Tips For Enjoying Levelling in a Progression SituationFollow

Let's share our tips for making a progression (whether self imposed on a live server, or on a special ruleset server) fun. Here's a few from me:

1. Remember that you are playing progression. It's supposed to be slower and harder than the tutorial/TSS leveling path. Try different leveling paths, especially if you have an old routine you have always done. Enjoy the journey.

2. Be honest about your playtime. If you are going to login for 3 hours a week, you probably want an efficient solo class vs. trying to level a warrior. Set reasonable content goals and accept that some people are going to (probably) play a lot more than you and push the content. If you're on a server where others will dictate the pace, come to grip with that before you start. Remember that GoD was terrible at launch and extensively retuned... a lot of people love it in hindsight (though I shudder saying that). The point being, your memory of the content may not match the progression reality. I suggest have an open mind and try to enjoy it all.

3. Halflings get an XP bonus on levelling xp. When in doubt, (if you want to level faster) be a halfling. You can always racechange. Decide if you are willing to pay Daybreak $ to do so... starting an Sk in original and turning it into an Iksar makes more sense than starting over in Kunark (unless your enjoyment is going to be starting over in Kunark). At the same time, all races end up pretty equal and most progression situations are so short term that the early penalties in stats really won't matter that much (or at least long). Personally I tend to sink most of my starter points into stamina, then agility (especially if it is below 75). Know thyself.

4. Caster classes are the least gear dependent in Progression classic due to overpowered spells, focus effects from a later era (some on easily obtained gear) and the pet classes have super-strong pets. There's more than one reason mages rule all. Necromancers are the most popular "just soloing one account" class. If you are going to play a lot... it may even make sense to level a caster first to pay the way for your harder to level rogue or whatever (unless the slow painful way is your fun). Boxing (whether "true box" as per TLP 4.0 ruleset or something else) is an obvious powerup to the process. So is guilding up and making friends.

5. Don't sweat death when you aren't losing xp for dying. If a death saves you a couple of zonings to buy spells, die. It's a game, even if you are a warrior soloing and that death just cost you 40 minutes of XP... remember this is what you signed up for. It's not like you have to do corpse runs or lose all your stuff.

6. Loot everything that stacks, and be picky on the non-stackable stuff. For example most GFay loot sells for copper, whereas poison glands sell for gold. Cracked staffs are worth way more than most other weapons in newbie areas. Figure out what sells best in your hunting area and focus looting on that [this tactic pays off huge in TSS expac by the way].

7. Kill near a vendor if you are low level, poor and lack bag space. Kill the skellies... bone chips can sell or be saved for quests, and skellies drop a lot of armor. +1 AC actually does something if you get a full set under level 10. Home city vendor armor is kind of terrible, but at the same time sells back for close to the cost --might be worth it, and being dressed is nice.

8. Save the quest drops. Orc scalps drop like mad in Gfay and such which is half the world away from where you want to turn them in. Maybe worth your while to make the run, or just save them for an alt that is going to grow up closer to the quest turn in. You can kill it in Kunark saving the curscale armor quest drops for a level 1 alt to do for example, or crushbone belts and so on. Enjoy questing, remembering that they were sadistic in design for years and implemented with a huge population in the game....so it might take you a week of casual play to get that cubert to spawn enough times to actually get the decent earring from the quest. You can preloot some Epic 1.0 things before Kunark is live as well... but don't expect to do your epic in Kunark unless you are in a top progression guild.

9. Look up your home city, some places have a great series of quests to do as a newbie. For example a lot of the Rivervale stuff is active on progression servers at launch. At the same time, if your start is crummy (Erudites pre-warrens come to mind) then don't be afraid to move to the population, or at least a friendlier place. If you know you are going somewhere... make sure there isn't a delivery quest on the way there or back again... if there is you might want to do it.

10. Don't buy stuff you don't need. Casters don't need a fair number of their spells leveling up. If you are leveling fast there are spells you will never cast due to getting to an upgrade. At the same time, don't miss the powerful things. Enchanter pets at lower level were seriously improved from the past for example... you want shiny bob at current level for the first 10 levels at least. Be aware of your toolkit... necromancers have a silly amount of utility in the Pre-Luclin game (can mez non-undead short-duration for example). You may be able to do things in progression that aren't something your class has been known for PoP and later.

11. Doing stuff you are familiar with can be fun. Sometimes greater attachment comes from trying something new. Personal example is I have gone back to enchanter it looks like on Lockjaw TLP (my old main years ago that I haven't seriously played the class since OoW) and my #2 alt is probably going to be a paladin (a class I have never played).

12. Remember the features they have added to the game. Unless you are being super "pure" and refusing to use them, things like the origin AA and "return home" really are handy especially for non porters and non-gaters.



Alright, that's all I got right now. Got other ideas? Disagree (feel free)? Let's hear some insight... we have a very experienced player-base so let's share that knowledge!

Edited, Dec 5th 2015 9:38pm by snailish

Best tip is to stop and smell the roses. In other words, enjoy the low-level experience, group with others, make friends, explore that world, etc. I've always found the MOST fun I ever had with a new toon is when I didn't focus entirely on leveling and actually allowed myself "non-maximally productive time", i.e. doing things which didn't necessarily accelerate my leveling. Being goal-orientated naturally, it always ends up with me focusing on leveling and then I find the game experience gets less enjoyable and once I max out the levels, the chase is over and I lose interest. Old World raiding, to be honest, is kind of limited, boring and tedious. The dragon encounters (Permafrost, SolB) and epic raids (once Kunark is introduced), those are fun because they don't involve so much endless clearing of trash. Plane of Fear and Plane of Hate are fun on first visit, but those raids get god-awfully boring after the 5th or so time, especially when you consider the armor drops are kind of crappy, anyway, even in Old School EQ. Kunark helps a lot with interesting raids in zones like Seb, City of Mist and Karnor's. Which says a lot for why they're going to bring Kunark on-line in 90 days no matter what in this new progression server.

Smell those flowers!

I agree, Snailish, about the slow XP. At level 2 killing blues solo, even with a +25% potion is ridiculously slow, like 1-2% per kill. On the other hand, yellows were giving me 5-7%. But by level 3, yellows dropped to 2-3%. I haven't had the spare time to get into a group and see if the group XP bonus, along with the faster pace of group killing, is more effective.

The XP pace is definitely "classic", but you're right that the lack of decent noobie quests to provide an XP bonus plus some extra coin and gear, is discouraging. CB belts are still good, I'm told, but not realistic until you reach level 5 or 6 and can tackle the orcs that drop the belts. I'm advised that the bone chips quest is miserably nerfed. Too bad, since they can be pharmed even at level 1.

One thing that's messed up is that skells in BB and GFay are indifferent, at least to Halfling druids. The whole POINT of undead mobs is that they attack everything, even players waaaay above their level. They're wacky that way. This coding has nothing to do with "classic" or "progression"; IMO it's just screwed up.

Another messed up oddity I've seen so far is the pathing. I pull at range with a nuke, obviously, and quite a few times instead of running directly TO me the mob runs perpendicular, in other words, to my left. Sometimes it's just for a second and then it turns toward me, which strikes me as just a pathing issue. But I've seen some where the mob seriously gets fouled up on invisible paths leading to me getting off several nukes before it even engages me in melee. This is odd because I can't see why a new progression server would have to mess around with established pathing code.



Edited, Dec 12th 2015 7:18pm by Sippin

Interesting how I am having fun leveling this new druid. Brings back all the memories of the challenge of tackling yellow mobs, mana and HP management, debating when to run to a guard, the frustration of getting jumped by an orc when you've beaten down a mob to 5% and you're at 10% and the orc kills you before you earn XP for the kill., LOL. Carefully husbanding what meager plat and gold I have and turning down purchasing some crappy cloth armor in favor of getting the key spells. Remembering why the platforms of Kelethin are so annoying that I can only stand living in this zone for so long before I have to get out!

The /pick command is a Godsend, and it's also a boon to anyone who wants to box since in essence you can box in your own "instanced" regular zone. I don't know if the /pick command works for every level zone but it's great at noobie level. I left a GFay with 150 people for one with 10. This morning I "picked" one where I was alone. At real low levels, with a solo-capable class, I think it's best to solo since you can get 5% XP per kill off yellow mobs. Once I ding 6 or 7 I want to move to Crushbone and then Unrest for grouping fun.

A few more oddities: I'm finding orc and goblin camps that appear to be empty of static spawns. This is over hours so it's not that someone is clearing them. Specially the camp near the crossroads in BB (on the way to Dagnor's) and the other camp to the left of the Kaladim entrance, a bit after the building with the vendors on the left path. The tents are up but no goblins. I wonder if originally these camps were added with a later patch so for this new release they only have the fixed tents (as part of the geometry) but not the NPC spawns. Strange, that...

Edited, Dec 14th 2015 4:31pm by Sippin

Dumpster diving g'fay instances may be an interesting way to find quest items, farm bone chips/orc belts and earn credits - kinda like 4x'ing EQ.

A few more oddities: I'm finding orc and goblin camps that appear to be empty of static spawns.

I'm reasonably certain the goblin camps near Dragnor's have always been there (and the three goblin tents near Pegleg's camp, too.) I've seen goblins stuck in hill geometry near those very same camps when playing on Fippy. Or it's simply broken. The aqua goblin camps near the BB docks came much later - again - this stuff is pretty hazy so pinch of salt and all that. Track may reveal stuck mobs.

Edited, Dec 13th 2015 1:34pm by Trappin

Another good quest in kelethin involves pixie dust. Both the rogue and ranger guild master give a quest that requires you to combine six pixie dusts in a bag and hand back. At level five I got around 16% or so, plus or minus a couple percent. Just killing around the lifts or out in front of felwithe should get you some dusts. Also, vendors near the lifts tend to have some as players just dump all their junk right after coming up the lift. I'm not sure if all gms have the quest but for sure Expin the rogue GM and my friend got it from one of the ranger gms as well.

I know it has been noted that the bone chip quests have been nerfed as far as exp is concerned, but you still get a random low level item in return for each one you turn in. It is worth hanging on to your bone chips to make the run to kaladim just for selling the items you receive, and you do still get some exp, albeit a very minor amount.

Ironically, the aqua goblins ARE in full spawn mode!

If a res isn't available and your embarrassed of your dead lifeless corpse, target the sucker and do /decay

I need to qualify the thing about aqua goblins. The aqua goblins that rush out of the water at the BB docks and run towards Kaladim have always been there - Glubsink has always dropped Riptide Spear. Check the comment dates. https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=663

The aqua goblin tented camps 500 yards from the BB docks (along the shore) were added much later.