Any reasons for me to keep playing?

[SeleneVi]

My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game?

[Valdar]

No.

[deepruntramp]

Short answer: No. Long answer: You can't play EQ2 PvP like WoW PvP. Nor can you play it like any other game's PvE. To be successful -- and by successful, I mean have a prayer -- in EQ2 PvP, you cannot use the MMO common sense law of "if I'm not at the level cap, it's not worth spending a ton of money upgrading." Almost every level, and certainly ever tier, you MUST completely upgrade your gear to AT LEAST FULL MASTERCRAFTED and spells/CAs to AT LEAST ADEPT 3. Even if it costs every copper you have. No, that isn't a joke. You'll need, at bare minimum, full Mastercrafted armor, jewlery, weapon(s), offhand/ranged items, and Adept 3 for EVERY upgradable skill. You will need your full set of Tier 2 MC and AD3s ready and waiting when you hit 12 or you WILL be killed in two-three hits as you attempt to quest. "Treasured" gear doesn't cut it save for the extremely rare pieces that are better than MC. At a bare minimum, you will need to lock combat experience at level ten (meaning you no longer get xp from kills), and level up exclusively on quest xp for the rest of the game. This is to maximize AA gain. In PvP, AA is almost as important as player level. A level 12 with 10 AA will often annhilate a level 12 with 3 or 4. If any of this doesn't sound appealing to you, don't play PvP. And just so you get a feel of how much you'll be needing to spend for full T2 MC: -Plate/Chain classes = ~10plat. -Leather classes = ~5-7 plat. -Cloth classes = ~3-5 plat. And that's not counting Adept 3s.  You'll need even more for those. Of course you're expected to farm for all these materials, not actually buy them.  I list the prices just to show how much you're "paying" by not putting the materials on the broker instead.

[Uilamin]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Short answer: No. Long answer: You can't play EQ2 PvP like WoW PvP. Nor can you play it like any other game's PvE. To be successful -- and by successful, I mean have a prayer -- in EQ2 PvP, you cannot use the MMO common sense law of "if I'm not at the level cap, it's not worth spending a ton of money upgrading." Almost every level, and certainly ever tier, you MUST completely upgrade your gear to AT LEAST FULL MASTERCRAFTED and spells/CAs to AT LEAST ADEPT 3. Even if it costs every copper you have. No, that isn't a joke. You'll need, at bare minimum, full Mastercrafted armor, jewlery, weapon(s), offhand/ranged items, and Adept 3 for EVERY upgradable skill. You will need your full set of Tier 2 MC and AD3s ready and waiting when you hit 12 or you WILL be killed in two-three hits as you attempt to quest. "Treasured" gear doesn't cut it save for the extremely rare pieces that are better than MC. At a bare minimum, you will need to lock combat experience at level ten (meaning you no longer get xp from kills), and level up exclusively on quest xp for the rest of the game. This is to maximize AA gain. In PvP, AA is almost as important as player level. A level 12 with 10 AA will often annhilate a level 12 with 3 or 4. If any of this doesn't sound appealing to you, don't play PvP.</blockquote>You by no means needs to level lock, if you know what you are doing you can easily get 80+ AA by lvl70 without ever locking. If you want to start playing on a pvp server, my suggestion is to try to get to lvl22 as quickly as possible.  Once there start caring about equipment and all, but before then just grind it.  At 22 most of the level locking twinks will be gone and you can go about your way without too much worry of nubs trying to continuously jump you.

[IcterusGalbula]

<p>Let me add that if you create a full suite of tradeskill people, obtaining a complete set of mastercrafted armor, jewelry, etc., is not hard.</p><p>You just need to harvest regularly and level your tradeskillers to a minimum of 9 levels higher than your main adventurer.  That is not hard, at least not to tradeskill level 27, by which point you will know if you want to keep playing.</p><p>If you do that you not only will keep your adventurer well equipped, but you will also be drowning in money from selling your extra mastercrafted items to other players. </p><p>The truth is, you will be drowning in money even if you never advance your tradeskillers beyond level 30.</p>

[BOy]

<p>one of my toons was lvl 36 before i started getting aa's and it now has 81 at lvl 67 without ever lvl locking. and yes its a pvp toon. also harvest for rares! then you dont have to spend plat buying it...</p>

[Norrsken]

<cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game? </blockquote>in eq2, on pvp servers, mastercrafted is where you start out. Its not hard getting mastercrafted, and thanks to diminishing returns curves you are actually fairly well off in mastercrafted gear. Ganking is most prevalent in t2 in my experience. Since I havent got a toon in t7, I cant really say what its like there. Currently, Im running 2 toons in t6, getting lots of 1 on 1 fights, with the occasional 2 on 1 fights. and the rarer still gank crews trying to pound me. It's been the same for my necro all the way up from t3 to t6, so I dare say that eq2 pvp can be very satisfying for a soloer. and to boot, I even break my own advice in always going for mastercrafted gear. My necro just yesterday turned 52, and I swapped out my lvl 32 mastercrafted gear. I could still lay waste to people with that trash gear, but tbh, it started to get a bit hard late t5. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> So, twinking does give you a slight edge in pvp, but its not really huge (except perhaps in t7, still havent really been there to try it out), and usually, at least in lower tiers, mastercrafted gear coupled with skill outweigh peoples "overpowered" twinked out classes. ( A lot of them with the best gear in low tiers seem to lack skill tbh.)

[Mildavyn]

<p>Groups > twinks.</p><p>If you're in a full group, then twinks should pose very little problem. Sure one or two of your group may die, but the rest of your gorup will kill the twinks. then you can revive and go about your grinding. Just hope you ont meet a group of twinks. Then you're screwed.</p>

[SeleneVi]

Thanks for the responses so far. I'm getting a good sense of the commitment required...or the amount of work I'd need to do to avoid PvP, which is defeating the point of rolling a PvP server in the first place. A few years ago, I had the time and energy to commit to being the best.  But now the thought of putting in that much effort is making me shudder. I want a competitive environment, but it appears EQ2 PvP is far too competitive for me and my limited patience for MMO grinds/farming.  I'm glad I thought to ask first before putting in a lot of time and getting frustrated. It's a shame though.  My PvE experience so far was actually pretty good.  I can see why a lot of people really like this game.

[Toej]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>If any of this doesn't sound appealing to you, don't play PvP. And just so you get a feel of how much you'll be needing to spend for full T2 MC: -Plate/Chain classes = ~10plat. -Leather classes = ~5-7 plat. -Cloth classes = ~3-5 plat. And that's not counting Adept 3s.  You'll need even more for those. Of course you're expected to farm for all these materials, not actually buy them.  I list the prices just to show how much you're "paying" by not putting the materials on the broker instead. </blockquote><p>This is exactly the point that I am trying to make in my thread <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373110" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">what to Expect in PVP</a>.  New players will not have access to such a large amount of Plat. unless they go to those annoying web sites to buy it.  Even if you do have all master crafted items, keep in mind that some of the newbie areas are loaded with groups of twinks looking for easy kills.  Independent of gear, you have very little chance of not getting ganked by two or three orange twinks.  </p><p>To answer the first question of is there any reason for you to keep playing.  My answer is depends on your disposition.  If you hate getting ganked, and want mostly even matched fights then I would say walk away, this is not the PVP you are looking for.  You have to understand that in most pvp environments, most of the hard core pvp'ers do everything they can to make the fight as unfair as possible.  So baiting, twinking, tricks to get player into an unfair battle exist all over.</p><p>Do you have perseverance and are willing to take your knocks for the first few months until you have acquired the means to make a good player and are willing to do most of your quests and pvp as a group function while carefully selecting which groups you wish to be part of.  If so then this is your reason to stay.  It is challenging, nothing is easy in the PVP world.  Getting rolled over by groups is part of everyday life unless you go out in numbers.  When you leave the safety of the city solo, expect the worst most unfair fight imaginable.</p>

[Norrsken]

<cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thanks for the responses so far. I'm getting a good sense of the commitment required...or the amount of work I'd need to do to avoid PvP, which is defeating the point of rolling a PvP server in the first place. A few years ago, I had the time and energy to commit to being the best.  But now the thought of putting in that much effort is making me shudder. I want a competitive environment, but it appears EQ2 PvP is far too competitive for me and my limited patience for MMO grinds/farming.  I'm glad I thought to ask first before putting in a lot of time and getting frustrated. It's a shame though.  My PvE experience so far was actually pretty good.  I can see why a lot of people really like this game. </blockquote>Actually, it isnt very time consuming to get mastercrafted. If you harvest it all and make your own crafter, it will take about 1 week to get it. Casual play. And harvesting while you do quests and stuff.

[Toej]

Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote><cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game? </blockquote>in eq2, on pvp servers, mastercrafted is where you start out. Its not hard getting mastercrafted, and thanks to diminishing returns curves you are actually fairly well off in mastercrafted gear. Ganking is most prevalent in t2 in my experience. Since I havent got a toon in t7, I cant really say what its like there. Currently, Im running 2 toons in t6, getting lots of 1 on 1 fights, with the occasional 2 on 1 fights. and the rarer still gank crews trying to pound me. It's been the same for my necro all the way up from t3 to t6, so I dare say that eq2 pvp can be very satisfying for a soloer. and to boot, I even break my own advice in always going for mastercrafted gear. My necro just yesterday turned 52, and I swapped out my lvl 32 mastercrafted gear. I could still lay waste to people with that trash gear, but tbh, it started to get a bit hard late t5. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> So, twinking does give you a slight edge in pvp, but its not really huge (except perhaps in t7, still havent really been there to try it out), and usually, at least in lower tiers, mastercrafted gear coupled with skill outweigh peoples "overpowered" twinked out classes. ( A lot of them with the best gear in low tiers seem to lack skill tbh.) </blockquote><p>That brings up a good point.  New players may leave earlier because based on what they experience at T2, they may get the misperception that life is always going to be that way.  The truth of the matter is, the twinking becomes less of an issue when you get to higher teirs.  To break it down to Qualitative terms the following is what one would expect in a pvp:</p><p>T1 - None</p><p>T2 - Very High gank rate</p><p>T3 - Moderate ganking to low ganking as level approaches T4</p><p>T4 - Low ganking</p><p>T5 - Low Ganking</p><p>T6 - Ranges from low to very high ganking as level approaches T7</p><p>T7 - High gank rate</p><p>Basically if you can level past T2 life becomes much nicer and things start to even out a bit.</p>

[Bluetygur]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: verdana,geneva">This is for the OP.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: verdana,geneva">I do not disagree with the responses so far, this is just to offer another suggestion.  If you want to try playing on a pvp server that is more of a compromise between pvp and pve, consider VOX.  I like it because the population is a bit lower than the other pvp servers.  The result is that you can play pve, with a "side order" of pvp (if that is how you want to play it).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">I like playing on a pvp server because of the additional challenge.  I also have a ton of friends on VOX.  But i do a lot of crafting, exploring, collecting, raiding that would be difficult to do on a highly populated pvp server.  I do engage in pvp, of course, especially in group vs group, but I am not really in to the solo, continuous action pvp that some people prefer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">There are still the twink/level-locking/ganking problems others have mentioned, but if you wish to avoid that sort of pvp, it is fairly easy to do, the choice is up to you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">Understand that VOX is also an SE-enabled server.  Some people have an issue with this, but honestly, having played on several different server types, I really see very little difference.  In some ways, I think the "game economy" is more realistic because of SE, if that sort of thing matters to you at all.</span></p>

[deepruntramp]

Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is.

[deepruntramp]

<cite>Bluetygur wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana">This is for the OP.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana">I do not disagree with the responses so far, this is just to offer another suggestion.  If you want to try playing on a pvp server that is more of a compromise between pvp and pve, consider VOX.  I like it because the population is a bit lower than the other pvp servers.  The result is that you can play pve, with a "side order" of pvp (if that is how you want to play it).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">I like playing on a pvp server because of the additional challenge.  I also have a ton of friends on VOX.  But i do a lot of crafting, exploring, collecting, raiding that would be difficult to do on a highly populated pvp server.  I do engage in pvp, of course, especially in group vs group, but I am not really in to the solo, continuous action pvp that some people prefer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">There are still the twink/level-locking/ganking problems others have mentioned, but if you wish to avoid that sort of pvp, it is fairly easy to do, the choice is up to you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">Understand that VOX is also an SE-enabled server.  Some people have an issue with this, but honestly, having played on several different server types, I really see very little difference.  In some ways, I think the "game economy" is more realistic because of SE, if that sort of thing matters to you at all.</span></p></blockquote>Good god ignore this trap. Vox is dead.  D E A D dead.  Plat/gear/character buying is not only allowed, it's encouraged.  And you'll NEVER be able to transfer off. Roll on Nagafen if you want the Full Monty of PvP.  Roll on Venekor if you want a more laid back, small group/solo focus.  Roll on Vox if you want to run a bot and earn some Sony-approved real-world cash from your processor cycles and bandwidth.

[Uilamin]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.

[deepruntramp]

<cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.</blockquote>Pure idiocy spewed by a carebear who can't PvP. When logic doesn't work, try sarcasm:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=367222" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=367222</a>

[Bloodfa]

You can do it.  I'd suggest getting one toon out past the gankfest that is Tier 2, hitting T3 and T4 where it's a bit more balanced, and do a lot of farming.  With one or two tradeskillers, you can turn quite a profit and equip your lower level guys where it really is needed more than anything else.  Running solo through Tier 2 is suicide.  I've got two lowbie alts that are fairly twinked as far as gear goes, and I'll bring them out if I'm in the zone and see a request for assistance, but more often than not I'll either get steamrolled or abandoned by the ones crying for backup ( I tend to add them to the ignore list after that).  Even at high-30's, Antonica is a dangerous place, because a pack of high teen twinks can burn you down fast.  You can also keep a farmer at something like level 6 or 7 and just spend hours harvesting for loam, silver, coral or blackened iron.  Those T2 rares fetch about double what T3 counterparts do.  If you'd like some other suggestions, I'd be happy to send you a PM.  It's doable, but you need to know some tricks of the trade.

[Uilamin]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.</blockquote>Pure idiocy spewed by a carebear who can't PvP. When logic doesn't work, try sarcasm:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=367222" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=367222</a> </blockquote>... bravo on thinking you know how to play the game. Anyways T2 pvp sucks, it is all gank or be ganked for the main part.  If you want any real pvp you will probably only find it around T7. The problem T2 pvp (beyond being stuck with a bunch of ganking skilless newbs who cannot pvp in circumstances heavily weighted in their favour, just look at the post someone made before.  They stated you don't want to try to defend your newbie zones as the people their are equiped as well) is when you get a potential real fight, the other person will usually run away because they might die. As for that 'guide' the nub posted, yes it is a joke because if you want any chance in t7 pvp you want to be doing quests and hitting as many zones as possible while leveling.  Just get a group and go out level.  You will find other group pvp, but the people you suck at anything but jumping you when you at almost half dead will not touch you as they know they cannot win.  Just remember to them their title is more important than actually having fun.

[CresentBlade]

<cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.</blockquote>Pure idiocy spewed by a carebear who can't PvP. When logic doesn't work, try sarcasm:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=367222" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=367222</a> </blockquote>... bravo on thinking you know how to play the game. Anyways T2 pvp sucks, it is all gank or be ganked for the main part.  If you want any real pvp you will probably only find it around T7. The problem T2 pvp (beyond being stuck with a bunch of ganking skilless newbs who cannot pvp in circumstances heavily weighted in their favour, just look at the post someone made before.  They stated you don't want to try to defend your newbie zones as the people their are equiped as well) is when you get a potential real fight, the other person will usually run away because they might die. As for that 'guide' the nub posted, yes it is a joke because if you want any chance in t7 pvp you want to be doing quests and hitting as many zones as possible while leveling.  Just get a group and go out level.  You will find other group pvp, but the people you suck at anything but jumping you when you at almost half dead will not touch you as they know they cannot win.  <span style="font-size: medium">Just remember to them their title is more important than actually having fun. </span></blockquote>Incredibly sad but so very true<img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[deepruntramp]

<cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.</blockquote>Pure idiocy spewed by a carebear who can't PvP. When logic doesn't work, try sarcasm:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=367222" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=367222</a> </blockquote>... bravo on thinking you know how to play the game. Anyways T2 pvp sucks, it is all gank or be ganked for the main part.  If you want any real pvp you will probably only find it around T7. The problem T2 pvp (beyond being stuck with a bunch of ganking skilless newbs who cannot pvp in circumstances heavily weighted in their favour, just look at the post someone made before.  They stated you don't want to try to defend your newbie zones as the people their are equiped as well) is when you get a potential real fight, the other person will usually run away because they might die. As for that 'guide' the nub posted, yes it is a joke because if you want any chance in t7 pvp you want to be doing quests and hitting as many zones as possible while leveling.  Just get a group and go out level.  You will find other group pvp, but the people you suck at anything but jumping you when you at almost half dead will not touch you as they know they cannot win.  Just remember to them their title is more important than actually having fun. </blockquote> Sounds like you got owned in T2.  Hard.  Like, you cried at least once in frustration.  Probably picked an overpowered class too, and that made you cry even harder when your Isle-geared Warden couldn't pwn like the forums said you would. If you think T7 is a mystical solution to all the tears and grief you endure in T2, you've got another thing coming.  T7 is much, much worse.

[songsta]

<cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. <span style="color: #ccffff"> So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game?</span> </blockquote>No stop playing this game..including the forums..plzzz....lol jk man uhm idkkk....idk...and uhhh idk

[Uilamin]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Uilamin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just rushing to "level out" of T2 is one of the dumbest moves you can make. Put down the plat, twink up, lock down, rake in the AAs.  Learn your role.  Learn to PvP.  Get your faction to +14,000.  You won't have the opportunity to earn this much faction for awhile, take advantage while you can. Also, it's really very pointless to try to "defend" your faction's newbie zones.  The kinds of players showing up in your newbie zones are bloodthirsty and are, at bare minimum, in full MC/AD3s, likely better, and likely grouped with mounts. Solution?  Go to the other faction's newbie zones.  They're rarely defended, the logic being "The newbs can just make a raid and push whoever shows up out."  This never happens.  They rush at you one or two at a time, die, and run crying to the forums to blubber about how unfair it all is. </blockquote>don't listen to that.  Get out of tier 2 asap. Getting threw tier 2 can be done in a few hours, don't waste plat or grinding gear in it.</blockquote>Pure idiocy spewed by a carebear who can't PvP. When logic doesn't work, try sarcasm:  <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=367222" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=367222</a> </blockquote>... bravo on thinking you know how to play the game. Anyways T2 pvp sucks, it is all gank or be ganked for the main part.  If you want any real pvp you will probably only find it around T7. The problem T2 pvp (beyond being stuck with a bunch of ganking skilless newbs who cannot pvp in circumstances heavily weighted in their favour, just look at the post someone made before.  They stated you don't want to try to defend your newbie zones as the people their are equiped as well) is when you get a potential real fight, the other person will usually run away because they might die. As for that 'guide' the nub posted, yes it is a joke because if you want any chance in t7 pvp you want to be doing quests and hitting as many zones as possible while leveling.  Just get a group and go out level.  You will find other group pvp, but the people you suck at anything but jumping you when you at almost half dead will not touch you as they know they cannot win.  Just remember to them their title is more important than actually having fun. </blockquote> Sounds like you got owned in T2.  Hard.  Like, you cried at least once in frustration.  Probably picked an overpowered class too, and that made you cry even harder when your Isle-geared Warden couldn't pwn like the forums said you would. If you think T7 is a mystical solution to all the tears and grief you endure in T2, you've got another thing coming.  T7 is much, much worse. </blockquote>I've been a T7 cleric for ages (over a year) on vox (as I can tell you are new to pvp, that was back when it had an actual population), and managed to pvp rather fine. The reason T7 is better, is because pvp is more dynamic, people tend to group more, and it isn't the geared out people who go on the hunt usually.  Yes I have met a lot of people who just run away from pvp when they have a chance to loose, heck I know a lot of people on my server who refuse to fight me because they are too obsessed with fame. As for T2, no it just sucks.  It is the result of some T7 people who realized they suck at pvp so they decided to create twinked toons in order to have a chance at killing someone.  Then they decided to come to the forums and started saying how it was all cool as they needed more people to fight... especially those who were at a disadvantage compared to them in equipment wise as if their was a fair fight because if people actually were on equal footing they would [Removed for Content] them, which is the whole reason they left T7 in the first place as they just suck.

[silentpsycho]

<cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote><cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game? </blockquote>in eq2, on pvp servers, mastercrafted is where you start out. Its not hard getting mastercrafted, and thanks to diminishing returns curves you are actually fairly well off in mastercrafted gear. Ganking is most prevalent in t2 in my experience. Since I havent got a toon in t7, I cant really say what its like there. Currently, Im running 2 toons in t6, getting lots of 1 on 1 fights, with the occasional 2 on 1 fights. and the rarer still gank crews trying to pound me. It's been the same for my necro all the way up from t3 to t6, so I dare say that eq2 pvp can be very satisfying for a soloer. and to boot, I even break my own advice in always going for mastercrafted gear. My necro just yesterday turned 52, and I swapped out my lvl 32 mastercrafted gear. I could still lay waste to people with that trash gear, but tbh, it started to get a bit hard late t5. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> So, twinking does give you a slight edge in pvp, but its not really huge (except perhaps in t7, still havent really been there to try it out), and usually, at least in lower tiers, mastercrafted gear coupled with skill outweigh peoples "overpowered" twinked out classes. ( A lot of them with the best gear in low tiers seem to lack skill tbh.) </blockquote><p>That brings up a good point.  New players may leave earlier because based on what they experience at T2, they may get the misperception that life is always going to be that way.  The truth of the matter is, the twinking becomes less of an issue when you get to higher teirs.  To break it down to Qualitative terms the following is what one would expect in a pvp:</p><p>T1 - None</p><p>T2 - Very High gank rate</p><p>T3 - Moderate ganking to low ganking as level approaches T4</p><p>T4 - Low ganking</p><p>T5 - Low Ganking</p><p>T6 - Ranges from low to very high ganking as level approaches T7</p><p>T7 - High gank rate</p><p>Basically if you can level past T2 life becomes much nicer and things start to even out a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry, this post is completely wrong.  The ganking gets worse as you level if you actually try to PVE in populated areas.  I think the only difference is that there are more places for "bluebies" to hide in instances in these tiers.</p>

[Roald]

<p>If i was new i would actually you level your first toon through T2, and start gearing out from level 22.</p><p>If you can't be bothered to put time into toon, then no, there is no reason other than to get ownt.</p>

[silentpsycho]

<p>To the OP:  if you don't find putting the time into your character to make it competitive in PVP fun, and don't like to die when your opponent has put the time in and is better organized, then by all means - leave.  Seriously, the fun of PVP is in taking out the character that you worked hard to build up out and pitting it against the enemy, using all available strategies and tactics to defeat your opponent.  If you get depressed from dying when you don't have your [Removed for Content] together, then this place isn't for you.  When I don't have my eye on the ball or if I have forgotten to upgrade something and I get beat by someone who was better than me, I try to learn from it and not make the same mistake again.  If this isn't your mindset, you just don't belong on a MMORPG PVP server - of any flavor.</p>

[Toej]

<cite>silentpsycho wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote><cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game? </blockquote>in eq2, on pvp servers, mastercrafted is where you start out. Its not hard getting mastercrafted, and thanks to diminishing returns curves you are actually fairly well off in mastercrafted gear. Ganking is most prevalent in t2 in my experience. Since I havent got a toon in t7, I cant really say what its like there. Currently, Im running 2 toons in t6, getting lots of 1 on 1 fights, with the occasional 2 on 1 fights. and the rarer still gank crews trying to pound me. It's been the same for my necro all the way up from t3 to t6, so I dare say that eq2 pvp can be very satisfying for a soloer. and to boot, I even break my own advice in always going for mastercrafted gear. My necro just yesterday turned 52, and I swapped out my lvl 32 mastercrafted gear. I could still lay waste to people with that trash gear, but tbh, it started to get a bit hard late t5. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> So, twinking does give you a slight edge in pvp, but its not really huge (except perhaps in t7, still havent really been there to try it out), and usually, at least in lower tiers, mastercrafted gear coupled with skill outweigh peoples "overpowered" twinked out classes. ( A lot of them with the best gear in low tiers seem to lack skill tbh.) </blockquote><p>That brings up a good point.  New players may leave earlier because based on what they experience at T2, they may get the misperception that life is always going to be that way.  The truth of the matter is, the twinking becomes less of an issue when you get to higher teirs.  To break it down to Qualitative terms the following is what one would expect in a pvp:</p><p>T1 - None</p><p>T2 - Very High gank rate</p><p>T3 - Moderate ganking to low ganking as level approaches T4</p><p>T4 - Low ganking</p><p>T5 - Low Ganking</p><p>T6 - Ranges from low to very high ganking as level approaches T7</p><p>T7 - High gank rate</p><p>Basically if you can level past T2 life becomes much nicer and things start to even out a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry, this post is completely wrong.  The ganking gets worse as you level if you actually try to PVE in populated areas.  I think the only difference is that there are more places for "bluebies" to hide in instances in these tiers.</p></blockquote><p>You get ganked more as the levels go up?!?!  Dude, take off the glow in the dark armor with the neon target on the back.  All I can say is you must be one of the unluckest players to ever grace the forums if this is true for you.</p>

[Xova]

<cite>deepruntramp wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bluetygur wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana">This is for the OP.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana">I do not disagree with the responses so far, this is just to offer another suggestion.  If you want to try playing on a pvp server that is more of a compromise between pvp and pve, consider VOX.  I like it because the population is a bit lower than the other pvp servers.  The result is that you can play pve, with a "side order" of pvp (if that is how you want to play it).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">I like playing on a pvp server because of the additional challenge.  I also have a ton of friends on VOX.  But i do a lot of crafting, exploring, collecting, raiding that would be difficult to do on a highly populated pvp server.  I do engage in pvp, of course, especially in group vs group, but I am not really in to the solo, continuous action pvp that some people prefer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">There are still the twink/level-locking/ganking problems others have mentioned, but if you wish to avoid that sort of pvp, it is fairly easy to do, the choice is up to you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small">Understand that VOX is also an SE-enabled server.  Some people have an issue with this, but honestly, having played on several different server types, I really see very little difference.  In some ways, I think the "game economy" is more realistic because of SE, if that sort of thing matters to you at all.</span></p></blockquote>Good god ignore this trap. Vox is dead.  D E A D dead.  Plat/gear/character buying is not only allowed, it's encouraged.  And you'll NEVER be able to transfer off. Roll on Nagafen if you want the Full Monty of PvP.  Roll on Venekor if you want a more laid back, small group/solo focus.  Roll on Vox if you want to run a bot and earn some Sony-approved real-world cash from your processor cycles and bandwidth. </blockquote><p>Says the person who's only been playing for two months according to their sig and probably doesn't know dime one about playing on Vox.  -_-</p><p>To the OP: Please don't let yourself be discouraged by the forum naysayers. I really don't know why they make it their mission in life to make EQ2 PvP sound so awful, but it's not. </p><p>First - decide what your goal is for your PvP experience. Do you want to level at a leisurely pace and enjoy the game while PvP'ing on the side? Do you want to focus on PvP while developing your character via PvE? Do you want to be a PvP "god" and own face as soon as possible? What kind of game do YOU want to play? Answer that question first because it will determine everything from what class to play to what server to roll on to what pace to level at.</p><p>Obviously some classes have certain PvP advantages over others, but realistically all classes are viable, especially when considered as part of a group. Given that you have a group of friends playing with you, you're a step ahead of the game on this. Don't make the mistake of thinking EQ2 is a solo game - it's not. It is definitely a group game, and that also applies to PvP. So please take that into consideration when deciding what classes to play. And play classes that you think you'll like, not classes that you think you have to play in order to be viable. My first PvP character was a Defiler, and I ran around with a Brigand, a Bruiser, and an Assassin. As it turned out it was a great group, but we picked those classes because that's what sounded cool to us at the time, and not because they were "uber" in PvP. So use the group factor to your advantage</p><p>Decide how much PvP you want to deal with. There are three PvP servers - Nagafen, Venekor, and Vox.</p><p><b>Nagafen</b> is by far the most populated, and the most cuttthroat. While there will be no shortage of PvP there for you, the propensity for ganking and dealing wih lowbie twinks is going to be much higher than it would be elsewhere. Roll here if you can stomach the gankfest and want mass amounts of targets. This is the preferred PvP server choice and I'd say that the majority of the people posting on the PvP forums play mainly on Nagafen.</p><p><b>Venekor</b> has a lower population than Nagafen, but it's still got a healthy number of players. Venekor is also the RP-PvP server, and while not everyone RP's there, it does seem to have less of a "drama" factor than Nagafen. Twinking is still prevalent, particularly in T2, but it still doesn't make for impossible gameplay. Roll here if you want a more laid-back environment, yet want a healthy population still.</p><p><b>Vox </b>has the lowest population of the three servers and playing there is more akin to playing on a PvE server with a side of PvP. Vox is also the Station Exchange server, which unfortunately gives people the negative imperssion that everyone on Vox buys plat and is an uber-twink. As someone who actually plays on Vox I can assure you this is not the case. First - <b><u>all servers have plat buyers</u></b>. The only difference is that it is legal on Vox. Second - not everyone on Vox uses the Station Exchange feature. In fact a great many people don't. Third - items/characters/money bought from Station Exchange did not magically appear there courtesy of SOE - it was all the product of another person's ingame effort and Station Exchange is just a legal resource for allowing everything to change hands. Finally, the lower population means there is less gankage and twinking. That's not to say that twinkage and ganking doesn't exist - it does - just that it's not as rampant as it is on Nagafen or even Venekor.</p><p>The biggest downside to Vox is that we do have a low population and it can feel deserted at times, particularly if you play in T7. Also, we cannot transfer our characters off of Vox, so if you roll here your character will stay here, unless SoE decides to merge our server or allow us to change servers. Personally I hope that SOE will do more to promote the Station Exchange service and work to dispel the negative stigma it has so that other players don't feel so threatened by it, but we'll see. Still the server is not "dead" despite what the so-called forums "tough guys" would have you believe. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Next, the solution to surviving the T2 twink problem is to level up. Classes start to be better developed after lvl20, and characters become more fleshed out. Armor and gear provide better protection in relation to each other, and you'll notice a huge difference in survivability. It does not take long to level from 10-20 (or 12-22) so the best thing to do is to grit your teeth and get through it.</p><p>Someone else above made the comment that Mastercrafted gear is the norm on PvP servers - not the exception. This is true. You want to give yourself the best advantage possible, so start by making sure your gear is up to par. Since you have a group, perhaps each of you could take a different tradeskill so that you can outfit each other up? Might do wonders for making gear and spell upgrades more convenient.</p><p>There's a plethora of advice scattered around this forum, so don't be too discouraged by all the complaint posts you see. PvP'ers are whiny and fussy by nature - we're supposed to complain about the other person being better/stronger/faster and us being weaker/picked on/disadvantaged. Try to ignore those types of threads - they'll only serve to bring you down and give you a negative impression.</p><p>Last thing - despite what I and everyone else here has to say, YOU will be the best judge of whether EQ2 PvP is for you. So stop toeing the water and dive on in! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Salvatori]

<p>EQ2, especially on pvp servers is a game of skill - what i mean by skill is in all areas of the game - most people who understand MMO's and have played them previously, tend to do very well in EQ2... a lot of it is common sense - for example: if you are starting out and you are poor, instead of trying to buy stuff off the broker, look for ways to upgrade your gear through instances and dungeons. There are lots of places to find legendary/fabled gear as well as master 1 spells if you dont have the rares to create the adept 3's. </p><p> As for the pvp aspect - especially if you have friends who are playing with you - a good group, with a nice mix of classes and strengths, will beat any pvp twinks no question - druids and monks in my opinion tend to be the easiest classes to play for the least amount of money - it doesnt take a lot to get a monk and a druid combo up to where they would have more than a fighting chance.</p><p> Lastly, dont be discouraged by the hoards of twinks who cant cut it at the high levels so they make a level locked character to run around with. you will find that more often than not, the better the twink, the worse the player <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[silentpsycho]

<cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>silentpsycho wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote><cite>SeleneViel wrote:</cite><blockquote>My friends and I have been trying out a bunch of games to see if we can find a new MMO home.  Since SOE gave us til September to try out EQ2, we figured we would give it a shot. We picked Antonia since it appeared to be the most populated server.  Not sure why, but it was actually pretty fun to roll new toons and start leveling.  But I recently read that PvP is completely and utterly dead on PvE servers. So I've been reading up about PvP servers in this forum and so far, I don't think I've ever read a PvP forum that was so full of discouraging posts for a new player.  It seems like the PvP servers are basically gankfests with uber twinks who can kill new players near instantly or else there is no one around because the whole population seems to be sitting at two level ranges. I'm not a total carebear.  I usually roll PvP servers and spend most of my time doing PvP.  But what I want the most is a fair fight.  I understand that this is a MMO and twinking/grouping/ganking is commonplace.  But I usually do my best to try to find situations where fights are fair.  Ganking or getting ganked is not fun.  Having fair fights where both sides have a chance of winning is fun. I've played the twinking game in WoW and other MMO's and it gets stupid fast.  Eventually I got to the point in WoW where I only played battlegrounds between level 40-69 because nobody bothers to twink at those levels.  The lower level brackets are twinkfests which makes for idiotic battles.  The 70 bracket can be equally stupid because not everyone has the time to raid endlessly. So given this criteria, is there any reason for me to keep playing this game? </blockquote>in eq2, on pvp servers, mastercrafted is where you start out. Its not hard getting mastercrafted, and thanks to diminishing returns curves you are actually fairly well off in mastercrafted gear. Ganking is most prevalent in t2 in my experience. Since I havent got a toon in t7, I cant really say what its like there. Currently, Im running 2 toons in t6, getting lots of 1 on 1 fights, with the occasional 2 on 1 fights. and the rarer still gank crews trying to pound me. It's been the same for my necro all the way up from t3 to t6, so I dare say that eq2 pvp can be very satisfying for a soloer. and to boot, I even break my own advice in always going for mastercrafted gear. My necro just yesterday turned 52, and I swapped out my lvl 32 mastercrafted gear. I could still lay waste to people with that trash gear, but tbh, it started to get a bit hard late t5. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> So, twinking does give you a slight edge in pvp, but its not really huge (except perhaps in t7, still havent really been there to try it out), and usually, at least in lower tiers, mastercrafted gear coupled with skill outweigh peoples "overpowered" twinked out classes. ( A lot of them with the best gear in low tiers seem to lack skill tbh.) </blockquote><p>That brings up a good point.  New players may leave earlier because based on what they experience at T2, they may get the misperception that life is always going to be that way.  The truth of the matter is, the twinking becomes less of an issue when you get to higher teirs.  To break it down to Qualitative terms the following is what one would expect in a pvp:</p><p>T1 - None</p><p>T2 - Very High gank rate</p><p>T3 - Moderate ganking to low ganking as level approaches T4</p><p>T4 - Low ganking</p><p>T5 - Low Ganking</p><p>T6 - Ranges from low to very high ganking as level approaches T7</p><p>T7 - High gank rate</p><p>Basically if you can level past T2 life becomes much nicer and things start to even out a bit.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry, this post is completely wrong.  The ganking gets worse as you level if you actually try to PVE in populated areas.  I think the only difference is that there are more places for "bluebies" to hide in instances in these tiers.</p></blockquote><p>You get ganked more as the levels go up?!?!  Dude, take off the glow in the dark armor with the neon target on the back.  All I can say is you must be one of the unluckest players to ever grace the forums if this is true for you.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry, leveling 5 toons through the 60's simultaniously has scarred me for life.  Seriously, I made a brand new untwinked arassi guardian, and it was a picnic compared to KOS and DOF zones. </p><p>I do, in fact, think you are right about the 20 to high 40 grind if you avoid areas like EL docks and hide out in instances.  But, then, why play on a pvp server in the first place... </p>

[SeleneVi]

<cite>Salvatori wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>EQ2, especially on pvp servers is a game of skill - what i mean by skill is in all areas of the game - most people who understand MMO's and have played them previously, tend to do very well in EQ2... a lot of it is common sense - for example: if you are starting out and you are poor, instead of trying to buy stuff off the broker, look for ways to upgrade your gear through instances and dungeons. There are lots of places to find legendary/fabled gear as well as master 1 spells if you dont have the rares to create the adept 3's. </p><p> As for the pvp aspect - especially if you have friends who are playing with you - a good group, with a nice mix of classes and strengths, will beat any pvp twinks no question - druids and monks in my opinion tend to be the easiest classes to play for the least amount of money - it doesnt take a lot to get a monk and a druid combo up to where they would have more than a fighting chance.</p><p> Lastly, dont be discouraged by the hoards of twinks who cant cut it at the high levels so they make a level locked character to run around with. you will find that more often than not, the better the twink, the worse the player <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote>This makes perfect sense to me and from a positive viewpoint, it feels like a good summation of EQ2 PvP. I used to be very hardcore in a bunch of the MMORPG's I used to play, so I do understand what I would need to do in EQ2 to do well...at least in general terms. The problem is that I think my hardcore instinct has been slowly beat out of me by the endless grinds of all the MMO's I've already played.  As a result, I guess I've become more and more carebear (sigh).  So while I still want a competitive environment, I need it to be more casual and forgiving.  Nothing about EQ2 PvP sounds casual or forgiving to me. Anyways, I've learned what I need to know for now.  If the urge hits me when I'm less busy in real life, I may come back and try out a pvp server.  I was really pleasantly surprised by how polished and slick this game has become.

[songsta]

OMG I JUST FOUND OUT YOU CAN AUTOMAICALLY LVL TO 70 ON TEST.. IM GONNA KEEP PLAYING UNTIL I LEARN TO PVP WITH EVERY LVL 70 TOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TniEradani]

<cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote><snip> <p><b><span style="color: #009900">This is exactly the point that I am trying to make in my thread </span></b><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373110" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><b><span style="color: #009900">what to Expect in PVP</span></b></a><b><span style="color: #009900">.</span></b>  New players will not have access to such a large amount of Plat. unless they go to those annoying web sites to buy it.  </p><p></snip></p></blockquote>This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=370989" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">One month birthday for my new toons</a> and Korvoth was making in this post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373254" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SK with a problem, any ideas?</a> and other people have made in their posts. That it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE for a new player to twink up in a relatively short time.

[Izzypop]

IFL2P It's Fine Learn To Play That's what experienced players tell other experienced players whey they are crying and we just want them to shut up.  Experienced Players:  Stop crying, there is no crying in pvp.  I see other players crying so hard they are blowing a snot bubble all over your thread and they need to stop.  It's not as bad as the crybabies make it out to be, if I had to say anything I would say It's fine. Learn To Play:  You are new to the game.  You don't know how to play yet.  You need to learn to play.  You need to learn about your class, 23 other classes, the game, the zones, and the pvp system.  The EQ2 PvP system is less kind and forgiving than a PMSing Badger with Hemroids.  You will die many times and be slaughtered like a pig on a regular basis.  If you learn from your deaths and your mistakes you will quickly grow to become a deadly pvper.  If you just get mad, throw a hissyfit, and cry then you won't learn anything and will only graduate from being a noob to a nub. Don't be afraid of PvP.  If you scared to die this is the wrong game for you.  Embrace PvP at tier 2 don't run from it. Make a tradeskill alt.  Stay as low level as possible, avoid dinging level 10 at all costs.  Raise your alt's tradeskill level to 20.  Now go sell stuff for cash and harvest with your >9 toon so that nobody can gank you while harvesting.   Level Lock your main adventuring toon at level 10.  Don't unlock your level until your AA is near cap.  Grind out quest after quest and your level and AA will go up.  You need AA just as much as gear, if you unlock your XP and don't do quests your AA will suck forever and so will your toon. Once you get a full set of mastercrafted your just as twinked as the average twink except for the horse.  Don't worry about the horse all that does is let you is run like a gutless coward to protect your pvp title.  Don't worry about your title as a new player, don't worry about your Kill Versus Death Ratio, and don't worry about getting killed.  Try any 1 on 1 fight you can get into and learn what your characters limits are. Group up.  Make friends.  Join a PvP guild.  Join a PvP group and take the fight to the enemy to get lots and lots of kills.  Once you get enough kills for PvP gear and your faction is about pos 20k start working on levels again going up into tier 4,5 and beyond whlie pvping your way up there. A good positive faction will let you buy pvp gear.   If you in PvP gear, mastercrafted, and adept 3's with a good amount of AA you will PWN face against a more twinked and less loved toon that say has Fabled gear, master 1s, Sucky AA, a fast horse, and no pvp gear.  PvP gear and AA are more important than unlimited plat resources to buy the best of the best on the market.  In the case of tier 3 EQ2 the best things in life are free (AA & PVP gear) Above all:Stay Calm &  don't panic.  Your not going to be better than players with a year of experience overnight.

[Toej]

Eradani@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote><snip> <p><b><span style="color: #009900">This is exactly the point that I am trying to make in my thread </span></b><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373110" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><b><span style="color: #009900">what to Expect in PVP</span></b></a><b><span style="color: #009900">.</span></b>  New players will not have access to such a large amount of Plat. unless they go to those annoying web sites to buy it.  </p><p></snip></p></blockquote>This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=370989" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">One month birthday for my new toons</a> and Korvoth was making in this post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373254" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SK with a problem, any ideas?</a> and other people have made in their posts. That it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE for a new player to twink up in a relatively short time. </blockquote><p>That's great that you took the time to make a level 17 twink from scratch.  I also noticed you chose a warden which is one of the most survivable classes in pvp which is a smart move.  For those who are interested in taking a month to get to level 17 so they can fight the good fight in the teens, I would recommend Eradani's thread as good reading.</p><p>For those who wish to move a little faster in levels then my "What to expect" in pvp thread is good reading.  There is no argument here.  In fact this is a great post because both sides of the pvp world presented nicely.  </p><p>Noteworthy items:</p><p>1. Taking the time to twink is nice and it makes you more competitive.  Master crafted gear is very good stuff but there is better out there.  Don't get mislead into thinking that just because you have all master crafted items that you are going to be superman.  All it does is bring you up to what most of the twinks are wearing.  If it takes until level 17 to get all master crafted items, then guess what?  In 5 more levels you have to change all your gear again to get back up to what the normal player is wearing.  You will still get rolled by groups and you will still lose some pvp solo fights.</p><p>2. Good gear, good spells and such will help but your own personal skill in playing and knowledge of how your class works and how they perform in a pvp battle with all the other classes will often be the deciding factor.</p>

[AndrewSquared]

<cite>Izzypop wrote:</cite><blockquote>IFL2P It's Fine Learn To Play That's what experienced players tell other experienced players whey they are crying and we just want them to shut up.  Experienced Players:  Stop crying, there is no crying in pvp.  I see other players crying so hard they are blowing a snot bubble all over your thread and they need to stop.  It's not as bad as the crybabies make it out to be, if I had to say anything I would say It's fine. Learn To Play:  You are new to the game.  You don't know how to play yet.  You need to learn to play.  You need to learn about your class, 23 other classes, the game, the zones, and the pvp system.  The EQ2 PvP system is less kind and forgiving than a PMSing Badger with Hemroids.  You will die many times and be slaughtered like a pig on a regular basis.  If you learn from your deaths and your mistakes you will quickly grow to become a deadly pvper.  If you just get mad, throw a hissyfit, and cry then you won't learn anything and will only graduate from being a noob to a nub. Don't be afraid of PvP.  If you scared to die this is the wrong game for you.  Embrace PvP at tier 2 don't run from it. Make a tradeskill alt.  Stay as low level as possible, avoid dinging level 10 at all costs.  Raise your alt's tradeskill level to 20.  Now go sell stuff for cash and harvest with your >9 toon so that nobody can gank you while harvesting.   Level Lock your main adventuring toon at level 10.  Don't unlock your level until your AA is near cap.  Grind out quest after quest and your level and AA will go up.  You need AA just as much as gear, if you unlock your XP and don't do quests your AA will suck forever and so will your toon. Once you get a full set of mastercrafted your just as twinked as the average twink except for the horse.  Don't worry about the horse all that does is let you is run like a gutless coward to protect your pvp title.  Don't worry about your title as a new player, don't worry about your Kill Versus Death Ratio, and don't worry about getting killed.  Try any 1 on 1 fight you can get into and learn what your characters limits are. Group up.  Make friends.  Join a PvP guild.  Join a PvP group and take the fight to the enemy to get lots and lots of kills.  Once you get enough kills for PvP gear and your faction is about pos 20k start working on levels again going up into tier 4,5 and beyond whlie pvping your way up there. A good positive faction will let you buy pvp gear.   If you in PvP gear, mastercrafted, and adept 3's with a good amount of AA you will PWN face against a more twinked and less loved toon that say has Fabled gear, master 1s, Sucky AA, a fast horse, and no pvp gear.  PvP gear and AA are more important than unlimited plat resources to buy the best of the best on the market.  In the case of tier 3 EQ2 the best things in life are free (AA & PVP gear) Above all:Stay Calm &  don't panic.  Your not going to be better than players with a year of experience overnight. </blockquote> I think you've convinced me to actually lock my level. I was opposed to it at first, but now, I think I will, that will give me plenty of time to get my MC and adept 3 stuff (glad my main is a jeweler).

[TniEradani]

<cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote>Eradani@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><cite>Toejoe wrote:</cite><blockquote><snip> <p><b><span style="color: #009900">This is exactly the point that I am trying to make in my thread </span></b><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373110" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><b><span style="color: #009900">what to Expect in PVP</span></b></a><b><span style="color: #009900">.</span></b>  New players will not have access to such a large amount of Plat. unless they go to those annoying web sites to buy it.  </p><p></snip></p></blockquote>This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=370989" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">One month birthday for my new toons</a> and Korvoth was making in this post <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373254" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SK with a problem, any ideas?</a> and other people have made in their posts. That it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE for a new player to twink up in a relatively short time. </blockquote><p>That's great that you took the time to make a level 17 twink from scratch.  I also noticed you chose a warden which is one of the most survivable classes in pvp which is a smart move.  For those who are interested in taking a month to get to level 17 so they can fight the good fight in the teens, I would recommend Eradani's thread as good reading.</p><p>For those who wish to move a little faster in levels then my "What to expect" in pvp thread is good reading.  There is no argument here.  In fact this is a great post because both sides of the pvp world presented nicely.  </p><p>Noteworthy items:</p><p>1. Taking the time to twink is nice and it makes you more competitive.  Master crafted gear is very good stuff but there is better out there.  Don't get mislead into thinking that just because you have all master crafted items that you are going to be superman.  All it does is bring you up to what most of the twinks are wearing.  If it takes until level 17 to get all master crafted items, then guess what?  In 5 more levels you have to change all your gear again to get back up to what the normal player is wearing.  You will still get rolled by groups and you will still lose some pvp solo fights.</p><p>2. Good gear, good spells and such will help but your own personal skill in playing and knowledge of how your class works and how they perform in a pvp battle with all the other classes will often be the deciding factor.</p></blockquote><p>1. Choose a warden because this is "my" class. After running around on the island on the trial software for a week and trying just about every class, this one felt like my skin. I had no idea everyone thought they were so OP and besides, I wear leather, which kinda balances out a lot of things, especially when my group meets a group that knows who to take down first.</p><p>2. Being a supposedly OP class does little when you're solo. The best survivability in this game is in a group - no matter what the class.</p><p>3. It did not take a month to get to lvl 17. One toon took 2 weeks and the other I didn't play as much and took longer than the month. And this only playing around 2 hours a day. And nvm, but I 'wasted' 2p45 to buy each of them their horse, Sevdah. And I say wasted because who needs a 24% horse which they immediately throw their 45% sow on.</p><p>4. It did not take me till lvl 17 to get MC gear. It took me till lvl 12. After that, I went to an instance Boz mentioned, which btw greys out at 16, and got some nice Legendary shoulders and did the DLW quests for a nice Treasured helmet and Treasured tunic (as well as really good AAs). All these pieces are better than MC.</p><p>5. If a beginner wants to move really fast in this game - imo, they're doomed. As with all games worth playing, chess and othello immediately come to mind, it takes very little time to learn the basics and a very long time to learn how to play well.</p><p>6. For the record, this is my first multi-player game, my first on-line game, and I've only been playing it 8 months. Also, don't forget that the person who wrote this post - <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=373254" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SK with a problem, any ideas?</a> - had only been play EQ2 for 3 weeks when the post was made.</p><p>7. Your point 2 - /agree. In the long run, there are no OP classes, just people behind the toons who've taken the time to learn what it takes FTW.</p>