Inconsistent XP rewards make most of this game feel pointless.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Aetrion, Aug 14, 2018.

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  1. Aetrion

    Aetrion Avatar

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    Upper tears + double XP is poison straight into the heart of this game. Sure, everyone loves earning a million XP per hour, but what has this done to all other activities in this game? Most activities in the game yield maybe 1% as much XP as being in this one location. A few other grind spots are at least in the same ballpark, but reality is, the vast majority of content in this game is wasted because the XP you gain is so absolutely garbage compared to what you get in the popular grind spots.

    I remember just hunting corpions and wolves for two weeks to get 1 million XP. Slow going, but hey, there is something satisfying about just plucking away at a game and I was there every night. Then upper tears comes along, I get 4 million XP in a single session. Now I hardly bother logging in anymore, because I'm sick of upper tears, and I feel cheated when I do anything else. The game does not hand out XP like it wants me to spend time in New Britannia, it hands out XP like it wants me to spend time in a tiny stupid cave full of skeletons and nowhere else.

    This is absolutely broken. An open world game where 99% of the world is not worth spending any time in isn't fun. I'd be fine with people who group up and take on hard content earning XP twice as fast as someone who's just going around having fun and adventuring, but we're talking more like 100 times as fast here. If a new player asked you where they should go in this game to earn some experience you could never in good conscience tell them to do quests and explore. There is the grind du jour and nothing else. How did we fall so far from the brilliant system in Ultima Online? In UO your swordmanship didn't care if you were fighting dragons or mongbats, what mattered was that you were in the game, doing stuff, having fun, which is why in UO you'd meet people all over the place.

    Suggestion to fix this: Bring the XP rewards in line. There needs to be a reasonable base level of XP you earn for spending time in the game so that the whole game is actually worth playing. Doing activities that require groups and coordination should get you up to twice as much XP maybe, which is a significant increase in your rate of progress, but not a situation where it's so much faster that not doing it is basically foregoing progression entirely. Also get rid of double XP. Everyone is hooked on it like a drug, and now on top of only 1% of the playfield being worth spending time in only some days out of the week are worth playing on. The game should feel more like UO did, where everything was worth doing.

    Ideally the game wouldn't have XP at all and simply work like UO did, but since that likely won't happen I just want to see the XP distribution not be so completely uneven that only a few select grind spots feel like you're even making progress.
     
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  2. Steevodeevo

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    Great Post, expect loads of grief.
     
  3. oplek

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    Another game I played long ago had a system where you'd saturate in a particular zone. Sure, the XP would be good at first, but after awhile there was nothing new to learn, and hence, you got less xp. You might earn 20k xp off one mob at first, but after farming them for a couple hours, that'd be down to 100-500xp or less.

    It forced you to diversify where you were zoning. After awhile, that saturation would wear off.

    Of course, it'd create issues with trying to group up, with different people in the group having different zones that they wouldn't get much at. What happened is that the group would go from one zone to the next, instead of lingering. Overall, I'd love such a system. We could even increase the xp per monster while we're at it.

    I wasn't really a fan of the 2x xp after the first time. I thought that was for newer players entering the game after launch... but then it kept happening. I thought it was supposed to be our "You survived early access" reward, which we otherwise didn't get. But apparently not. It was apparent to me that it'd spoil people, if we got it too much.
     
  4. the Lacedaemonian

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    Yes, it's bad news for the long term experience. It's a short term fix for appealing to grinder mentally. One side effect that is mentally pleasing, is the fact that once you attenuate, there is a stress free period to do something else.

    Other than that, it's not good for long term viability of the current progression mechanic.

    Sorry @Chris
     
  5. Phoenix007

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    I think the "issue" is not the XP grinding in UT. The issue that in group you have only few spot where you can fight and the respawn is also fast (or the zone is great that you can fight continuously in group). Without these spots with fast respawn or large zone or respawn the "XP Grinding" in group is not interesting.

    If in group you don't have bonus of XP, I think the grinding of XP in group is not interesting and in this case we will group only when we want to achieve some Boss that can't be achieve in solo (for the char level).

    The strategy of game changes:
    - If the grinding of XP in group is interesting, you have more people playing in group
    - If the grinding of XP in group is not interesting, you have more people playing in solo.

    Note:
    - Before UT and double XP, I playing most of time in Solo. If now the Xp is lowered (or the group bonus XP is reduce), I think I will comeback to playing in Solo most of time.
     
  6. Barugon

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    Upper Tears is getting "adjusted" again for R57 and then we'll hear the cries from the other side.
     
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  7. CrandalltheFoole

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    I can turn off all my training glyphs.
    I have never achieved 1 million xp, even with 2-3 hours a day just grinding, and I am including Upper Tears.
    The only way I have even come close to 1 million xp was when I was doing the major quests, and it still took me a week.
    Wolf, bear, and boar heads - crafting for a week into headdresses was worth about 1/2 million.
     
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  8. 2112Starman

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    This is not UO, but 2x XP is a lot like "power hour" in UO.

    2x XP is what you make of it so I disagree. I didnt even run UT this weekend, I ran the Rise and still hit my 1 mil XP atten but did it solo (no dying in a group). I also use 2x XP to do a mix of XP and prod farming in Ulfiem killing critters. I also spent a full day crafting and earned over 2 mil prod xp.

    I also attended the Grand Duke PVP tourny
     
  9. Humbert_Humbert

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    Resolved by multiple characters and a skill cap.
     
  10. Vladamir Begemot

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    Another great analysis, thank you.

    Upper Tears is fantastic due to the (Edit: rate not rare) rare of enemies coming your way, and thus the giant pile of XP.

    They need to spread that experience all over, including to low level areas (lower XP of course). Now that it's getting harder I'm not going to be able to participate, make some side corner like that even in noob zones, with noob level waves.

    And then figure out how to make the more relaxed adventuring keep up. Honestly the rate they come at Upper Tears is exciting. I was thinking "wow, this is like Diablo level of combat here!" when I first played it. In my ideal world it would be that intense throughout the land, and not just in waves. Pack some more enemies in the zones!
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2018
  11. Floors

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    Well, thanks to comments like yours, Its getting nerfed. So enjoy it while it lasts and expect “Remember the good days of UT” posts soon when you’re back to earning no xp again
     
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  12. Woodchuck

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    Not if they take the “glass half empty” approach and UP the XP of everywhere else (without changing UT)! :D
     
  13. Arkah EMPstrike

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    This part sounds like you may be under the impression adventure level determins your power.

    A hypothetical level 1 character with GM skills will do the same damage and have the same hit chance as the same character at level 100.

    Xp in this game is more of a middle man than anything else. It prevents somone from GMing thier character on a practice dummy before ever going out and doing anything
     
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  14. Aetrion

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    My post said they should make all the content worthwhile doing, which means giving meaningful XP rewards everywhere, and not just a few select grind spots.

    How does making people relog to access another set of skills in any way change the fact that everyone can do everything? I don't see it.

    What the game really needs is more mutually exclusive choices in character building.
     
  15. Brass Knuckles

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    Thats how you know you made a good and thought worty post here. ;)
     
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  16. MFWalter

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    I think Upper Tears is a bit extreme, but I don't think it is the real problem. A lack of thrilling content is the problem. I am so tired of UT. Every weekend I am stuck out how slamming down exp in UT because my friends/family demand I am there to do UT with them. I was so relieved when I saw the stretch goals didn't include double xp... Then they changed the stretch goals.

    All this said, I still don't think double xp or UT are to blame. There just isn't anything else comparable to do. During the week I use my free time at work to search Google and the forums for activities. I use my free time outside work to go try the activities I find. The every Friday my friends/family dutifully follow me off to try my new awesome activity that will make them quit UT. It never works. Slow spawns, killer mobs, low exp, or Ridiculous puzzles lead us back to Ut so we can get some challenging combat with worthwhile rewards.
     
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  17. Vladamir Begemot

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    UT needs to have babies in all the other scenes. Bam. Solid gold.
     
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  18. Dread1313

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    Y'all are gonna keep bitching about UT until they say screw it and remove it completely from the game. Heard it here first.

    @OP: Apparently you have a skewed view about how devs work. Most devs (90%) of them in 20 years of me playing these games usually lean toward the side of: "something was brought to my attention, that "something" needs to be reduced in power or reward. (ie. NERF)."

    All you are doing is calling unwarranted negative attention to the issue you point out. I can almost guarantee you, this will be the devs response: UT is causing everyone to flood to it cause its an "XP bonanza" (mentioned on another thread), causing the world to be empty, so we need to "lessen the carrot" as it were and nerf the XP gains there so it wont be such a "desirable place" and more people will willingly go elsewhere to grind and spread out".

    All you had to do was just make a post asking devs to increase XP gains elsewhere, and not even mention UT. But because you mentioned UT, they are going to focus on that. so GG on getting UT nerfed.

    To give creedence and respect to the OP, he does have a point about the other scenes having deplorable XP gains though. I think what needs to happen, is XP increased by 20% or so in the otther zones. Bring the XP rates there closer in line to UT. Maybe nerf UT xp a "little bit", but not more. UT is an end game zone. It should have good rewards either in loot and/or XP. It should be one of those "Gratz! You made it this far, here's your reward.. IF you can stay alive!" deals.

    I say leave UT alone and increase the XP elsewhere. It would help the game and community overall if there were other places to grind that gave decent XP instead of just the one hotbed.
     
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2018
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  19. MFWalter

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    The devs already know. they have talked about UT on more than one occasion. A number of the team actually plays the game. UT isn't a big secret.
     
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  20. Dread1313

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    Im not saying it is, but it has been my experience that if enough people make enough of a ruckus about something being overpowered or out of line, sooner rather than later, that thing gets nerfed. Which is not what needs to happen imho. Community needs to know how to talk to devs. No, devs arent babies and can understand, but this isnt about that. Its about getting the correct message across.
     
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