[hexx]

Originally Posted by Takelli

Sure will do!

{Death}, {Yes, please}

I don't know why Se thought it was a good idea to put that powerful of a move into the game. Just like the death move that can get casted on you during the CoP missions, and nothing can remove it...

A Paladin friend got killed like 15 times because of it XD

Tonberries have always had the ability "Everyone's Grudge" and if I remember correctly, its always been calculated based on how many Tonberries you have killed thus far......

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by hexx

Tonberries have always had the ability "Everyone's Grudge" and if I remember correctly, its always been calculated based on how many Tonberries you have killed thus far......

They have? Every game that I've played in the FF series that I've run into a Tomberry, I've never seen the move used before... Huh... Maybe I'll look it up.

[Raydeus]

Also need to remind people to pay to clear hate before fighting Tonberry NMs. >_<

Or do the quest if they haven't beforehand.

[Taskmage]

lol

[Raydeus]

Orionrockr was defeated by Grav'iton.

Now that has to be the understatement of the year. Guy (and his party) should've lost 24k+ xp just for that.

[Taskmage]

Level Down ...
Level Down ...
Level Down ...
Level Down ...
Level Down ...
Orionrockr's level limit has decreased to 70.

lol seriously that amount of damage shouldn't leave a body

[Karinya]

First of all: I'm glad to see that there is some support for this idea.

Originally Posted by Ziero

Instead of completely overhauling the entire EXP reward system to try and get people to spread out and try "new" things (which for the most part aren't new at all) with an increasingly complex and inflated system of varying Exp distribution, it would be best to just increase the max Exp per kill cap and create additional bonuses to SC+MBs. The simplest solutions are usually the best, and a simple exp cap increase would be a big push towards getting people to target "stronger" mobs. And fighting stronger mobs would bring back the need for SC+MB, which combined with some sort of increased utility, would go a long way in bringing the old school exp style back into the picture. At all levels and against all potential targets.

The cap is already 300, IIRC. So why don't most parties fight 300 exp mobs now? Because you can kill two 150 exp mobs in less than half the time and downtime, with less risk of a death, plus get better chain bonuses. This is not news. It's where massacre of the weaklings parties *came* from.

I like the idea of adjusting the exp tables, too (a cap raise would not do it, you would have to change the base exp values of mobs at reasonably killable levels), but that's independent of whether there should *also* be more variety in mobs actually hunted at any given level. Right now people pick on the gimp families, for obvious reasons, but IMO SE should do something to make the rewards of mobs balance out their dangers. Trying to hand-tune every mob family in the game would be too huge a task (although they really could do something about imps and colibri), so if they can't make all mobs of the same level exactly equally challenging, they can at least put in a way for players willing to take on more difficult targets (not just meaning higher levels, but mobs of more dangerous families) to get some reward for doing so.

There's not much left of FFXI to actually explore, it's an old game with many old players and much of them have seen it all before. The "explore new lands" bit isn't very valid when it's all been seen and done. When WotG came out, people were all over it looking for new places to Exp, but nothing compared to the ToAU areas.

In exp per hour, no. I happen to see that as a bad thing, especially when it persists for years on end. (At first I thought SE intended ToAU camps to be limited by loss of the AC, but since they still haven't made besieged *actually* difficult to the point that the AC is lost a significant fraction of the time, I've abandoned that theory. Clearly SE is cool with pretty much permanent Empire control of the AC and the consequences that result from that.) But at the same time, I don't want to see the best camps and setups just replaced with new better best camps and setups that dominate the game for the *next* three years.

There are not very many new areas. But there are a *lot* of underutilized areas. How many people have entered Carpenters' Landing in the last month? 3 months? Since the last time you did a CoP mission there? I think I've been to Riverne - both sides combined - less than half a dozen times *total* in however long it's been since CoP came out. (Close to 5 years, isn't it?) And I'm not sure I've been to Valley of Sorrows at all since ToAU killed the exp scene there (although, of course, some people do go there to fight Adamantoise). Going to the same half-dozen zones over and over and over while many others are deserted is not a hallmark of great game design. It is a hallmark of the tyranny of effectiveness.

The bounty system, as I described it, would be self-correcting. Whatever gets hunted more will be worth less, and whatever gets hunted less will be worth more, until people start going after it. I don't know if, in the long run, you would see a more-or-less stable equilibrium with very nasty mobs having higher bounties (and being hunted rarely/with lower kill rates) and moderately nasty mobs having lower ones, or lots of week-to-week fluctuation, but from an individual's perspective they would still be doing different mobs in different parties so that would be fine with me. A stable equilibrium would have to involve *every* mob family being hunted by someone. (And all getting about the same exp/hr - otherwise players would abandon the lower value families until the bounty system shifted and made them worth more. To be stable an equilibrium would have to satisfy two constraints: every mob family is killed at the rate that makes its bounty remain at the current level, and there is no net flow of players toward or away from any mob family from week to week. Since players can be pretty effective exp/hr maximizers, the latter constraint probably only holds when at least one camp for each mob type makes competitive exp/hr.)

Speaking of which, I like the idea of counting by exp earned rather than mob deaths, so as to count out TW farmers and reduce the influence of people just doing FoV or skillups or whatever. Conquest already counts by exp - or so the NPCs say - so it shouldn't be too hard to do. Then a stable equilibrium would have to involve every mob family being hunted *for exp* by someone. There are some mobs that there is a shortage of level 75 camps for, but they could still be hunted by lower level parties (or small parties, an interesting suggestion by Ryoii) or in level sync. (BTW, someone mentioned getting less exp in level capped zones. I thought that was fixed, but if not, it should be, so it works the same exp-wise as being synced to that level. That shouldn't be hard.)

And now with the Northlands on the horizon, these same people will be the first in line to explore the new lands and find out if any of the areas there provide a place to rival ToAU exp camps. When these explorers find any good camps, they relay this information to the playerbase and the players effectively follow suit. So even if the entire Exp distribution system was changed, a few key players would go out and find the best methods depending on each mob and the rest of the playerbase would just follow along blindly. In the end, it would just lead to the same situation that happens now, only with a few more squishy mobs to kill.

That's the reason for the dynamic system, rather than any one set of adjustments that then isn't touched until the next patch (or later). There might be no consistent set of best methods and camps. You'd always have to look at what was good *this week* if you wanted optimal exp. Or if there were a stable equilibrium, the player indifference constraint would mean there would be a huge number of equally good camps, rather than just a few.

Players are already split between TP burns, SC+MBs and Manaburns. But at this time, it's a forced split because one method clearly and dominantly outshines the others in terms of effectiveness. Adding options to increase the two forms of Exp that are lacking would only serve to enhance all of the game and it's players by letting those who don't enjoy TP burns to focus on their preferred party style while getting comparatively good Exp. And if so many people ditch TP burns to do other things, then so be it. But at least everyone should be given the option.

The other two party styles are more effective against more dangerous monsters. The current system rewards beating up large numbers of weaklings, so party setups that are good at beating up large numbers of weaklings (i.e., TP burns) get better exp. But only certain mobs are available in the massive quantities you need for that party style, so the bounty system involving mobs that are more sparse would reward fighting them when they're higher level relative to your level sync person (assuming you could handle them that way, which might require a SC+MB setup and/or real tanking). At equilibrium, the bounty on mob families that can only be found sparsely would compensate for the resulting lower kill speed.

The only thing that should really determine how strong something is are their level and their abilities. A T rabbit should always be stronger then a DC Beastman.

And an IT colibri should always be stronger than a VT taurus, tonberry, or malboro, but which one would you rather have your party fight? (Even not counting which is worth more exp.) This ideal is a long way from being attained and probably never can be perfectly (especially when you consider how different jobs and abilities have different effectiveness against different mobs). The bounty system would correct that to some extent.

In a weird way, I think it's an experience point version of the law of supply and demand. The bounty system would raise the "price" (exp value) of any mob family that is in short "supply" (number killed per week) until players, seeking max exp for their groups, reach equilibrium prices where "producing" (killing) any mob is just as good as "producing" any other mob. (But of course the ease of killing any given mob family depends on your party setup as well as the availability of "natural resources" (spawns). Law of comparative advantage, manaburn edition?) It follows that the playerbase collectively could produce Hayekian information about how difficult a given mob family is across all possible party setups, which might be useful to the devs in later balance adjustments.

[Elwynn]

In a weak attempt to get slightly back on topic, I hope that for 14 they come up with an XP system that isn't primarly based on the final kill stroke of monsters. Shouldn't healers get XP for healing? Shouldn't thieves get XP for picking locks? How about XP for each swing? It's not like they don't have an example, since campaign/besieged awards XP for healing and buffing. You do have to make sure it's not easily abusable, but I'd rather have that than the "everybody gets the exact same XP" model they have now. It's okay for xp party, but it's not so great for solo.

[Ketaru]

There are games that give EXP for completing quests and missions. Not sure how well that would translate to Final Fantasy, but just saying...

[Kailea]

Originally Posted by Ketaru

There are games that give EXP for completing quests and missions. Not sure how well that would translate to Final Fantasy, but just saying...

if it was a decent amount, I think I would be doing quests more ;p

[Armando]

Due to my 3-day absence from the forums I won't even bother looking at all the pages I missed, but...

In a weak attempt to get slightly back on topic, I hope that for 14 they come up with an XP system that isn't primarly based on the final kill stroke of monsters. Shouldn't healers get XP for healing? Shouldn't thieves get XP for picking locks? How about XP for each swing? It's not like they don't have an example, since campaign/besieged awards XP for healing and buffing. You do have to make sure it's not easily abusable, but I'd rather have that than the "everybody gets the exact same XP" model they have now. It's okay for xp party, but it's not so great for solo.

That's treading on very, very, very, very, very dangerous waters. You're reproducing Campaign EXP here. All that'll do is cause each individual to perform in a way that maximizes his own EXP - even if it's not the most optimal behavior, and even if it means sacrificing the rest of the party's EXP.

I agree that grinding mobs shouldn't be the only, or perhaps even primary way of getting EXP. However, I don't see that system working very well for combat, ever. The only way to get 6 people to work together is if it's in their best interest to do so. That means working towards a common EXP number.

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Elwynn

In a weak attempt to get slightly back on topic, I hope that for 14 they come up with an XP system that isn't primarly based on the final kill stroke of monsters. Shouldn't healers get XP for healing? Shouldn't thieves get XP for picking locks? How about XP for each swing? It's not like they don't have an example, since campaign/besieged awards XP for healing and buffing. You do have to make sure it's not easily abusable, but I'd rather have that than the "everybody gets the exact same XP" model they have now. It's okay for xp party, but it's not so great for solo.

That would be VERY easy to exploit, especially for healers. Just like how it was in FlyFF, people would AFk, and theyd spamm the same spell over and over again. (They didn't need a bot, all they needed to do was just shove a penny under a key, to hold the one above it down, or tape it down so the spell would just repeat over and over). People would make bots so that the spell would be cast over and over, and when out of Mp, the bot owuld rest, then repeat.

But, FFXIV is getting rid of the traditional exp system though (Said in the first announcment). I just hope its that the more you use a weopon type, the better you get at it, and you can learn abilities and spells. Not just Weapon skills, or having to buy your spells.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

I'd really like to see something similar to Fields of Valor in FFXIV.

Fields of Valor would be even better though if there was also a bonus to the xp from each mob killed as part of the regime. Even better would be having the bonus fluctuate based on the popularity of the individual training regime. This bonus would help draw players to the regimes with more challenging mobs and help scale Fields of Valor for players targetting T, VT, and IT enemies.

Here is an example of how Fields of Valor helps a Lv45 trio targetting T & VT mobs

Lv45 Training Regime Trio

Training Regime
Western Altepa - Page 3
1020 XP
10 Desert Beetles (Lv47-51)
1 Cactuar (Lv48-53)

Average XP for 10 Desert Beetles
(160+200+240+280+320)/5*0.55*10=1320

Average XP for 1 Cactuar
(200+240+280+320+360+400)/6*0.55*1=165

Average XP for Training Regime Kills
1485

The trio should be able to complete this regime 3 times in 2 hours.

XP Per Hour
(1485+1020)*3/2 = 3757.5

This isn't quite enough to make it directly compete with a full party fighting standard mobs. However, lets consider this regime instead had them fighting something more challenging and less popular which had each kill providing a 50% bonus.

XP Per Hour with Popularity Bonus
(1485*1.5+1020)*3/2 = 4871

This would make for very reasonable xp and a whole lot of fun. Add the xp rings and chains on top and you have very good xp for a mid level party.

P.S. - I'm going to be trying this with my Lv45 RDM/DNC and an Emperor Band.

[Ziero]

Originally Posted by Ryoii/Nonomii

The bounty system won't make mobs squishy. It will promote the targeting of mobs with tougher abilities. The goal here is to make combat more varied and interesting even if the best method for each mob is rather well understood. Fixing SC+MB to compare with TP and MP burns is only one part. Another is fighting a larger variety of mobs.

I never said it would make mobs squishy, but there are tons of squishy yet "dangerous" mobs out there people used to exp on but moved away from due to greener pastures. People would just alternate between the numerous different Squishy mobs, which include things like Taurus, Raptors and Couerls, to get their Exp. Because even with the bounty system, it wouldn't do anything to prevent killing T-VT mobs over and over and TP burns can kill those mobs just as easily as anything else. People do kill Skoffins at the Mamool point and Wivres at the Colibri camp after all, two very exp "unfriendly" mobs.

Originally Posted by Takelli

And that is why no one does explore is because the verteren players tell teh player base, and teh new players that X area is bad for Exp, go to Y area instead. They should let the new players explore, who know, maybe they will find out something that the verteren players over looked.

It's not that people don't explore, hell I had LS mates form a 12-75 static and they traveled all over finding exotic places to Exp. It's not that people never try new things, it's just that they never find new things. And that system would just carry over to any proposed "bounty" system. Some pioneers will find the best mobs to alternate between and everyone else will blindly follow.

Originally Posted by Karinya

The cap is already 300, IIRC. So why don't most parties fight 300 exp mobs now? Because you can kill two 150 exp mobs in less than half the time and downtime, with less risk of a death, plus get better chain bonuses. This is not news. It's where massacre of the weaklings parties *came* from. ...*snip*...

Which is why it would be good to raise the cap and make killing that one super Tough mob the give same exp as killing two weaker mobs. In the end, that's exactly what you're recommending, just in a far more overcomplicated fashion and with a bizarre belief it will make the majority of the playerbase go out and try new things weekly. It won't. People will find out which few mobs give the best Exp and alternate between the best breeds. One week they'll do Raptors, next week they'll do greater birds and then they'll be back to colibri. But making IT-IT+ mobs give far more Exp, and then adding utility bonuses to SC+MBs would help promote those players who don't like TP burns and prefer the old way to Exp.

This bounty system would just help TP burns get more Exp more then it would SC+MB pts or Manaburns. In fact it would probably hurt manaburns more then anything seeing as there are very few decent camps to burn in. But TP burns can tear the crap out of anything that's T to VT, which under your idea would give bonus Exp. People still wouldn't do mobs that are IT+ because they wouldn't be worth it unless they gave ridiculously broken amounts of exp. And even then, after a week of being killed, those ridiculously tough IT+ monsters would just rot for weeks until they got back to the max Exp payout.

ToAU areas were indeed made to bring the concept of TP burns and 10-20k an hour pts to the masses, and it's done so very dominantly. The concept of killing weaker mobs to gain Exp chains to make the best Exp per hour pre-dates CoP. It also works at nearly every level, as killing T-VT mobs in Qufim is MUCH better exp then IT+ mobs. Pugils, mobs with Def and Eva boost, an AoE slow and the ability to *one-shot* people are torn apart constantly in the Dunes, in Qufim and even the Jungles...as soon as they con VT. Because no matter how "dangerous" a mob is, once players can simply overpower it, the mob stands no chance. If there was a Soulflayer camp that gave 30k+ an hour easy, you can bet your ass people would flock to it. Because "dangerous monsters" don't stop people from getting their Exp. Never have, never will. And creating some abstract and overcomplicated "Bounty" system to try and force players to kill these "dangerous" mobs will only cause people to find a new way around the system. Because that's what players do best, beat the system.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

I tested the Fields of Valor trio idea, and we were able to kill the T-VT targets as quickly as expected. However, it wasn't a complete success, and we unfortunately wiped to an IT antican.

This was my first trio where I was not pulling and tanking, so I learned a valuable lesson about thoroughly explaining the strategy and quirks of an unfamiliar camp to your trio partners. I forget that many places are completely unfamiliar to newer players. I look forward to trying it again.