U60 Lammania Preview 1 - XP System Adjustments

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Torc

Torc

Systems Developer
NOTE: an updated version of this proposal has been posted here:


ORIGINAL POST BELOW:


We are doing some updates to the XP system to increase incentives for killing monsters, and to make it a little less confusing. This all ties into a series of changes to make running past large numbers of encounters a less desirable behavior because of what it does to our servers due to pathing costs.

Changes:

1. Bravery Bonus is being renamed Delving Bonus. (this is mostly so people coming back to the game don't still think they need to worry about streaks, which came up a bit when we tried to talk about this to our surprise....).​
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2. The "First Time" bonus that appears per difficulty is being removed and its value is being absorbed into Conquest and the Delving bonus. It was redundant, a bit confusing and we need the numbers elsewhere.​
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Details Below:​
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First Time bonus Changes - These bonus are being absorbed by other bonus types.

DifficultyXP BonusIn New System
Solo, Casual, Normal, Hard20%Move to Conquest
Elite45%Move to Conquest
Reaper*95%Move to Conquest & new Bravery aka Delving tier

DELVING = BRAVERY BONUS

Increase Delving Bonus by adding a Reaper Tier

New Delving Bonus 50% on Reaper so...

Hard 50% Bonus

Elite 100% Bonus

Reaper 150% Bonus

Uses the same logic as bravery bonus did before meaning if you play on hard then elite you'll only get a 50% bonus for reaper, or if you JUST played on hard and then reaper the bonus would be 100%. Playing reaper from the get go would be 150%.

Conquest Updates - Conquest bonus now scales with difficulty some and is a larger bonus.

Note: We will be doing a pass to address certain dungeons that have usual configurations that make getting these bonuses perhaps more difficult than they should be. We are still working on the details but Castle Ravenloft and the Vault of Night Dragon Raid are some examples.

Normal Difficulty:
  • +10% Aggression bonus
  • +15% Onslaught bonus
  • +45% **Conquest** bonus
Hard Difficulty:
  • +15% Aggression bonus
  • +25% Onslaught bonus
  • +50% **Conquest** bonus
Elite Difficulty:
  • +25% Aggression bonus
  • +50% Onslaught bonus
  • +70% **Conquest** bonus
Reaper Difficulty:
  • +25% Aggression bonus
  • +50% Onslaught bonus
  • +70% **Conquest** bonus
This change is Net neutral except for a very slight boost in hard.

TOTAL BONUS COMPARISON:

NORMALoldnewHARDoldnewELITEoldnewReaperoldnew
conquest2545255025702570
1st time200200450950
Bravery005050100100100150
Ransack1515151515151515
Tome of Learning5050505050505050
Tamper1010101010101010
Observance88888888
Total128128178183253253303303

TOTAL BONUS COMPARISON REPEAT PLAYS: The increased conquest bonus does increase replay XP but a fresh quest is still X2-3 the bonuses, so this shouldn't really be a problem.

Normal oldNormal newHARDoldnewELITEoldnewReaperoldnew
conquest2545255025702570
1st time00000000
Bravery00000000
Ransack1515151515151515
Tome of Learning00000000
Tamper1010101010101010
Observance88888888
Total587858835810358103

I know this isn't a super exciting change because we're basically just trying to encourage most players to do what their already doing, but monsters are a major component of the game play in how time is spent, and our reward structure should reflect that so completely avoiding them doesn't seem as attractive and becomes a less common practice.​
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Note On Stealth - It is its own subset of game play and one that doesn't actually hit our perf problems. We would like to eventually get to some "stealth" game play bonuses to offset the Conquest adjustments but we want to do stuff that isn't exclusive from killing monsters or about just about walking through the quest without engaging anything. We're thinking about Assassinate bonuses (not the enhancement per say but just killing a mob from behind before it aggros on you), never triggering dungeon alert or maybe we'll even introduce picking pockets (but I warn you most monsters are full of pocket lint with the occasional rubber ducky, or a ring of power, that thing is sooo cursed). These things won't make it into this pass though as we'd probably want to do a focused pass on stealth and fix a lot of other rough edges while were at it.​
 
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rabidfox

rabidfox

The People's Champion
Does delving apply to RXP like the old 1st time bonuses did or not to RXP like bravery bonus?
 
M

MSC

Well-known member
I get wanting to encourage killing monsters, especially with the whole pathing lag issue, but the way that this is doing it, especially if conquest bonus requirements aren't lowered nearly across the board on most quests, this is a nerf to exp for players that even don't skip killing all monsters they aggro, since many main paths to complete quests and killing all monsters that aggro along it usually gets aggression or ~maybe~ onslaught bonus.

Moving the first time bonus to only conquest is not great. The incentive to kill more monsters should ideally be something added ON TOP of the already existing exp. Maybe slot the shift more evenly into aggression bonus and onslaught bonus instead of so heavily into only the highest tier. This will still shift the exp to encourage killing the mobs you do aggro, but won't penalize players for avoiding large optional sections of quests to get conquest (some ex: Search and Rescue, ToEE, Into the Deep).

Edit: Some numbers with my suggestion of shifting the exp more to aggression and onslaught, and adding an incentive on top of existing exp for more monster killing.

Normal:
  • 20% Aggression
  • 35% Onslaught
  • 55% Conquest
(Shifts the 20% from first time into agg and ons, then an extra 10% for full conquest)

Hard:
  • 25% Aggression
  • 40% Onslaught
  • 60% Conquest
(same as above, but adding the increase you added for hard compared to normal)

Elite/Reaper:
  • 30% Aggression
  • 60% Onslaught
  • 85% Conquest
(Used 45% as the first time bonus shift, since 50% of reaper was shifted to delving bonus; 20% of first time added to agg, remaining 25% of first time added onto ons, then a 15% bonus for full conquest on top of the already existing exp bonus increases between ons and con)

The above shift largely keeps the exp people get if they don't skip what they aggro on quest's critical paths, while providing an extra bonus if they decide to go the extra mile and get conquest. (Killing along most quest's critical paths results in onslaught, conquest in general requires running optional paths)
 
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L

Lotoc

Well-known member
I feel the exp should be overall higher if you go as far as conquest, about on par with aggression and lower with no kill bonus.
 
Monkey_Archer

Monkey_Archer

Well-known member
This is a very good change imo, but the numbers are disappointing. All stick with no carrot?

So we only get the same xp with conquest.
-Less xp if we don't get conquest (or can't due to quest design)
-Lose first time bonus for other difficulties
-Lose first time reaper xp

Overall this looks like a 20-50% xp nerf depending how often its feasible to get conquest, and a flat 95% reaper xp nerf.

Why no carrot?
 
V

Venatori d' Argonnessen

Member
So thoughts:

1. Taking the most direct route to the end of the dungeon, even killing everything along that path, does not yield conquest in most cases. As such, people are required to go out of their way to break even on xp per quest. This is not counting dungeons where you cannot even achieve conquest if you try to.

2. The old system was called "confusing", but it seems to me that the new system is maybe more so. Having how much xp you get from killing mobs change based on difficulty, doesnt really make sense to me, and seems even more confusing than it needs to be. Why not instead keep the bonuses from kills consistant through difficulties and put more/less power in the delving bonus? The xp progression on the kills is also... strange. 25-50-70? really? 10-15-45? It would make my ocd a little happier with 25-50-75 and 15-30-45, or similar.

3. Encouraging things other than murder hoboing through dungeons would be an appreciated change too. Half the time running solo I dont bother disabling traps because it would be a reduction in xp / minute for me.

Thanks!
 
Ahpuch

Ahpuch

Well-known member
I have never been a fan that Reaper gives more XP than Elite as it makes Reaper required for leveling. I would have prefered to see that gone rather than made more significant. But at least the multiple first time bonuses for different difficulties is gone so that is a positive. Overall I would put it at a slight improvement but really something more transformative would have been preferred. This seems like just enough to irritate people without really doing all that much.

I do have problems with so much being dropped on Conquest despite your claims that something will be done for Stealth play. We all know the SSG follow through means that is unlikely to happen. We are still waiting for the Bank revamp to work as advertised.
 
A

Abax11

Well-known member
Maybe i'm not undertanding correctly, but considering some quests don't have conquest bonus and some of them you need to do all optional paths and even killing respawning mobs to reach conquest it implies huge xp nerf for everyone and even more for people who don't try to zerg throught quests.
 
P

pevergreen

Active member
This is an anti-player change, that's the only way to look at it.

However, its not super clear for me after a second read through @Torc could you clear up something?

Lets say I do Saltmarsh on Heroic. I'm now Legendary, and trying to do my reaper first times.

Do I lose my Delving bonus entirely? Please give us some number to cover the following situations:

  1. Current system - White Plume Mountain, reaper first time with conquest
  2. New system - White Plume Mountain, reaper first time with conquest
  3. New system - White Plume Mountain, reaper with conquest, but having already done elite

Previously we would have people run the Legendary level quests on Elite without concern (promoting grouping and teaming up) and leave Reaper until they were capped and ready to try r4/r6/r10 etc

Now though, it looks like you have to do reaper straight away. The reality of this game is that there isn't enough mid epic content.

3bc, GH, Wheloon, Stormhorns. It's so damn boring to run 4 chains every life, or you jump up to legendary stuff on elite as to not ruin your xp later on.
 
K

Kortar

Member
The way this is done I'm not going to bother, I'll keep playing the way I do and run a few extras quests at the end of each life to balance the lost XP.

Conquest is not worth it in most quests, you would need to put in a ridiculous number to make it worthwhile.
If you frontload more of this bonus on Aggression (maybe 50/60/70) it would be worth it to kill some extra mobs along the way.
Conquest shouldn't be necessary to help with performance as long as we kill most mobs that we aggro and reaching Aggression should do that in most quests.

Also the bonus should stay the same regardless of difficulty. The base XP is already lower at lower difficulty so you will get less XP from the bonus already. Besides I don't think buffing Normal/Hard XP is a problem, it might even help with new player retention.
 
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