THinking about starting EQ2...Follow

So I have been playing FFXI for about 2 years now, and im starting to get pretty bored of it. Seems like finding a group gets longer and longer, economy keeps going down the pits, and just starts to feel a bit boring.
I played WoW for about 3 months, but quit do to lack of content.. and also the game seemed a bit too easy.
Also, I like the grouping for exp concept (with the option of soloing) which WoW didn't have. No one grouped to grind mobs. People rarely group for quests (cept for ones you need a group for), and it always seems like people refuse to do instances without atleast 1 higher level person to blast them threw.
So with that being said, i quit that game after I got both hunter and mage to level 60.

Now I am looking for something new, and EQ2 has caught my eye. I realize coming to the EQ2 boards, im most likely going to be getting biased answers here, but if I could get HONEST answers to these questions, that would be great.

1) Solo. I keep hereing different mixed reviews about soloability in eq2. Some people say you can solo easy, others say it takes a LONG time to solo, and others say you can barely solo at all.
Im guessing it's most likely due to which class you pick..
But anyways, how good is soloing quests and solo grinding exp in EQ2?
I usually like to play magic classes.. so either a mage or cleric would sound interesting.. although I might be interested in a monk to.

2)Finding groups. In FFXI it isn't uncommon to be looking for a group for 4-5+ hours and logging out due to frustration because no one is inviting, and not enough people to form your own.
How easy is it to get into groups for exp grinding, quests, and instances? Is it common to be looking for a group for 2+ hours? or do most people get groups within an hour?
And it also wont be so bad looking for a group if you can solo quests or grind exp while waiting

3) Fun Factor. How fun do you think EQ2 is? Do you play it, because you don't know what else to do? Or do you actually enjoy playing the game?
I know a lot of people in FFXI who play the game but do not enjoy it. THey just don't want to give up the hundreds of days they put into the game.
So is eq2 *FUN* to play? or just so so?

4) Limited time. In ffxi, if you don't have ATLEAST 2 hours to sit down and play the game, it isnt even worth logging on, except for maybe a bit of farming.
If I only have like 1.5 hours to play, can I actually accomplish something in EQ2? Whether it be quests or getting EXP?
Could I join an exp group only for an hour and then leave without them caring a great deal?
Because in ffxi, if your not in a group for atleast 2 hours, people get ticked off.

5) Economy. How stable is the economy? If someone new came on who has never played the game before (like me), would we have any chance at all to make it anywhere? or would we be struggling to make ends meat?
In ffxi, the economy seems to be going down the pits, all prices are crazy inflated, and I think it would be hard for someone new to join. Is this the same for eq2?


Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I have been debating for a while whether to come to eq2 or not. Im hoping your guys answers will be able to help me make a choice.

I'll try to keep the comments as honest as I can, but matters of opinion may be expressed.

1. Everyone can solo in EQ2. Matters or degrees of difficulty aside, Sony has made quite a few changes to make soloing viable for everyone. If you like mages or clerics, you will have an easier time taking on very difficult mobs, but it really is about stratagies and learning to play your class the best you can. I have heard scout type classes complain the most about their soloing ability, but I think a lot of their complaints rise from trying to take on higher lvl mobs beyond their abilities in the first place. I have also seen scout types really shine in solo situations. I comes down to ability, equipment and strategy.

2. Finding groups is pretty easy for the most part. If you are a cleric type, you will always be in demand. Tanks are always needed also, but there are far more of them than clerics. Mages and scouts are have important roles to play also, so, as you can see, everyone can pretty much be welcomed into a group. This can change from whatever time you have to play, or server to server. But for the most part, EQ2 is still new enough that you should have no serious problems finding people to group with a lower lvls.

3. Fun factor is kind of hard to determine. Personally, I love EQ2 over EQ1, SWG, WoW, CoH and DAoC. There is a certain feel or groove to the game that appeals to me most. Sony is trying hard to make this game better and better everyday, and when you see the improvements go into action, you will be happy that they are mostly listening to players. Some things still have a little way to go in regards to improvements, but it is still as fun as day1 for me.

4. Limited time is no big deal. You can get a lot accomplished is 15 minutes especially at lower lvls. The quest system provides you goals to work towards, provides you with equipment, and generally will give you a feeling that you accomplished something that improved your character. If you have 15 minutes or 15 hours, forward progress can been seen easily.

5. Ecomomy is really a server based thing. My server, Butcherblock, has a pretty stable economy, with a few serious price gouging issues. Since selling will become a major source of income when you start and continue to play, you have to learn to work within the limitations of your particular server economy. Fluctuations can be drastic. Some days you get a great deal, some days you get shafted bad. Just make some good friends, get in a guild, and you shouldn't have to worry too much. Their are plenty of great chances to make money at all lvls. Just be honest a fair, and you won't contribute to your servers economy destablizing.

I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, PM me.

6) Money making. Not too bad. Takes a little bit of work, but not an insane amount of it.

7) Quests. Quite good actually. When the game came out there was a shortage of them past 20, but with all the new content that has been released, including 2 adventure packs. This isnt really as much of a problem as it once was.

Thanks for being so helpful you guys.
I think I might pick the game up after work tommorow.

I don't really know of any friends that are currently playing the game, so server choice doesn't matter to me, so I may just look you up on Butcherblock :)

Well yes you have to work a bit to make money, but I played FFXI for over a year and it's NOTHING like farming in that game. I'm level 26 on my Dirge and I've made - without really trying - 2 plat on him. That's for about ...eh, every week 3-4 hours worth of "work". But I'm sure it varies a bit from server to server.

You can solo in this game, some classes better than others. My wizzy outsolos my Dirge any day, but my Dirge has a lot better group utilities.

Fun - IF you don't go into with an FFXI "grind grind grind grind grind" attitude. That's important. Read the Lore, do the quests, take your time, make some friends. Then it's fun. Otherwise you'll burn out quickly.

Economy - has it's days but still a thousand times better than FFXI. You will find that you don't have to have "xx item" at "xx level" to find a group to go party with either. It's nice to have awesome gear but ppft, at least on my server (Lucan D'Lere, RP ) it's definately a second to having a good time.

Money: Keep in mind that money is downplayed. When you start out you'll be so poor you can't even pay attention. But not to worry, there are many quests that will grant you weapons, armor, a little money, and maybe some furniture for your room.

Creatures don't drop money. I mean, c'mon, where would a badger keep all those coins? They drops parts and pieces of fur and innards that can be sold to the vendor. The higher in level and zone you go, the more valuable they are. Eventually you will get uncommon drops that are worth up to 1g.

You may also get chests to spawn of creatures. Inside you'll find anything from weapons, armor, or quests. Again, the higher in zone you are, the more valuable the drops.

After an hour or so of farming, you could raise anywhere between 50s to 10g.

Farming: But it's not always about farming. The smart adventurer picks up quests that match what they are hunting. That way you get the exp, you get the loot, and you get credit for the quest plus it's reward.

You can't take your level 50 uber-Wizard to a low level zone, nuking everything and get the same drops. When things turn grey, the loot effectively turns off. This helps ensure no loot-camping.

Here's what I do:
I pick up a few city writs (for guild exp) and head to Everfrost (top level zone). I hunt the critters get the exp, get the loot, and get exp for my guild, all in one trip. I usually get about 5g on those trips from the drops.

Equipment: You can get some good equipment from loot drops and quests, almost to the point you can do ok. However you will eventually need to get better gear, especially when you gain levels and level 20 mobs are punching through your level 10 armor.

Just save your money and you'll eventually have enough to equip yourself well, but not uber.

If you're into uber-equipment, you'll need to get in a guild that regulary does raids. Or save up money to buy the player-crafted stuff which is almost always better than the dropped items.

Since launch I've earned probably 5pp, and spent 4pp of it on equipment and spell upgrades.

Quests: Crazy amount of quests and a ton of them are interrelated. Too often I click through the dialogue boxes, skipping all the blah, blah, blah to get to the meat of the quest.
Maybe there IS a story after all... :)

...anyway... You'll get some cool stuff from the quests, armor, weapons, items, cash, or Heritage items.
Many places there is a quest to "kill 10 ____" and return for a reward. Those are an easy way to repeat a money making quests.

The times when you randomly regen to full after a battle are because you have reached a mini-ding...10% of your next level, or 20%, or 30%...etc. Obviously, this happens frequently when you're low level, and happens less as you grow.

From what I've heard, priests are pretty good soloers all through the game. My fury can easily take oranges still. Now, they have a combat revamp in the works which may end up nerfing priest soloing. For example, they are going to take away priests' parry ability, which will probably half their avoidance. But I don't know myself if they will still be good soloers after the revamp, or when it's coming. I don't know which priest is the best soloer...cleric is a nice choice because they can wear heavy armor in their 20s. Reactive heals also help. And as I said, my fury (druid) solos just fine as well.

Priests can solo and are desired in groups. I hear fighters are excellent soloers too, but no personal experience there...and groups are always looking for tanks. Scouts aren't such great soloers (though again, anything can solo), and enchanters are pretty lousy soloers (but very useful in groups).

By the way, you may want to consider (especially as your level goes up) selling some of those chest-dropped items in your inn room. You'll need to buy a market board from a vendor, put it in your room, and use it to price things. If you put items in your house vault, they will be up for sale while you're offline. (Buy/make containers for your vault...boxes are nice if you can afford them, but it may be a little while until you can.)

Have you practiced harvesting skills? Many of the ingredients used in crafting come from harvesting. In case you don't know, adventure zones have specially labeled rocks, trees, roots, bushes, dens, and schools of fish. Click on them to harvest items. Some crafting items are available from the vendors in tradeskill workshops. There are several in every suburb, so look around until you find one that lets you join. Check with the person at the desk to get workshop quests...harvest 15 of X item, and get paid decent cash. Tradeskill zones also have brokers in them, so it's a good idea to join one just for easy access to the broker.

I was also one to start playing EQ2 as well. As I also played FFXI, it got boring after level 70. So. Im planning to be a wood elf ranger in the long run... are those rare to see... rangers in general? Also which is the best server choices... I like a good amount of people in the community. Any Info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all.

I'm enjoying the game alot, personally. But then, I like economical things, making money, doing business, and so forth. Currently I'm a 22 Necromancer 27 Sage and working mostly on my Sage levelling.

So far, on the broker alone I've made almost 4 plat. That isn't counting the probably 2 or so plat I've made from person-to-person exchanges. I've also got about 1 plat worth of boxes (hooray pristine teak boxes!) and 2-3 plat worth of tradeskill supplies.

So from the money-making standpoint, it all depends on how much you want to focus on it. The same applies to how quickly you'll level, or how many friends you can make, and so forth. Just depends what you focus on.

You can't make your own arrows until, 21 I think, and then you can only forage a handful with a terrible re-use timer. :( I don't think there is a way to craft arrows into ammo-usable.

Best to just buy them from the merchant, the better the arrow the better the damage (but not by much). You will probably go through a lot of arrows, especially as a Ranger since that is one of their primary damage skills. You can buy a tin arrow for a few copper, a stack of 20 for a stack of copper.
You will not be pouring mass amounts of money into arrows, though. Always have a few stacks in your inventory when adventuring the far reaches for long periods. I think you don't get a bow ability until levvel 11.

Max level for adventure/artisan is 50. With the next expansion pack it will be raised 60. They both raise separately, so the more adventuring you do, the higher adventurer you will be. The more crafting you do...

Crafting is a whole time-sink in itself. You spend mass amounts of time at crafting tables, running back to the vendor to buy/sell components, or to the broker to buy components. I crafted to level 12, but decided to go explore the world instead. I have since become a reqular paying member to all sellers of goods.

The crafting system is very involved and you need to pay attention or your product will die. With recent recipie additions players can make very good armor, weapons, and items that are becoming in high demand. I think that most player-made stuff is better than adventure loot drops from mobs.

You will have other harvesting skills to raise like gathering, foresting, fishing. These skills get you components that can be used in tradeskills and will quickly fill up your backpacks. You also get rare harvested items that make rare spells. These special items can sell anywhere between 10g-30g at the broker. Did I mention that they are rare? I'm sorry, I meant forget-about-it-rare.
The higher level zones require you to have higher harvesting skill. So make sure you keep harvesting in a zone until it becomes trivial.

See you on Najena. :)

tutanbriarpaw reasoned:

You can make arrows as a woodworker but at 21 every ranger gets the makeshift arrow spell which at app 4 kicks out 30 carbonite arrows every 10 minutes. Using the app 4 version of the spell, (which cost me about 30 silver), I generate more arrows than I can ever manage to shoot.

At this point in time I usually have about 400 in the bank and another 400 on my character. And since I can make 30 more every time I remember to twitch, I don't think I'll ever run dry!

Oh, now you went and did it. :) I played a Beastmaster in EQ1 to 49, so I have pets in my blood. :)

Mage > Summoner > Conjurer is a fun and challenging path. We fall under the DPS category of who gets the group invites. Armor is paper-thin and can't stand up to a steady beating. Hopefully that won't happen and the fight will always be at pet distance. You main atribute is INT, so get gear that boosts that up. Mine is 210 buffed, which is still comparably low.

The main damage source is the pet. It is given at various levels along with a periodic advancement pick. Here's a complete list. And here is the complete spell list. There are Earth (tank), Air (damage), and Fire (damage) pets. Additionally, certain pets have slashing ability, the Earth pet has a knock-down ability (draws agro to it - good thing). So a particular pet may be good in particular situations.

For solo'ing around, I choose the Earth pet as a tank. When in a group, a Damage pet would be better. At higher levels, certain raid mobs might be immune to certain effects, so choosing the right pet is important.

We are mainly DoT casters with a few DD spells and buffs. Call it a "slow start". With the pet tank, I start casting DoT's and build them up. I usually end up with 4-8 DoT's stacked on the mob, some with mitigation effects (physical damage, fire, ice, magic, stifle, etc). Certain spells can be cast back-to-back to get the beneficial effects. i.e. First cast a Magic Mitigation DoT. Now cast a low damage DoT that has Fire Mitigation. Then cast a high damage Fire DoT.

I consider myself weaker than normal tanks regarding what I can fight. I can barely hold my own against a green^^, as I watch a tank chop up a blue^^. :( But with the new inclusion of solo mobs, there is plenty to kill. I normally take on yellow^ solo's (not heroic). And can take a group of white normals. In Everfrost doing writs, I usually pet-attack 3 yellow solo mobs and assist the pet, making sure it stays alive.

Self Invisibility is invaluable to getting around tough places, or doing "A Tour of..." in a dangerous zone. I've made my way in and out of nasty places fully inviso'd. Also explored Permafrost while inviso...until a named 50 caught me. I died in 2 hits, pet actually lasted for 10 hits...

Bad things:
Pathing in dungeons is improved, but still buggy. The pet may take the long way around to attack something on a ledge, not being smart enough to just jump down. It also gets caught in the wall and turns invisible, rendering it and the mob "can't see the target". Particularly bad spots are The Mine in Zek and Stormhold in Antonica. Nek Castle was actually pretty good for pathing.

Another nagging issue is DoT stacking with multiple Conjurers. So far common spells have not been able to stack, which makes more than 1 Conjurer in a group useless since one will always overwrite the other. There are plans to fix the stacking, and a few have already been implemented. Pet buffs stack, but certain self/group buffs don't.

Pet balancing has been an issue from the start, and the really only viable pet is the Adept 3 Earth pet at level 38, which I still use at level 45. The other damage pets MAY be useful at Adept 3, in certain situations.

The spell line is dissapointingly funneled into "Combat". Almost every spell we have is for combat. It would be fun to have some "utility" spells like Levitation. Or, imagine this, a Conjurer that can actualy...conjure...something. Funny, I know.

There you have it, I could go on for pages but that would not increase my post-count. :)

Bottom line, pick what you will have fun with.

Good luck!

Well I have been playing this for a few days and all I can say is this game simply rocks.
Soo many quests that actually give you decent rewards, a crafting system that is simply amazing (totally better then FFXI's), and just fun all around.

The only things that seems a bit lacking is community. I rarely see chat going on in the game, and outside of the game, forums are fairly quiet. Not to mention the item databases seems to be only a tad helpful at best.
Also, everything seems so extremely expensive. Looking at prices for some spells for my priest, 5 gold for this, 25 gold for that, and 50 gold for that... ANd they all look like fairly low level spells (< level 15 from the requirements)
But it counterbalances by getting a lot of good equipment from drops and quests.

I just started crafting tonight, and wow, there are sure a lot of recipies. I like how you can substitute ingredients when crafting.

Anyways, for all you people that are getting tired and bored of FFXI, I would highly recommend you try this game. It is a lot more fun. It only costed me $35 including taxes.. and that is Canadian.. So im guessing like $30 american max?
ANd you get a free month (monthly charge is $15 unless you get a 3 or 6 month plan, then it is $14 and $13 respectively) so essiently. your only paying $15 to buy the game... Well worth it IMO... even if it turns out you don't like it... Cause atleast you tried something different.



Oh, btw, another question I have is how do you get maps for outdoor areas? Just curious




Edited, Thu Jul 7 22:55:09 2005 by Balaje