So there are no camps free...

[Amarok]

You just spent up to 1 hour putting a party together, they've travelled in from all directions (let say to Kazham), you all head out to find a camp, and all are taken.

do you:

1. Adhere to your morals and remember how pissed you were when someone went into competition with your camp while you were chain #5'ing, and say to party "Sorry, there are no free camps and I don't want to compete with parties who were here first" and wait to disband as soon as someone gets off their chocobo.

2. See that half of your party have already got off their chocos and say "what the hell, we need to XP now, its their tough luck" and continue to camp normal mobs as if they were NMs.

3. Realising the party has already been waiting around far too long to get going, still say "We're gonna do better if we find an unusual camp spot in another area altogether, please wait while I browse the web for 10 minutes".

Normally if you compete with an established party, they will start moaning (with some degree of correctness) that they were there first and we are now ruining their chains/xp/hour.

Doesn't seem right to have 1 rule for when you are the established party, but then go and do the same to another party yourself. But we all need to XP while we have 6 ppl who are between loo-breaks/dinner/DCing/dog-walking etc.

I want to be friends with everyone in the game, but how do nice people deal with delemmas like this?

Ama

ps. I know this will have come up before, but lets hear some fresh arguments.

[Ryddr]

Normally, the party leader or any member of the party should take the initiative to /search the desired party area. Then judging by the levels and colors of the names on the list, determine whether or not it is crowded. The fewer people you see in parties and the fewer people you see around your level, the better that area will be for your party to camp in.

[qaitakalnin]

If i am going to lead a party....which i will admit happends once in a blue moon (which by the way is when there is a full moon twice in one month), I always check to see how many people of the lvl range are already in the zone i want to go to. If there seems to be to many then i start looking for alternate locations before i even start gathering (rather before i start telling people where to meet). But that may just be me.

[Karinya]

4. Use /sea (location) to see how crowded the area is BEFORE you go there. Then apply solution #3. This is why higher level parties form in town.

5. Have a list of several possible spots in mind before forming a party. (This is the leader's responsibility IMO.) Then apply solution #4 and #3 (but without the wait/temp logging out, because you already know where else you can go besides Yhoator/Garlaige/CN/whatever).


Note that "solution" number 2 makes your exp *and* their exp suck. So why is it so f*ing popular??

[Amarok]

3 answers with roughly the same solution, I feel I've been missing out on this little trick.

I wasn't the leader of the party I was in yesterday, but I've only just learned that you can search a specific area without having to be in that area yourself, so next time I'll do just that. I can see that being a great tool. I've only been using it recently to get the total number of people in Al Zahbi before a beseiged to see if its even worth trying to zone in.

Thank you for giving me a way out, because even if the leader hasn't done this, I can point out they should have before I have to force them to re-consider competing.

[Yuanlung]

In areas with multiple, but far part camps, such as Ro'maeve or the shrine of Ru'Avitau, more conciderate party leaders would even put up a search comment wit their current location in it.

This helps other party leaders to avoid a conflict if they are smart enough.

[Ellipses]

I've gotten in the habit of searching the areas I know about even when I'm not party leader. I've had several party leaders who only knew about one place, and didn't know what to do when it was full, so I like to offer suggestions.

[Jugil]

Finding a different area to level in is always easy enough to do.

let say to Kazham

a.) Yuhtunga : level 24-27ish common leveling grounds.

Alt1: Batallia : Tigers and Orcs : (Note, where parties went before RoZ).
Alt2: Carpenters Landing : Tigers, Traps, Pugs
Alt3: Korroloka : Crabs

b.) Yhoator : level 28-30ish common leveling grounds.

Alt1: Yuhtunga : Makara and Sahagan : close to SSG zone
Alt2: Bibiki Bay : Dhamels, Bunnies, Ravens, and Goblins
Alt3: SSG : Sahagin and Bats : Jungle entrance

For a given level, there is always at least 2-3 options for a camp (some even better because you don't have to wait for pops).



Check the Links Sticky in the main forum

Edit: Spelling, grammar, and provided the link.

[Feba]

4. Don't go to overcrowded leveling zones.

[Icemage]

If all zones you would like to XP in are at or above capacity, the smart thing to do is not to go XP if you can't find an alternate location. You'll be miserable when you arrive since there won't be much to kill, and you'll make everyone else there miserable too.


Icemage

[Yuanlung]

Sometimes it helps to send polite tells to the party leaders already in those campes and ask if they are leaving soon.


In a few instances, I was informed by the party leader that they are disbanding soon and we can have their camp afterwards.

[Danicus]

I plan to XP in this manner:

1. Review this thread and this section and pick a spot (if you don't already have one in mind).
2. Have a plan B to exp in since things can change quickly in your plan A spot.
3. Form your PT.
4. Do a /sea ##-## <area you want> - count people and PT leaders and check their comments as some PT leaders (including myself) put our camp spots in our search comments for the more intuitive players on the server. Or you could just send a /tell to the PT leaders to see where they are and how much longer they think they'll be.
5. If it's crowded, go to plan B (see #2).
6. If all else fails, review #1 again to find another spot.

Also, it opens your options up if you do a /sea all ##-## for your level range at random times throughout your time online, and you get to see who's XPing in different areas. There's areas out there where alot of people haven't even heard of that give great XP.

As for dealing with the situation you've presented in your OP. The best you can do is move as far away from the closest PT as possible and eek out what XP you can. If you're out of sight of the other PT, they usually pay less attention to you, regardless of whether you're outpulling them or not.

[Aeni]

Pretty much what everyone has already posted.

Most party leaders don't take responsibilities for their actions and instead will belive that the members' desire for exp in their party will override any objections of where and how they set their exp camp up.

I've been in one exp party where we've disbanded when we formed up and not yet left town. That was because as we took a long time to form up, all of the destinations our leader had in mind, taking into account that not everyone in the party had access to all areas of the world, were filled up as we formed up. Realizing this, he apologized for wasting our time and wished us the best and promptly disbanded. This is the most unpopular of choices, yet it is also the most correct (Similar to what Icemage suggested, except in this case, it's pretty much what most parties do encounter once or twice a week)

Again, the leader is the one who's responsible. You took the initiative to form up, don't just do it because you are a level 68 DRG and haven't had an invite for nearly 6 mos. Desperation and angst over your luck should not be used to make miserable other players. Remember, there are other people who could do something better with their time. Don't just think about how your time is wasted when you got at least 5 other people to think about and another 6 more that you're going to camp on.

[silentsteel]

I'm a whm, and tend to get random pt invites when I'm busy. . . but I like to make my pt's instead of random ones so I can kinda be in charge and so I know better where & what is going on.

[Myaku]

Back in the day on EQ you could run into a zone and /shout CAMP CHECK, and PT leaders would reply "<location> taken" or "We're at <location>". It was nice, and really easy to find out if an area was full. I often wish I could do that in FFXI.