New to EQ 2 kinda confusedFollow

HI everybody, i was wondering about partying in this agme, i just recetnly quit FFXI and came to EQ2. Now i was wonderin how many people are there usually in a party? And i was wondering if comone could lay out a god place to level levels 1-25. Or should i just quest for my xp and items. And what would be a good craft to do like one that would make good money earlier craft skills. And i was also wondering how food worked in this game, like is there different effects from the food or what, and if so what would eb the best food to get if your a Scout level 9. thanks for all your help.

I never played FFXI, but I think I can answer a few of your questions.

A group is up to 6 people. Unlike FFXI (my understanding) you don't have to group, every class can solo. You can also group with one or two others to kill things you could not alone.

The best way to level in the early game is to do as many quests as you can. At your level just about all the quests are soloable. You'll get good items and enough money to buy what you don't get. Pretty much everyone in your starting town will have a quest for you, and once you're a citizen, you can expand that to the rest of the city. and then outside. The rule of thumb is talk to everyone. Not only is questing better experience, it's also a lot more fun than camping and grinding the same MoB over and over.

Food makes your health regenerate faster, drink makes mana regen faster. A LOT faster. Different foods and drinks last for different time periods and have different Satiation levels. High satiation food that lasts over 4 hours is the best, looks for sunfish sandwiches. The best drink lasts over an hour, I like creamed coffee. Try to get the highest level food you can use at your adventurer level. The best food is player made, next is store bought, then summoned.

At your level you can work in all the tradeskills to find one you like. As with any MMO, if one tradeskill turns out to be the most lucrative and the people who are looking mainly to make money gravitate to it, you can be sure it will get nerfed. Ask some Alchemists about that. Right now the best trade to be in might actually be provisioner - who makes food and drink.

for crafting advice check out thie site for some good info

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq2/showthread.php?t=3833

they've changed the loot drop code.. I came away one night with no less than 3 Adept 1 books and several decent pieces of armor. I sold the ones without stat or resistance bonuses to an NPC, and kept the good stuff to sell to players... and since the change (which happened VERY recently.. like a week or two ago) I've yet to have a decent length play session that doesn't yield several things I can offload to an NPC for decent money.. with a few that are good enough to keep for overnight sales.

I can't speak for over 25th level, but so far my XP gain solo'ing with my conjuror has been just fine.. however we are talking about a conjuror here. It's not uncommon for me to walk all over orange con solo's like doormats. In 25 levels I've been in a group with this character once.. It's not for a lack of invites (and I've never set myself LFG), but typically they come at odd / inconvient times. .like last night I logged in for a quick 10% XP before friends arrived.. had to turn down an invite due to not being online long enough to bother with teaming up.



hmm.. well here's what worked for me.. however, remember I play a conjuror... so it's me and a pet. Often I could take things that other classes have to wait a level or so to handle alone... also this applies to solo'ing, in a group you can go to a lot of these places earlier due to having more people, but I'll try to note the levels of groups I've seen in the areas.

1 - 13( good to 15th though the xp slows down around 14th for this area)

I stayed in Qeynos.. doing quest in every district I could... I had several quest out in Antonica that typically required travel out to the cabin area. Peeps familiar with Antonica know where I'm talking about.. there are several quest such as "Oh Deer Me!" which is a very good quest for the teens.. deer don't hit TOO hard either (unlike bears which are very strong for their con) I noticed the easily solo'able yellow quest began to lessen around.. 14th level or so. Options were to group or level up a bit more and do them solo.. I chose to level up a bit more.

lowest level group seen in these areas: not seen all that many groups, the occassional duo.. but on the whole most people solo through the first 15 levels. The most grouping I've seen are people going for scarecrows in farmer walcott's fields. Anywho with good quest management and time to burn it's possible to go from 1st to 15th in about a weekend maybe a little less.

at 13th level to 15th level

I was in the area between the cabin and the covered bridge and also working the fringe area around Archer Woods near the Qeynos Claymore monument. Watch out for timberclaw gnolls.. they're VERY strong. I had quest for bears, the occassional gnoll, wolves, and tradeskill harvesting tasks. I also had a few quest underwater.. ^_^

lowest level group seen in this area: I did start to see more trio's and 4 man groups now.. particularly groups going after timberclaw gnolls for the quest. I joined a 3 person group for that quest.

16th to 18th level

The farmers fields.. wonderful place.. truth be told there are two fields.. one is near the stepps station tower.. the other is *somewhat* close to windstalker village. I was in the fields near windsalker village. This area was beautiful.. not a single aggro mob in the place.. and none that wander there either.. it's literally FULL of solo'able centipede mobs and scarecrows. Leave the scarecrows alone if you're solo. This area is also great for harvesting, since you can typically find every type of harvestable item in the fields or VERY close to them with VERY low to no risk of bumping into aggro mobs.

XP here seemed to slow down for me around 17th or 18th level or so (by that I mean most of the mobs were blue) but I decided to stay put til 19th..

no real quest (that I know of) for these centipede mobs.. so it's pure mob grinding, but I did get quite a few tradeskill harvesting tasks completed.

This is a good place to do Hwal Rucksif's quest (if I recall he's the one that gives you a quest to harvest like.. 100 units of wood, 100 units of iron.. blah balh) 'cause you'll certaily get all the harvest nodes you can stand in these fields.

lowest level group seen in this area: I've seen level 14's and 15's with a few higher level peeps in their group going for scarecrows. I've seen smaller groups of similar level (duo's and trio's) going for the centipedes and the bears and wolves that wander around the edges of the fields.

18th to 20th level

just beside or rather, on the edge of, windstalker village is a lake... and on the opposite side of the lake..are wolves and bears.. some of them, VERY strong for 18th level. This is the reason I stuck with the farmers fields til 19th. Bears hit.. HARD and Hulking Stalkers are not to be underestimated either. Coming fresh from FFXI I wasn't all that in a mood to group.. so I solo'ed here til 20th or so.

lowest level group seen in this area: never seen a group in this area while I was XP'ing there. Not all that many soloers either, so I generally had the place all to myself.

21st to 25th The Thundering Stepps

well this is where I still am.. ^_^ so far it's been good. at 23rd level the undead in the ruins of Karana area were a wonderful source of nice XP, all orange and yellow cons, at 24th.. all white and yellow, now at 25th they're blue or white... so it's time to start looking for a new spot.. Between 21st and 23rd I was hitting the occassional bear and deer between tower 1 and 2.. the dwarf just beyond the entrance gives a simple quest for snakes and deer... There's also quest for bears, as well as griffawns, gnolls, and wolves from other NPC's (mainly in Thundermist village).

since a recent update they GREATLY increased the number of solo mobs in the area around tower 1, 2, 3, and 4... especially around tower 2. It's mostly bears.. and they're all aggressive. O_O

lowest level group seen in this area: I've seen as low as 18th level groups going for the bears and such near tower 2. Also the path from the dock to the "main road" seems pretty popular for solo'ist and smaller groups between 20th and 22rd level because nothing along the way aggro's and it's all "solo" mobs.

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there are several zones I didn't mention such as BlackBurough and Stormhold. The reason: I've never been to Stormhold, didn't even know where it was til 24th level. Only been to BB once, long enough to get the items I needed for my class progression quest (with the help of a lev 26 fury friend ^_^). So I have no idea what level groups would go to these areas.. and they're certainly not for any solo'ist.

those areas are pretty much group only, so my intense solo'ing streak means I *sorta* missed out on them.. I say sorta 'cause I'm 25th level now. I can go into them, do whatever I want quest-mob wise and not really have to worry about much... such is the life of a soloist.

Edited, Wed Mar 16 11:26:19 2005 by Iaini