Okay, Monday. It's alright everyone, we can get through this week, we just have to stick it out and keep goin strong! Who's with me?! Let's start it off strong! Here are the results for last week's poll!
How many clans have you been involved with from the beginning of your l2 experience?
One [7 votes]
Two-Three [7 votes]
Four-Five [4 votes]
Too many to count! [4 votes]
Six-Eight [2 votes]
It looks to me like the majority of the voters have stayed in one to three clans throughout their time playing l2. Dedication like that is always nice, but that's not to put down the people who have been in quite a few over the months and years! To each their own!
For this week I'm going to bring up the dreaded topic: Leveling.
Thinking about all the factors that go into leveling, what would you rather do? Solo and grind out the xp fast, or group and get it slower, but with company? When I think about this I always take into consideration the amount of money going into shots and pots, how much % i'm getting per mob and per shot and if it's worth it, how fast i'm killing the mobs, about how much % i get in a buff round.
But there's also the fact that playing with others is just more enjoyable, I can go for much longer in a group than I can get myself to stay at the comp while soloing. And there are the groups that are just insanely good and sometimes even beat out soloing xp.
So my question goes out to you? Overall, Would you rather solo or group for xp?
I'd rather XP in a group. Games like WoW and AoC just doesn't cut it for me. If I want to play solo, I'll fire up my PS3 or Xbox360, or play The Witcher. When I log in to an MMO I expect to be able to group with other players. Much like FFXI. Now THAT was an MMO. You couldn't XP very well unless you had a group of 5 players. L2 had gaming mechanics in place to make it so that soloing would be more difficult than grouping, but things like shots, potions, and 2boxing basically destroyed it. I'm guessing shots/pots were put into the game to get new players up to end-game faster, but I feel like I missed out on the part I like: getting there.
Well, I prefer grouping regardless of how the xp cuts. It is vastly more interesting to me, especially since you will likely be hunting more challenging content, and also probably chilling in Vent or TS with your teammates (if clan). So there is joking around and social element and everything goes much faster.
As far as xp/hour, I feel strongly that trio is probably the sweetspot. Small groups are generally good, because they are very flexible as far as what classes you have. Max-size groups are going to be the absolute fastest xp and highest quality drops, but only if two things are true: (a) the group class-balance is optimized, (b) you are hunting content of appropriate challenge.
In other words, if you just put together a large group of random classes, hoping that having a healer or two makes it all work out, xp is probably going to be slower than what a trio could churn out. But put a full-sized group together with a proper tank, healer, and holy trinity of buffing (SwS, BD, PP), and well geared DD, and you are going to do very well.
Party is more fun but the xp is bad even for slow solo lvling classes like tanks. The problem is that the mobs that are good for parties give very low xp (xp/damage ratio, or xp/hour) in comparison to mobs where one can solo. So far only TOI 10 is better xp than solo for me and I am a tank. At lvl 70 I make 1,3% per buff round solo in certain areas, while at catas for example I make 0,7-1%. So I suppose an archer can make at least double that, so 2,6-3% per buff round, so a cata giving 1% is even worse for him.
So my suggestion on this is that NC needs to make areas where you need to include more classes like tanks and healers in your party and where the xp is much better than solo (in above example more than 3%/buff). An easy solution is put more aggro mobs in catas, with high patt, double the xp of most mobs in catas and reduce their hp and/or pdef.
In my limited time playing (now 8 days) I have reached lvl 46 and 65.44%... Almost all of it was teaming. In fact I think I have gained maybe 1 lvl per day solo, then got like 3 in a team, since lvl 38.
There is something that would make this game much nicer over all that they have implemented in City of Heroes/Villains. Bigger groups get a larger INCREASE in exp per foe, this does many things to the gameplay that would definately help the community of L2...
Here are 2 though:
1. Having a benefit to experience promotes group play. Meaning those of us that enjoy teaming won't be penalized for doing so. Like we are now. (I wish this game would impliment this... )
In my limited time playing (now 8 days) I have reached lvl 46 and 65.44%... Almost all of it was teaming. In fact I think I have gained maybe 1 lvl per day solo, then got like 3 in a team, since lvl 38.
Just curious...you say you've only been playing for 8 days? How did you deal with obtaining C grade gear? Or are you still using D grade?