc will solo mobs for you until 70" that sounds retarded and not fun, I think SOE never realized less is more and now when anyone who hasn't played in a long time checks in it just seems like a clusterfuck of random features, at least that was how I felt.

EQMac feeling a lot more like home for me personally.
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SoE also understands that there is nobody to group with from 1-70, for that matter 1-90, so yeah.
 
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atalakas

Golden Knight of the Realm
100
16
Umm Gfey is not a main starting area for noobs anymore. Drakkin home city and blightfire are...
 
mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Back when I played last, when it went F2P in the spring, here is what I saw.. I played with my little brother and one of his buddies. We all started fresh toons.

1-60 is cakewalk. But getting the AA was not. But this was before they buffed the shit out of AA exp rates. Dont get me wrong, they were not THAT hard to get, but when you talk to others that have 4K+AA which is considered normal for these days, well, there is a lot of grinding to do. But I guess this got fixed.

60-70 was also a breeze.The J1 tank merc and the healer both keep up NP. But at 80+ is where the game starts to fall apart. There is pretty much no good exp content for 80+ because SoE keeps nerfing the shit out of past expansions. For example when I played the new expansion was Veil of Alaris, but when that hit, they nerfed the shit out of exp rates in House of Thule (very popular expansion). Its the same shit SoE was doing back in the day to make sure everyone buyinguing their exp.

So we got our J5 mercs at like lv80 and really could not find any good places to exp anymore at a good pace so we just kind of drifted away from EQ, also D3 hit too so my brother and his buddy split for that game. So IMO the real EQ game does not start until like Lv85+. So I ended up with a Lv81 Ranger with about 1100 AA. SO yeah, they advertize 1500 zones and all the missions and all that, but 98% of that shit is all useless because of the exp rates.

Now, obviously if you have a bud or two that are 95+, then you have tons more options of leeching exp from them or get PLd or whatever, but we tried to do it ourselves. We did get some help with the J5 merc quest from some 95 dude, but thats it.
 
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Ebris_sl

shitlord
34
0
I found a decent place to AFK grind out XP/AA: Halls of Honor A.

I'm not sure why I tried there. All I know is that the Hole is always camped.

Straight ahead from the entrance there is a 4way crossing where 4 mobs spawn. Down the West path another two mobs spawn. With the proper positioning you can aggro all 6 of them and a J2 Tank and a J1 Healer merc are more than sufficient to take them down. The respawn time is around 15minutes as well.

It isn't the most efficient experience in the game, but it is never camped (from what I've seen) and its around 2 mobs per AA at 55 and 8ish per AA at 75.
 
Fight

Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,584
5,408
Added a tremendous amount of info to the original post, including Merc info and a guide for Journeyman 5 mercs.
 
BilboFaggins

BilboFaggins

N00b
302
22
Fight_sl said:
Find your eqclient.ini file. It is a notepad document and after you open it and scroll down, you will see a bunch of lines with the races and True/False text you can change.

Example:
[Defaults]
Sound=TRUE
FEWindowedModeXOffset=256
FEWindowedModeYOffset=192
WindowedMode=TRUE
ReadOnce=TRUE
UseLuclinHumanMale=TRUE
UseLuclinHumanFemale=TRUE
You probably will want to keep your own character model set to TRUE though, otherwise you will not be able to use mounts.
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I still don't get why they won't let us mount with old character models and just not show the mount. I have always preferred the old models over the Luclin models.
 
BilboFaggins

BilboFaggins

N00b
302
22
qwerty_sl said:
Hahahaaaa you are so mad that I don't like your shit game.... *** blah blah blah I'm a whinny bitch blah blah blah***
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You lost me at "shit game". I've played EQ off and on for 13 years now, hard core raided back in PoP, paid extra to be on the legends server, been to the fan Faire (2011).... Shit games don't create that kind of following sir. And, yes I have played every mainstream Mmorpg that has come since EQ. None of them have held my interest more than a few months each.

Just for the record, I will be moving a rogue and beast lord to the test server guys. I haven't decided yet if I want to do the progression or go on to the end game. Do we have a guild on test we can get in to if we aren't going to be raiding all the time? I love raiding, but being a programmer, my job makes it very hard to be available for mandatory raids.
 
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