My Hidden Forest experience (opinions etc)

[bored_dead]

Found the server a couple of weeks ago while messing around on other EQEmu servers, few hours later I ended up with a few character in their 30's and a monk that I decided would take to 70. Here's on how I felt about the playing experience:


Tier 1 - Levels 1-30

Very fun, very engaging and somewhat challenging (depending on class/bot)- was not crazy about Paludal Caverns, but did the main quests for the clickies there anyways. I did find that some of the quests were a bit annoying (read: poor drop rates on ore in CB and atrocious drop rates on the items from the mushrooms in Paludal). Overall, the pacing/difficulty is perfect for all 4 characters that I got through that tier.


Tier 2 - Levels 30-55

Once again awesome experience, perfect selection of zones and mobs with very good loot distribution for the most part. I really have nothing bad to say about this tier - it was probably my favorite aside from some of the quests once again being annoying (CoM kill dark reavers and fungus drop rate in Karnor's seemed low)


Tier 3 - Levels 55-70

The difficulty curve seems to jump pretty high going from CoM/Karnors/LGuk to any of the 3 zones. I ended up grinding out to about 63ish in Karnors because my pally bot was getting his ass handed to him in full Chaotic with a Mithril 2 hander. It didnt really get better until a kind soul helped me get that sword and board combo from Seb 4C area. Even then I opted to go to other places until probably 67ish.

I did finish up my leveling spree in Sebilis and hit 70 there all the while killing a select few namers - who sadly most of the time dropped the same augs over and over again. It wouldnt be so bad if they didnt take so much effort to kill but most of the time I ended up using a disc or two on the monk and my pally bot barely made it to the end with frequent use of Lay Hands. I did encounter some mobs (Arch Duke in Seb for example) that there's no way I was killing with my duo.

Overall the difficulty curve seems a bit out of whack going from tier 2 to tier 3 with the rewards being far and few in between.

The AAXP seems rather slow going, maybe it's the bonus that they have nowdays on live servers that makes it seem that way but I did not notice a difference in AAXP gain going from killing blues to reds/yellows (while temp-deleveled to 51).

One last thing I wanted to mention in regards to the monk is the severe lack of weapons. From what I've found there's Glowing fists, the rare fabled stick from Emp. Crush, the lore weapon from the COM quest and supposedly scribe drops one in LGuk, that Ive heard was extremely rare. Not much to pick from.

So now I'm at a point where I'm relying on group content to progress further, which doesn't sound bad but I hadn't had any luck with it. I had a friend start playing with me until we figured out that we can only have 1 bot in the group - our plans fell apart as we were relying on a certain class combination and one of us would have to reroll to maintain synergy. I could box but don't really want to, I've played 2-3 characters for years on live and quite honestly am tired of the hectic gameplay that comes along with coordinating multiple characters.

Overall, I had fun and will probably screw around some more but I don't see it lasting much longer.

edit: typo

[Lillu]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yep, indeed, THF isn't a solo server, at least not at the high level part. I suggest you to try the Irreverent - Solo Legit server, you can solo there the whole content. well, when the server is up that is

[bored_dead]

Tier 3 doesn't quite feel like group content to me, more like a good duo (plus a bot) thing so I was thinking about it and came to the conclusion that if the whole 1 bot per group rule didnt exist I'd probably end up boxing a second character. I think it would be just enough for me to be able to get most of the tier 3 content done and actually be ready for the more serious full group stuff.

Having said that, I'm just wondering: has it always been a limit of 1 bot per group and is it likely to stay that way? I figure the way it is right now is to promote more player to player interaction correct?

As for other servers, I've pretty much tried them all - this place, Stormhaven and EZ server are my favorites out of all.

[Ydiss]

Most of what you say is petty much spot on but I see a lot of it as features, not negatives, of the server.

The main feature is the difficulty of this server does actually increase, whereas I've heard other custom servers remain EZ all the way up and totally soloable. I think this is a matter of variety; what would be the point if every server was the same?

Having played EQ live from Kunark to PoP I could never punish myself again with the gruelling, socio-required demands of the game as it was back then; when I found this server I intended to only play through to 50-60 then stop but it quickly lured me in due to the content and because the difficulty was such that I could solo, with a bot as well and enjoy the content very much.

It did get tougher, very much so; thankfully I play with a friend so we found the challenge perfect. We were shocked at the sudden jump in boss difficulty in tier 3 and that's when I realised this server was not just a run-of-the-mill cake-walk, designed as purely a side-show to whatever other game I might choose to play.

This server requires some effort; nowhere near as much effort as live did back when I played it (when I say "effort" read months of hard graft), but it still has its own time requirement. The progression is always tangible, however.

Between the two of us we've managed to just last night kill the ssra high priest in a single group (cleric bot, too ) and we started here just before Christmas, so I think we've made nice casual progress and it's been very rewarding as well.

Granted, there was a point when I realised I'd need to box and luckily I have the PC to handle that. Yes, you do need to group at a certain stage (but certainly never before you hit level 70, 1 player + pally box is sufficient right up to 70 and into Kael armour) but by the time we hit 70 we'd made enough friends to do that, if we needed.

One final point I'd like to make; it's quite common to see in /ooc and elsewhere players complaining about the speed of progression at certain levels, most notably level 51-60. It is slower and it is a tough phase if you wish to use only the custom content.

That's the thing though, it often takes someone to mention that you can actually use non-custom zones in the game to level up if you want and there are several examples of excellent old world zones that let you do this.

As old world zones contain weaker mobs you can ace through the content quickly and level up very fast, with little or no competition from other players. Almost the whole world of Norrath is at your finger-tips so there's no real need to struggle to level at any stage plus you get to enjoy the old content you used to love back on live, only now you're twinked to the eye-balls.

Even at level 70 you can get nice AA in old world zones (although you might as well spend most of your time getting it in icewell/pov for your armour crafting).

All in all your points are valid only I don't see these as bad things, just one reason why this server is unique and, in my opinion, the best of them all.

If you need some help with some of your group requirement quests or zones and I'm online (Yvez/Crizo/Aviendha) shoot me a tell and if we're not busy we're always happy to help other players.

PS about the bot limit, I once felt things would be nice if we could have at least one bot per player (not per group) but as I've progressed I think it's fine as it is with just 1 per group. Would I like to have 2? Yes But it's ok with just 1.