Player level gap?

[Uctiger62]

I just bought all the maps because I've decided...yeah. I could play this game for awhile.

Having said that...is there a massive lack of players of different level ranges? I notice that there's nobody doing things like Skeller and whatever other ones I can't remember the name of, now.

I guess i'm just trying to figure out how easy it is to get into PUG's for various instances...or if there's thousands of lvl 10s and thousands of lvl 50s? Not QQ'ing, just curious as to the dynamics of this game. :D

[Fyrce]

First, keep in mind the games you can join are actually only the open games, i.e. games you can join. If they have their 5 players, you won't see them. (Which reminds me, maybe locked games shouldn't be displayed :P or are they open to any friends? Though they don't need to be displayed since you can see if you can join a friend on the friends list now.) On login, you can see the number of games but there's no way all those games are displayed for you to JOIN.

There are some areas people do not like as much or which are perceived are being more difficult than others. That doesn't necessarily mean there won't be groups, but they will be rarer.

The two least played I would say are Skeller (all those purples get annoying, but as an area it's not bad for leveling though a bit boring; it also might have a reputation for being difficult) and Nightmares (high level and unless people are doing quests, no one's here). There are also some secret dungeons, etc. that aren't populated as much: not as many people know about them; they're not part of the "normal" dungeon levels; they're more difficult than normal, etc.

The next least played I would say is Lost Expedition: Similar reason to Nightmares -- people don't know how to deal with ice here. In Nightmares, it's because it's an elite dungeon and it's meant to be difficult. Expedition is actually easy but many players, including clerics, don't know how to deal with ice, so they don't like it, freeze a lot, die a lot, think it's difficult and don't play here. You can start a game here, learn it and watch how many people come in, die, and run off.

The next I would say is Swamps, because of it's previous reputation for being difficult, which it was. Generally there are games in Swamps, just not a mass of them.

Also, about the time you can look for Swamps games, you can also try your hand at Alien Oasis I, and I think lots of people head over there. Also, if you start to meet people, you might get invited to Alien Oasis II and level there. You can't use any of the EQ in those places, but people don't seem to notice that... they still go because they are likely to find a higher level to run them around in those areas.

For the "non-popular" areas, you might consider hosting a game. Whenever I do it, people hop right in and join. It's like they're scared to run games there but would really like to play there. Of course, there are also those people who run away from the group, die, and then leave, after having confirmed for themselves the difficulty of the dungeon...

[icantgetkills]

Skeller isn't a used dungeon often I'd say just level through lost a very common dungeon and find friends lvlm28-33 and go swamps when you need to :) that's what I do when leveling my alts and at level 35 you can go to ao1 usually a couple of ao1 games running from my experience

[Uctiger62]

That's exactly the info i was looking for and then some. Thanks dude. In some cases I'm still not sure if I'm not doing some things correctly, or there's just nobody around. This clears up a lot.


I'm finding the best place for answers is on the forum...probly due to the logistics(pain) of typing out a long response on a touch screen keyboard on a phone.


*Edit* Thanks to both of you.

[Pharcyde]

It also has to do with how many players there are at that level. Generally lvls 20-30 dungeons are abandoned. This is because the games open tend to fill up fast and not many players are at that level (It only takes a day or so to get to 30 and a new dungeon).

[Uctiger62]

I just hit lvl 30 a few seconds ago...What's the best dungeon to clear now?

[Pharcyde]

Lost expedition or croc swamp. Lvl 35 you can move up to alien oasis 1