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Question - New to boxing many many questions… (1 Viewer)

Joined
Jan 15, 2023
RedCents
120¢
I have played EverQuest since Scars of Velious on and off again and I have always been envious of people who boxed characters. I finally came back to EQ last month and joined a guild that had someone who boxed a 6 man team and they were kind enough to answer basic questions I had. He pointed me in the direction of red guides.com which invariable led me down a rabbit hole. I have watched all the “beginner” videos and even started my 6 man team and I have successfully made it work…more or less. Now onto my questions.
My squad is all very new lvl 10 ish and I have the rudimentary understanding of MQ2 and ini. Files and have even edited some here and there and not experienced anything really negative. I have noticed the CWTN plugins and I’m wondering at what point are these plugins useful? Do I need to do it without them to a much higher lvl for it to function properly? Or can I purchase them, upload them and get proper use out of the plug-in while I’m lvling my entire team? I’m a bit daunted by the editing of the ini files and I’m sure I’m making it far more difficult than it need be but I’m struggling to find any info on “beginning” teams using the plugins. I understand they function best at a higher lvl because the characters simply have more abilities, spells ect but would be useful to use while getting there? I don’t mind not getting the entire functionality out of the plug-in as long as it helps me to reach that point. I feel stupid even asking to be honest, but, I am genuinely interested in this and really want to learn as much as I can. Any tips, tricks, advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Welcome back to EQ and welcome to RG's!

With you saying editing .ini's, I am assuming you are using KissAssist. It is a fine product, and allows for a great degree of customization, however, yes it can be daunting to start with (also requires you to manually update every 5 levels as spells and abilities change). This isnt that terrible, and is an excellent option if you are familiar with a class, or just like to tinker.

The other end of the spectrum is CWTN paid plugins. First off, they work from level 1-120 (if you find a funky bit, there is a robust discussion thread for each one that you can use). The biggest downside is they are not offered for all classes, as they are still being developed. The are easy to use, with mi configurations, most of it done via a friendly GUI. If you are looking for easy of use, they are a amazing product. They are paid on live servers, but FREE on test. My recommendation would be to /testcopy and go give them a spin.

The middle ground is RGmercs. It is included with your level 2 sub, works at all levels, and has a fair bit of customization. This is one of the best options out there, if you just want to try out classes, and are looking for slight customization. I use it on my bard and wizard and am very happy with it.

There are other options, including MuleAssist, Xgen, Entropy, and I am possibly missing a few. KA is very popular, but definitely look around, and ask questions (as you have done) to find out what automation matches what you intend to do.

This is a great friendly, and helpful community, and we have a very active discord if you run into issues that are not covered in a FAQ or cant quite find on the site. Or can drop in just to say hi!

Again, welcome back to EQ and welcome to RG's.
 
Welcome back to eq and welcome to Redguides.
Fingers Hello GIF
 
Happy Pop Tv GIF by One Day At A Time


I had taken a long break, came back and EQ alone had a lot of changes, the walk throughs are nice, not everything is answered, but it's enough to be dangerous LOL... that said, I definitely found that learning and refining the INI taught me the most; experiment here, ask a question here, apply it there, seemed to teach me the most about it... I really enjoyed the older INI websites that walked me through (though I believe some are out of date or whatnot... they still were a really great place to learn a basic knowledge)

KISSASSIST

Still one of my favorites for learning and quick reference, if there's better, I am unaware... another one I liked for / macro commands was

MQ2MOVEUTILS

Just a couple nuggets that help me sort it out... and then again, asking questions of the community here @ RG has been HUGE!

Good Luck and Welcome Back!




Just my two red:rcents.

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Any tips, tricks, advice would be greatly appreciated.
KissAssist is a pretty good middle-of-the-road solution. Customizable on some rails that'll let you run a group pretty well. It is a big tedious when you update spells because of the amount of room there is for errors when you miss a spell update somewhere and you basically won't know unless you notice the behavior doesn't meet your expectation. Great at max level. The KA library is a KEY resource here for getting set up and seeing basic examples for how to set up each class. The KA wiki is also a required browse (at least) to see how to use each setting.

RGMercs is a nice out-of-the-box solution for leveling (I haven't used it, so that's just my view of the on-paper description) that'll get you playing without getting lost in your settings or manually updating spells.

CWTN plugins are practically a necessity because they're faster at executing their job than KA is and everything's set up by two devs who spend a whole lot more time on this than most of us do. They just work well. With so many users, any errors are going to get ironed out where you own KA ini file might be garbage and it would be hard for you to know where you went wrong, depending on your skill level. Since the licenses are annual, you'll have to weight whether you'd want to just level with RGMercs or KA before jumping to CWTN around 100+. CWTN & Sic have basically made the plugins idiot-proof, although many of us are testing those limits for them.
 
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I have played EverQuest since Scars of Velious on and off again and I have always been envious of people who boxed characters. I finally came back to EQ last month and joined a guild that had someone who boxed a 6 man team and they were kind enough to answer basic questions I had. He pointed me in the direction of red guides.com which invariable led me down a rabbit hole. I have watched all the “beginner” videos and even started my 6 man team and I have successfully made it work…more or less. Now onto my questions.
My squad is all very new lvl 10 ish and I have the rudimentary understanding of MQ2 and ini. Files and have even edited some here and there and not experienced anything really negative. I have noticed the CWTN plugins and I’m wondering at what point are these plugins useful? Do I need to do it without them to a much higher lvl for it to function properly? Or can I purchase them, upload them and get proper use out of the plug-in while I’m lvling my entire team? I’m a bit daunted by the editing of the ini files and I’m sure I’m making it far more difficult than it need be but I’m struggling to find any info on “beginning” teams using the plugins. I understand they function best at a higher lvl because the characters simply have more abilities, spells ect but would be useful to use while getting there? I don’t mind not getting the entire functionality out of the plug-in as long as it helps me to reach that point. I feel stupid even asking to be honest, but, I am genuinely interested in this and really want to learn as much as I can. Any tips, tricks, advice would be greatly appreciated.
starting you did good just watching the vids. as for CWTN/SIC pluggins. i own most and use them daily. i have toons i run KA and have tried out the other options here.
Ease of USE you cannot beat the pluggins. they are litterally load and go. you can tweak alot of the settings by your preference as you use them but for pure ease of use they are unbeatable.
i would def say hit Sics vids on youtube and watch them all, they answer just about any question for each of the pluggins
 
Welcome aboard. I found the crowdsource KA INIs to be SUPER helpful initially. I quickly migrated to CWTN, but I still use KA on my bard and haven't edited almost anything from one of the INI's I found on that page. Definitely worth a look and if you can find an ini for your level, it'll save you a ton of time. On the other hand, if you're trying to learn how to do all the coding and customization, that's not going to be super helpful. I was hoping for an out-of-the-box start, which is why I took that route. All the best of luck - the community here is great!
 
Grab the CWTN plugins! If there's not one available for a class you want, kill that toon off (J/K). With the CWTN you will not be spending your time searching for INI's and editing them unless that's your thing. CWTN will tell you which spells to buy as you level. I personally like using a bard in my melee group so I do use KA for him. I do run an enchanter in other groups using CWTN and enjoy that as well. Just have fun and tinker with whatever tickles your fancy. 😁
 
Welcome to the best Rabbit Hole in EQ! Lot's of great advice here, I would also suggest RGMercs as the easiest out-of-the-box leveling option. Then as you get more comfortable with how all of the chars move and function together, you can look at trying different plugins. The CWTN plugins are available to use for free on the test server, so you can always level your crew up to 50 or 70 pretty easily using RGMercs and then test copy them over to the test server so you can try out the Plugins and see how they work before purchasing them.
 
I just started with MQ as well, and have played with KA, RGMerc, and (on test server) CWTN.

The overall review from a noob: Started a fresh 6 box, and was leveling from 1.

Started with KA - played with ini's (loading them, updating, tweaking them as I leveled, etc.). It was good exposure of how the system works, and can build an understanding for long term use. Good flexibility, but can be overwhelming at the start, and keeping the ini files updated on all 6 toons was a chore even when the lower levels didn't need much updating or tweaking since you have no AA's and only 1 or 2 heal spells/buffs/etc.

Mule Assist - short test here as i was trying to play with charming on my enchanter. Very similar to KA, but the conditions seems a bit more robust.

CWTN - played with it on test to give them a whirl before paying. Easy to play with, still need to spend some time to learn how to set it up and work with it, and my overall impression is that for the cost it is unnecessary at the lower levels. KA was more than efficient and didn't cost anything (for leveling I found RGMerc more convenient). Personally, I would feel bound to a specific class if I bought CWTN at level 1 and at lvl 100 I decided to change to another class, etc.

RGMerc - I tested this last, as it seems like an off brand CWTN that is free with less power. I enjoyed the automated updating so there is no need to update ini files for spells or abilities, and overall just start it up and let it do it's thing. There is still some tweaking you can do to suit your play style, but nothing overwheling like KA. So far, it is great while leveling up, but the discussion threads here seem to indicate it has a bit of a platau at the high end.

My consensus - use KA to learn how things work when things are simple and you have 1 heal spell for example vs a ton of situational spells/AA abilities which require special conditions to execute, use RGmerc as you level, and if/when you feel it is necessary start buying into CWTN . At least this is my plan once I get higher level and may want more functionality and performance out of my guys.
 
I will be one of the first to tell you to get CWTN plugins from level 1 if you want to save yourself time. You can easily just copy and paste Kissassist.ini's every 5 levels, but doing that for 6 toons takes time, time that you could be killing mobs. The one exception to this, sorry CTWN I love your plugins, is I would not recommend MQ2Shaman until your shaman is like 65+. Why you ask well because there is no toggle to have him not cast the torpor line of spells. This can however be overcome by blocking the spell on your toons. Torpor is a great mana efficient heal, but the snare and slow effect it puts on you is more annoying than a wipe deep in a dungeon without having a campfire to get back. But definitely don't wait to buy them they are all great.
 
Question - New to boxing many many questions…

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