Advantages and disadvantages of lvling in a large group (4players)

[willemh]

Me and 3 friends are planning on playing very hardcore at the start of legion (all took a week off). 2 of us practiced lvling on the beta a lot and know exactly where to go and what to do. Now the question is if it would be faster to split in 2 groups of 2 or to just level as a 4-man party. There is very little information about xp-gains in groups. But what I could find is that in 4-player parties you get 30% more experience from monsters (but obviously the total xp is divided by 4 instead of 2). So you get 35% less experience from monsters in a 4-player party, but since monsters don't scale you obviously kill them a lot quicker as well so i would feel that it shouldn't be any slower (or maybe even faster).

In my experience I see many players lvling solo or as a 2-player group but lvling in larger groups is far more rare, that's why I wonder if I'm missing any large disadvantages (or advantages) of lvling in a larger group of 4 players. To make the story complete our setup would be blood dk, 2x fire mage and 1x druid (can either use his dps offspec or healer mainspec for lvling).

[Deleted]

In large group you might get stuck at "collect X of Y" quests because there won't be enough quest items for everyone.

[Deleted]

One of the disadvantages (and one reason you don't see many groups like that), is coordination. It is far easier for one or two people to take a food/toilet/telephone break and "be RIGHT back". In larger groups you often get slowed down by one person juuuust having to do this or that and it then takes longer than expected, so the remaining people either carry on too far and have to wait for someone to catch up, or they just sit and wait. And wait. Aaaaand wait.... And just before that person comes back, someone else needs to do something.

In a hardcore group, sure, you can avoid problems like that. But outside of the new-expansion rush, not many people bother with hardcore leveling. It's easier to just go solo or duo.

[Deleted]

Other than what binki said, there shouldnt be any major disadvantages. EXP mostly comes from quests, objective things + the dungeon quests. Mob exp shouldnt be a problem if you pull the entire questing zone :P

[Lochton]

In large group you might get stuck at "collect X of Y" quests because there won't be enough quest items for everyone.

It has changed on a lot of quests, now quest items are mostly available for all - except for older ones. The only downside for leveling in a group is the kill XP, even for rares.

[willemh]

One of the disadvantages (and one reason you don't see many groups like that), is coordination. It is far easier for one or two people to take a food/toilet/telephone break and "be RIGHT back". In larger groups you often get slowed down by one person juuuust having to do this or that and it then takes longer than expected, so the remaining people either carry on too far and have to wait for someone to catch up, or they just sit and wait. And wait. Aaaaand wait.... And just before that person comes back, someone else needs to do something.

In a hardcore group, sure, you can avoid problems like that. But outside of the new-expansion rush, not many people bother with hardcore leveling. It's easier to just go solo or duo.

Ye we certainly wont have any issues with this. I've been server first 85 and 90, we all know what it takes and planned free time. We're all used to 'marathons' of this sort in previous expansions and for diablo/path of exile seasons etc.

Guess we'll do one more practice run with the 4 of us together but I think it should work out then