Range limit of XP award needs increasing

As the title says, the range limit of (I believe currently 40m) needs to be increased.

@MrBlight and I did some testing earlier today and found the current distance to be very limiting for a certain style of play (specifically mine, which is why I am going to raise a fuss).

We were in wyrmsands fighting the elite skeleton mages and archers around the Ghost Corpion. I noticed that I didn't seem to be getting xp in a lot of cases. I chalked it up to just a display delay at first, however I was consistently missing out on xp that Blight was receiving, while partied with him and playing a support role.

Blight is an archer, and has the innate that increases his range. He currently engages enemies at around 33m and since those enemies are all ranged, that's about the distance they stay at. This gives me a mere 9m buffer that I can be behind or beside him in order to still get xp.

Now I fully understand that for many people, this may not be a problem, because if you are melee you will be up at the enemy, and if you are a mage or archer you will be in shooting distance of it anyways. However, for a certain playstyle, like mine, which is focused on heals, crowd control, and back-lines support, I miss out on this xp sometimes up to half of the time.

This pictures is an example of a situation where I am fully contributing to the kill by throwing heals on blight while occupying a footman that came up from behind. This is a completely normal situation for someone to be in, however, by doing so I am right at the borderline of the xp range from the skeleton he is focused on, and one step the wrong way by me or the skeleton and I miss out on xp.




It gets even worse if I am in a group situation and we are playing at all spread out. I can be running back and forth doing crowd control, heals, gathering up mobs that spawn behind healers and pulling them away, all that sort of stuff, and be missing out on the xp of the creatures that are dying on the other side of the group.

The worst part is that this is so hard to keep track of or to even notice if you don't play with your skills window up at all times (which I don't) so a lot of people are probably missing out on xp without realizing it.


Other important points to note:

- Healing my party member does NOT grant me any xp if I am out of the xp range of the mob
- Damaging the mob any amount does NOT grant me any xp if I am out of the xp range of the mob at the time it dies
- If I am out of the xp range of the mob when it dies, my party member does NOT receive full xp, it is still split as though half was going to me


Solutions:

- Increase the range of the xp award for party members by at least another 20m, OR
- Grant the xp regardless of range from the mob if you have damaged the mob or healed someone who damaged the mob
- Another idea for the healing could be that if you have healed someone who is eligible for xp, your eligible range should be doubled

Any of these tweaks would make this work much better and lessen the amount of xp I am missing out on which can end up being a pretty huge amount over an hour or two of grinding.

One more idea that would have helped to notice this problem and help people to notice if they are getting xp or not in the future would be to have the number show up in our log or over our head or something instead of needing to keep the big skills window open and taking up all our viewing area.

 

Also, those skeleton archers are not linked to the new artifact/potion/recipe loot table.

 

I don't know. I won't scoff at your issues but... I feel like there's something wrong with the idea of some dude who's beyond the range of the enemy (aka: totally safe) getting XP.

Maybe the XP received shouldn't drop to zero entirely but, instead, get progressively lessen the farther (safer) you position yourself.

I will say that participating in multiple (spread out) skirmishes and getting XP out of it encourages a powergaming mindset. You're the healer, you should be able to communicate to your team that, as powerlevelingly efficient as it may be, you'd rather stay closer as a group so that you can get XP out of it.

But who knows, maybe the range IS too small. I figured I'd share my concerns with the idea.

 

Is there a reference where Port states that the 40m starts from the mob killed ?
I was under the impression (perhaps mistakenly) that it was 40m from other party members....

 

umm no... he is obviously actively participating in the fight, he should get full exp. range is too small and was inconsiderate

take a fire mage for example that is teamed up with a melee; lets just say the melee get the killing blow thus the exp and as a fire mage can be well over 40m away and be actively participating since certain fire spells can be shot from over 40m away... fire mage loses out. same predicament, range was inconsiderate of possibilities

 

Its definitly 40m from mob. Preach can link as im on mobile.

7m from me he has to stay, when im shooting mobs. Thats under half of the range of healing ray.
I play with other archers, quite often and the issue comes up aswell.

The thing is too, it doesnt yield the full exp to me if he runs out of range, so after testing today its become pretty clear we have lost im willing to bet hundrerds of thousands of exp to this.

Not to mention if we aggro a 2nd tougher mob ( in this example ) he has to juggle THAT mob while staying 40m from one im shooting, which after playing with it tday and testing, its surprising how easy and often he gets 0 exp from kills.

 

And honestly.. multiple skirmishs can happen with 1 pull, ( quite often 2 or 3 mobs come at once ) and when its 3, because of my range and his spells ( him not being melee) while juggling mobs, even 7-8m around me, he quite often can take 1 step wrong way and miss out on exp. Its not like its multiple skirmishs all over map.
He can be dealing with a seperate add on, while healing me ( completly relevent to helping on the pull ) and not get exp for it.

I think because the tracking is a pain, any groups of archers and healers mght be loosing exp and not even noticing.

I vote 60m. Max range + range of heal spell.

 

Perhaps you should read my post. Running heals, crowd control and juggling add on mobs is hardly playing it totally safe.

As Blight mentioned, I suspect many healers who are grouping with archers are actually missing out on xp without realizing it, for the simple fact that healing ray and healing grace have a 20m range. If I was staying 10-15m behind Blight and playing as a pure healer I would not be receiving a single point of xp for the whole session.

I personally don't think it would be fair to either have healers forced to stay 5m from their party member or get diminished xp, after all healers are an important role and contribute plenty to a fight even though they are standing 'totally safe' as you put it.

 

My heal spell range is over 33m for healing ray so 60m would not be wide enough if I was at max range for that spell. Generally healers can use healing touch on archers and it stays within 6m to get the exp. I have noticed the missing exp as I have gotten a larger and larger range for healing. I suppose they want use to stay close to the action and not range heal.

 

If we all need to do "range math" to make sure we get exp while in groups Port is doing it wrong, not us. It's just not fun at all to have to think about if your party members are in the radius before you do a kill shot. Come on @DarkStarr this is silly.

 

Well, that explains why I have allways less XP

 

Makes me wonder how much exp we lost initially andar, luckily i think we leveled a lot before it was implemented.
But yea more we watch, im convinced people are loosing a LOT of exp.

 

If you're staying so far away that the enemy can't hit you, that's playing "totally safe". And you're the healer... that's like "double totally safe".

Again, I'm not dismissing your problems, I'm just pointing out something you guys probably haven't considered.

Read my post.

Here, let me help you:

 

Think the point was that he activly keeps me healed agianst the one, while juggling or handling the add ons.
( 2-3 come at once )

So in his case he is not pure healing, and is getting hit from the rest of the pull.
But pure healers would be * safe * in the sense of they are out of range till the aggro changes, or the added mobs go right after them. But i would still classify them as activly in the fight, range of harm be damned.

But the discussion is kinda a moot point.

Its clearly a problem, and we simply want to share in our example how easily it can happen. Imo im due LOTS of exp from cases im splitting, yet other person isnt recieving.

 

The question one has to ask themselves is "why?"

If you're going at it from a pure "efficiency" mindset by herding tons of mobs to get them ready to be slaughtered, at one point one should come to the conclusion that it's not efficient enough if the healer or whoever isn't getting XP for it.

That's why I brought up the issue:

• You're either out of enemy range and, therefore, safe.
• Or you're mass herding mobs for power-leveling purposes.

If you guys are merely attacking a group of two or three, how is range an issue?

I'm not saying it can't be an issue, I just don't see it.

 

Have you played in groups?

 

I have.

 

The range was put in so people couldn't grind control points with alts or paid customers sitting at the entrance.

This was never about penalizing party members who are actively roving the map together except that is who was also caught in the net.

 

Via Release 37 Instructions,

• 40 Meter Requirement for XP Gain: NOTE: This was an R36 Experimental Change. We are also satisfied with this experiment based on metrics and behavior observations and will continue forward with the requirement that party members must be within 40 meters of at least one other member of their party to gain experience.

Here is the link: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-37-instructions.74226/#post-723285

According to this you only need to be within 40-meters of another party member, NOT the mobile that you are getting experience for. So, with that in mind, this sounds more like a bug than an issue with the 40-meters not being enough distance for you to get experience.

 

Id hardly call pulling 2 - 3 tougher mobs at a time ( how they come ) power grinding..

Essentially your not having these issues, but its happening anytime im in a group of 2 archers, or with a healer.

I pull 1 ranged mob at 33mm. He starts shooting me. His 2 add ons, one being another range or a melee attack aswell.
Preach heals me, essentially pullint the aggro or the other two. He does light kiting and crowd control while i finish first mob. In dealing with othrr 2 mobs he walks 7 meters back from me or diagnal right ( being careful not to run into other groups ). He becomes 41 meters away frm original target when i kill it. While still being spitting distance from me, trying not 5o get smacked by the 2 mobs ( or doing what mages do, which is move while he works em ). No exp for kill = 2/3 mobs he gets exp for.

Maybe someonw should confirm that, because we are definitly having it based on the mob, not player. ( he can be within 20m casting range and we can repeatedly have him not get exp for kills )
40m from party memver makes sense. But not how its worken.