ANNOUNCE NEWS #2253 (Group combat and XP)

Moirean

I'm talking about things like orb buffs, eggnog (the good ones are subject to RNG and you might only get xp come up 1-2 a day even with 4-5 eggnog artis), book tattoo, sect points, class-specific resources, etc. 

You also don't get xp for ranged contributions or if the target dies in another room after you got them nearly dead, and the xp doesn't seem to be split or increased after the lesser itself is down.

I'm not saying that it isn't making new people want to join in. Clearly it is. It's also making some of us bigger people go "Eh, I have no desire to just go feed newbies xp" so we don't show up. As I said, IRE games rely a lot on player-based leadership, and I think I am allowed to express that I don't really want to lead as much after these changes. That's my opinion, and I'm allowed to say that is how I feel.

Daskalos

Eggnog should be changed, so I understand that one. As for orbs, do people have a problem getting mists? I've got another 51 tokens in my gauntlet waiting to be turned in and 20 on me... Book tattoos is getting fixed. You don't lose sect points unless it's 1v1 so I'm not sure how that's applied to this equation.  Should probably change it from unstable area to 'has aura' for those lingering fights, so I agree there.

I personally love this change and think it's been a great benefit to the game. People are getting involved in combat that never have before, and that helps out immensely. So what if you feed newbies XP? A lot of times people getting a level off of a single kill is what will hook people.

Ashmer

Ya, not contesting that, was just curious which buffs you were talking about. Hadn't thought about the eggnog thing, though I wouldn't personally be worried about orbs.

Xenia

Daskalos said:

\It's no different than how you hooked @Xenia years ago using lesser and such.

Just want to clarify that by years ago, you mean exactly one year ago....I'm not exactly a seasoned player who's been around for a while. 

Off topic and not the point, but, would like to clarify that. 

Since my name was brought up, though, I may as well rage about something. My rage, being too lazy to write my damned haven description already! 

Ashmer

This isn't the rage thread. <.< But we understand!

Xenia

Oh my, it wasn't until I went to go get some coffee that it occurred to me that I hadn't been reading the rage thread. >_> 

Alee

@moirean, I go through orbs like candy because I have to keep watch while hunting still AND when I go to lessers about 70% of the time I am targetted first and die anyway. But I still go. I am sure losing the eggnog one is frustrating (As I found out recently it is a pretty nifty item)

but if you have used it, nobody is forcing you to go attend the lesser. That said both sides have that time of day where they tend to dominate so while in part of the day you guys tend to lose another part of the day if we go to them we do nothing but die... you could plan a little around it since its the same times of days almost every day.

Toz

Alee said:

@moirean, I go through orbs like candy because I have to keep watch while hunting still AND when I go to lessers about 70% of the time I am targetted first and die anyway. But I still go. I am sure losing the eggnog one is frustrating (As I found out recently it is a pretty nifty item)

but if you have used it, nobody is forcing you to go attend the lesser. That said both sides have that time of day where they tend to dominate so while in part of the day you guys tend to lose another part of the day if we go to them we do nothing but die... you could plan a little around it since its the same times of days almost every day.

Her point is more, why should she go? She's high level, killing any of you isn't really worth all that much in terms of xp - the system encourages newbs to show up, but it's not quite so beneficial for end-game, especially if you're losing orbs/buffs/whatever. Then it actually ends up costing you.

Ashmer

But it was always like that, and... now you don't lose ANY experience on death. I don't see a downside or a nerf happening for high-level players here.

Alee

@tozThe idea behind this change wasn't to give everyone experience so much as make the loss of death less frustrating for everyone involved. The buffs she brought up everyone is capable of having and losing.

Aishia

If anything I feel better about my exp going to newbies. Think of it as an investment towards them being higher value targets later!

 If you bash a lot orbs just sort of flow freely into your grasp, I guess book tattoo and eggnog are lame but I don't think the eggnog thing really applies to THAT many people. I guess being so lazy I don't bother with most of that stuff. I just roll in with whatever scraps of stuff Valingar drops when I pk him and hope for the best.

Moirean

There's motivation to go to get ylem or get a decent fight. When the numbers are as crazy high as they have been lately, however, it's mostly just a lag fest. This is partially an issue with the design of lessers - because it's about single-room control, it consolidates people heavily into a single room, and the way xp is now being shared only encourages that more.

And, no, lower-level fighters tend to not shell out the type of expenses that high-level people do to eke out every single form of buff you can get while bashing. There may be some exceptions, but the lower-level bashing areas are more forgiving than the high-level ones.

I guess I'm just a grumpy old witch or whatever, though. I don't really care. I'm expressing how I feel about this system, and maybe that makes me a bad person. I've never liked newbs piggybacking in and getting free levels off teamganking me.

Alee

Personally, I leveled to yeleni almost completely on my own, in fact I didn't even get access to Daskalos' system until I was nearly 99.

You are making this far more selfish then it is, they aren't there to piggyback experience, they are there to learn combat and participate.

Moirean

My own personal decision to sit out more often may be selfish, but it's also my choice to make.

Edit: to clarify, since people don't seem to understand what I'm saying, I'm not saying ban newbies from combat. I'm saying the losses for endgamers outweigh what they will gain. There aren't really many compelling things to gain from going - let people earn sect points in team fights, let debuffs persist through deaths in lesser zones, make each kill generate ylem, toss in some new pk rank/reward stuff for crazy slaughter or whatever, just random examples of ways to make it more appealing to endgamers, since the xp gain is not something that is worth it and the fights are too big and messy to be fun now.

Areka

I don't think that's what she's saying, Moi, and devolving to 'I'm just trying to share I guess I'm a bad person' isn't fair nor accurate nor warranted. Your implication that noobs are just piggybacking for experience is what is sounding selfish - that they aren't participating to learn or to take more risks with exposure due to the new change. 

This expands the system AND allows for a lower entry point to begin learning combat as well as opens new opportunities for other types of events to be introduced for the higher-level/higher-experienced people. 

Moirean

I just spent 2 months playing a brand new character over in Imperian (they put in this xp change there first), and I can guarantee that after a certain point I realized it was way faster to just wait for team fights and join in kicking people for xp. This is not to say that I didn't also learn combat in the process and even spend money to help advance my skills and I certainly spent time outside of those fights practicing, but at the end of the day, the xp gain helped motivate me showing up for those team fights. 

And that's fine. It's a smart business decision. It gets newbs involved and bolsters the fighting scene. However it's a one sided one. All of a sudden there are a ton more people zerging, with not really much being offered to motivate the non-newbs. If death had been a huge hit to endgamers, it would be a different story, but it's not. From a very bottomline sort of view, the change is basically bribing/removing punishment for newbs to PK. That's cool, but endgamers could use that same sort of motivation, since we're now dealing with a ton more people hitting us and more people that we have to lead.

Aishia

Frankly speaking I've gotten upwards of 60% of a level just from pk in the last while. Instead of constantly sliding backwards from dying slightly more often than I kill. It's certainly had more positive effects than negative on me personally. The exp gain is MAD SUBSTANTIAL. Maybe if you're already leveled into oblivion it's meaningless but for those of us who only want to pk and don't care much for bashing it's AMAZING at least.

Aelysia

The best solution: make it possible to hand in heads of slain enemies for some organization similar to the sect of blades. Build up points, trade them for gear/artifacts/honours lines/whatever. Level 1-80 head gives 1 point, level 80-98 gives 2 points, level 99+ gives 4 points. All of a sudden, huge incentive for everyone to kill people at lessers. Only heads slain in player combat could be handed in (thus no corpse stealing from bashing deaths), and if people were found out to abuse the system, they would be kicked out and branded an enemy.

Daskalos

Of note, that lesser earlier that we lost I gained 7.38% from. That's many hours of bashing saved... so... yea... there is plenty to gain at a high level (and I'm 5 levels higher than you, Moi)

Toz

Daskalos said:

Of note, that lesser earlier that we lost I gained 7.38% from. That's many hours of bashing saved... so... yea... there is plenty to gain at a high level (and I'm 5 levels higher than you, Moi)

And now we've looped back to that little nagging reason I don't like the changes. Yay participation trophies xp for everyone! You all tried hard so you all winnnnn!!!!1

Daskalos

We still have a cost. We lose supplies!

Toz

Seriously fuck these forums. In their entirety.

That being said, since I can't get quotes to work (because these forums were coded by the cross-product of Satan and whoever coded Windows 8)...

Daskalos said:

"Combat supplies are cheap,..."

Daskalos said:

"We still have a cost. We lose supplies!"

Now kith loop!

Rashar

Are you, uh..

Are people complaining about more people coming to fight?

Weren't we complaining yesterday about people not coming to fight?

Are you, uh..

Are you complaining about a fight that you were 90% probably going to go to anyway giving you more experience with less loss?

Halp, I'm so confused.

Irruel

Dask was being facetious.

Jensen

I don't usually do lessers because to me lessers are boring.  Losing xp has never been a factor in this.  If I played a class with an AoE move it'd be funny for a while, but I'll keep sitting out unless it's low even numbers.