Sometimes it is better to play alone than in a shared party. It only takes one or two players going slowly to mess up the 20% bonus you get from grinding in a shared party. I found that out last night. Also, you want to be in a party with people around your level, and not in a group that are mostly lower than you. I found that out again last night too, but sometimes it's hard to get a party on the ice map.

I make about 5% per hour now on SpearDriver, so you guys whining about how hard it is to level up at the RL or FD levels can just shut it. I don't want to hear it. With a 2x experience event while using xp cards I can turn that 5% in to 20% per hour, so I should get 40% for grinding at event times. With that party bonus, I should get about 48% for my time and work. Last night I only got 38% for the entire time, and I would have been better off playing alone.

I was GL 5 for most of the event and in the party with me were mostly GL1 and 2, and even one CS12 nuker. I can respect that the nuker kills fast, but I get no experience from mobs that are 5 levels below me, while he is going to get quite a bit from my kills. I wont make this mistake again.

Tonight for our 3x event, if I don't have a good party I will simply grind alone.

- SpearDriver

Update: I was in a party for the 3x event, and it was sort of strange. The first 15 minutes of the event were actually 2x, until we complained in the IRC channel. Anyway, there weren't enough people for us to put the party in shared mode so I was basically grinding alone. It was a good grind though, I was almost always fully buffed and I didn't have to meditate at all, so the experience points were pouring in. I made 60% in 2 hours and 20 minutes and it was sure nice of the GM's to extend the event a little longer in order to make up for that first 15 minutes.