Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

[Ziero]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Way too much stuff that's just too stupid or way out there to respond to fully. I'll just simply take issue with Ziero's pulling out of context Karinya's suggestion of a system-wide xp buff and criticizing it as pointless because it buffs meleeburn too, then going on to trash any suggestion of an xp/hr nerf on meleeburn as unfairly punishing people who are just looking to get past the worst part of the game faster.

An xp/hr nerf on meleeburn is the most obvious and cleanest way to bring the disparity down without potentially skewing the system in other ways. Either the XP return of favored mobs (imps, colibri) has to be reduced (say a 0.8 xp mod for each of those families), or they need an increase in HP to lower kill speed, or both. These are clean, low-impact changes that would alleviate the vast disparity and exclusive focus surrounding these camps.

This brings up the argument that XP takes too long to make progress and that slowing things back down again is horrible and unfair to people who dislike xp/meripo, etc. Which is precisely why Karinya deliberately married such a nerf to an across-the-board buff, including meleeburn in the above examples. Whether xp/hr is nerfed locally and then inflated globally or whether xp/hr stays lowered but xp/level and xp/merit go down, the goal is to, as cleanly as possible, prevent the xp/hr nerf on meleeburn from significantly impacting progress/time in the more general sense.

I'm hoping you missed that rather than choosing to deliberately ignore it. At any rate our goal here isn't to make you progress slower. This is an issue we have with relative, not absolute, rate issues.

(Not that absolute rate issues aren't worthy of some discussion. The overall degradation in competence I mentioned in another post tracks the rise in ubiquity of PLs at corresponding levels. And we've reached a point where it's almost a given that any party up to the 50s or so has at least one member with a two-boxed PL. However, lowering xp curve at high levels or xp/limit wouldn't likely affect job competence the way lowering xp curve at low levels might.)

Apparently YOU don't understand that as long as Exp is gained on a per-kil basis, TP burns will ALWAYS have far better Exp gain then the standard tank/2 support/3 DD pt. Even before Colibri and Imps, two mobs specifically made to screw the hell out of melees, burn pts were *the* best Exp you could get.

It's not just the target monsters that make Burn Pts work so well in ToAU it's the combination of low hp mobs with fast repops and an exp bonus that create not only infinite pulls, but artificially increased EXP on them. But even besides that, Burn pts can work on almost any mob, anywhere. It was a combat tactic used in KRT, Sky, Sea and Bibiki long before ToAU came out and it was always far more efficiant then traditional parties. Because you only gain exp for killing, and gain more exp for killing fast, having a tank play defensively only slows things down. It will take more then a few slight changes to the exp value, and physical buffing of some mobs to make burning equal to, or even close to, traditional party exp gain. But by doing that you'd force people to go back to the days where you couldn't even exp without a tank and two specific healers while forcing many melee jobs to go back to lfg for weeks on end.

Nerfing something that the vast majority finds a helpful and useful boon to the game just so a very vocal, very small minority can squeeze more 'fun' out of the game...which is something that can already be done...is very narrowminded thinking. If you want to 'balance' the exp gains between traditional and burn pts, then you have to completely rework the way monsters grant exp rewards.

And before any more of you get your panties in a wad and think I'm trying to protect "my" prefered way of exping, just know that I haven't bothered to join any TP burn in months, hell, I don't even go lfg if I can help it. And on top of that I spent the better part of yesterday *trioing* T smithies in Yuhtunga as a Drk/mnk with a Drg and Blm. It was far slower then a full exp pt, but because they were friends (which took me all of 10 minutes to set up) I didn't have to worry about being surrounded by complete morons. And to me, a more enjoyable time exping is far more fun then gaining all the exp in the world. But then again, I'm wierd like that.

I think the reason Sanction doesn't have the small party bonus is the same reason we can't use NPCs in AU -- to try to make it so that there isn't also competition between soloers, small parties, and full parties for the same handful of mobs.

That's exactly why it's like that, though Sanction does provide an overall exp boost anyway. The way it was set up, SE knows that it's harder to get a full 6 member pt in Conquest zones, it's why they added the resting buffs and small pt exp bonuses. But mobs in ToAU were made to be burned, and the bonuses to Sanction reflect that.

[Pteryx]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Hmm, true. Maybe the Signet adjustment to small-party exp should just become the universal rule for small parties (in addition to whatever other benefits S/S/S might have, variable or not). I can't think of any reason why not - is it going to make duos/trios overpowered and eliminate the 6 man exp party? Hardly.

Then Signet could use another bonus, particularly one more attractive to 6 man parties - how about extending chain timers by 20-25%? It would help compensate for the relatively long pop times (and sometimes long pull distances too) in signet areas and pretty much everyone, small party or full party or even people who solo EM+, would at least sometimes get longer chains than they get before.

I think the reason Sanction doesn't have the small party bonus is the same reason we can't use NPCs in AU -- to try to make it so that there isn't also competition between soloers, small parties, and full parties for the same handful of mobs. The chain extension idea, though, I like; it really does suit the Signet zones as well as you say. -- Pteryx

[Feba]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't particularly like the idea of Signet or Sigil elements being moved around to Sanction.

One very big reason why this would be a bad idea: it would only move people around. It wouldn't do shit to depopulate areas. If you have special bonus A in region set Y, you're going to go to Y. If A moves to X, you're going to move to X. Nobody would be helped by it. On the other hand, with a system similar to what I described, you would move to the lowest populated areas. If too many people started going there, it would become less attractive, and you'd move somewhere else with a low population. With this, it would just put people on a (weekly) camp rotation. Very useless.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't particularly like the idea of Signet or Sigil elements being moved around to Sanction.

First off, Sanction doesn't deserve the TP retention. I shouldn't have to explain why, no melee rests in Empire here even if they had time to.

Secondly, moving that particular buff around screws around with soloist jobs in ways non-soloists probably can't understand. Put simply though the number of viable BST camps in ToA is handily outnumbered by the other viable camps elsewhere. I'd behead the developer that moved around TP retention on a whim, lop that noggin off with my Wrath Tabar, for serious.

The rare mob bounty idea I do like - the longer a mob goes unkilled, the more EXP they offer. That or the longer a particular zone is uncamped, the more valuble those mobs are.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet.

Hmm, true. Maybe the Signet adjustment to small-party exp should just become the universal rule for small parties (in addition to whatever other benefits S/S/S might have, variable or not). I can't think of any reason why not - is it going to make duos/trios overpowered and eliminate the 6 man exp party? Hardly.

Then Signet could use another bonus, particularly one more attractive to 6 man parties - how about extending chain timers by 20-25%? It would help compensate for the relatively long pop times (and sometimes long pull distances too) in signet areas and pretty much everyone, small party or full party or even people who solo EM+, would at least sometimes get longer chains than they get before.

I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas.

No more so than it did before the signet update added free resting in the first place.

Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

A week is adequate time to plan, IMO.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

I think that's not necessarily true, but the fact that the XP is *combined* with free refresh makes it too good. Either one balanced *against* the other might be competitive - sanction free refresh has a lot to do with the lack of downtime in ToAU parties allowing them to reach chain #infinity.

I do think that SE intended sanction to be unreliable, because it depends on besieged outcomes; but besieged outcomes aren't really unreliable. The empire wins so much that it's news if the AC has been lost at all this *month*. That's why one of my suggestions was harder (and more frequent) Besieged - if the Empire loses the AC, sanction gives jack, which might offset how overpowered it is when it *does* work. At least during the times when the beastmen had the AC, some parties might go elsewhere.

[BurningPanther]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet. I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas. Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

Put it on a schedule similar to Conquests updates, perhaps?

Every week, the players have to check which nation controls what region, the same could be done for Signet/Sanction/Sigil bonuses, where you check the Conquest/Besieged/Campaign map every--let's say month--to see which map bears what bonus.


However, even assuming the above works, S-E is overdue to update respawn timers in Conquest areas.

[Akashimo]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Hades fails enough already, we don't need this. XD

Making me want to move to hades if my hnmls and dyna shells go under....

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

A variation on the "rare mob bounty" idea might be to shuffle about the bonuses normally associated with Signet/Sanction/Sigil, and swap them according average population of camps in their respective regions.

Much like the rare bounty concept, the idea would be to move around the bonuses of Sanction to regions of lower camp popularity. An example would be that since exp camps in Signet areas are of lower popularity, the Sanction bonus would be transferred to Signet, meanwhile, Signet's bonus(TP retention, smaller-party exp bonus), would be swapped over to Sanction, for a pre-determined period of time.

This way, the bonuses that contribute to Sanction areas' popularity are occasionally given to Signet and Sigil areas, thereby increasing their parties' attraction to them.

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet. I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas. Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

*much* tougher besieged taking the AC out of the Empire much more often

Hades fails enough already, we don't need this. XD

[BurningPanther]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

A variation on the "rare mob bounty" idea might be to shuffle about the bonuses normally associated with Signet/Sanction/Sigil, and swap them according average population of camps in their respective regions.

Much like the rare bounty concept, the idea would be to move around the bonuses of Sanction to regions of lower camp popularity. An example would be that since exp camps in Signet areas are of lower popularity, the Sanction bonus would be transferred to Signet, meanwhile, Signet's bonus(TP retention, smaller-party exp bonus), would be swapped over to Sanction, for a pre-determined period of time.

This way, the bonuses that contribute to Sanction areas' popularity are occasionally given to Signet and Sigil areas, thereby increasing their parties' attraction to them.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Wow, just when I thought this thread was hopeless, someone understood my point.

Absolute rate issues are dangerous to bring up because of the Legion of Whiners (some of whom are on this thread already, because they confuse absolute and relative exp rate issues). I happen to think that SE should give the Legion a boot to the body part of their choice and improve balance even in unpopular ways, but SE seems to disagree, possibly on financial grounds.

Anyway, relative exp rates of different parties/camps (and the jobs that fit into them) are obviously a very serious problem.

I like the "rarely killed mobs bounty" idea that someone proposed upthread, but it seems kind of difficult and complicated to implement - especially if you also want to publicize the bounties so players can take better advantage of them. If it worked it'd be darn near self-balancing, though, at least as far as mob/camp balance is concerned, and improve the variety of exp/merit camps hugely. Then the only jobs that would be unwanted are ones that are weak in *all* situations, which honestly I don't think there are any of.

I don't know if I've mentioned it yet in this thread, but Sanction still needs some kind of adjustment, either a direct nerf, *much* tougher besieged taking the AC out of the Empire much more often, or significant buffs to the alternatives. Sanction is made of win right now, to an excessive degree that even without all the other considerations, makes Empire camps dominate all others. Mamool ja may not inherently be that much easier than Bibiki gobs - but they give 15% more exp than a same level gob and you get free refresh, so who wants to fight the gobs?

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Way too much stuff that's just too stupid or way out there to respond to fully. I'll just simply take issue with Ziero's pulling out of context Karinya's suggestion of a system-wide xp buff and criticizing it as pointless because it buffs meleeburn too, then going on to trash any suggestion of an xp/hr nerf on meleeburn as unfairly punishing people who are just looking to get past the worst part of the game faster.

An xp/hr nerf on meleeburn is the most obvious and cleanest way to bring the disparity down without potentially skewing the system in other ways. Either the XP return of favored mobs (imps, colibri) has to be reduced (say a 0.8 xp mod for each of those families), or they need an increase in HP to lower kill speed, or both. These are clean, low-impact changes that would alleviate the vast disparity and exclusive focus surrounding these camps.

This brings up the argument that XP takes too long to make progress and that slowing things back down again is horrible and unfair to people who dislike xp/meripo, etc. Which is precisely why Karinya deliberately married such a nerf to an across-the-board buff, including meleeburn in the above examples. Whether xp/hr is nerfed locally and then inflated globally or whether xp/hr stays lowered but xp/level and xp/merit go down, the goal is to, as cleanly as possible, prevent the xp/hr nerf on meleeburn from significantly impacting progress/time in the more general sense.

I'm hoping you missed that rather than choosing to deliberately ignore it. At any rate our goal here isn't to make you progress slower. This is an issue we have with relative, not absolute, rate issues.

(Not that absolute rate issues aren't worthy of some discussion. The overall degradation in competence I mentioned in another post tracks the rise in ubiquity of PLs at corresponding levels. And we've reached a point where it's almost a given that any party up to the 50s or so has at least one member with a two-boxed PL. However, lowering xp curve at high levels or xp/limit wouldn't likely affect job competence the way lowering xp curve at low levels might.)

[Aksannyi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

This felt somehow appropriate:

Somewhat Related YouTube links FTW

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I didn't like where this thread was going. But now I do.

[BurningPanther]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Rue the day? Who TALKS like that?

I DO, thank you very much.


You will RUE the day you mocked my chosen manner of speech.