I've been away from the game for 8 months or so and only recently came back, and have a number of questions...
1) I'm thinking about beginning some of the heritage quests...Are they worthwhile to do if I'm not guilded? Do I get to keep the status points (I think thats what they're called) and apply them to a guild if I were to join one in the future? The rewards seem good, but not great considering the amount of time involved with HQs...
2) Fabled items...These items seem to be the cream of the crop (better than HQ rewards which I believe to be labeled legendary) - do these just randomly drop from heroics (via master chests?)?
3) I play four toons all in their 20's at the moment and I TS with all of them - they're all about TS lvl30, so I can keep them outfitted with up to date goods...I do well on the broker and have managed to outfit my toons (at least my primary character) in rare crafted armor - That being said though, I find that the rare crafted armor isn't really class specific. I end up with stat boosts to all stats. Don't get me wrong, this is nice, and the mitigation and hp/power bonuses are great, but it would be nice to focus in on a few stats that are key to my class. For instance, my swashbuckler has no need for INT or really STA for that matter, I'd much rather focus on STR and AGI...I don't really have a question regarding this topic, but wonder if anyone has any opinions or suggestions regarding it.
4) Guilds...I'm more of a casual gamer, I play the game slowly and I like to meticulously equip my toons with the best possible gear...I had bad experiences with guilds in EQ1 (I didn't really get to end game and really just soloed a necro) and am hesitant to get into one in EQ2...I'm good in a group and my toons are equipped well and I've gotten alot of offers to join guilds...
So, how do I pick one? What should I expect to gain from joining a guild? What should I expect to have to do for the guild?
My main problems with guilds (stemming from EQ1) is that they're ran by people who are on "virtual power trips"...As a member that isn't going to be exceptionally active in guild politics I feel that I tend to get shafted and give more to the guild than I get in return...If joining a guild means following orders from a halfwit sitting behind a computer screen under the illusion that he's the "man", well count me out, I'll solo until I get bored with the game and then I'll probably quit...
Little bit of a rant, I know, but I would like to find a good, but relaxed guild...BTW some of the people that I've played with in pickup groups are absolutely horrible and they've got guild tags...I've also seen tons of blind invites to guilds - not the type of guild I'd like to join - If I wanted to group with retards I'd keep joining pickup groups...
I know, I should just accept the next invite I get (the type that comes from someone I've grouped with for a time) and see how I like it, and I probably will, but if anybody has any insight other than the obvious I'd like to hear that.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read all this and respond
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HQs, guilds, and other questionsFollow
Ok let me see if I can help you...
1-HQ's : As a templar, I found almost every each of the HQ totally useless. Aside from the Screaming Mace and the Golden Efreeti Boots, not much of them were of any use to me. Yes, you will get your status points if you complete them unguilded, however, you won't get to spend those status points until you are guilded. And no, the status you accumulate when you are 'on your own' will not be granted to the guild you will join. If you ever join a guld, you will find out that most of the HQ you do them to help the guild advance rather than for yourself.
2-Fabled items. Yes these usually are the best in the game. They are indeed found in master chests. Master chests have a drop rate for every kind of monster. I've seen a master chest drop off a solo bear in EL long ago with an assassin master spell in it. But master chests dropping off solos is extremely rare. The rate is probably a % even though it is unkwnow to me what it could be, but of course, they tend to drop much much much often off epic mobs rather than heroics, even though heroics still have a slight chance of dropping them. The color of the mob is to be taken in consideration too, a mob that cons orange to the group has a better chance for master or plain wood chest dropping than a mob that cons green. Thats the way it goes.
3-I agree that in the first stages of the game the armor get some strange stats for classes. Most fighter shields get Int and Wis stats on them, you have to be very patient to find leg armor with Wis on them as a cleric, etc. However, later in the game and especially in the expansion, Desert of Flames, it is possible to find a 'wider' variety of items with different stats on them. You can find that in the adventure pack Splitpaw Saga too (Which i would recommend to buy especially if you are to solo - the mobs that populate the caves will scale to your level). And, later in the game, since you said something about class specific, you do find, in the deepest instances of DoF and dropping off Epics there, fabled equipment that is class specific.
4-Guilds. There's all kinds of guilds really. You have the top raiding guilds on the server (which you should not considerate since you describe yourself as a casual gamer), there is also the 'family guilds', those are ppl that get along well and like to group together to quest and do stuff, like HQ. You also have guilds that combine the 2 aspects, like mine, that do 'casual raiding' like 1 or 2 times a week, but that still like to log in sometimes just to chat with other guild members. What you need to do is to find out what would be the best for you. There are a guild out there for you im pretty sure, and yes you might have to experiment a bit, but usually, if you group with the same people and think they are cool, then you might want to give their guild a shot. And yes, you might find horrible players guilded - some guilds just recruit anyone, they care more about quantity over quality. You usually have 1-4 guilds like that per server.
As far as your rant go, i can understand. I am myself the leader of my guild but I've never felt a power trip out of it. I pretty much let my ppl have fun the way they want : however, you must understand that in order for a guild to be successful, rules must be implented. Some guilds are more strict than others, that's the way it is. It can be a good idea before you join a guild to ask them for their guild website so you can look at how they are working as a whole, and what their main rules of conduct are. And you should never join a guild that sends you an invite without even talking to you. That means these guilds are probably ran by ppl that don't care about the quality, just about the quantity...
Hope this help, and that you can find a guild that will suit your needs.
1-HQ's : As a templar, I found almost every each of the HQ totally useless. Aside from the Screaming Mace and the Golden Efreeti Boots, not much of them were of any use to me. Yes, you will get your status points if you complete them unguilded, however, you won't get to spend those status points until you are guilded. And no, the status you accumulate when you are 'on your own' will not be granted to the guild you will join. If you ever join a guld, you will find out that most of the HQ you do them to help the guild advance rather than for yourself.
2-Fabled items. Yes these usually are the best in the game. They are indeed found in master chests. Master chests have a drop rate for every kind of monster. I've seen a master chest drop off a solo bear in EL long ago with an assassin master spell in it. But master chests dropping off solos is extremely rare. The rate is probably a % even though it is unkwnow to me what it could be, but of course, they tend to drop much much much often off epic mobs rather than heroics, even though heroics still have a slight chance of dropping them. The color of the mob is to be taken in consideration too, a mob that cons orange to the group has a better chance for master or plain wood chest dropping than a mob that cons green. Thats the way it goes.
3-I agree that in the first stages of the game the armor get some strange stats for classes. Most fighter shields get Int and Wis stats on them, you have to be very patient to find leg armor with Wis on them as a cleric, etc. However, later in the game and especially in the expansion, Desert of Flames, it is possible to find a 'wider' variety of items with different stats on them. You can find that in the adventure pack Splitpaw Saga too (Which i would recommend to buy especially if you are to solo - the mobs that populate the caves will scale to your level). And, later in the game, since you said something about class specific, you do find, in the deepest instances of DoF and dropping off Epics there, fabled equipment that is class specific.
4-Guilds. There's all kinds of guilds really. You have the top raiding guilds on the server (which you should not considerate since you describe yourself as a casual gamer), there is also the 'family guilds', those are ppl that get along well and like to group together to quest and do stuff, like HQ. You also have guilds that combine the 2 aspects, like mine, that do 'casual raiding' like 1 or 2 times a week, but that still like to log in sometimes just to chat with other guild members. What you need to do is to find out what would be the best for you. There are a guild out there for you im pretty sure, and yes you might have to experiment a bit, but usually, if you group with the same people and think they are cool, then you might want to give their guild a shot. And yes, you might find horrible players guilded - some guilds just recruit anyone, they care more about quantity over quality. You usually have 1-4 guilds like that per server.
As far as your rant go, i can understand. I am myself the leader of my guild but I've never felt a power trip out of it. I pretty much let my ppl have fun the way they want : however, you must understand that in order for a guild to be successful, rules must be implented. Some guilds are more strict than others, that's the way it is. It can be a good idea before you join a guild to ask them for their guild website so you can look at how they are working as a whole, and what their main rules of conduct are. And you should never join a guild that sends you an invite without even talking to you. That means these guilds are probably ran by ppl that don't care about the quality, just about the quantity...
Hope this help, and that you can find a guild that will suit your needs.
I'm gonna cherry pick the points I respond too...
Depends on the quest... there are a few that I have my eye on and a bunch that I have no interest in at all. Examples of "must haves" include; the infamous FBSS for my ranger, and a mana stone for my druid. Other likely candidates could include a fishbone earring for any char without a breathing spell and J-boots for anyone without SoW...
The good news here is that even if you don't want to equip the item, they are all placable in your home as a trophy so nothing ever need be sold to an NPC if you don't love it! The bad news is that if you do them while the item is still viable for you, you will have to group at some point in most all of them. This, however, makes them a slam dunk for a guild member... log in, hit guild chat with "need a group to finish my mana stone HG", and you will likely get 'er done!
While true, I don't consider this a hardship. Since the game is barely a year old, there are still very few choices in recipes for player made gear. Hopefully, as time goes by, we will see additional advanced recipe books come to light in the world and this will open up the options. (an example of this is my tailor who just got a recipe as a quest reward for a unique shoulder piece. I am about to craft one just to see how the stats differ from the common piece. My cook is heading towards an apple pie recipe from the same quest giver. (Guard Hoople in EL)
Personally, I am outfitting 2 mains, a 40 warden and a 33 ranger and have taken a different approach with each of them. The warden gets a full set of player crafted rares at the beginning of each tier while the ranger is equipped with a mix and match kit made up of stuff I quested for, mob drops and items purchased from the broker. Each child also receives a fair share of adept 1 & adept 3 spells. So far I don't see a lot of difference between the two of them so it has been in interesting experiment. Both are viable for solo and both do well in all sizes of groups.
Guilds in EQ2 are as varied as snowflakes. If you're inclined to do the legwork, (and it seems like you are!), make note of guild tags when you group with folks. When you reach a point where you find lots of solid players attached to the same tag, chances are you've found a great guild. You can also hit the SOE website. They have a guild search tool that will let you search by server and you can read the sites of any guilds that interest you. (Sony gives a free website to each guild.) And finally, you can visit the SOE forums and check out the board for your server. By reading through the threads there you should get a feel for which guilds have a higher ratio of a$$hats and which have thoughtful intelligent players... As a last resort, you could join one or more guilds just to see what happens... it is very easy to quit a guild if you make the wrong choice so you have nothing to lose by diving in.
What will you gain and what is expected of you? Hard to say... but hopefully you will you will gain a richer experience by playing with people you like and respect. And hopefully nothing will be asked of you that you wouldn't have wanted to do anyway!
Good luck, welcome back and I hope this helped you...
(edited because I still haven't learned to spell...)
Edited, Sun Dec 18 12:37:20 2005 by OldBlueDragon
Quote:
...I'm thinking about beginning some of the heritage quests...Are they worthwhile to do if I'm not guilded?...
Depends on the quest... there are a few that I have my eye on and a bunch that I have no interest in at all. Examples of "must haves" include; the infamous FBSS for my ranger, and a mana stone for my druid. Other likely candidates could include a fishbone earring for any char without a breathing spell and J-boots for anyone without SoW...
The good news here is that even if you don't want to equip the item, they are all placable in your home as a trophy so nothing ever need be sold to an NPC if you don't love it! The bad news is that if you do them while the item is still viable for you, you will have to group at some point in most all of them. This, however, makes them a slam dunk for a guild member... log in, hit guild chat with "need a group to finish my mana stone HG", and you will likely get 'er done!
Quote:
...I find that the rare crafted armor isn't really class specific. I end up with stat boosts to all stats. Don't get me wrong, this is nice, and the mitigation and hp/power bonuses are great, but it would be nice to focus in on a few stats that are key to my class...
While true, I don't consider this a hardship. Since the game is barely a year old, there are still very few choices in recipes for player made gear. Hopefully, as time goes by, we will see additional advanced recipe books come to light in the world and this will open up the options. (an example of this is my tailor who just got a recipe as a quest reward for a unique shoulder piece. I am about to craft one just to see how the stats differ from the common piece. My cook is heading towards an apple pie recipe from the same quest giver. (Guard Hoople in EL)
Personally, I am outfitting 2 mains, a 40 warden and a 33 ranger and have taken a different approach with each of them. The warden gets a full set of player crafted rares at the beginning of each tier while the ranger is equipped with a mix and match kit made up of stuff I quested for, mob drops and items purchased from the broker. Each child also receives a fair share of adept 1 & adept 3 spells. So far I don't see a lot of difference between the two of them so it has been in interesting experiment. Both are viable for solo and both do well in all sizes of groups.
Quote:
...I'm good in a group and my toons are equipped well and I've gotten alot of offers to join guilds... So, how do I pick one? What should I expect to gain from joining a guild? What should I expect to have to do for the guild?...
Guilds in EQ2 are as varied as snowflakes. If you're inclined to do the legwork, (and it seems like you are!), make note of guild tags when you group with folks. When you reach a point where you find lots of solid players attached to the same tag, chances are you've found a great guild. You can also hit the SOE website. They have a guild search tool that will let you search by server and you can read the sites of any guilds that interest you. (Sony gives a free website to each guild.) And finally, you can visit the SOE forums and check out the board for your server. By reading through the threads there you should get a feel for which guilds have a higher ratio of a$$hats and which have thoughtful intelligent players... As a last resort, you could join one or more guilds just to see what happens... it is very easy to quit a guild if you make the wrong choice so you have nothing to lose by diving in.
What will you gain and what is expected of you? Hard to say... but hopefully you will you will gain a richer experience by playing with people you like and respect. And hopefully nothing will be asked of you that you wouldn't have wanted to do anyway!
Good luck, welcome back and I hope this helped you...
(edited because I still haven't learned to spell...)
Edited, Sun Dec 18 12:37:20 2005 by OldBlueDragon
Just to add to number 2. If you get a group in one of the dungeons (ROV, Runnyeye when you get there, etc.) If you can manage to farm the named mobs they normally drop a master chest with Master spells, rare crafting components, or a fabled item. Sometime all 3 :D.
My typical advise for searching for a guild. Questions to ask:
1. Ask the members, not the leaders, about how the guild runs. Does it seem fair, honest, open, and fun?
2. How many members? The more members, the better chance of help on groups and quests. (Disclaimer: large guilds are not always better guilds)
3. How does the rank system work? Is there a "trial" period? Would you have instant access to the guild bank (I would assume not, as they are protective of their bounty)
4. Is there a guild web site with chat forums? How active are they?
5. What type of guild? Raid, family, casual, etc. Make sure it suits your play desires.
6. Any dedicated crafters in the guild that make stuff for guildmates? Our guild armorer has equipped all our Scouts and Priests for free, our Woodworker makes Totems, etc.
7. What is the primary time zone of the guild members? Not good if you live in USA to pick a guild that is in Europe. Not too many folks on when you are. Of course it depends on your play times.
8. What's the level range of the guild? High level guilds may always be busy with high level stuff. Though some may be glad to log on a lower level toon to romp around some lowbie zones.
And of course, are they recruiting?
Talk to many people to get a feel for the above questions. It should help you narrow your search down to a few.
Good luck!
1. Ask the members, not the leaders, about how the guild runs. Does it seem fair, honest, open, and fun?
2. How many members? The more members, the better chance of help on groups and quests. (Disclaimer: large guilds are not always better guilds)
3. How does the rank system work? Is there a "trial" period? Would you have instant access to the guild bank (I would assume not, as they are protective of their bounty)
4. Is there a guild web site with chat forums? How active are they?
5. What type of guild? Raid, family, casual, etc. Make sure it suits your play desires.
6. Any dedicated crafters in the guild that make stuff for guildmates? Our guild armorer has equipped all our Scouts and Priests for free, our Woodworker makes Totems, etc.
7. What is the primary time zone of the guild members? Not good if you live in USA to pick a guild that is in Europe. Not too many folks on when you are. Of course it depends on your play times.
8. What's the level range of the guild? High level guilds may always be busy with high level stuff. Though some may be glad to log on a lower level toon to romp around some lowbie zones.
And of course, are they recruiting?
Talk to many people to get a feel for the above questions. It should help you narrow your search down to a few.
Good luck!
To be honest IMO I wouldn't worry about legendary or fabled items at lower levels UNLESS you have alot of PP to spend. It seems pointless to spend tons of gold on rare items only to get them upgraded shortly with a cheap common piece of armor. Wouldn't be so bad if you could resale it, but thanks to the attuneing SOe added months ago you have to take peanuts for it from a npc.
Far as heritage quests go I do any of them I feel I can get the support to do. As a tank class right now Id like to get the DWB and ghoulbane (although it seems like by the time you can finish ghoulbane its crap for your level). Also something else to take into consideration is most of your ^^ heroic mobs that are part of your heritage quests are now ^^^. So it is ALOT harder to solo them. I mean with the DWB by the time you was lvl 30 you could solo griffons and bloodtalon. I suspect that is not going to happen now.
There are plenty of casual guilds out there that have plenty of members and that don't require you to devote your life and soul to them in order to enjoy the game and advance with them. I would try to avoid the just starting guilds though. I am in one right now and its rare to see more then 2 people on. The leader is good people, but I am afraid I might have to move on. No point being in a guild that has no members on-line.
Far as heritage quests go I do any of them I feel I can get the support to do. As a tank class right now Id like to get the DWB and ghoulbane (although it seems like by the time you can finish ghoulbane its crap for your level). Also something else to take into consideration is most of your ^^ heroic mobs that are part of your heritage quests are now ^^^. So it is ALOT harder to solo them. I mean with the DWB by the time you was lvl 30 you could solo griffons and bloodtalon. I suspect that is not going to happen now.
There are plenty of casual guilds out there that have plenty of members and that don't require you to devote your life and soul to them in order to enjoy the game and advance with them. I would try to avoid the just starting guilds though. I am in one right now and its rare to see more then 2 people on. The leader is good people, but I am afraid I might have to move on. No point being in a guild that has no members on-line.
Hi
Quote:
No point being in a guild that has no members on-line.
True, but it can also work.
My guild has 6 active accounts, 26 registered toons. One of our members is strictly an Artisan, and has several alts for different crafting specialties. Our guild bank is full of crafted armor and weapons, loot drops, rares, harvested components, and one full bank dedicated to food.
We hardly ever see each other on, 3-4 at the most. But we are able to solo, group, craft, quest with others. In fact we have an alliance with other small guilds and can build a group rather quickly.
Our family guild was formed with the intention of being small with lots of oversight since our kids played also. We ensure the guild atmosphere is kept clean and positive.
Even though we are not real-life friends, we have gotten to know each other closely. We share stories about what we did over a work vacation, kids going to college, baby-agro, etc.
Sure, we'll never raid or do a group-HQ run, but we are comfortable and running smooth.
I was in a very large guild in EQ1 (Kingdom of Lights) and never got a personal feeling in that company. I felt like I was just another member on the roster, not able to contribute or get much. Even though I had a 49 BST, I was just another polygon face.
I have enjoyed my time in Foundation, in fact, my tombstone will read, "Kindle, we just couldn't get rid of him." :)
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