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Solo play and EXP gain/skilling up

Discussion in 'Release 36 Feedback Forum' started by Arrian, Nov 19, 2016.

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  1. Arrian

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    I haven't ready anything about this in the patch notes, but has the exp gain for killing when solo in multiplayer mode been radically changed? In the exact same zone pre-patch I could crawl upwards in exp even when raising a skill or two and a couple passives, but now I have to turn everything off, including my main skills, to gain exp. If I just turn on base archery and rapid fire, f. ex., I lose 125 exp per shot/skill use, and with the HP increase to the MOBs, it takes more skill usages to kill a MOB than I get back for the kill.

    It's a little better in a party, obviously. Spread the skill usage out and the use/kill exp ratio improves. But as it stands, soloing is a waste of exp. I mean, I lose more exp soloing a kill, than I do dying.
     
  2. Waxillium

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    Transferring exp into skills is not losing it.
     
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  3. Roycestein Kaelstrom

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    The pooled experience is simply an excess pool of XP that has not been used by skills to progress yet.
     
  4. Toadster

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    I think the OP understands that captain obvious's.

    Yes this patch, depending on your level, has completely killed the ability to raise skills while just adventuring. You need to set all your skills you want to keep to maintain then raise them each in turn when your pool is large enough to apply experience to the skills. Unfortunately..
     
  5. Roycestein Kaelstrom

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    It's not just the patch but rather how the game has been. As a skill progress to higher level, the more XP will be consumed to move forward. It also will become less linear and more toward exponential. With skill decay in place, it will be very difficult to keep all skills up for training and still have enough excess XP to fill up the pool.

    I ended up train all skills I want up to 60, then start to train each of them individually. It's actually easier to maintain the XP and still progress the skill that way.
     
  6. Toadster

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    This is the patch that tipped the scales. Prior to this path I could set my skills to raise go out have fun and just play. My pool would remain between 30-60k depending on party and scene. After this patch I can not. All skills need to be at maintain I have to manage my exp pool more than just play and I can only raise skills sometimes. I'll get use to it but, it was not how I wanted to play, I am not racing to the top, chasing the next OP glyph, or solo'ing dragons. i was just playing and having fun.
     
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  7. Weins201

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    The thing is as players got higher in level they did not think it would slow down.

    The higher you are the more it uses and the more it takes.

    Yes they have toned things back a little, but only a little.

    The Big change now is it is taking you a little longer to kill things since the HP for most have increased THEREFORE you are using the skills a few more times in each fight and if you have them all set to gain (or even just left them as you had them set before) since you are using the skills one or two more times during each fight the points spent are a little more than before for the same exp.

    They have effectively forced players who did not learn to manage skills to eat it now, and those that have already abused the systems to gain absurd exp points are so far out of whack catching them or using them as a point of comparison looks ridiculous.

    This is a direct result of the game being WAY to easy from the onset and now starting to look like the game they actually intended to make an present.

    The perception that you are not gaining as before is accurate because of the slightly longer fights.

    The number crunchers and the power gamers have figured this out a long time ago, players are screwed to compete.
     
  8. Snazz

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    I also lost 20k upon first death (under 1 hour in)

    Logged out after dying the day before.

    So you begin with max decay by the look of things
     
  9. Xandra7

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    Dying is very painful now, I try to have enough experience points saved up to cover at least a few deaths, also running away from a fight after more npcs pop up and start attacking lowers the exp pool quite a bit.

    Pooled Experience is not just excess XP, you need to have a lot in reserve, that or miss out on actual skill raises while "grinding", or skill lose at death.
     
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  10. Toadster

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    This is the other factor that killed playing casually and gaining as you play.

    By having the decay clock run on world time and not play time any one that works and sleeps more than 12 hours will have maximum decay on first death.

    Easy to recover the experience back to your pool if all skills set to maintain, but building a pool of 20k takes a lot longer when you are raising skills also. So someone playing a few hours a night will be hard pressed to keep anything in their pool. If your skills are set to raise you will eventually hit 0 in your pool and stay ther continuously. It is the way this math works.

    With a 0 pool 1st death of the day will take exp from your skills and you will slowing gain back skills that you use that day. This will essentially force you to train every glyph you want to keep everyday.
     
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  11. Arrian

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    Well, so it's not just me. That's good to know. I wish they would have said something about it, I was wondering if I was bugged or something.

    I agree with you 100%, this patch tipped the scales. It's not a minor change, it is a major adjustment, and it's unannounced and it completely kills the game for me and the way I like to play.

    The min-maxers will race to the top, no matter what the devs do - that's a losing fight, every time, and the devs need to realize this from all the hundreds of games that have gone before. Tune the game for an average player, and let the uberplayers go.

    YMMV. But there is a cost - e.g., I was debating buying a deed and a house, and that plan is now on hold, indefinitely.
     
  12. Toadster

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    I still think there are some adjustments they could make to bring it back but still attempt to cap the hardcore players. One adjustment in the right direction would be to have the decay only accumulate while in game instead of real world time. Then It would hit the players playing 12 hours a day more than the casual player.
     
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  13. MrBlight

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    Hardly.
    There is almost no change to my exp increase or skill useage, other then the little bit used extra in killing footmen. And even that is offset by the weak mages /archers now.

    As someone who graphed what each mob is worth EXP wise solo and duo with all skills turned off.. i can basically confirm that i am not seeing ANY exp reductions.

    Infact now that im flagged open PVP, im getting 25% more is all.

    And mages who are stuggling now?
    Good. You should be running 5 skull areas without anything GM'd or at least a variety of spells at 85. Go down a skull level.
     
  14. Toadster

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    Please re-Read and try to understand. These posts completely off what someone is trying to discuss does not help the direction of the thread.

    This is not about exp being lowered it is about trying to maintain an experience pool while adventuring without micro managing you skills and exp pool.
     
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  15. MrBlight

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    Which is not at all what his op says.. just what your response to it was.

    So blatently - no. exp per mob has not been adjusted, but mob strength has. You may want to down skull, to use less skills per mob if you plan on building a pool.


    How has this effectively killed someones style of play? If your dieng agianst mobs, scale down. If 20k exp loss is MAJOR for you, that means you have tons of exp to begin with allocated. Death loss is based on your total exp. So what this patch did essentially, is make it harder for people who tried to do everything.. instead of having a general plan on character creation.

    20k takes you how long to get snazz? 20 min?
    Casual players will loose less per death as they wont be as far along.

    So anyways.
    How exactly has the patch effected you enough to * ruin the game for you?* im genuanly curious as i dont even notice a change in mob strength?
    If you were a mage, doing 5 skulls without gm skills, or just around 60s..you were doing to high before.. they just balanced it?

    If you continually struggle to keep a pool going in plus, may need to re consider your build and HOW many skills you are trying to put up at once? Especially passives that you may forget about.. they r pretty draining.
     
  16. Toadster

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    So casual players will never get to high levels? May take longer but they will get there.

    For me it is answered here.

    Some people may not want to manage an experience pull and just set things to raise. Which can not be done now. Raising 20k in the pool is easy if all set to maintain. Raising 20k in your pool while gaining in multiple skills, next to impossible.
     
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  17. Arrian

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    As the OP, just let me say that Toadster grasped my point, which perhaps I phrased in a manner that did not make it clear to everyone.

    Good to know that exp per mob has not been adjusted, that fits with my experience and I will buy that. Which means, practically speaking, that since the HP per mob for most types was increased significantly, the exp usage to kill a mob, and the subsequent gain/loss per kill was nerfed by this patch.

    Your recommendation to skull down fails, because the lower skull mobs grant less exp. It's a balance question. It was balanced pretty well before, the down skull lost exp, and the too-high skull lost exp, but if you were fighting the appropriate level, you could gain a little exp. And I'm not a total noob, I'm not talking about struggling to keep a pool with many skills up. I can't now, solo, fight at any level with anything, green, yellow or orange, with more that two or at most three skills set to gain - no passives, not even ONE, nothing extraneous. Which leads to the ridiculous situation where I'm skilling up, say, one archery skill, but I need to use my mage skills more than my archery because they don't use any exp, since the mage skills are turned off. That's just dumb.

    And I agree that the micromanaging of skills on/off is nothing but irritating tedium. It's about finding a balance, and the balance has swung too far in the direction of annoying gameplay, and that wrecks the fun.
     
  18. Kara Brae

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    I can't disagree with you because there really are mages who can clear out 5 skull zones with impunity. Back in Release 16-18 I was one of those mages and I loved it :) .

    But right now, yes, I notice a change in mob strength. It takes longer to kill them, my focus runs out constantly, and I have to level up spells from all different trees and carry a weapon because of the resistances.

    I was pulled into and cleared the plains encounter with bandits two times in a row yesterday (pulled in just as I was exiting). Those two encounters cost me an hour of my time, half of my reagents (I carry 50+ of each), gave me worthless loot and were of no levelling-up benefit to speak of. The only reason I stayed in them was because it was a rare opportunity to mine gold (I ended up with 9 gold ore from the two encounters).

    This is my first multiplayer game, and it will surely be my last. I love the multiplayer aspect, my guild mates and friends, but the need to make the game less easy for power-gamers is just making the game too difficult for me to enjoy. Offline games usually let you choose the difficulty level, but in this game the difficulty level has to be raised constantly because skillful players like @MrBlight can breeze through it. :)

    I don't mean this as a criticism - I understand why this is necessary. But I also understand it when some players say that the changes have ruined the game for them by making it too hard. The power gamers also rightfully complain when the game is too easy for them. That's just the way it is.

    EDIT: I just visited my favorite area to collect Mandrake: Brightbone Pass. There used to be two skeletons within the gate area that I could take out. Today, the CP wasn't contested, but the second I entered the gate, half of my HPs were gone. I took out a mage, but I was unable to handle an archer and a Hardened Skeleton Footman who attacked me and had to flee for my life. I am Adv level 64 and I was using Chained Lightning level 75 and Searing Ray level 81. In addition, apparently because some players took advantage of some exploit, the whole CP has been leveled, so there is no cover to hide behind any more. So the mobs are indeed harder, the scene is ruined and Brightbone is another scene I can't enter alone any more. I am so discouraged I just don't feel like playing any more.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2016
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  19. MrBlight

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    Honestly, you should look into advice on the deck setup more then likely.

    11 days is how long it took a guildy to be able to solo 5 skulls ( pure mage, more in healing than anything ) ..
    And he says hes still not really struggling.

    Are you running a proper custom deck? Or just running basic 1 time cooldowns on the hot bar. Theres really no reason you should be struggling that much.

    And agian.. im almost 80 adv level.. but only skills i even use are aimed shot. rapid fire. death touch. blinding shot and disabling shot.
    100 ranged. 100 aimed shot. 80s in rest.
    I have 750 or 800 points in taming for a pet i dont run. im hardly that far past you really.
    Im wondering if the amount of people actully struggling may be to a lack of understanding of a custom deck and stacking spells / combos and such.

    Dunno what else to tell ya.
     
  20. Weins201

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    And this will end up killing the game but it really is not what they are doing. partially but more just plain balancing and making the game as it should have been.

    Made it to easy from the start - taking away is always hard.
     
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