Why penilize solo player by rewarding players in groups with bonus experiance for grouping.

This may be been addressed in a earlier threads an it may not have. Personally I don't check the forums often because the way some folks know everything and try to force there opinions on other players and the devs.
and I really want to say this. Ok venting done. Of course some would say this will be a vent.

I don't think players in groups should be rewarded with bonus adventure points just for playing in groups, some groups just go farm experience together anyways.

By rewarding groups in that way your basically penalizing me the solo player for not grouping. I don't join groups that often and I'm sure there a lot of others out there don't either. I have to fight a lot harder to vanquish the same foes as those people in groups. In a group I could sit there with my thumb in places they shouldn't go and rake up the points doing nothing.

I just fought 8 or more thugs and fighters in there camp in the Twin Foothills, it took everything I could do to vanquish them and stay alive and at the end of the battle I end up with less adventure points in my pool than before the battle , huh? I was using sword and shield with heavy armor , training in them of course and a few passives. I grab the loot and before I can start to harvest the first node after recouping my points here they cone again. So ok I do it a couple more times with the same results, crazy.

Now if I was in a group I would gain a bunch of experience for the same gig in only a matter of a few minutes. Now does that really sound fair. I can not believe anyone in there right mind would think so. Don't tell me I could just join a group because that's why our sovereign believes there should be a single player off line, a single player online, and multiplayer online. I want to play my way that's what the concept is all about the freedom to play my way. I've played since the 1st release that we could, and been playing quite regularly for the last year so I do know how to play.

So why do I get penalized for not grouping...



Side thought, this also encourages farming gold . Now people have to think about one thing, for some reason in games we can sell this farmed gold in game for CASH, real money, and people will actually buy it. That said, money could be used for not so virtuous things, that is called money laundering and yes believe it or not some people will use this in fanatical ways that are killing people all over the world. Just saying, think about it. What better way to make money than playing a game. Do you think this won't happen with the way the world is right now?

Thanks for your support.

 

....if one person kills a mob that gives 1000 xp, they get 1000 xp. if two people kill it, they get 700 each. that's less. the group xp bonus is an attempt to make up the the difference, especially to make up the difference to people with GMs who choose to help lower-level players.

 

Solo play will still have a place for harvesting, or if you're already comfortable in that wilderness area with your skill set.

Then you can decide if your play session is going to emphasize on xp or resources etc.

 

Gosh, I don't see it as a penalty at all for solo play. Everyone and their family members have been complaining that group play is a negative because they have to split the resources and everything, there are no real mechanics that make players want to group play even if they really want to. When I grouped, we left loot on the ground, because there is no way not be a ninja. This is nothing more than a minor step towards letting people play together without everyone having a major net loss of productivity. In summary, not a penalty for solo play, a minor boom for group play where there was none.

Sure there may be bad apples, but in reality 99% of the players are just trying to have fun.

 

Groups are favored by acclamation. Solo players are the despicable creatures that have to be endured. This fantasy world is so much like the real world, it's scary. You will never be successful pointing out the unfairness of it all.

 

At some point, Twin Foothills will be too easy to solo anyway. I don't see how would there be any penalty than what we currently have right now.

I find grouping is now more fun and rewarding with the latest change. However, if I just play solo, then nothing really change anyway.

 

Solo play should be the primary mode of play for the simple reason that this game was designed to be played this way - according to the announcement during Kickstarter.
There it even says that SotA is not a MMORPG. The scenes were meant for a couple of players, maybe a few dozen.

But a handful of loud people pushed the game into the MMO niche more and more which lead to a game that is neither this nor that with performance problems and a general problem with the Selective Multiplayer approach that becomes apparent more and more.

The soloplayer aspect should NEVER be pushed back. Players in solo mode should never be punished! In fact there should be more incentives to play solo! This is as important a playstyle as all of the other modes. And it would mean "war" if this mode would be penalized!

 

I run solo a lot of the time purely due to RL and I can exp a lot faster solo than I ever can in a group mainly down to my build type, I do however run two sessions a week for EVL members where we go out to certain zones and run a full group or two looping round for a few hours. For many players this is their main way to increase their exp pool due to their own build / real life schedule but more importantly its a guild event and we're teaming up to do stuff and get to know each other and generally have a laugh especially when someone does something daft or idiotic during the run. Therefore penalizing people for grouping up just because they can clear content faster when they are already having to share resources and cash drops is silly and the recent boost in exp gained is a boon for most IMHO.

Maybe the solution is to have the offline version give a higher exp rate for those determined to play solo all the time with their own time constraints (not sure if this is implemented already) but penalizing people for playing with guild or friends is daft and I'd go further and ask for zones that are specifically group orientated to make these areas a challenge to said groups. Last night as a guild group we hit Deep Ravenswood and they've added some nice Ferocious Red's into the zone plus some Obsidian bears which are a challenge to a lot of players even in a group and make for a much more satisfying kill than a whole pack of Elder wolves at once giving that same feeling as you get solo killing 2 or 3 thugs, it's all about perspective and having fun when you play.

 

I don't think the basis of the premises is not particularly sound.

Group bonuses are there to reward the effort it takes to be a group. If there's no bonus then often you find it disincentives groups when they would otherwise be possible since scenes are often tuned to one avatar if you build correctly to farm them.

If you play solo the base rate seems to be sufficient as I have played to 50 solo with the exception of grouping for the Lich and Xavara.

Shouldn't feel bad if the grass is greener.

At any rate, groups have the issue of over farming and down time. Right now that may not seem the case with the overtuning of spawn rates, but given the speed you can farm humanoids for cash I would expect spawn rates to be lowered again making group farming more of a specialized activity to specific instances that can support a group roving around killing things at a steady XP p/h

 

The group exp bonus is there because most zones are too small for a full sized group even with the boosted respawn. I still think you get more experience over a given time solo if you're efficient at it.

 

This was because you had to use a ton of pooled xp in skills you had raising during the fight? I'm not sure this is a penalty.

 

In my experience you will get more exp by going solo not to mention you get the full loot. The point of increasing group exp was to get the grouping at least somewhat useful instead of all the way bad. (Its useful for new player to group with experienced player to get early boost - at the cost of inefficient hours spent by the experienced player)

And what comes to not gaining enough exp to cover skill increases... You should not have 2 passives and few actives turned to training at all times. Like you can get about 400k exp/h but turning sword passive to train at 90-> will drain 400k exp in less than 5 mins (ofcourse gaining like 5 points too). You can upkeep those skills & passives with incoming exp if they are really really low, like less than 50...mayby.

You might want to save good chuck of it up and keep a minimum number, say 500k, and only using what you can get above it - it makes increasing the skills alot easier. All in all careful management of exp pool is vital for progression. (Im nearing 80 skill levels in what I want and Im keeping 2milj exp pool as base)
The more you have saved up, less uses it takes to go up (still takes the same amount per point to go up). Specially important with spells that cost reagents. Someone correct me if I am somehow wrong in this!

On the note on the gold farming, the price of IGG is declining every week we go as more players are able get it effectively them self's. Besides some people dont have time to play, but have money to spend to their hobby. Supply & demand, nothing special there.

 

This is used as an excuse, if 2 player are in a party do they have to spend only 70% of the damage each to get that exp? No they do 50% so that is giving them a 20% exp bonus.

No you can not harvest while solo play as you use to be able to thanks to the new respawn system. If it takes you a few mins to kill mobs in the room then you try and gather 1 or 2 nodes you will have to go back to fighting the mobs again. If the room has 6 mobs in it then on the re-spawn it will bring back 3 of them then you will have to fight them and then next re-spawn another 3 and you don't get a lot of resources unless your in a group.

 

+1 to "I like the new solution"

 

That is what I meant by comfortable grinding in the area. For me, I can kill fast enough with my combat deck to mine properly as a solo, but it not, I'll naturally look for a group to do it.

 

There is no penalty for solo play, I do wonder where this thinking comes from. Solo play is the baseline. There is a sharing of xp while grouping, which gives each player less xp than they would have if they had defeated the same things while solo. In an attempt to promote group play, there is a bonus xp for grouping to help mitigate that xp is shared. If I take someone from my guild with me to an area I like to adventure in to help them out, I will be earning less xp (and gold) than if I did it solo. Simply put, areas that you can easily handle solo will give you worse returns in groups. I do groups in them for fun, and to help out my friends.

 

I try to just play the game and not get too caught up in the mechanics and just have fun but.... here is how I understand what you are seeing. I could be wrong though.

When you group you actually get less exp per kill but you use fewer actions to get those kills so your exp pool grows faster. However those are unrealized gains until you actually use skills and convert the exp into skills.

When you solo you get more exp per kill but you use more skills and you are converting your exp to a skill at a higher rate and you see less unrealized gains in the form of your exp pool.

In theory you could group up with people and get your exp pool up then go gather resources in easy zones, so you gain realized exp and money/resources to optimize your time.

 

A penalty is a negative applied to the player. As Ao points out.. Solo is a baseline.. shared XP is where the actual penalty is. Easier kills.. less XP per kill.

Perception is the main issue here. In theory, grouping actually allows more XP over time.. but few players see it that way.. especially if they're made aware of the numbers. What the player sees is.. they're getting 30% less XP per kill in a group. That discourages grouping.

I had to deal with this same situation back in my Neverwinter Nights days. We had a similar situations on our server. Despite the fact that XP came much faster in groups.. players saw less XP per kill and looked at it like a penalty. So the higher level players often solo'd because of the illusion of more XP over time. So I changed it to a 10% bonus as I recall.. (we also had penalties for being too far off the party average level).. bam.. suddenly everyone wanted to group.. Now this was during our twilight days so getting people together was more important than how fast they leveled up. The point is, the perception of XP per kill tends to outweigh XP over time. (Assuming the player feels confident enough to solo in the first place). So if you want players to group, they need to feel they're getting enough XP out of it.

Now I wouldn't recommend an obvious bonus with a large number of users.. but I might consider a slightly more complex system than simply group = 70% XP. I would probably knock it %5-10 per group member capped at a 25% penalty or something like that and then consider situational bonuses such as number of kills based on challenge (yellow/orange etc) within an encounter. So if you wipe out a camp in a group you might get 90% instead of 75.. but if you're solo you might get a bonus.

 

Because everytime you kill a mob you get X amount of XP but with 1 person killing it you use approx 2x as many moves on it so if you have everything unlocked you gain 2x as much off that mob so use 2x as much of your pooled xp during the combat.

Simply everytime you use any ability then that ability and any related innates will use 1 ticks worth of xp on that skill to gain so the more you have unlocked the more xp used per action, just lock up skills thats what we all do.

 

I am a little confused by this. Penalized means your losing something. Which in this case you are playing Solo (Single Player), By yourself and gaining experience at the rate intended for a Solo Player. Now if the NPC's/Mobs started grouping up and leveling faster than you, this could be a bigger problem than just more EXP for you. SkyNet may have just come online and we are all doomed.

So if your suggestion is that EXP should be raised, then post that. It really seems like this post is just geared at stirring up emotions about a single player vs Multiplayer game. If you are playing Solo play, stop worrying so much about people playing multiplayer, you will never see them anyway and have no impact what so ever on your single player game.