Some kind of stupid

I remember level 44. On my first character, my druid Etha, it almost certainly happened in the pits and warrens of Nagafen’s Lair, ridding the place of its kobold problem. On Tipa, I remember that level well; it was in the Dreadlands, and I was so excited because it meant I would soon be able to get Velk’s groups. Brita, my cleric — she was named Dera then — made 44 in Kaesora. We owned that place.
Tipa the ranger, she who accidentally made levels 42 and 43 in Blightfire Moors, leveled to 44 in Kurn’s Tower.
Yes, that level 10-20 dungeon in the Field of Bone.
Call it a halfling’s luck… the kind where you just know Bristlebane is lurking around, snickering.
I wanted to level my shroud up to its second level so I could do decent dps tomorrow. I’ve not only passed the level cap for the Friday group, I have backed up, mooned it, and zipped off again blowing exhaust fumes in its face and tossing beer bottles at it from the broken back window. The shroud can help by letting me play at a lower level, but the first levels of the shrouds are not that powerful. My eventual goal is to unlock the fourth level, the minotaur berserker. It should be awesome. But by then, we’ll probably be at 51 and can actually turn off adventure xp.
Anyhow, so I leveled the shroud to 24% in Blightfire, gaining two levels. Tonight, I was going to be super clever, shroud down to level 10, and just play with the skeletons in Kurn’s for awhil, aided with temperance and a druid damage shield. Everything went fine, and after about an hour and a half, I had unlocked the rogue shroud.
So I gated back to PoK, removed it and… Did you know Lower Guk is a good place to go at level 44? It’s through Upper Guk, apparently. I’d dinged once more.
I’m going to have to live in a kobold suit for WEEKS because of this. WEEKS.

12 thoughts on “Some kind of stupid”

  1. Come clean, you enjoy being a Kobold. We all know it, we’ve always suspected it. Just admit it to us, that’s the first step towards getting well….and wearing clothes again.

  2. Tipa I know nothing about Ever quest but there is something very fishy going on here. If I have read your last two posts correctly you are using something called a shroud in order to temporarily play as a lower level character in the hope of slowing down your character progression. Yet each time you remove the shroud you seem to ding a new level or two. Are you sure you haven’t misunderstood the XP mechanics? Perhaps you are gaining XP at a rate appropriate to the level of the shroud rather than your main character level? If that is the case would you not be better off going in as your main who at level 44 is unlikely to get any XP from a level 20 dungeon?

  3. If that were true, I would have gained MORE levels. In Kurn’s, with high level buffs like I had, you normally get a level every few minutes. My understanding of the XP required to level was that it was exponential in nature, so that if it took 10 level 10 skeletons at level 10 to get to level 11, then it would take 100 skeletons at level 20, 1000 skeletons at level 30, and 10,000 skeletons at level 40. This is why people don’t just go to Kurn’s until they hit 80. The diminishing returns of killing low level mobs is the engine that drives progression within an MMO.
    Clearly, the shroud changes things. I have to shroud down to an xp gaining level, because from what I can tell of shroud progression through the scant information available (not many people use them due to their perceived weaknesses vs unshrouded characters, so few people have any real experience using them), the shroud gains experience according to the con of the mob you’re fighting. So shrouding to level 10 and fighting blue-yellow mobs with the occasional red should maximize the xp gain of the SHROUD.
    Now, all this time, with every kill, I also gained the xp of that kill for my 43 ranger. I have never heard of any amount of killing green mobs in Kurns would give you a level at that stage. Since EQ implemented “gray” mobs that give no experience at all, of course, it became impossible to level in that zone.
    As near as I can tell from the evidence, being in shroud form drastically increases the experience you would normally get from killing that same mob unshrouded. Tonight will be the clincher. If I gain more levels shrouded than the unshrouded people. I’ll know I have stumbled upon even another way EQ has eased the leveling requirements since the old days.

  4. @Einhorn — it feels like I’m under a curse, actually. Cursed to wear the shape of a monster until I work away my sin. But all I can do with the monster shape is to sin MORE.

  5. I’m sorry, but all I can do is laugh helplessly in a corner. And the funniest part is — you’re our guildleader! /snicker

  6. You could always shroud a different character to play on Nostalgia nights and level that up, acting as an alt, instead of working Tipa up in a shroud and potentially gaining experience with her.

  7. Yeah, that’s an option. I already unlocked the next shroud level on this one, though, and soon I can put this unwanted xp into AAs, which will be amazingly useful. So I think I will just suck it up for a couple of weeks, get the shroud to a state where it is a viable option for grouping with lower level characters.

  8. I can see it now.. We all hit 51 and begin “Shroud night”! 100 AAs a night for EVERYBUDDY!!!!

  9. My 65 cleric tested shrouding as a 10 kobold cleric in CR first, then as a 25 kobold cleric in the Moors, both with AA at 90%. It wasn’t very scientific — I only used the buff and nukes that the shroud had, and since I was working I mostly pulled with the dot, turned on auto attack, nuked once and ignored the fight till done. Panthers in CR were easy, hunting in the moors was more problematic. I made about 7% AA though, without churning through mobs. I think I would have done considerably better grouped, buffed, and focused. So this looks like a viable means of raising AA

  10. Isn’t there a 100% XP debuff? Vague recollection of having seen something like that on one of my toons and thinking “Now, who in Norrath whould EVER need that??”

  11. You can turn off adventure xp in EQ2. Not heard of something similar in EQ1, but maybe! For sure there’s still a lot I don’t know about the game.

  12. There is no way to turn off Xp in EQ1 until you are of a level where you can direct it into alternate exp or you have max’d all AA and levels. Characters over a certain level (46?) can be sacrificed by a necromancer to exchange their exp for an essence emerald, this removes exp and levels. I’ve never heard of any other ways to turn off exp.
    @Tipa — Unfortunately, there are some that understand the shroud system and exploit it all too well. I don’t think Sony has managed to remove that exploit yet so I’m not going to mention it here and give anyone of low morals that any info.

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