Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

[Pteryx]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Assault is really the only thing that is more of a pain in the ass to do than CoPs. Not everything in this game needs to boil down to "make a static." I'm not saying make this soloable, but damn, make it a little more realistic. Its really telling that to structure is flawed people stop at the first tier of a particular area just to spam it for points, hell, that's part of the problem.

If its not for Leujoam Sanctum PSC being shouted for 75% of the time, its some higher tier one nobody can do. The structure is just too rigid. While some might take issue with having to give up two ranks to change nations in Campaign for other national gear, at least it Campaign gear is far more obtainable. I can take a hit after I've capped rank.

Funny, it's not like this on Midgard. A reasonable, though still limited, variety of Assaults are shouted for in our Whitegate, including several that only call for PSC, PFC, or SP. Many you can still get people for if you shout for them as level-capped, as long as the cap is 60 or 70 (no one does 50-cap Assaults). If all else fails, you can always get DDs, a red mage, and any one of RDM, BLM, or SCH together for Excavation Duty so you can skill up on some walls. Going with known quantities usually just means you can get away with one or two fewer members than you normally would; it's understood here that Assault != XP grinding, so it's OK to ask questions. -- Pteryx

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

While we're ranting about all stuff ToA.

For the love of all that is good, fucking fix Assault.

When SE came up with Assault initially, they had a semi-decent concept for it - optional level-capping. Unfortunately they removed this option from the higher rank missions and in doing so, turned it into a 75-onry affair. So to obtain a lot of this level 72 gear, I must first be 75.

Um, what?

Not only that, there isn't ANY real incentive to anyone to go and help others through these missions. If Allied Notes are an admission of Conquest's failings, then Campaign Ops are the same admission of failure in regards to Assault.

Assault is really the only thing that is more of a pain in the ass to do than CoPs. Not everything in this game needs to boil down to "make a static." I'm not saying make this soloable, but damn, make it a little more realistic. Its really telling that to structure is flawed people stop at the first tier of a particular area just to spam it for points, hell, that's part of the problem.

If its not for Leujoam Sanctum PSC being shouted for 75% of the time, its some higher tier one nobody can do. The structure is just too rigid. While some might take issue with having to give up two ranks to change nations in Campaign for other national gear, at least it Campaign gear is far more obtainable. I can take a hit after I've capped rank.

Also, to do Salvage, you must assault. If you do Nyzul Assault, this pretty much kills your ability to Salvage or do other Assaults to have points for Salvage. If Nyzul has all the items for relic upgrades being placed in it soon, OK, I'll accept that method to this madness. If not - especially if Nyzul relic upgrades are put elsewhere - it makes no sense for it to be structured this way.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Well, part of the point here is that if traditional parties are ever going to have any shot at xp/hr parity (or even just lack of horrible disparity), what with their long fights and downtime, they have to be able to get a lot more xp/mob to compensate for low kill rate relative to meleeburn. What trad parties bring to the table is the ability to go after stronger mobs, so those stronger mobs have to be there and provide the kind of xp return necessary to make up for the low kill speed.

[Feba]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

IT make horrible merit mobs.

IT mobs are usually not the best choice-- but why not provide them? Just because they're there doesn't mean people have to EXP on them.

[Pteryx]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

IT make horrible merit mobs. Honestly, you'd probably get better EXP killing VT/+ mobs before meriting.

Horrible merit mobs, or just horrible meleeburn mobs? -- Pteryx

[Feba]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I think the factors you cite here are a bit extreme

Well, I'm not talking specifics. Again, you'd have to have access to information only SE would have access to to be able to effectively balance it.

and they would see this as nothing but an xp nerf.

Well, ideally, it would make EXPing more a matter of "where can we go to get the best EXP", and parties roam around, instead of of camping (I mean this purely as "your party was here, your next party may be there"; not as "your party is constantly changing zones)

The idea would be to make challenging and out of the way camps very rewarding, while easy to get to and ones that are heavily used aren't so great (which also makes sense: mobs that aren't attacked for awhile would get a chance to beef up, mobs that are constantly getting pounded into submission would never get to mature much) . It would also be used to thin out severely overpopulated areas, by making the EXP there almost sour, until people go elsewhere. All around, better EXP for those that try harder; the game and servers should run smoother for everyone, and it will also help to impact Conquest

[Mhurron]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

IT make horrible merit mobs. Honestly, you'd probably get better EXP killing VT/+ mobs before meriting.

[Pteryx]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Probably it would be best to introduce both nerfs and buffs to address the problem well. There is, however, one key thing SE needs to do if we're to have a good merit-level trad-party experience... give us some IT mobs to fight! A Vana'diel Bestiary search returns zero mobs that give 200 XP or more per fight to a party of six 75s, and only eight mobs that have a chance of returning 154 XP/fight -- and six of those only hit that total on their highest-level specimens. In that respect, there are even fewer merit camps than we normally assert. -- Pteryx

[Murphie]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

DAoC had a "camp bonus" for mobs that hadn't been killed in a while. It increased exponentially as time went on and the mob remained unkilled. Something like that wouldn't be a bad idea, actually.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Actually, better idea: Lower EXP earned when an area is popular, and increase EXP when it's unpopular. It would be hard to set exact numbers without having access to the data SE has, but, for example, if a zone has 3 times as much EXP earned inside it as the average of other zones, your EXP there is cut to a third. This would force people to spread out to many areas which otherwise wouldn't be as attractive, and encourage them to go to oddball camps (if your area has only a third of the average EXP earned, for example, EXP would be tripled. Those might be a bit much, but you get my point)

This would also prevent any camp from ever getting monopolistically popular in the future, too. Of course, SE would have to add ways for players to easily tell what areas will have what penalties and rewards on the region map, but other than that.

I think the factors you cite here are a bit extreme (essentially averaging xp among all parties in a zone, on top of existing mob scarcity problems?), but the general notion of penalty/bonus based on the amount of xp activity is intriguing. Also reminds me somewhat of the way CP under Signet works; XP in a zone you already have control over grants fewer rewards, so in theory you'd be motivated to focus on those zones your nation doesn't control. In practice, CP just doesn't matter enough to people for this to pan out. Direct effects on xp, OTOH, would be far more visible and cut into the 'bottom line' for parties.

I'd say factors ranging from 0.7 to 1.3 would be plenty for normal circumstances, though the meleeburn skew is so big we might not see results unless extreme concentrations allowed the penalty to go lower than that. Just seeing the mire consistently bottom out to 70% of its current xp potential would still lower the massive xp/hr disparity significantly; however, SE would face the same problem implementing this as things now stand as they would 'fixing' the overly weak mob problem: it would cut into the expected xp/hr dramatically, making it practically impossible to achieve. Cue flood of account cancellation threats. There are no less popular camps to go to to get the same kind of xp/hr that people have come to expect. So even though in relative terms other camps would be more viable, the people who won't do anything but mire parties now still wouldn't do anything but mire parties, and they would see this as nothing but an xp nerf.

I think Karinya's right on the whole. There isn't a good solution to this problem now that they've opened the door on this kind of xp/hr rate. Either the problem stays and we hope it doesn't drive us out of the game, or SE has to slam the door in a lot of people's faces. Raising trad party xp/hr would help, but doing that in a way that doesn't similarly raise meleeburn xp/hr even further would be complicated and risks introducing even more unanticipated consequences.

[Feba]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I think SE should nerf some ToAU camps and mobs

Actually, better idea: Lower EXP earned when an area is popular, and increase EXP when it's unpopular. It would be hard to set exact numbers without having access to the data SE has, but, for example, if a zone has 3 times as much EXP earned inside it as the average of other zones, your EXP there is cut to a third. This would force people to spread out to many areas which otherwise wouldn't be as attractive, and encourage them to go to oddball camps (if your area has only a third of the average EXP earned, for example, EXP would be tripled. Those might be a bit much, but you get my point)

This would also prevent any camp from ever getting monopolistically popular in the future, too. Of course, SE would have to add ways for players to easily tell what areas will have what penalties and rewards on the region map, but other than that.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

The problem is that we have more camps, but the number of "viable" camps has actually *decreased* since CoP, because the new standard for exp/hr makes most or all pre-ToAU camps not "viable" by today's standards. Moongate, Lufaise Meadows, roaming Shrine parties, KRT - all deserted in favor of Caedarva and Mamool Ja Staging Point. Gee, thanks for all your hard work on the merit camp scarcity problem, SE!

I think SE should nerf some ToAU camps and mobs (well, buff from the mobs' perspective, but it makes the camp less desirable) and tell people to suck it up. Yes, there'll be some whining, but in the end the game would be better for it, and trying to adjust the whole rest of the world to the ToAU standard rather than vice versa would be much more work and probably wouldn't work anyway - something else would get imbalanced.

Don't be afraid to correct your mistakes. It's better than leaving them uncorrected.


P.S. You can get conquest points from Expeditionary Forces and Garrison, IIRC. Good luck finding people for that though.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

If SE "intended" to make ToA camps the norm, then I can't understand why the current expansion is larger in size and scope than any that had preceded it. I don't think these zones are just backdrops for missions and a different way to grab some EXP without PTs.

What's really bothersome to me about the prevelance of ToA PTs is that it has made the gain of Conquest points a 1-55 affair. What if I wanted some R/E gear from another nation? First off, I have to pay an inflated CP cost for that, but if I'm starting from practically no Conquest points, how do I get there when all people want is to do ToA camps?

And really, there aren't a lot of worthwhile items to buy from imperial standing in terms of Assault Ranks. OK, maybe there is if you're a ToA job, but thats about it.

The way we earn Allied Notes in Campaign is almost an admission of guilt that Conquest is ailing in some ways, we obtain Allied Notes totally different from the way we get Conquest points or Imperial Standing. Campaign will never suffer, people will always have a means of getting Allied Note items.

I think its time to apply some other bonuses to Signet. An EXP bonus and perhaps some more unique buffs that further distinguish it from Sanction and Sigil. It might also be time to rework the respawn timers of RoZ zone in particular. Perhaps not a 5 min respawn but something a bit lower than 16 mins would suffice. Don't want to tweak RoZ/CoP zones too much since they're brilliant solo zones already.

Since Conquest/Campaign mobs are harder, they should probably also give more EXP, at least in the 70+ range, anyway. WotG actually has a nice mix of camp options for many ranges of levels.

Its a sticky issue, but SE cannot ignore the fact that people are doing now what we used to do in RoZ/CoP merit camps - cramming ourselves into a handful of camps. The problem back during RoZ/CoP was that there really were not many places to go for merit. The problem now is that we have several viable merit camps and people just want to cram themselves into the same two ToA camps.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

It's not "unrealistic". It just takes a lot of work. More work than people actually want to put in. Which begs the question: just how important is it to exp in a non-TP-burn setting? If you're not willing to do the work to create a static, then maybe you really don't care as much about TP-burn vs not TP-burn, and this whole issue really isn't all that controversial. It's easy to complain. But when it comes down to it, many of those people complaining will still take exp wherever they can get it. The "best of both worlds" isn't having a SC+MB party and still getting great exp. Apparently, the "best of both worlds" is getting great exp and getting to complain to your LS about it the whole time behind your parties back.

You misread my comment. It's unrealistic to take an otherwise arbitrary group of 6 people who happen to have a similar interest and form a static out of them. We know this from long experience organizing things that require similar kinds of time commitments (often longer, really) among a group of people (and 5-6 is about the threshold at which these things start becoming unmanageably big). You will find that out of those 6 people, only about 2 will have easily compatible schedules, only 3 will be able to work out a regular time to meet without rearranging things, and you're lucky if 4-5 can actually manage, with difficulty, to make the time that was convenient for the majority. To actually build a functioning full static, you must draw from a larger pool so that once other necessary constraints come in, you won't narrow it down to too few people to work with (small statics and partial statics, OTOH, have different considerations to them, and are arguably more viable).

Are you going to have a hard time finding just 25 players on your server that share your views on exp? At any given time during the day, doesn't a server have at least 1000 players logged on? That's less than 3% of the player base at any given time.

Yes and no, because you're now pulling things back out of the realm of "make a static out of people you're connected to/familiar with" and into the realm of "make a party out of interested seekers", just with conditions. Which brings us back to the problem expressed that meleeburn is so incredibly ubiquitous that it is supposed to go without saying that that's what you expect when seeking and what you offer when inviting. People are downright offended to be invited to non-AU parties or to be turned down by a seeker because that's what they're offering. If we had a way of expressing our interest in parties and searching for that interest which didn't collide head-on with this unspoken expectation, then I think we would manage.

That said, frankly, there's another unspoken assumption behind all of this which is somewhat troubling. Does the fact that we might be willing to put up with a great xp/hr disparity from the majority just to get a bit of variety and relief from the monotony mean that we are undeserving or unworthy of xp/hr parity? Is it not just an unfortunate circumstance but actually somehow right and the way things should be that such huge differences exist? Is wanting to put more effort, thought, and time into the grind something that ought to be punished?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

That's not a compromise. A compromise involves concessions from all sides.

You make it sound like a proper compromise is where your preference carries as much weight as that of 5 other people. If 2 other people in a pick up group felt the same way you did, then it would easily be a case where the other half of the pt needs to give up as much as your half.

You're just asking for conformity with an established (and controversial, or we wouldn't be discussing it here) norm.

I doubt this norm is as "controversial" as you say. It gets discussed time and again because it's "controversial" for a very vocal minority. If more than a minority of the player base felt this way (e.g. fun beat grim efficiency in exp parties), you would have a much easier time finding people to go to non-ToAU zones and do standard SC+MB partying.

Also, finding 5 like-minded people and then forming a static with them is unrealistic.

It's not "unrealistic". It just takes a lot of work. More work than people actually want to put in. Which begs the question: just how important is it to exp in a non-TP-burn setting? If you're not willing to do the work to create a static, then maybe you really don't care as much about TP-burn vs not TP-burn, and this whole issue really isn't all that controversial. It's easy to complain. But when it comes down to it, many of those people complaining will still take exp wherever they can get it. The "best of both worlds" isn't having a SC+MB party and still getting great exp. Apparently, the "best of both worlds" is getting great exp and getting to complain to your LS about it the whole time behind your parties back.

I keep coming back to my Basketball analogy. It's like TP-burn is full court basketball where the focus is on fast break, and non-TP-burn is half court where the focus is on more organized and planned, rather than spontaneous, plays. But because some people are having a hard time convincing others to play half court, they want SE to step in and rip out one of the back boards, so that people are forced to play half court.

I'd say you'd need about 10 like-minded people to have a decent shot at a proper job role layout, and more like 25 to have a decent shot at finding compatible schedules.

Are you going to have a hard time finding just 25 players on your server that share your views on exp? At any given time during the day, doesn't a server have at least 1000 players logged on? That's less than 3% of the player base at any given time.