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Author Topic: Getting started  (Read 9615 times)
Baldrake
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on: November 03, 2006, 04:25:14 PM

I've been in that MMO nomad stage since I quit WoW some months ago. I've been half-way considering downloading the EQ2 trial to see what it's like. I was reading the list of character classes, and my head is spinning. My cynical guess is that there are actually a half dozen classes that people play, and the rest banish you to solo-gimpdom. What are the good classes to play, especially the ones that get you invited into groups?
Miasma
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Stopgap Measure


Reply #1 on: November 03, 2006, 04:43:19 PM

EQ2 is pretty good about balancing the classes and they've had enough time to get it about right.  Whichever class is the flavour of the month is almost sure to be nerfed while the least popular will get a boost.

While there are lots of classes they are all grouped into the standard archetypes of healer/tank/dps and a little crowd control.  Inquisitor, templar, warden, fury, mystic, defiler are all healers and they are designed to be equally good at healing, they just do it differently.

As far as what is in demand I would say healers and tanks, like all other MMOs.  If you want to play the "purest" healer/tank those would be Templar/Inquisitor and Guardian/Shadowknight.  Your alignment dictates which you would be, Templar is good Inquistor is evil.

The pet classes like conjurors and necros are good at soloing.
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #2 on: November 06, 2006, 07:43:14 AM

I actually found my shadowknight was a pretty good solo character. I played a wizard to the low 30s, and that wasn't too bad solo, but you had to be very selective. My summoner (not-necro) I played at release was boring and not very good at soloing, either, but that was the game at release-state, too.

I don't know about group friendly because I don't group. Play a cleric.
Surlyboi
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eat a bag of dicks


Reply #3 on: November 06, 2006, 08:16:13 AM

A templar is rather group friendly if played right. Hell, any healer is.

The songmonkeys work well in that vein too.

My main is and probably always will be a ranger, not the most sensible soloing class, but I hate most of the traditional solo classes, and I like rangers, so there it is. I get my kicks from shooting stuff and being sneaky.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something.  We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
shiznitz
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the plural of mangina


Reply #4 on: November 06, 2006, 09:43:17 AM

Any of the fighter or pet classes are good for soloing. I have heard mixed reviews about soloig from the druid/clerics classes. The scout classes are good at soloing single and double encounters, but have trouble with more than two mobs at a time.

It really depends on how high up the con scale you want to push while soloing. I find farming low blues (-2 or -3) to be the best with my berzerker, an excellent solo class at the higher levels.

Bottom line, if you expect to solo, pick a dps-ish class (monk, zerk, conjuror, necro, warlock, wizard, assassin, ranger). Duoing is also a viable way to go if you have a friend/gf/wife who wants to play. A fighter+healer duo can even do low con group content reasonably well but for exp efficiency it is all about volume and questing.

I have never played WoW.
Nebu
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Reply #5 on: November 06, 2006, 09:47:21 AM

I've had no trouble soloing on my brigand with a couple of small reservations:

1) Fighting more than two of anything will get me killed while I can often kill a very tough solo mob.

2) Playing any scout or melee class requires that your armor/weapons always be the best available.   


"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
eldaec
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Reply #6 on: November 15, 2006, 07:27:27 AM

I've been in that MMO nomad stage since I quit WoW some months ago. I've been half-way considering downloading the EQ2 trial to see what it's like. I was reading the list of character classes, and my head is spinning. My cynical guess is that there are actually a half dozen classes that people play, and the rest banish you to solo-gimpdom. What are the good classes to play, especially the ones that get you invited into groups?

Fighters and Priests always get you invited to pick-up groups. Any fighter will do, though conventional wisdom says that SKs suck, and monks/bruisers don't easily get into high-end raids but are excellent soloers. Any priest will do - though furies are probably the best solo, anything else is slightly better in a group.

Scouts will all *usually* get you into pick-up groups. I'd suggest Brigands and Swashies are the most fun, Rangers are the most powerful, and Troubadours/Dirges are best avoided unless you are shooting for EQ style bard rather than light tank.

Mages can struggle at low to middling levels. But pet mages struggle the least.

"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular ­assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson
"Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
shiznitz
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the plural of mangina


Reply #7 on: November 17, 2006, 02:01:51 PM

Fighters and Priests always get you invited to pick-up groups.

I have experienced a big increase in tank need since I hit 58 (currently 61). I can find a pickup group needing a tank within 10 minutes lately for some reason.

I have never played WoW.
tazelbain
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tazelbain


Reply #8 on: November 17, 2006, 02:19:39 PM

On Oasis when I played earlier year, healers where in high demand and fighters where in low demand.  Until the 40s, when it flipped.

"Me am play gods"
Baldrake
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Reply #9 on: December 16, 2006, 05:57:04 AM

So here's the follow-up. My wife's out of town tomorrow, so I downloaded the 7 day free trial. Only 89 MB - sweet! Install. Start patching. It has been running all night, and is reporting 268 hours to complete. For those keeping track, that's more than seven days. Way to go, SOE.

God knows why the patcher is so slow. No doubt if I went trolling on the web, I'd be able to find somewhere to download the patches directly to speed things up. (And why does the patcher run so slow anyway?) But my memories are flooding back of all the technical hassles I had with SWG, and I just can't be bothered.

Looks like SOE hasn't learned the biggest lesson of all from the WoW phenomenon - things should just work.
CaptainNapkin
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Reply #10 on: December 16, 2006, 06:22:51 AM

I just checked out the same trial. It only took a couple of hours, between 3 and 5 (I ran out for a while and don't know for sure). At the beginning it was giving me the same info though, saying it was going to take a few days. It probably just estimates the time on the # of files rather than the size of them, and fires down the big ones first... or not. Don't lose hope, you'll actually get to see some color in the world of EQ2 for the first time, isn't that worth the wait? If you can get over the fact that you have to create a Fae, I think you'll find that the new starting zone is well done and quite fun.
Baldrake
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Reply #11 on: December 16, 2006, 06:53:21 AM

Yeah, I'm letting it run to see what happens. About 14 hours in, and it's now reporting 357 hours to complete.

I do actually have a broadband connection.
Soln
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the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #12 on: December 16, 2006, 08:06:20 AM

yes its appallingly slow.  It's core upgrades, two expansions, plus EoF.  So there's a lot.  My advice is check eq2-daily or similar like gamepressure for a mirror, if possible.  Otherwise, my gf bought the 2 DVD's as new license and I used that. 

of course, even after the fresh DVD upgrade, there was like a 30min download of extras.  So, yeah sucky.  But after that it's been Ok so far.
NiX
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Reply #13 on: December 16, 2006, 10:34:03 PM

Took me 2-3 hours. Get a better internet connection.
geldonyetich
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Reply #14 on: December 16, 2006, 11:13:48 PM

Don't be afraid to restart the patch process a few times.  Sometimes the stream will crease the patcher doesn't notice, so the ETA just keeps increasing.

Baldrake
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Reply #15 on: December 17, 2006, 10:31:41 AM

Get a better internet connection.
Yeah, my internet connection runs at about 700 Kbps, which I agree is on the slow side. But the patcher has now been running for about 40 hours. 40 hours * 700 Kbps = 12 GB. My internet connection is not the problem.

Now don't get me wrong, I'd love to give this game a try. I just despair for SOE that they can't get the simple things right, and when things go wrong, the reaction is to blame the customer. I had enormous problems when I last tried to get SWG going - and spent hours following advice (upgrade video card drivers, downgrade video card drivers(!), upgrade BIOS, turn off protected memory for the game(!!), and my personal favourite, disable one of my processor cores.) Now it's "get a better internet connection", and even better, restart the patcher periodically because it's too stupid to realize that it's lost its connection to the server(!!!!).

Honestly, EQ2 may be a kick-ass game, but it's this kind of crap that leads it to having a couple hundred thousand subs to WoW's several million. SOE has to learn that the ante's been upped, and customers shouldn't have to become tech support gurus.

By the way, thanks Geldon, you were right and restarting the patcher sped things up enormously.

Ok, now that I've pissed you all off, I'll see you in game. Eventually. :)
Cheddar
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Noob Sauce


Reply #16 on: December 19, 2006, 05:50:58 PM

Honestly, EQ2 may be a kick-ass game, but it's this kind of crap that leads it to having a couple hundred thousand subs to WoW's several million. SOE has to learn that the ante's been upped, and customers shouldn't have to become tech support gurus.

WoW has the absolute WORST patching system out of any of the big ones. 

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
hal
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Reply #17 on: December 19, 2006, 08:06:34 PM

i have to second the cheesy guy here. never had a prob with eq2 patcher while wow patcher is criminal. its just that bad.

I started with nothing, and I still have most of it

I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are still on backorder.
NiX
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Locomotive Pandamonium


Reply #18 on: December 20, 2006, 05:36:44 AM

Honestly, EQ2 may be a kick-ass game, but it's this kind of crap that leads it to having a couple hundred thousand subs to WoW's several million. SOE has to learn that the ante's been upped, and customers shouldn't have to become tech support gurus.
Uh, what? If that was the case then WoW would have less subscribers cause their patcher is horrendous. With the amount of money they have they shouldn't be relying on their customer to lower their bill from bandwidth usage.

I don't know if you've played WoW, but I don't appreciate being in a queue line to get into a server after paying a monthly fee. Nor do I like horrible patches and not to mention the time it takes to get them. You complain about something that was easily resolved and almost sounds like you just had 1 bad patching incident and then went from there.
Bandit
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Reply #19 on: December 20, 2006, 09:56:23 AM

Never had any bad EQ2 patching experiences, been playing since Live Update 12.  Never really had problems patching WoW either, but I had to go actually get the updates from FilePlanet.

Quote
Honestly, EQ2 may be a kick-ass game, but it's this kind of crap that leads it to having a couple hundred thousand subs to WoW's several million. SOE has to learn that the ante's been upped, and customers shouldn't have to become tech support gurus.

Drama queen  rolleyes
Soln
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the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #20 on: December 20, 2006, 05:36:30 PM

shilling aside, spending ~$40 on EoF was a bargain for both all updates, upgrades and optional expansions, plus avoiding a monster download. I was facing several hours till I borrowed a copy and used it.


BTW, game still rocking. 
Cheddar
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Noob Sauce


Reply #21 on: December 20, 2006, 06:10:52 PM

shilling aside, spending ~$40 on EoF was a bargain for both all updates, upgrades and optional expansions, plus avoiding a monster download. I was facing several hours till I borrowed a copy and used it.


BTW, game still rocking. 

EoF comes with all the expansions?  God, you people really want me to play EQ2 again, dontcha?

No Nerf, but I put a link to this very thread and I said that you all can guarantee for my purity. I even mentioned your case, and see if they can take a look at your lawn from a Michigan perspective.
Numtini
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Reply #22 on: December 20, 2006, 06:49:29 PM

The retail version has all the expansions, the digital download doesn't.

And I just picked up EOF. It's an absolute home run. I cleaned out the clockwork in Ak'Anon on monday and yesterday I went and visited D'Vinn. It has just the right balance between new and old. I think the only zone in the game up to now that really capture that before was Fallen Gate.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
CaptainNapkin
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Once split a 12.5lb burger with a friend.


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Reply #23 on: December 21, 2006, 07:32:09 AM

My trial time has run out, and I don't know if it's just because I'd been away from it for a while, but it was a damn fun trial. Now, I'd created a new account to check out the trial with, so I was only able to get to level 10 and see the starting zone through Greater Fay, and I'm left wondering if the rest of the new content follows with more of the same great stuff I saw in the trial?

Some of the things that impressed me were...
  • The visuals - They added a lot of color to the world, it's more exciting when I'm not constantly looking at drab surroundings.
  • The new race - Though I never thought I'd get over the frootiness factor, but it was outweighed by the fun I had floating and hopping and jumping all over crap. GFay is loaded with things to hop up on and float off, making it interesting to navigate the land. I wasn't ever bored having to traverse the zone. Also, getting rid of the horrid running animation is a major bonus for me. Having my favored race be gnome, the 100mph leg movements always detracted a lot from the game for me, and I never was able to get over it.

So, does the expansion content pretty much continue in the same flavor? Look and gameplay? If so, it will probably be a no brainer to pick this up for the wife and I, especially since we're trying to fill the recent mmo void with NWN2. And if I pick up the box version, it should give me a month play time if I add the key to my existing account right? I mean, I don't need to start a fresh account to take advantage of the included 30 days... I know the answer is pretty standard fare, but sometimes ya never know.
NiX
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Locomotive Pandamonium


Reply #24 on: December 21, 2006, 07:51:04 AM

The expansion keeps going the way it went for you. If you played EQ1 and liked Butcherblock and all that, you'll love the rest of the expansion. If you buy the boxed version it'll tack on the 30 day trial to your existing EoF trial account. There's a weird thing where the install will uncheck original EQ2 for you and the "Play the Fae" exe will still be the one you use to login.
CaptainNapkin
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Once split a 12.5lb burger with a friend.


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Reply #25 on: December 21, 2006, 08:05:27 AM

I think I worded my 30day question poorly. I'd want to add the key to my old account that I actually played on and off, not the new one I made for the trial. But I'm thinking either way it will hook me up with 30 days.
Thanks.
Numtini
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Reply #26 on: December 21, 2006, 08:38:49 AM

No, if you played EQ2 before, the box won't give you 30 days, it'll just upgrade you on the expansions.

If you can read this, you're on a board populated by misogynist assholes.
jpark
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Reply #27 on: January 13, 2007, 11:01:09 PM

I was reading the list of character classes, and my head is spinning.

I am betting you an EQ2 developer posting anonymously to see if we can sort this out for you :)

BTW, game still rocking. 

Rocks sink.

Jab:  EQ2 finally surpass EQ1 subs yet?  I am betting no ;)
« Last Edit: January 13, 2007, 11:04:17 PM by jpark »

"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation.
"  HaemishM.
CaptainNapkin
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Once split a 12.5lb burger with a friend.


WWW
Reply #28 on: January 14, 2007, 07:26:31 AM

Jab:  EQ2 finally surpass EQ1 subs yet?  I am betting no ;)
I was just last night talking with some old friends via cross-game messaging (SOE did something good with that) who are still playing EQ. It just amazes me how they are just so locked into that game, they are completely oblivious to the wonderful world of games that has developed around them, and they couldn't care less about anything other than EQ. They speak in a language now completely foreign to me. At least I'll know where to get in touch with them in another couple years.
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