Grimix said:oneADseven said:XP chains were so much better than just a scaling freebie. Brought the idea up months ago and it was amazing to see how many people were vehemently against them. If only they had been used in EQ, eh? XP chains reward teamwork, skill, coordination, having a full group (the mechanic literally discouraged boxing) ... but people were calling it a form of hand holding, or an arbitrary system that takes your attention away from the world, or a waste of time, easy mode, blah blah blah. It's too bad we won't see them in Pantheon ... they would solve a lot of the issues people bring up on here.
I remeber xp chains, it was extremely hard to get a solid chain going after the 5th kill. You not only needed a well balanced party, you also need atentive players who were also well geared for their level and had good buffs. With all that you needed very good coordination along with a camp that could actually support killing mobs at such a fast pace...I miss those days
As do I. Take a looksie at this thread to see how others feel about xp chains: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/6403/xp-bonus-chains
I am not a fan of "bonuses" just based on how many people you group with. It sounds like a freebie to me. Utilizing a system that actually rewards skill/coordination/composition/awareness on the other hand ... yeah, that sounds great for a hardcore game that emphasizes risk vs reward. If we're going to see a bonus for people grouping, how would that affect raiding? Can I get a group of 40 players and go XP off of trash mobs in a raid zone to earn the maximum XP bonus? I say this sarcastically, but if we're using the logic of rewarding people with a scaling bonus based on how many people they group up with ... why not?
Grimix said:I would agree that rewarding people just to fill out the party seems like a lazy solution to make parties more viable than solo. But lets not get to far off topic!!!
I agree, remove all artifical blockers or experience modifiers for extra grouping or soloing. The benefit of a great group is its speed to killing mobs and moving through content. You do not need bonuses to do this. As the increased efficiency will net more experience already.
oneADseven said:Riahuf22 said:Porygon said:Riahuf22 said:SNIP
Dude, i think you need to take a step back and consider what youre saying. Youre obviously very passionate about this. If you do not have an incentive to group, you end up with people that will determine how much exp they get vs how fast they kill and just find the smallest number of people possible. If all they need is 1 healer 1 tank and 1 dps and they can effectively kill at the same speed (exp per hour) as a 6 man group, you wont see any 6 man groups. The reason people fill out groups is because it reduces the danger and gives a bonus. I agree, that if a mob is worth 6000 exp, that a solo player should receive the full amount... but a group should receive 6000/(number of players)*(group modifier for # of players).
What you are asking for, is essentially going to completely erase what the goal of Pantheon is (to make a GROUP centric game).
Also, PLing is one of the many things people do to "make money". Its also things people do to help a friend catch up, or to help someone switch mains. Or, it could be used by someone who has no interest in the game from 1-max level and is only interested in raiding/playing at max. Removing the way to PL people is essentially saying "what YOU care about doesnt matter, all that matters is you cant help your friends".
People will always find a way to exploit the game to RMT, you shouldnt remove one whole aspect of MMOs because of that.
Youmight be right, but in the stream with a full grp they weren't killing all that fast and was still wiping quite often as we saw as well, so i don't see getting full groups a problem, plus its safety in numbers, the more people in your grp the afer your suppose to feel, especially if your deep down into the dngeon, i wouldnt want to have 3 people down there, now in a non dungeon situation you might be right, but that is there choice but i can see in dungeon that a full group would almost be a must. this is of course just my opinion.
And as for the plvling you can give him buffs and heal out of combat and such or make a charter and lvl with him, but to simply plvl him and make him not understand the game from a good exp and be a lazy player and not learn his role, is more harmful than it does good.
The characters used in the streams didn't have the blood/sweat/tears put into their progression like real ones do. There is still a ton of work to do in regards to itemization, abilities/spells and their rotations, etc ... and that's not even touching on actual NPC stat balance. In one of the streams it may have seemed like it would be impossible to kill 2 ghurkas at the same time ... okay ... in what context? It's not like the group was buffed to the point where they wanted to show off super characters. It seemed like they wanted to show hard fought battles with plenty of death, so I would assume those characters were pretty weak, generally speaking. If I had to take a guess, I would venture to say that there will be level appropriate duos or trios that are capable of clearing that same area on live even though it seemed like a full group was struggling.
They said they were approiately geared for the dungeon, and honestly if it isnt close to be that hard, than that would be a bit of a disappointment, plus rotations and everything is nice, but all in all the challenge in surviving still needs to be there.
My apologies. I rewatched and Cohh did indeed ask if they were level appropriate, with good gear, etc. I do think the intention is for the Ghurkas to indeed hit like a truck, but I still wouldn't rule it out that players close to the same level will be able to trio those at some point. Having good gear or being level appropriate doesen't really dig into horizontal progression, plus there are some others things to consider. How does Paladin/Shaman/Enchanter sound for that fight? How about when the enchanter charms a ghurka? Now you have a super efficient trio ... shaman has the slows, paladin has some extra self healing/sustain, and the enchanter can help with buffing/debuffing and possibly controlling a mob that hits like a truck.
Some thoughts:
- I didn't really get to play FFXI in its heydey but my understanding of how XP chains work is that they *could*, potentially, be a viable substitute for a grouping bonus. I don't believe one way is inherently better or worse - it's just two different methods of accomplishing the same general goal, and how "good" they are lies in tuning of a LOT of things.
- We really do ourselves a disservice when we oversimplify this. XP rate in groups is NOT just about xp per kill, but it also includes kill rate - which in turn has to factor in pull time, combat time, and downtime in between fights. In EQ, the most efficient XP camps were the ones where you were chain pulling - where the puller was bringing you a new mob to kill right as you were finishing the last one. Downtime, combat time, and pull time were all minimized to keep the XP flowing in as fast as possible. Group composition and individual player gearing were huge factors here - having an enchanter to drop Clarity on your casters would cut your downtime requirements immensely. And that was just EQ. FFXI had the same sort of considerations for its xp chains. In EQ2, if you were destroying things for XP (which didn't really happen outside of powerleveling, because EQ2 was so quest heavy), the way to do it was ALL about gathering massive crowds of enemies and AoEing them down. My point here is that it's more than just the XP numbers which matter.
- We *also* need to keep in mind that just because a number seems big doesn't mean it amounts to much. In my example above I was using numbers in the 10,000-20,000 range for experience values because they made the math easy to show. 20,000 XP might seem like a lot. But if you need 4 million XP to hit the next level, it is less than 1%. It's all relative. Remember that computers can process both very big, and very small numbers. Since *none* of us know what the XP cost to level is or will be in Pantheon, we shouldn't make assumptions here. Regardless of what system is chosen or how it works, progression can be tuned to be slow OR fast.
- A lot of people are arguing against having a group bonus of any kind because they don't feel like it should be necessary, and other things should make up for that. I would feel the exact same way except I have years of prior experience with MMOs that tell me that the vast majority of players are always going to look for the "most efficient" way to level. If that's a group, they'll group. If that's solo, they'll solo. If it's sitting on a zone wall killing blues and greens because they die faster than the whites and yellows, that's what they'll do. This isn't my opinion just based on one game, but based on dozens of level-based games over the past 20 years. If you don't have both positive reinforcement (bonuses) for grouping and negative reinforcement (limitations) for soloing, 99% of players will simply solo for experience because that way they won't have to take time out to interact with other players. Even in a game that's supposed to be about grouping. Iksar linked the dev statements about grouping bonuses from EQ above - those statements are just as valid now as they were back in 2000 and 2002. Human behavior in MMOs has not really radically changed in the past 20 years - if anything, the players of today are MORE efficiency-driven and LESS patient than they were back then, because games have catered to and reinforced those attitudes.
Sorry if any strong statements rub anyone the wrong way, but I feel like this thread has a bit of a forest/trees problem going on sometimes. And I'm probably cranky due to my advanced gamer age :P
I'd like to touch on one part of your post Neph
"I would feel the exact same way except I have years of prior experience with MMOs that tell me that the vast majority of players are always going to look for the "most efficient" way to level. If that's a group, they'll group. If that's solo, they'll solo. If it's sitting on a zone wall killing blues and greens because they die faster than the whites and yellows, that's what they'll do. This isn't my opinion just based on one game, but based on dozens of level-based games over the past 20 years. If you don't have both positive reinforcement (bonuses) for grouping and negative reinforcement (limitations) for soloing, 99% of players will simply solo for experience because that way they won't have to take time out to interact with other players."
I 100% agree with everything you are saying here, and that's why I felt so strongly about XP chains. I think it would be wonderful if the most efficient way to level was based on a system that both demands/rewards teamwork, skill, coordination, awareness, pulling ability, mana management, positioning, so on and so on. It's a game inside of a game in some ways and I understand that a lot of people don't like how that sounds, but all the game really comes down to is trying to be a better player in a group environment. XP Chains only worked on even con mobs or higher which meant that the baseline for qualifying for this bonus meant the mobs you were fighting couldn't be lower level than anybody in your group. Go the extra distance and get rewarded ... it wasn't easy, and was the biggest reason why I never ran into a boxed player in any of my groups. The game was too hard to do that ... it required too much "efficiency" if you wanted to level at the optimal speed. Boxed accounts would be spotted in a heartbeat and quickly replaced with someone that could commit their full attention.
When I think of the word bonus, it has two distinct meanings. One is the unexpected bonus ... it kinda comes out of nowhere and you feel really lucky/fortunate to get it. The other kind is something you earn, or if you want the Merriam Webster version: "an amount of money added to wages on a seasonal basis, especially as a reward for good performance." If there is a need for the "unexpected bonus" that would be a sad state of affairs. If there is a need for a bonus that rewards good performance, that sounds great. All that said, I would be okay with a baseline scaling bonus but rather than scaling it off of the amount of people in your group, base it on the level of the mob relative to each member in your party, and make it so it only works on even-con or higher mobs. I know some people have great memories of using AoE destruction to farm huge groups of lower level mobs (I have the same memories I just wouldn't qualify them as great because it felt way too easy) as the most efficient form of XP ... I have great memories of a leveling curve where the most challenging content was the most rewarding, and it felt way more satisfying. I'm not saying either way is right or wrong ... it's just my personal preference that players are encouraged to push the limits instead of trying to game the XP system, especially when they're willing to settle for boredom for the sake of efficiency in the process.
Hello everyone. On topic of soloing, we all are going to at some point solo in game. Be it waiting to find a group, friend(s) logging on, or working on skills/crafting. Now for soloing throughout the game, that will be very very difficult. One may do it with lower tier/level mobs and npcs. Even with decked out gear, it will be difficult to solo most bosses if any (unless one finds a weakness in pathing/exploit). Am looking forward to grouping but will know for fact that I wont be able to always find a group (time being the case here, timezone, sleep/work/family). Will probably do some crafting, harvesting, gathering, fishing, while waiting to find a group, or even solo lower tier/level mobs/npcs while people log on (some will already be in a group, while others wait for certain people to group). Truely if this game is for grouping, community interaction, a single player should find it very difficult to solo boss(es) if any. Some people will try to solo regular and elite mobs/npc that are con white (same level) or con yellow (few level higher) it will take a lot longer, then if one where to group.
Demostorm said:Grimix said:I would agree that rewarding people just to fill out the party seems like a lazy solution to make parties more viable than solo. But lets not get to far off topic!!!
I agree, remove all artifical blockers or experience modifiers for extra grouping or soloing. The benefit of a great group is its speed to killing mobs and moving through content. You do not need bonuses to do this. As the increased efficiency will net more experience already.
That's why we are on this topic. EQ had very small bonuses at the start (+10% group experience for a full party) yet even when they boosted it to +20% it still wasn't enough to curb soloing being better. If it takes a group 1.5 minutes to kill a mob and that exp is split 6 ways then it takes them 9 minutes (assuming back to back chain pulls and no rest) to get the same experience as someone soloing 1 mob. I can't imagine it will take anyone 9+ minutes to solo one mob. So yes, groups kill faster but they also have to kill 6x as much.
The grouping bonus tends to be what makes grouping more enticing, not only that it serves to encourage full groups. Otherwise you find people realizing that having groups of 3 or 4 or 5 is far more efficient than filling out a group and having to split all that exp up.
Several posters seem to be ignoring the basic rule of incentives here: If soloing is a more effective means of gaining experience or coin/loot than grouping, then many people will solo (or duo or trio) instead of filling full groups. That is against a core design philosophy of this game. Even the administrators of EQ1 figured this out after a short while, as Iksar has reminded us. There are only two ways to make sure that a good group will always beat a solo player in experience and coin/loot: (1) make it impossible to solo effectively for any class, which does not seem to be a popular approach here, or (2) give a bonus for grouping, such as through an experience modifier or experience chains.
The folks who say that grouping is itself an advantage are missing the point. This will all come down to the numbers. If soloing is more efficient, people will solo, duo, or trio, and they will either refuse to join your group or exclude you from their group. This creates animosity. Sometimes (I've heard from a friend) this even leads to the soloing folks getting repeatedly trained... :)
Of course, everything comes down to numbers. I just must not have experienced this era where soloing was as good or better xp compared to a solid group.
At the same time, EQ mobs are really stupid so this extremely low level of combat complexity may have contributed. We can incentivize grouping through experience bonuses, or increase combat complexity to the point that it doesn't matter.
Look at it this way. If a raid geared player is able to solo something, it's unlikely that what they're soloing anything they would be inclined to get a group for, anyway. The only exceptions of this I can really think of are things like Sorcerors solo kiting KDQ for xp/souls, which became the staple method of powerleveling alts until numerous abilities got the nerf bat that allowed it to happen.
In general, most relevant content in Vanguard was barely soloable or not soloable at all. What was soloable, nobody would have sought a group for anyway.
oneADseven said:I'd like to touch on one part of your post Neph
"I would feel the exact same way except I have years of prior experience with MMOs that tell me that the vast majority of players are always going to look for the "most efficient" way to level. If that's a group, they'll group. If that's solo, they'll solo. If it's sitting on a zone wall killing blues and greens because they die faster than the whites and yellows, that's what they'll do. This isn't my opinion just based on one game, but based on dozens of level-based games over the past 20 years. If you don't have both positive reinforcement (bonuses) for grouping and negative reinforcement (limitations) for soloing, 99% of players will simply solo for experience because that way they won't have to take time out to interact with other players."
I 100% agree with everything you are saying here, and that's why I felt so strongly about XP chains. I think it would be wonderful if the most efficient way to level was based on a system that both demands/rewards teamwork, skill, coordination, awareness, pulling ability, mana management, positioning, so on and so on. It's a game inside of a game in some ways and I understand that a lot of people don't like how that sounds, but all the game really comes down to is trying to be a better player in a group environment. XP Chains only worked on even con mobs or higher which meant that the baseline for qualifying for this bonus meant the mobs you were fighting couldn't be lower level than anybody in your group. Go the extra distance and get rewarded ... it wasn't easy, and was the biggest reason why I never ran into a boxed player in any of my groups. The game was too hard to do that ... it required too much "efficiency" if you wanted to level at the optimal speed. Boxed accounts would be spotted in a heartbeat and quickly replaced with someone that could commit their full attention.
When I think of the word bonus, it has two distinct meanings. One is the unexpected bonus ... it kinda comes out of nowhere and you feel really lucky/fortunate to get it. The other kind is something you earn, or if you want the Merriam Webster version: "an amount of money added to wages on a seasonal basis, especially as a reward for good performance." If there is a need for the "unexpected bonus" that would be a sad state of affairs. If there is a need for a bonus that rewards good performance, that sounds great. All that said, I would be okay with a baseline scaling bonus but rather than scaling it off of the amount of people in your group, base it on the level of the mob relative to each member in your party, and make it so it only works on even-con or higher mobs. I know some people have great memories of using AoE destruction to farm huge groups of lower level mobs (I have the same memories I just wouldn't qualify them as great because it felt way too easy) as the most efficient form of XP ... I have great memories of a leveling curve where the most challenging content was the most rewarding, and it felt way more satisfying. I'm not saying either way is right or wrong ... it's just my personal preference that players are encouraged to push the limits instead of trying to game the XP system, especially when they're willing to settle for boredom for the sake of efficiency in the process.
Totally agree. It's also important to note that these chains didnt grant an obnoxious an obnoxious exp bonus, if I recall the bonus was only a couple hundred(and I'm probabaly being generous) over what the mob orginional drop. There was also a finite amount the bonus would grant you before you were just maintaining the chain to not lose it.
The mechanism by which grouping is made ...efficient .... doesn't really matter. It can be experience chains, it can be outright bonuses to experience earned while in a group, it can be getting more than a straight percentage share of mob kill experience (if a group of 6 kills a mob everyone gets 1/3 the experience they would get if they were solo and killed the mob).
Speaking as someone that frequently urges that soloing be convenient and rewarding even in a group-based game, it is critically important that grouping be a better way to get gear and earn experience. Solo play should be something to do when you don't have time to group or have too many interruptions or just feel anti-social. It shouldn't ever be the quick and convenient way to gain levels.
Gnog said:The folks who say that grouping is itself an advantage are missing the point. This will all come down to the numbers. If soloing is more efficient, people will solo, duo, or trio, and they will either refuse to join your group or exclude you from their group. This creates animosity. Sometimes (I've heard from a friend) this even leads to the soloing folks getting repeatedly trained... :)
It's not missing the point - it's not being in full agreement. I 100% agree that if soloing is more efficient that people will choose to solo; however, outside of a few classes in the right zones (necro, druid), an untwinked player in EQ wasn't leveling quicker than a group. And, that's a completely different off-topic discussion altogether - I've discussed how to allow twinking but not allow gamebreaking items like the Fungi tunic to allow soloing to be more efficient in other threads.
And, some of the most "fun" groups to me in EQ were the 3-4 man groups that were extremely skilled taking on content meant for full groups - why shouldn't those players receive greater rewards for more risk?
The difficulty of the content (and hopefully risk of a harsh death penalty) with reward of exp/loot should be the incentive to make people group, if it's simply an experience bump that attempts to force people to group but players can still solo, as you say - players will solo, and I'd argue they would even if the experience isn't as good.
Soling is NOT as efficient as grouping. It never has been unless there was a poorly designed encounter - in my experiences those encounters are discovered and removed/nerfed.
This whole idea that some players insist that a person MUST group is insane. No one should EVER tell a player what he MUST do or must not do. That in itself is poor design. If someone want's to solo - let them. Just make it way less beneficial than grouping.
It is my own personal beliefe that soloing should never be as rewarding as grouping. But I also believe that sometimes folks just wanna be alone and be able to enjoy themselves. There is no wrong answer.
If we all agree that grouping is already considerably more rewarding than soloing then why would there need to be ANY kind of bonus for grouping? The reward is the act of grouping itself. You are FAR less likely to suffer from death penalties than a soloist. But no one seems to want to count that. You are FAR faster in kills which means 2 things: You get more XP faster and you get more in-game rewards (loot) faster.
I think the issue here is the number of players who envision a lvl 50 player running into a much lower level dungeon and cherry-picking the named to get loot etc. for alts or for sale. I hate this too. In fact I hate it so much that I often find myself doing the same thing. So clearly we need to do soemthing about that. I think automatic level adjustments of the targets themselves should be a thing. The moment that lvl 50 tries to charry-pick everything in the zone suddenly shifts to lvl 50 - for that player only. Make them work for it. I think this would slow down people trying to by-pass content to take the named mobs groups are actually working toward.
There seems to be a lot of folks that HATE soloers. I have even seen someone propose PENALTIES for soloers. WTH? I don't hate any play-style at all. If raiding is too much like work, then i won't raid. That doesn't mean I want no resources associated with raiding. I hope the raids are awesome and most importantly FUN. If we go by what some folks are talking about here then why is it no one is complaining about the level of XP gain for raiders vs groupers?
Raidan said:Gnog said:The folks who say that grouping is itself an advantage are missing the point. This will all come down to the numbers. If soloing is more efficient, people will solo, duo, or trio, and they will either refuse to join your group or exclude you from their group. This creates animosity. Sometimes (I've heard from a friend) this even leads to the soloing folks getting repeatedly trained... :)
It's not missing the point - it's not being in full agreement. I 100% agree that if soloing is more efficient that people will choose to solo; however, outside of a few classes in the right zones (necro, druid), an untwinked player in EQ wasn't leveling quicker than a group. And, that's a completely different off-topic discussion altogether - I've discussed how to allow twinking but not allow gamebreaking items like the Fungi tunic to allow soloing to be more efficient in other threads.
And, some of the most "fun" groups to me in EQ were the 3-4 man groups that were extremely skilled taking on content meant for full groups - why shouldn't those players receive greater rewards for more risk?
The difficulty of the content (and hopefully risk of a harsh death penalty) with reward of exp/loot should be the incentive to make people group, if it's simply an experience bump that attempts to force people to group but players can still solo, as you say - players will solo, and I'd argue they would even if the experience isn't as good.
I solo'd quite a bit in EQ because there was a lot of time that I had free to play, but not really group because I didn't want to take myself so much "out of the room" at home as it were. That is, it's one thing to play the game, it's another thing to have playing the game ALWAYS amount to shutting out everything in the house because you were part of a group in game.
I always knew that the EXP reward was much less - BUT - it was enjoyable, challenging (some times more than others), and I was playing (as opposed to simply not playing because I was not in a group)
Nephretiti said:Soling is NOT as efficient as grouping. It never has been unless there was a poorly designed encounter - in my experiences those encounters are discovered and removed/nerfed.
This whole idea that some players insist that a person MUST group is insane. No one should EVER tell a player what he MUST do or must not do. That in itself is poor design. If someone want's to solo - let them. Just make it way less beneficial than grouping.
It is my own personal beliefe that soloing should never be as rewarding as grouping. But I also believe that sometimes folks just wanna be alone and be able to enjoy themselves. There is no wrong answer.
If we all agree that grouping is already considerably more rewarding than soloing then why would there need to be ANY kind of bonus for grouping? The reward is the act of grouping itself. You are FAR less likely to suffer from death penalties than a soloist. But no one seems to want to count that. You are FAR faster in kills which means 2 things: You get more XP faster and you get more in-game rewards (loot) faster.
I think the issue here is the number of players who envision a lvl 50 player running into a much lower level dungeon and cherry-picking the named to get loot etc. for alts or for sale. I hate this too. In fact I hate it so much that I often find myself doing the same thing. So clearly we need to do soemthing about that. I think automatic level adjustments of the targets themselves should be a thing. The moment that lvl 50 tries to charry-pick everything in the zone suddenly shifts to lvl 50 - for that player only. Make them work for it. I think this would slow down people trying to by-pass content to take the named mobs groups are actually working toward.
There seems to be a lot of folks that HATE soloers. I have even seen someone propose PENALTIES for soloers. WTH? I don't hate any play-style at all. If raiding is too much like work, then i won't raid. That doesn't mean I want no resources associated with raiding. I hope the raids are awesome and most importantly FUN. If we go by what some folks are talking about here then why is it no one is complaining about the level of XP gain for raiders vs groupers?
Touching on a couple points here.
"If we all agree that grouping is already considerably more rewarding than soloing then why would there need to be ANY kind of bonus for grouping? The reward is the act of grouping itself. You are FAR less likely to suffer from death penalties than a soloist. But no one seems to want to count that. You are FAR faster in kills which means 2 things: You get more XP faster and you get more in-game rewards (loot) faster."
We don't all agree on that. Players will need to figure that out once we get into the world, and a lot comes down to how efficiently a solo player can navigate. If a necromancer or enchanter can invis through a zone and then cherry pick names, they will. If a monk can flop their way through a zone, bypassing all of the trash to cherry pick names, they will. Just because groups kill things faster doesen't mean they are automatically getting better XP. If a group of 5 players can set up camp, clear an area and have downtime before respawns, what's the point of adding a 6'th player? It would ultimately lead to less XP and less loot. Saying that you are far less to suffer from death penalties also isn't true. How many times have you died in a group due to another player? A situation where you were counting on them to do their job, that they failed, but you were the one eating dirt because of it?
Solo players control their own destiny and in some ways have "less risk" than grouping, depending on the skill of the player. This is because they have absolute control over what they engage and what decisions are made. I farmed Karnors Castle for months in EQ2 without ever dying. I was able to kill every name in the zone, solo, and do it more efficiently than any group could ever dream of doing. There was zero purpose to bringing anybody else along because they would just slow me down, put me at risk of potentially bad things happening because of their decisions, and be an extra body to share loot with. There should absolutely be some sort of mechanic in-game that incentivizes group play. It's true that there are intrinsic bonuses to grouping ... but there are also intrinsic bonuses to soloing. In my experience, grouping has always been better for XP, but soloing was the best for farming.
"If we go by what some folks are talking about here then why is it no one is complaining about the level of XP gain for raiders vs groupers?"
I agree, and asked the same question earlier in the thread. I always thought it would be kind of cool to be able to raid for XP ... the closest I have ever seen to this was in WoW where you could que up for Alterac Valley. It was a PVP match, but it was mixed with some PVE raiding. This obviously isn't feasible unless you have raid zones for multiple tiers which usually doesen't happen. I have seen raid mobs sprinkled into each of the tiers here and there, but never an open world zone dedicated to raiding that wasn't designed for "max-level" at the time of it's implementation. In any event, I stand by what I said in one of my previous posts. I would support an XP bonus if it's based around the idea of merit. I thought XP chains were the perfect solution, but most people don't have experience with that mechanic and unfortunately can't relate to how well it worked. Instead, maybe it's better if there is a scaling bonus applied that is based on the level of the mobs you are fighting, relative to each person in your group. If you are fighting a mob that is orange to 3 people and yellow to the other 3, it would give a higher bonus than a different mob who was yellow to all 6.
"I think the issue here is the number of players who envision a lvl 50 player running into a much lower level dungeon and cherry-picking the named to get loot etc. for alts or for sale. I hate this too. In fact I hate it so much that I often find myself doing the same thing. So clearly we need to do soemthing about that. I think automatic level adjustments of the targets themselves should be a thing. The moment that lvl 50 tries to charry-pick everything in the zone suddenly shifts to lvl 50 - for that player only. Make them work for it. I think this would slow down people trying to by-pass content to take the named mobs groups are actually working toward."
Definitely a big issue, but it's already been stated that mobs won't adjust their levels to those who engage them. That kind of mechanic doesen't really work in an open world game. The most common practice I have seen used to combat this issue is the trivial loot policy. If a mob cons grey to you, it doesen't drop loot. This prevents max level players from farming low level content at the expense of appropriate level adventurers in the area. Unfortunately, when you allow mentoring, it makes it possible to circumvent this policy. Players can run around at max level and either easily kill everything that poses a threat, or possibly avoid it altogether (in some games grey mobs won't even attack you at all.) Then when they get to a name, they mentor down to their lowbie account (often boxed) to kill the name. As soon as it's dead, unmentor, run to the next name.
Nephretiti said:There seems to be a lot of folks that HATE soloers. I have even seen someone propose PENALTIES for soloers. WTH? I don't hate any play-style at all. If raiding is too much like work, then i won't raid. That doesn't mean I want no resources associated with raiding. I hope the raids are awesome and most importantly FUN. If we go by what some folks are talking about here then why is it no one is complaining about the level of XP gain for raiders vs groupers?
I don't hate soloing at all, nor do I hate players who want to try to do that, so I hope I'm not coming across that way! But I feel (strongly, I suppose), that players won't group unless the game pushes them to do so - because, cynically, I feel like the vast majority of MMO players are disinclined to socialize with others. I'll give you an example. In SWTOR, which is a level-based game, at every level range there were one or two pieces of group content, including some shorter open-world content and a larger instanced piece of content. That content was fun and pretty well done, with nice rewards for the level. But leveling up (at the game's launch) - it was near impossible to get a group together for doing any of it. Why? Because there was solo content that everyone could do to level, and leveling was the only damn thing people really seemed to care about. They wanted to get to the end so they could experience the "real" game. They didn't want to hassle with anything that slowed them down along the way, including that group content. Oh sure, later on they might say "I wish I'd checked that out, it sounds cool", but while they were leveling? Nope.
That's just one example, but I've seen this kind of behavior in every level-based game ever. People who actually value the journey over the destination are rare. Give people a progression, and their focus becomes getting to the end of that progression, in the most "efficient" way possible for their time. And for whatever reason, many players will still choose soloing because they aren't required to go find a group, even if the math says that grouping is the better choice. Because of that, the only way to change that behavior is to so heavily incentivize grouping that it can't be ignored.
So, do I think that soloing should not be supported? No! I feel like there should be some soloable things in each level range. People need something to do when their friends aren't all online. BUT, they should not be a really effective means to progress/advance your character - because grouping needs to be that. This is a place where there has to be some exclusivity in order to get people to really do the grouping.
Edit: I really want to clarify that what I am after here is something I think Pantheon is about - getting players to be social, to work together to overcome challenges. And I simply feel that the game must push people to do that, because most of them won't do that on their own (apart from wierdos like me). I'm not really trying to hate on anyone or bash anyone, and I totally understand why people find soloing fun. I just don't want the solo game to starve the group game for people, and that's what I'm afraid would happen without incentives/disincentives.
As a proponant of having a lot of soloable content I will add that I agree in all respects with Nephele.
The soloable content should be slower and less rewarding. If you can get the same gear soloing and the same experience per minute soloing few people will group outside of guilds and although Pantheon isn't intended as a group game it IS intended as a game that emphasizes group play more than almost any current MMO.
IMO dungeons should be for groups only at or near level and should give better experience per minute and better gear than landscape content generally does.
Much landscape content should be soloable to give us something productive to do (and allow us to hit level cap without grouping if we don't mind getting to level cap more slowly and with inferior gear).
The bills will be paid by subscriptions from groupers. soloers and raiders and we *need* Panthoen to be a nice home for them all.
oneADseven said:Touching on a couple points here.
"If we all agree that grouping is already considerably more rewarding than soloing then why would there need to be ANY kind of bonus for grouping? The reward is the act of grouping itself. You are FAR less likely to suffer from death penalties than a soloist. But no one seems to want to count that. You are FAR faster in kills which means 2 things: You get more XP faster and you get more in-game rewards (loot) faster."
We don't all agree on that. Players will need to figure that out once we get into the world, and a lot comes down to how efficiently a solo player can navigate. If a necromancer or enchanter can invis through a zone and then cherry pick names, they will. If a monk can flop their way through a zone, bypassing all of the trash to cherry pick names, they will. Just because groups kill things faster doesen't mean they are automatically getting better XP. If a group of 5 players can set up camp, clear an area and have downtime before respawns, what's the point of adding a 6'th player? It would ultimately lead to less XP and less loot. Saying that you are far less to suffer from death penalties also isn't true. How many times have you died in a group due to another player? A situation where you were counting on them to do their job, that they failed, but you were the one eating dirt because of it?
Solo players control their own destiny and in some ways have "less risk" than grouping, depending on the skill of the player. This is because they have absolute control over what they engage and what decisions are made. I farmed Karnors Castle for months in EQ2 without ever dying. I was able to kill every name in the zone, solo, and do it more efficiently than any group could ever dream of doing. There was zero purpose to bringing anybody else along because they would just slow me down, put me at risk of potentially bad things happening because of their decisions, and be an extra body to share loot with. There should absolutely be some sort of mechanic in-game that incentivizes group play. It's true that there are intrinsic bonuses to grouping ... but there are also intrinsic bonuses to soloing. In my experience, grouping has always been better for XP, but soloing was the best for farming.
...
"I think the issue here is the number of players who envision a lvl 50 player running into a much lower level dungeon and cherry-picking the named to get loot etc. for alts or for sale. I hate this too. In fact I hate it so much that I often find myself doing the same thing. So clearly we need to do soemthing about that. I think automatic level adjustments of the targets themselves should be a thing. The moment that lvl 50 tries to charry-pick everything in the zone suddenly shifts to lvl 50 - for that player only. Make them work for it. I think this would slow down people trying to by-pass content to take the named mobs groups are actually working toward."
Definitely a big issue, but it's already been stated that mobs won't adjust their levels to those who engage them. That kind of mechanic doesen't really work in an open world game. The most common practice I have seen used to combat this issue is the trivial loot policy. If a mob cons grey to you, it doesen't drop loot. This prevents max level players from farming low level content at the expense of appropriate level adventurers in the area. Unfortunately, when you allow mentoring, it makes it possible to circumvent this policy. Players can run around at max level and either easily kill everything that poses a threat, or possibly avoid it altogether (in some games grey mobs won't even attack you at all.) Then when they get to a name, they mentor down to their lowbie account (often boxed) to kill the name. As soon as it's dead, unmentor, run to the next name.
To build on that, grouping does have downtime the same as soloing does. More even, which is another reason a bonus was introduced back in the day. Groups are more often riskier than soloing (most people who solo aren't pushing the limit vs hard mobs or in dangerous areas, it isn't resource efficient) so death happens more often, but the other issue is that grouping takes time that soloing doesn't. You have to wait for everyone to get to the location at the start, then often need wait when you need a replacement (& to go pick them up at the zone for dungeons), and there is downtime as you wait for repops. Soloers never have to wait for others and almost never have to wait for repops so they are free to kill as soon as they are ready at any given time.
I don't advocate for active punishments for soloing, but I do think there should be benefits for filling a full group over soloing or partial groups. Players should be encouraged to be inclusive, encouraged to have a full group over less. One way of doing that is offering group experience bonuses, especially as people in EQ eventually found adding the 6th to a group wasn't a huge benefit compared to running 5 since it was typically a DPS that shaved maybe 15 seconds off the kill time but they were waiting for repops anyway so the time didn't matter. Unless they cut the experience mobs give the lower they con to a player then soloing otherwise becomes the fastest for whatever class(es; killing a red as a group for 6000xp divided by 6 (1000 xp) isn't going to make grouping faster if a solo player can kill a blue/low blue for 3000xp undivided.
Maybe they could have two con systems, one that averages your group level when you con a mob and one for when you are ungrouped. So grouped up a bandit might be a yellow con but solo it's a deep red. You might be killing whites/high blues or the occational yellow while solo but it's a mob that would be a gray for a group.
Iksar said:Maybe they could have two con systems, one that averages your group level when you con a mob and one for when you are ungrouped. So grouped up a bandit might be a yellow con but solo it's a deep red. You might be killing whites/high blues or the occational yellow while solo but it's a mob that would be a gray for a group.
Nephretiti said:I will be the first to admit that Druids were the overland solo kings.
bards
LOL...glad to reignite the timeless debate!
I'm a little skittish of braggadocio, as when the bard comes out, I would love for it to retain some EQ flavor...
but in an outdoor zone, with non-summoning mobs, there was literally nothing to stop a good bard. Never get hit, no medding...just "relax" and milk it.
I still remember swarm kiting Plane of Disease like it was yesterday.
Ok, i don't exactly agree that grp deserve a exp bonus for filling in the grp but im down with like a 25% for getting a 6 man grp going, nothing to huge to make it leveling way to fast but maybe enough to make it to where geting a 6 man group is worth it on a 6 man group.
Much like i don't like the mentoring system, but if i had to choose between accepting the mentoring system, or being able to pwoerlevel, i'll pick the mentoring system all day everyday. But with something in mind, one the mentoring system can only be activated in cities, or at least outside of dungeons to prevent high level charcter abusing it, or at least as much as possible anyway. Like i said earlier just in case people missed it, i believe powerleveling should be close to eliminated, it hurts the communtity by preventing the people who are getting powerleveled never looking for groups and once people realize that it is possible it turns from a LFG message to a WTB Powerlevel message quite a bit. and if make it to where someone can't help someone lower than you by 8 levels or more if they were in combat, that prevents a ton of powerleveling. and if you combine it with the mentoring system, than you could actually make it work, becuase you can still grp with yor friends lower than you, and help them level, but just not from a powerleveling point of view which i am totally against.
Question, what excactly is power leveling in EQ and why are so many people against it?
My experience with power leveling was at extremely low levels, in FFXI the only power leveling I recall was in the level 10 to maybe 25 area and that was pushing it. After that, I didn't really see any of that going on. It was just a hugh level healer whobsat outside the pt and heald accordingly, nothing really broken about that. If people want to pay for a pl, thats on them, still not seeing anything particularily game breaking...