Current XP Camps

[Lunaryn]

Re: Current XP Camps

Yeah, Garlaige is still used, but it 'sucks' for various reasons that to my knowledge haven't seen much change:

1) It has a reputation for being nasty, as Lmnop mentioned.
2) It only has a few good (read: safe) camps. How few depends on your tolerance for unsafe-ness and on point 3. People thus have a certain aversion to going if there's anyone there who might be competition, and even if there isn't, still have a certain fear that they'll be camped on top of before too long...
3) Overhunting is rampant. Despite the increased realization at the top that chaining weak mobs is good, at lower level people still want nothing but ITs. If they're getting less than 100xp for some kills, the xp automatically sucks regardless of kill rate. Once you get one damn level past pure optimum camp performance, everyone wants to move on to the next level camp, even if that means going into Garlaige Citadel with level 31 mages, a level 32 tank, and some level 33 DDs.
4) Low level camps, however good relative to each other, will never be meleeburn meripo camps. They will never give you 10k/hr, or even 8k/hr, or even 6k/hr... you get the idea. This tends to mean that all of the various tactics that could help optimize a camp don't happen, or don't get appreciated when they do happen. Generally the former. This feeds into the notion that every party should have a PL (usually one member 2-boxes one), and ironically also seems to make point 3 even more of a problem (despite it tending to lower xp/hr significantly).

So the bottom line is that there are both plenty of great old and new xp camps, and no good camps at all. You'll probably be best off trying to drag people out where you want them than to simply try to congregate.

If you are willing to make your own parties, I do recommend looking into WotG zones; there are some awesome camps there that haven't ever gotten much attention due to how ToAU skewed expectations. And Sigil provides both Signet bonuses and latent Refresh / Increased Meal Duration.

[Zoltar]

Re: Current XP Camps

beetles are still feasible in Garliage granted you have one of a few things, or all of them: Warrior -> Shield Break, Bard -> Attack/Accuracy, 2 x WHM, or WHM & DNC helping heal

[Durahansolo]

Re: Current XP Camps

It's possible to go in at 32 but it's not worth it unless the rest of your party is 34+ (and even then, although the EXP/hour won't be bad, the level 32 player is still technically slowing them down unless it's a BRD or something like that.) The mobs are simply too high for a level 32 player to be effective against, especially if they're beetles. The increased EXP from going in at 32 isn't going to outweigh the slow kill speed.

Now that I think about it, i think most of those times our tank was at a higher level than everybody else. The XP is definently slow but I was happier to be in GC than in the Jungles, I always got lost .

[Zoltar]

Re: Current XP Camps

Now that I think about it, i think most of those times our tank was at a higher level than everybody else. The XP is definently slow but I was happier to be in GC than in the Jungles, I always got lost .

Yhoator Jungle navigation skills {Can I have it?}

[Karinya]

Re: Current XP Camps

Yeah, Garlaige is still used, but it 'sucks' for various reasons that to my knowledge haven't seen much change:

1) It has a reputation for being nasty, as Lmnop mentioned.

Yeah, but this reputation predates the anti-train patch of a couple years back. It really isn't that bad anymore if you're not the puller.

It is a challenging place to pull though. I can't think of any other place that tests you as a puller the way Garlaige does. Narrow tunnels, aggro mobs popping behind you while you're out on a long pull, holes in the floor, links hiding around corners, bats that go around the holes in the floor rather than flying over them... but if you can pull well in Garlaige, you can pull well anywhere.

2) It only has a few good (read: safe) camps. How few depends on your tolerance for unsafe-ness and on point 3. People thus have a certain aversion to going if there's anyone there who might be competition, and even if there isn't, still have a certain fear that they'll be camped on top of before too long...

I find this to be less of a factor recently. Any spot that isn't merit is much, much less camped than in the old days. The other day I rode into Yhoator and did /sea to see how many people were in the area - 0 people found. Even I wasn't in the zone yet because of search lag. :D (Although there's an ambiguous ending to that story, because my party did eventually get another party camping close enough for their puller to run through our camp to pull. It was mildly annoying but we rarely actually ran short of mobs as a result.)

3) Overhunting is rampant. Despite the increased realization at the top that chaining weak mobs is good, at lower level people still want nothing but ITs. If they're getting less than 100xp for some kills, the xp automatically sucks regardless of kill rate. Once you get one damn level past pure optimum camp performance, everyone wants to move on to the next level camp, even if that means going into Garlaige Citadel with level 31 mages, a level 32 tank, and some level 33 DDs.

Gaahh. If you're the leader you can sometimes impose sanity, or if the leader is someone who is actually aware of this problem they will sometimes impose sanity and you can back them up. Otherwise, ugh.

It's even worse because at lower levels, the same amount of variability in mob level leads to much more variability in exp value (since the same range of exp values is packed into fewer mob levels). If you're deliberately pulling the lower mobs at the start of the chain to save the higher mobs for the bigger chain bonuses, people who don't know that trick will be disgusted at the low value of the opener with no chain bonus.

In the old days, overhunting could be sorta kinda justified by overcamping: if you can't get a decent kill rate anyway because of all the contested pulling, you might as well at least get as much exp as you can out of each mob you claim. That rationale doesn't hold anymore.

At least a level 34 party these days is probably *all* level 34 (via sync), or at most one person lower level. That actually does a lot for low level parties, I think, compared to the old parties where the tank could be 2 levels below the drk or blm (if your leader didn't have the sense to avoid that when building the party).

4) Low level camps, however good relative to each other, will never be meleeburn meripo camps. They will never give you 10k/hr, or even 8k/hr, or even 6k/hr... you get the idea. This tends to mean that all of the various tactics that could help optimize a camp don't happen, or don't get appreciated when they do happen. Generally the former. This feeds into the notion that every party should have a PL (usually one member 2-boxes one), and ironically also seems to make point 3 even more of a problem (despite it tending to lower xp/hr significantly).

Well, there's one exception to this rule: in the high 30s, you can exp in East Ronfaure[S] for the same insane amounts you're used to from ToAU. You can probably guess from that fact which mobs you're going to be camping: colibri. Unbalanced at any level.

So the bottom line is that there are both plenty of great old and new xp camps, and no good camps at all. You'll probably be best off trying to drag people out where you want them than to simply try to congregate.

If you are willing to make your own parties, I do recommend looking into WotG zones; there are some awesome camps there that haven't ever gotten much attention due to how ToAU skewed expectations. And Sigil provides both Signet bonuses and latent Refresh / Increased Meal Duration.

Well, it *can* provide the latter, if you pay for it. The former is automatic IIRC. You don't get Sanction's percentage exp bonus, but sigil refresh and free resting are a nice combination that helps everyone reduce downtime.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Current XP Camps

Yeah, but this reputation predates the anti-train patch of a couple years back. It really isn't that bad anymore if you're not the puller.

I should have said "lingering reputation". Particularly with the pervasive notion of pre-colibri xp inherently sucking, it's hard for an arguably better Garlaige to redeem itself in the eyes of many. Though part of why the reputation survived the mob despawn patch IMO is because Garlaige is typically overhunted, and people feel it sucks because they die so much when they come in with their 31-33 party. By the time it starts to get good you're already facing the incessant pressure to move on to stronger mobs. Or you're replacing your higher-leveled members who suddenly have to go with lower-leveled ones. High turnover is a problem that only ever seems to get worse, and will kill your xp/hr no matter how good your camp/levels/composition (Even worse is when you're responsible for searching for reps and you're the puller. Or to a lesser extent the main healer).

I find this to be less of a factor recently. Any spot that isn't merit is much, much less camped than in the old days. The other day I rode into Yhoator and did /sea to see how many people were in the area - 0 people found. Even I wasn't in the zone yet because of search lag. :D (Although there's an ambiguous ending to that story, because my party did eventually get another party camping close enough for their puller to run through our camp to pull. It was mildly annoying but we rarely actually ran short of mobs as a result.)

This is true, but my experience has been that the less shit people have to put up with in this game, the less shit they're willing to put up with. The number of camps a zone is perceived to have goes down as the demand for them goes down, as people start automatically discarding the less convenient ones from consideration. For some, the camp at the entrance is the camp. And my last few parties there have ended up with a suspicious party of silent /anon characters with randomized names camping on top of them partway through.

Gaahh. If you're the leader you can sometimes impose sanity, or if the leader is someone who is actually aware of this problem they will sometimes impose sanity and you can back them up. Otherwise, ugh.

It's even worse because at lower levels, the same amount of variability in mob level leads to much more variability in exp value (since the same range of exp values is packed into fewer mob levels). If you're deliberately pulling the lower mobs at the start of the chain to save the higher mobs for the bigger chain bonuses, people who don't know that trick will be disgusted at the low value of the opener with no chain bonus.

In the old days, overhunting could be sorta kinda justified by overcamping: if you can't get a decent kill rate anyway because of all the contested pulling, you might as well at least get as much exp as you can out of each mob you claim. That rationale doesn't hold anymore.

At least a level 34 party these days is probably *all* level 34 (via sync), or at most one person lower level. That actually does a lot for low level parties, I think, compared to the old parties where the tank could be 2 levels below the drk or blm (if your leader didn't have the sense to avoid that when building the party).

Indeed. The biggest problem in overhunting situations is always an excessive level split, and unless you need certain members to be more powerful to make a camp work, you should almost always be synced at the lowest member's level. Not to mention that doing this will help squeeze a bit more optimum performance out of the previous camp, helping to stave off the demand to overhunt a bit longer.

Well, there's one exception to this rule: in the high 30s, you can exp in East Ronfaure[S] for the same insane amounts you're used to from ToAU. You can probably guess from that fact which mobs you're going to be camping: colibri. Unbalanced at any level.

Yeah, though surprisingly I haven't seen parties take advantage of that on Midgardsormr.

Well, it *can* provide the latter, if you pay for it. The former is automatic IIRC. You don't get Sanction's percentage exp bonus, but sigil refresh and free resting are a nice combination that helps everyone reduce downtime.

Yeah, but you can buy any or all, for 50 AN each, which is a pittance compared to other merit-currencies. (I'd sooner spend 4000 AN than 200 CP or 100 IS)

[Nuriko]

Re: Current XP Camps

Though part of why the reputation survived the mob despawn patch IMO is because Garlaige is typically overhunted, and people feel it sucks because they die so much when they come in with their 31-33 party.

Just the other day, I was in a PT in Eastern Altepa, at the camp near the QSC zone. It wasn't the best PT, but things went fairly steadily (though somewhat slow). At one point the suggestion was made that we move to GC ... with a PT synced to 30 or 31! All I could really say to that was "no thanks, I'm not crazy".

It didn't really help that we kept losing people, so could never really get things going, and some pullers had a bit of trouble finding some of the beetles ... I think I was the only one to go on to the ramp to get that one beetle spawn.

Oh, and if you're looking to put together a past XP PT, just let me know and I'll go!

[Durahansolo]

Re: Current XP Camps

Just the other day, I was in a PT in Eastern Altepa, at the camp near the QSC zone. It wasn't the best PT, but things went fairly steadily (though somewhat slow). At one point the suggestion was made that we move to GC ... with a PT synced to 30 or 31! All I could really say to that was "no thanks, I'm not crazy".

It didn't really help that we kept losing people, so could never really get things going, and some pullers had a bit of trouble finding some of the beetles ... I think I was the only one to go on to the ramp to get that one beetle spawn.

Oh, and if you're looking to put together a past XP PT, just let me know and I'll go!

You guys probably could've did the Weapon Camp in Sauromuge from 30-31/32ish. I got about 3-4 levels at that spot once because we kept grabbing people that were 30ish to party with when someone would leave. Beats going back to the jungles for those few levels.

[eticket109]

Re: Current XP Camps

I try my hardest to skip the Citadel altogether. These are my favorite places for that range.

31-34 - Bibiki Bay: Purgonorgo Isle
This is tough to organize in a pickup, but if you can get a party there this place is awesome.

33-37 - Behemoth's Dominion (Lesser Gaylas/Greater Gayla)
Campsitarus has this camp listed til 36, but it works great through 37.

From that point if you're going past subjob levels, you can head to East Ronfaure [s] til about 41 or so.