Control Points with AFKers

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by queenbee, Jul 16, 2022.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. queenbee

    queenbee Avatar

    Messages:
    268
    Likes Received:
    691
    Trophy Points:
    28
    This is like becoming a game of telephone. This post is about not going afk while in a public group. Since CPs tend to be mainly public groups for XP, most people will join CPs to get XP. If you're going to be in a public group and go AFK, then you are making people do the work for you to give you free XP. If they didn't give you permission to go AFK and you are contributing NOTHING to help the group, then you are being rude and inconsiderate.

    The only exception I'm seeing are those who have extremely strong pets that are doing huge amounts of damage that compensate for the player to go AFK.
     
    Lily Byrd and Tirrag like this.
  2. Gwendolyn Obscuro

    Gwendolyn Obscuro Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    595
    Likes Received:
    1,144
    Trophy Points:
    63
    In case you are unaware, you can return that Coswald crafted equipment for a chance to win gold!
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ash-to-treasure-dropped-items-turn-in.168328/


    Strong pets aren't an excuse. It is breaking game rules to just leave your computer logged into an adventure area with your pet just collecting xp for you and in the same way it is rude for people to do it at a control point unless it is a private group where everyone in party has signed off on it. People going AFK in groups is one of the reasons I never got into the whole control point thing, but I think that has worked out better for me as to my enjoyment of the game anyway.
     
  3. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,294
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Where are your spots?
     
    Lily Byrd likes this.
  4. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    It's mostly determined by what build I'm in, but some of my favourites are Panopticon, the Rise (the mage room and the new drop tower section), Jotungrund, Myrkur, Spectral Peaks (Xen waves), Well of Aldur, NW Blackblades, Lammech's Extreme (sabertooths or spider cave), and the ever popular Breach. Mixed in with that is a decent amount of changing around player dungeons to try new rooms/totems/configurations, which is something I really enjoy nerding out on.

    Of those Spectral Peaks and Well of Aldur are the hardest for XP. But Aldur is by far the best for loot, and Peaks is great if you're trying to build spider totems and get Xen staffs (really excited to do an earth/moon druid some day). So if I'm worried about my XP, I will do those for say 45mins, then pop over to a higher XP spot to finish the attenuation.

    Oh! Spindelskog is very good as well, and the shadow essences make wonderful potions. My recent builds have been taming or magic based, so I've not spent as much time there. Makes me miss being heavy/earth with a nice big hammer.
     
  5. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

    Messages:
    15,680
    Likes Received:
    19,466
    Trophy Points:
    153
    i don't think people who are often rude and inconsiderate care about being thought rude and inconsiderate. your post might have an impact on a minority of people who just didn't realize, but for the most part...
     
  6. Barugon

    Barugon Avatar

    Messages:
    15,679
    Likes Received:
    24,294
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    Stubbornly sticking to archery, I just don't do enough damage to attenuate. I might try Spectral Peaks again but I think you probably need fire magic there to be truly effective.
     
    Adam Crow likes this.
  7. Adam Crow

    Adam Crow Avatar

    Messages:
    1,792
    Likes Received:
    3,730
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It's very possible to stick to archery, but also try out some op stuff. Why not bard/tamer spec with amazing archery skills. You can attenuate very quickly and still enjoy archery. Easy button at its best right there. I'm currently bard/tamer spec but with polearms, which is very close to using ranged. Lots of fun & fills xp very quick.

    Edit: also if your not into taming, can switch taming out out for tactics spec or maybe air and that should be able to attenuate rather quickly still. Bard spec is the key for me... AA is too powerful not to use with the spec... if your doing physical damage yourself or with your pet, bard spec is a must. For me personally, bard spec and a high frenzy skill removes the need for tamer spec, but gives you the ability to still use a super effective pet when needed. For me removing tamer spec, and replacing with something else is usually harder to manage, but you can gain power if you do it right.
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2022
    FrostII, Cordelayne and Barugon like this.
  8. Tirrag

    Tirrag Avatar

    Messages:
    853
    Likes Received:
    1,820
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Iowa, USA
    Try an animal hunt in Tanglemire slaying everything. You will be really surprised how fast the XP builds up especially during double XP.
     
    FrostII and Barugon like this.
  9. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

    Messages:
    1,290
    Likes Received:
    1,771
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I've seen plenty of these just being folks grinding up their alts. They just multibox in the alt and fight with their primary while the alt just sits afk...
     
    Cordelayne likes this.
  10. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

    Messages:
    1,213
    Likes Received:
    1,264
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Neither do I.

    But CP is the best way to get XP for most players. It takes a while to overcome CP XP rates even if you're playing in a group. It's probably around AL 130s that a well optmized (i.e. min-maxed) will beat CP XP income.
    For me that counts as end game, for it takes so long to get past the "CP valley" (AL 100-130 at least) that most players will be stuck there "forever". They will need to choose between having fun and getting good XP.
     
    Coswald_Dirthmire and Cordelayne like this.
  11. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    This is interesting stuff to think about. I suppose part of it is what we consider "good" XP. Most control point groups are about getting literally the most XP the game will give you, but personally I call anything over about 10m an hour "good". ("Good XP considering the loot" or "Good XP for AL xx" might be much less depending on the context).

    An AL 100 build is 125 million XP, and needs 12.5m more to hit AL100. With those numbers a control point is what I would consider straight power leveling, over 1 level an hour and potentially a lot more since characters AL110 and under don't attenuate. For a player that's not power-leveling and not min-maxing, my gut says maybe like 4 hours to level is good at AL 100? So that's about 3mil an hour, but I'm curious what others think would be a decent timeframe to level would be.

    AL 115 is 523 million XP with about 52m needed for a level. A 500m XP build is where I generally start looking hard at gear since gains from leveling skills are for sure coming in much slower. It will depend on what folks feel is rewarding character development of course, but at that level builds can kill things that drop good loot, and I think doing that and investing in gear (and paying to always run aether stat potions and good food) will probably make damage, survivability, etc progress faster than straight XP.
    But there's folks who are mostly fulfilled by the leveling itself, in which case things can for sure be rough here. Non control point options like the Tartarus Zombies, Ruined Keep, NW Blackblades, the Rise and even starting to poke the big guys at the Breach seem like some of the nicer solo or party XP options. Killing a Breach Boss every 10 minutes would be 4.8m/hr XP in a private instance, so about 11 hours to gain a level. To me that seems reasonable for a well established non min-maxxy player, but I can see it being unsatisfying if you have fewer shorter sessions. "I've not leveled in the last 5 times I've played" can feel unrewarding. Incidentally, a duo that can kill breach boss every 5 minutes would make 8.4m/hr per player.

    AL 130 is 2,200 million XP with 218m needed to level, and I guess kind of shows that leveling has to slow down at some point unless you want half the server at AL 200. At this point if folks are starting to hit the 15m/hr mark they'd be looking at 14-15 hours per level, which is less than I thought but still slows leveling down to maybe once every couple weeks for a casual player?

    Anyway, long post, just thinking out loud a bit. I'm curious what others think about this, and about how much XP folks are bringing in solo, and killing which mobs where. I can see some of the XP/hr numbers above being hard to hit for some builds, but the time it would take to level if you can hit those numbers is also a little lower than I would have thought for the AL130 area. I also wanted to mention I was just throwing out an example with the breach bosses to get a feel for the numbers, grinding the same mob or two for 11 hours seems as tedious as a control point which would kind of defeat the purpose.
     
  12. Ysold

    Ysold Avatar

    Messages:
    363
    Likes Received:
    680
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Beregost, M'Hul Island, Umbra Regnum
    At the moment, I'm working on a character that reached AL 122 now.
    For me, the exact amount of XP I get is not really important; it's more like if I feel there's any progress. So when I adventure I usually have 1-2 main skills pointing up and a few that have slow progress anyway, like buffs. Ideally, I like my xp pool to stay level or rise a bit. It's getting harder to achieve that when AL goes up, but I hate putting all skills on hold because then I'd lose my sense of progress. So I occasionally join a CP group or Airship group, especially in times of double xp, until my xp pool looks good again.
    This character was able to handle Tanglemire at AL 100, so that's where she mostly hung out. Xp was very good in that stage and I was able to keep 4-5 main skills pointing up. At AL 115 or so she moved to Spectral Peaks (not the spiders), with 1-2 main skills pointing up and enjoying the drops.
    At the moment she's reduced to 1 main skill up, so it's hard to feel any progress now. I've been looking around for a new zone to work on for xp. She can handle tougher mobs, but it's taking her too long to kill a mob, so that reduces the amount of xp gained per hour a lot. So that's where CP and Airship come to the rescue. That allows her to have 1 or 2 more arrows up and still give me that sense of progress.

    PS: I don't go afk, unless I have to go for a sanitary break :)
     
  13. Cordelayne

    Cordelayne Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    3,333
    Likes Received:
    11,010
    Trophy Points:
    165
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I can't...I mean...this number is just staggering! It amazes me folks have the time/fortitude to grind this much xp. Shoot, I'm just happy I finally reached level 100, courtesy of double xp and CP groups. If you don't mind me asking Coswald, how long did it take you to get to your current level?
     
    Torrell and ConjurerDragon like this.
  14. merlinfire

    merlinfire Avatar

    Messages:
    34
    Likes Received:
    54
    Trophy Points:
    8
    For my character's progression, the closest thing to CP's that i can solo is the town sieges, they respawn really fast, really a bit too fast for me currently (I die more than i usually do) and the end-boss for the siege is completely out of my league.
     
    Adam Crow, Anpu and Cordelayne like this.
  15. Burzmali

    Burzmali Avatar

    Messages:
    1,290
    Likes Received:
    1,771
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I did sieges for a while, I used to keep an mp3 of Yakety Sax handy as I backpedal in circles over and over until I either beat the boss or fell into an unpathable hole in the terrain causing the boss to break off pursuit and rapidly heal all damage. Good times, I especially liked the bit where you have to let the boss have a little taste of blood every minute or so or they would disengage and full heal, it really added to the immersion of the game always being reminded that all enemies can instantly heal themselves and sprint like a Looney Tunes character as soon as they lose sight of you for 5 seconds.
     
  16. Adam Crow

    Adam Crow Avatar

    Messages:
    1,792
    Likes Received:
    3,730
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That's a great spot for mid-level players to get some endless combat. I use to sit in one of the fast spawns, fill up with junk weapons for a bit, then clear the 3 engineer camps and run out of there before the cabalists appeared.
     
  17. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

    Messages:
    1,213
    Likes Received:
    1,264
    Trophy Points:
    113
    This!
     
    merlinfire and Cordelayne like this.
  18. Sketch_

    Sketch_ Avatar

    Messages:
    345
    Likes Received:
    618
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Gender:
    Male
    Now hear me out - But there is something to be said for the traditional grind longform, however it seems its too late for most established players to enjoy it. Because of this I always labeled the CP parties "late game". But now I'm learning that they're sort of late mid-game to actual late-game, or something. Mostly they're kind of boring.

    Otherwise, if you're a new player - keeping to the "laborious" grinds neatly aligns you with a content-release pocket.
     
    Cordelayne likes this.
  19. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

    Messages:
    1,213
    Likes Received:
    1,264
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The key here is content difficulty vs progression rate.
    New content, excluding some exceptions, is highest level stuff. As this new content starts to get older it becomes the "go-to" for a sizeable portion of the player base high and low level alike.
    And here is the core of the issue: the progression without 2x XP is so slow that you're going to get bored / frustrated if you're aiming to be effective in, say, Aldur, Spindelskog Extreme or Breach, especially if you're starting in 2022. Without 2x XP you're stuck in CPs and the sorts for a long time before you can really play the high end content.

    And guess what? Removing 2x XP harms more lower level players than it does to higher level ones. High level: attenuate in 30 minutes instead of 15... okay then. Low level: XP income cut by 50%.
     
    merlinfire, jrs99 and Cordelayne like this.
  20. merlinfire

    merlinfire Avatar

    Messages:
    34
    Likes Received:
    54
    Trophy Points:
    8
    the gist i get from my limited experience is that there is a big difficulty spike between Ep1 and Ep2 that really needs an intermediate stepping stone.

    but also on progression, as a relatively new player, i have a clear sense that the old veterans have a huge power advantage over me (which makes sense), but i have no clue how long it will take me to close the gap. My current progression is already such that unless I'm running with a group, I can only train one or at most 2 skills simultaneously without declining my xp pool. Running some dailies helps a little, of course, and so I always do at least some of those.

    I think having some more options in terms of intermediate difficulty zones would be very helpful.
     
    FBohler and Cordelayne like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.