[Vanguard] Questions on starting again - class, race, group size, starting areas etc.

You guys still playing? I am slowly trudging along. Working on improving my macros along the way. I find the Disciple is probably the most complicated class and hardest to macro. In hindsight I probably should have picked something else, but we'll see.

The past couple of weeks my main toon has had terrible hitching. Every time I pull a mob it hitches, while my other five are just fine. Not really sure what's going on. Running three F2P accounts is OK so far, but I do think it's going to hamper me somewhat. It's annoying doing all those quests and not being able to use any of the gear. I might subscribe to a fourth, but haven't decided.

I finished all the URT and HL quests. Finished Trengal Keep and now at L31 I am starting to work on Wardship armor. Sometimes I feel like I am leveling too fast and missing out on a lot of content.

I was still playing up until a couple of nights ago. I have 3 monitors and I use them in Nvidia Surround mode, some games I play in 3 x landscape and some games 3 x portrait.
Vanguard was the three screens in landscape and SWToR I play in portrait. I just switched back to play some SWToR and Borderlands 2 big screen style.
I'll come back to Vanguard in a bit.

I got to 18 on my 4 some. Things were going quite well and it was lots of fun. I wasn't having too many troubles macroing the Disciple but don't have all the skills you do yet.

I'm still playing and enjoying myself. My first team are now almost 51 and working on RI/ToT/Magi Hold. I started a third team (WAR, BMG, BRD, PSI, RNG, DRU) who are now 16. I've been having a lot of fun soloing a ranger lately too. My guild is called Fara Undir Jordhina. I'm normally on the tank.

The 3 monitor setup must be sweet =). Although I have 3 monitors they are all different brands/sizes and on three separate computers ;)

WRT the Disc, it's not difficult to macro really....it's difficult to do it well and maximize as much potential as you can. At least for me it has been. I wish the macro system was more like WoW's. That made things much easier to accomplish.

I've looked for you a few times Alge, but I don't think two individuals could be any further apart geographically (I live in Ontario, Canada) so I am not sure if I will ever catch you on. Although, back in my younger days my regular EQ group included people from Hawaii and Singapore since I played early into the morning.

Three monitors is great. I previously tried multiboxing with 2 different size monitors and it didn't work as well. I really need a stand though so I can easily flip between portrait and landscape modes.

Hello!

I attempted to Multibox, using IS/ISBoxer with 6 instances and ran into 2 problems:
Artifacting - Solved by turning all instances VSync ON, but this isn't ideal.
UI Flickering - Not resolved.

I'm thinking UI elements are due to either not enough processing power or not enough graphics power.
I am running:
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07 GHz (8 cores, hyperthreaded)
12GB Ram
Win7 64-bit
nVidia GeForce GTX 570 (might be the problem)

In ISBoxer, I have 1 instance at 1600x900 on main monitor (ingame res also 1600-900), and 5 spaced out on second monitor at 533x300 (1600x900 divided by 3) and the ingame res for those is 1600x900.

Can I get away with just upgrading either the Vid Card or CPU? Or do I need a new computer :p

Thank you!

I'm running 6 clients stacked @ 1920x1200. i7 2600K @ 3.4 GHz, 16GB RAM, Win 7 64, Radeon 6990.

I run my main at 30FPS and slaves at 15FPS and get lower frame rates at times. Main is on High Quality, slaves are on the minimum for everything. Make sure shadows and volumetric clouds are off for everyone.

Under Settings, Performance make sure Hardware Occlusion is Off and the next 4 are On.

If you suspect a bottleneck (either CPU or GPU) here is how to find out.

Lokked, I was running 4 characters at 1920x1200. 2 on the lowest settings, one on medium/high and the main on very high. I was getting 30-45FPS.
Vanguard isn't a very well optimised game and I noticed it using quite a lot of CPU at times.

You will be spreading 6 games over 4 physical cores, I think that may be a problem.

My feeling is that the 570 would be way underpowered for that kind of work as well.

Hello guys,

I am thinking about starting a team of 6 in Vanguard (f2p till lvl20 and then I'll decide on subs). Thanks for informative thread, I think I know what my group combo is going be. I have a question on macros - I found this thread http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/in...and-class.138/ and I am curious if it would be possible to adapt this method to priority casting (like sending keys 1,2,3,4,5 on a single press)? Ideally I'd like to have the setup similar to my WoW keymaps, i.e. Combat key will send "assist tank" to slaves, break movement for casters and execute Virtual Combat key (virtualized into specific class combat sequences). Could I just put these reaction chains and spells in priority order on my hotbars and then pressing a combat key would just roll thru them, or it is necessary to use macros with each spell included in it?

Thanks for advice

OK, I am level 9 and about to leave IoD for greener pastures with my team of 6 having figured most of the issues (I went with macro system/click bars video FX and the lot:). One thing I stumbled upon is flying mounts and how to make slaves to follow - they kinda start flying up and away... (that quest on IoD where you need to get few mobs on top of the hill). Any hints how to solve this? In EQ2 fying mounts work fine with follow.

Last time I checked following while flying (or swimming) did not work well. It's either a bug or an implementation issue with following and the z-axis. You could try using /bug but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for a fix. I always include a bard in my groups because of the need to travel by land (or group lev over water). If I do need to fly to get somewhere inaccessible (very rare after IoD) I just shuttle them individually.

Thanks Alge,

I figured as much, and done it one by one. Good to know it is not a common issue after IoD. Harvesting is a joy btw :) - watching all toons swing their hammers in sync while passing players stop and gape :)

Is there a macro you can use to make your slaves pick up/turn in quests? I've been having to shift to each window, and do it manually.

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Originally Posted by Rizamp

Is there a macro you can use to make your slaves pick up/turn in quests? I've been having to shift to each window, and do it manually.

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I haven't played in a while but I am pretty sure this is what I did:
Made a key map that targets the leader's target. Then does a hail for all characters. That should pop up the conversation/quest reward window on all characters. Then I turned on mouse repeat to click through the quest windows as in theory all characters should have the same quests and be at the same point.

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Originally Posted by Alge

Under Settings, Performance make sure Hardware Occlusion is Off and the next 4 are On.

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Does that mean Vsync, triple buffering, character occlusion and use provided shaders should all be on for the slaves? Also, what are you particle slider settings at?

Alge:

Do you find it difficult to box a rogue? Any tips or methods you can impart? I am 6 boxing and want to swap a druid out for a rogue (I am not fond of spellcasters, but want to keep the evac which a rogue has) also running a DRK/SHM/BRD/MON/RAN

Can't check my settings at the moment - will do so later.

No, it isn't particularly difficult to box a rogue because I always run my tank through the mob so everyone else is attacking its back. My highest team with a rogue though is only mid 20s, so not sure how it goes later on. I doubt my rogue macros are particularly good though.

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Originally Posted by Candorel

Does that mean Vsync, triple buffering, character occlusion and use provided shaders should all be on for the slaves?

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Yes, though some sets I have vsync on and some I have it off - haven't noticed any difference.

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Also, what are you particle slider settings at?

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100, 50, 50 ,50, 50
I should probably turn those down on the slaves.

Alge, thanks for the info. Also, from your experience, do you find a bear shaman or a disciple makes a better healer in boxed groups?

Edit: Also, how often do you find yourself using evac while boxing, does it come in handy that much?

I've 6-boxed a bear shaman to 52 with a DK tank - it is a great combo in my experience. I've 3-boxed a discple to 25 or so with a pally tank and had some aggro issues on the disciple. My 6-box team with a disciple and a DK (better AE aggro than the pally) is only level 10, so it's a bit early to tell.

The problem with evac in VG is it can and does leave people behind. I used it a bit when I had 3 evaccers in the group, mostly if I managed to make a huge overpull and saw no way to survive. I think a better option is to have someone in the group who can either FD or escape combat and make sure you have the items that healers make which allows anyone to rez the healer.

My evac problems went away as soon as I spread all my guys out manually. Not always easy to do when you need to actually evac from trouble, but if it's for a convenience thing, then you just need to make sure the toons aren't occupying the same spot.