U60 Lammania Preview 1 - XP System Adjustments

[Lichcrak]

Heres what I typically run in a heroic life run, I run with a duo who has no vip and no pots so we often will run some extra at the end. I'll run a life and keep note of which ones I get conquest in and update this post.

Kobolds New Ringleader R1/E/H/N/R1,
Waterworks 1-4,
Gatekeepers,
Fire Caves Part 1 R1/E/H/N/C/R1,
Rest of 3BC,
Tear,
Gwyland,
The Pit,
Dread,
TOEE 1/2,
Spies in the House,
Von 1-4,
WPM,
Shadow Crypt R1x6/E/H/N/C,
RL Part 1,
Tempest's Spine,
VON 5-6 (If Enough People to form a group),
RL Part 2 and 3,
Enemy Within,
And the dead shall rise,
Tomb of the Blighted,
Offering of Blood,
Wiz-King,
Relic,
Planar Eyes,
Lordsmarch,
Archons,
Gianthold 13's and 14's,
Necro 4,
Litany of the Dead,
Missing Part 1,
Lost at Sea,
Sharn 1 and 2,
Cogs to Cap.

 

[DBZ]

Are you going to add stamina bars so we can all enjoy these awesome changes equally cuz right now

Almost pointless to play anything but a melee

 

[somenewnoob]

Yep! We are reading, and looking at these dungeons that people are posting about.

So when we started looking at this we knew we'd have some "but I don't get conquest in this dungeon" problems. I eluded to this with Castle Ravenloft and the Vault of Night Dragon quests which have had their conquest thresholds adjusted in this build. We hoped these would be a few dozen outliers we could just fix.

We didn't expect not getting conquest to be presented as "really common" in general. If no conquest bonus is more of the rule than the exception this plan will not do! Us devs tend to ramble out into the optional wings when we play I guess....

Clarify a few things...

1> Our lag problems are less about fighting monsters, then running from monsters and leaving them far behind. The bottle neck is in the path system doing long paths as the player gets far away. Ergo, not wanting to be bothered with the monsters at all feeds into that.

2> As has been pointed out this plan was all stick and no carrot. We are looking at some combination of making conquest thresholds more forgiving and/or upping the conquest/onslaught/aggression bonuses a bit further as some have suggested. We also may punt until we can do more elaborate incentive systems instead.

2> We really want killing monsters to be a worth awhile activity. I understand some folks have perfected some play patterns that avoid such a thing, and we don't really want to impact your fun, but we do want the conquest option to have a certain attraction as well because so much of our systems and content do focus on combat. In a perfect world these both would be perceived as equally valid options. In our current world we feel that killing monsters has dropped a little lower in the play patterns than is probably wise.

4> Specifics are very helpful in regards to the conquest bonus issues! Dungeons you typically play, how you play them, and what level of conquest you get, how many kills, etc. What Optional are worth while? How you make the choices you do?

-T

Thanks for replying. I would take a look first at the dungeons that are not possible at all to get conquest on, sharn 2 comes to mind since I posted earlier about this. At least 3 of those even killing all I don't think you can achieve it. The wiki has that info if you need it!

I mentioned earlier, that a good solution would maybe make a threshold for each dungeon, that gives a LARGE bonus for kills, one that would incentivize players to get it. (LARGE!) . But keep all the regular first time, bb, etc. bonuses there. So that without the bonus, the xp is the same as it is now. This would just be additional xp on top of it.

Keep every current aggression, conquest, bonus that exists right now, exactly as is. And then some bonus larger than conquest, (Slayer, Murder Hobo, something....) for each quest that rewards a player for clearing, or almost clearing the dungeon. Ratcheting up optional xp would be good too for many. Great example of a great optional is the scrag opt in Ghost in 3BC on epic experienc wise. Better xp optionals = more incentive for players to go out of their way to kill stuff. Wiz King epic optionals are so good that it led to the great optional nerfing even! See, we do clear dungeons if the xp is there! We do!

So in a nutshell:
1. Leave everything that is there already alone xp wise.
2. Super slayer level of monster kill BIG xp bonus for each dungeon.
3. Better xp optionals.

If you leave xp alone and just add on the super slayer, this also lets you add that bonus incrementally, 10 quests per update, etc. slowly over time if you need to, and not need to add it all at once since the xp as it is now, is not changing.

Thanks again for listening.

 

[Triaxx2]

Okay, so... I solo most of the time. And I solo R1 from 1-20 (more or less), because I'm a flower sniffer who enjoys completing optionals and exploring. I tend not to engage enemies I don't have to, because I'm conserving limited resources. And honestly that means this change kind of is the definite opposite of what last update did with reducing the out of combat heal penalty in reaper. But this affects all difficulties.

I'm going to say that designing quest XP around completing bonuses doesn't work. If it's necessary to get the maximum XP out of a quest, it is no longer an optional, but a requirement.

Conquest and ransack should remain as bonuses, but maybe number of optionals completed should also be a bonus. I hate leaving mobs alive because they tend to come up from behind at in opportune times, but I love hunting down optional objectives. Bonus chest in Scavenger Hunt or Quid Pro Quo? Those don't give named loot, but they should increase the XP for completing the rest of the quest.

 

[Scrag]

Yep! We are reading, and looking at these dungeons that people are posting about.
...

2> --->>> As has been pointed out this plan was all stick and no carrot. <<<---


We are looking at some combination of making conquest thresholds more forgiving and/or upping the conquest/onslaught/aggression bonuses a bit further as some have suggested. We also may punt until we can do more elaborate incentive systems instead.

2> We really want killing monsters to be a worth awhile activity. I understand some folks have perfected some play patterns that avoid such a thing, and we don't really want to impact your fun, but we do want the conquest option to have a certain attraction as well because so much of our systems and content do focus on combat. In a perfect world these both would be perceived as equally valid options. In our current world we feel that killing monsters has dropped a little lower in the play patterns than is probably wise.

4> Specifics are very helpful in regards to the conquest bonus issues! Dungeons you typically play, how you play them, and what level of conquest you get, how many kills, etc. What Optional are worth while? How you make the choices you do?

-T

I appreciate the honesty here. Good discourse starts with it.

Now that we know the two part concern, 1. killing monsters should be worthwhile/possibly fun, 2. DA pathing is a fundamental issue as paths grow longer.

These are things I think the community will be able to work with, at the very least myself.

 

[you may call me.....Tim]

First they take away NEGATIVE XP for deaths, and now this ? "Back in my day" it was not enough humiliation to just die in a quest, having the Devs kick you in the private parts with Negative XP was the "bonus" We were happy to just complete quests with a positive xp gain.

I am not sure where i was going with this as i am old, and forgot where i placed my abacus to calculate the XP for the quests.

 

[mastarhax0r]

Dear developers.
If you want to force players to clear that so called "lag producing alert" (or do not raise it in the first place), there's already simple solution for that - locked levers\doors, unlocked on a mob pack clearing.
And me, in regards to these changes? I'm going to rush through, as usual.
Less experience? I'm going to rush through some more.
Same speed.
Sorry.
Thanks.

 

[Fhrek]

People are likely to get less xp and run slightly more content, but zergers are still going to zerg at max speed. People are not going to slow down to kill mobs for more xp, it'll be faster to just quickly run another quest.

Exactly!
Zergs gona zerg... Devs are just aim to punishes no-zergers and more people leaving the game...

 

[Cesaro - Tandy]

Hum... If you wanna keep this update, at least made party xp, 10% per player, forever!

 

[TeamScorpioRI]

If monster pathing is the main problem (long paths as players get further away), then why not shorten the path? Seems simple enough, no?

 

[Ahpuch]

Yep! We are reading, and looking at these dungeons that people are posting about.
...

This is good feedback but ignores to some extent the issue that asking for Conquest is asking players to kill things that have never and would never have been aggro'ed. This in turn can increase server load and goes against one of the motivations for the change. Not to mention the playstyle most suited to Conquest is likely to be the one that rounds up the mobs to kill zones causing more server load.

Alternative suggestions were made to make the reward based on DA avoidance or tracking agro'ed mobs only. Are those unworkable?

 

[Fhrek]

If monster pathing is the main problem (long paths as players get further away), then why not shorten the path? Seems simple enough, no?

I just assume that seems easier (lazier) to nerf players XP gain than correct years of web coding.

 

[Griglok (Karatemack)]

All of the xp bonus types in quests are currently split into 3 tiers. Slaying has aggression, onslaught and conquest. Breakables have michief, vandal and ransack. Traps have tamper, neutralization and ingenious debilitation. Secret doors have observance, perception and vigilant sight.

Do these have to only have 3 tiers? Could there be 5? Would the tech support lowering the threshhold to trigger each current tier while leaving the current bonuses the same as live today and then layer an additional 2 on top of those with larger bonuses? (IE: Slaying bonus on reaper would have aggression 25%, onslaught 50%, conquest 70%, decimation 90%, annihilation 110%) If something like that could be worked into EACH of the quest bonus xp types, that would be a welcome change (for me anyway).

 

[CBDunk]

1> Our lag problems are less about fighting monsters, then running from monsters and leaving them far behind. The bottle neck is in the path system doing long paths as the player gets far away. Ergo, not wanting to be bothered with the monsters at all feeds into that.

2> As has been pointed out this plan was all stick and no carrot. We are looking at some combination of making conquest thresholds more forgiving and/or upping the conquest/onslaught/aggression bonuses a bit further as some have suggested. We also may punt until we can do more elaborate incentive systems instead.

2> We really want killing monsters to be a worth awhile activity. I understand some folks have perfected some play patterns that avoid such a thing, and we don't really want to impact your fun, but we do want the conquest option to have a certain attraction as well because so much of our systems and content do focus on combat. In a perfect world these both would be perceived as equally valid options. In our current world we feel that killing monsters has dropped a little lower in the play patterns than is probably wise.

4> Specifics are very helpful in regards to the conquest bonus issues! Dungeons you typically play, how you play them, and what level of conquest you get, how many kills, etc. What Optional are worth while? How you make the choices you do?

-T

Thanks for the response Torc. Great to get more information on the Devs thoughts.

To respond to your points;
1: Again if pathing over distances is the issue then encouraging killing MORE mobs does not seem like the solution, because people will just aggro more mobs and lead them to AoE kill zones... creating more pathing problems. Some possible changes to address this;
a: Have an XP penalty for Dungeon Alert itself. Why complicate things? If this is what we want to avoid then just put the penalty directly on it.
b: Have monsters that are pathing from a distance teleport to the quest end.
c: Just 'remove' monsters that are pathing at a distance and make all remaining monsters stronger.

2: Punting until you can get it right is HIGHLY recommended. Obviously, this is an incredibly complex issue with lots of implications that aren't always readily apparent.

3: I fully support making changes to the XP system to make 'kill all the monsters', 'explore every room', 'find every secret door', 'complete every optional', et cetera as viable as 'complete the quest as quickly as possible'. Currently they are not even REMOTELY close. By nature, I'm the guy who does every quest and explores every corner... but at this point that just isn't the way the game is played, because the rewards for doing so are vastly inferior. PUGs only ever complete an optional objective if they don't realize it IS optional or if they can do so with a second or two of effort while following the shortest path to completion.

For this, I'd recommend increasing XP for optionals (and/or decreasing base XP to 'meet in the middle') until XP/minute for doing everything was roughly equal to the XP/minute for doing the minimum. Currently my VERY rough guesstimate would be that it is about HALF as much overall... there are a few quests where doing the optionals doesn't change the time much, but also many where they take three, five, or more times as long. You are never going to get this PERFECT, but there should be some quests that most people do all the optionals, some where they do the easy ones, and some where they skip to the end... and all three styles should at least be in the same ballpark of reward/time.

Loot should also be considered. Currently, difficulty level increases both XP and loot drop rates... but most optional objectives only increase XP. This is another factor discouraging people from completing optionals. If you are at XP cap or know that you'll be getting plenty of XP from the content you plan to run anyway, it doesn't make sense to spend more time running the quest for zero increase in loot chance. I'd think it would make sense to have a direct correlation between everything that increases XP commensurately increasing loot drop chance. Maybe just have more (all?) of the optional chest drop named/rare loot.

 

[Ahpuch]

If monster pathing is the main problem (long paths as players get further away), then why not shorten the path? Seems simple enough, no?

Or fix the pathing algorithm. If only there was a path the mobs could follow so they could get to us more efficiently. Like something that mapped a route to where the player has gone..... Like golden steps or something easy for them to follow.... Maybe invisible golden steps that only mobs could see....

 

[Arcanaverse]

2> We really want killing monsters to be a worth awhile activity. I understand some folks have perfected some play patterns that avoid such a thing, and we don't really want to impact your fun, but we do want the conquest option to have a certain attraction as well because so much of our systems and content do focus on combat. In a perfect world these both would be perceived as equally valid options. In our current world we feel that killing monsters has dropped a little lower in the play patterns than is probably wise.

4> Specifics are very helpful in regards to the conquest bonus issues! Dungeons you typically play, how you play them, and what level of conquest you get, how many kills, etc. What Optional are worth while? How you make the choices you do?

-T

Speaking from my own perspective and from others I've observed.

Running Past Monsters
The only time I run past monsters are in areas that have tethering. Which isn't most quests but wilderness areas. In quests, if I'm in a kiting/zerging mood (and if I'm able) I'll gather up a large group and then defeat them all at once.

How I play dungeons
First time/early experiences of quests are done in to full completion. All corners explored. Further attempts however, its a 'get to the end as quick as and/or as efficiently as possible' exercise. Deviating for optionals and paths that don't directly go to the end are rare, but there are exceptions.

- Named Items.
- Farming ingredients
- The thing is not far off the path, but the reward (a chest, xp) is sufficient. If it only takes a second to pick up the thing, I'll sometimes grab the thing.
- Searching for secrets. Cause that's a thing I do now.

I used to do more in large xp quests to get use conquest and other bonuses. but have largely stopped a long while ago. So if it happens, its because the part leader/other group members are demanding it. Which is usually because of one of the above reasons or they're lost. Or most often is because they think they know a better path (which I love cause I love learning better tricks/paths so I'll follow without complaint).

What quests do I play
Generally stick to sagas, especially from expansions. Quests that also exist in legendary also tend to get priority as I'm more familiar with them from running reaper.

Otherwise, I'm targeting raid flagging (vault of night, demon queen) and favor rewards (usually just the hp)

Hope that helps!

 

[mikarddo]

ointed out t

Yep! We are reading, and looking at these dungeons that people are posting about.

So when we started looking at this we knew we'd have some "but I don't get conquest in this dungeon" problems. I eluded to this with Castle Ravenloft and the Vault of Night Dragon quests which have had their conquest thresholds adjusted in this build. We hoped these would be a few dozen outliers we could just fix.

We didn't expect not getting conquest to be presented as "really common" in general. If no conquest bonus is more of the rule than the exception this plan will not do! Us devs tend to ramble out into the optional wings when we play I guess....

Clarify a few things...

1> Our lag problems are less about fighting monsters, then running from monsters and leaving them far behind.

2> We really want killing monsters to be a worth awhile activity.

-T

Thank you for the reply Torc.

Would you care to clarify five more things please:
1) Is it intended to boost xp for rerunning the same quest on the same difficulty if one does Conquest? If so, why?
2) Is it intended to greatly nerf xp for running the same quest on different difficulties from the loss of First time bonus? Say R, E, H and N, or E while leveling and R10 at cap. If so, why?
3) The daily xp bonus is not mentioned. Is that still valid or not?
4) What are the intentions wrt getting reaper xp? Seeing that is not affected by the same bonusses as regular xp a seperate calculation for reaper xp would seem needed.
5) How does xp work out if you run the same quest in heroics and at cap? Say R1 WPM heroics and R10 WPM Legendary at cap. Does the R1 Heroic "eat up" the Delving bonus so there is no bonus to the reaper xp at cap?

 

[The Narc]

Thanks for the response Torc. Great to get more information on the Devs thoughts.

To respond to your points;
1: Again if pathing over distances is the issue then encouraging killing MORE mobs does not seem like the solution, because people will just aggro more mobs and lead them to AoE kill zones... creating more pathing problems. Some possible changes to address this;
a: Have an XP penalty for Dungeon Alert itself. Why complicate things? If this is what we want to avoid then just put the penalty directly on it.
b: Have monsters that are pathing from a distance teleport to the quest end.
c: Just 'remove' monsters that are pathing at a distance and make all remaining monsters stronger.

Some great ideas and comments in your post that i like, again like many others you have suggested people will gather more mobs for AOE kill zones thereby making these changes counter productive as the lag will be increased. Devs several people have mentioned that this will be the solution for many players, you need to get out in front of this before it makes lag worse, heavily punish this tactic by making sure DA also gives mobs blanket increased absorbtions and increased saving throws.

Always as a sidenote the outlying quests that have instant DA woth all other mobs already killed need to have adjustments made.

 

[vryxnr]

First time bonuses, and the ransacking of optional exp, were both implemented (iirc) to encourage players to do a variety of quests and not repeat the same high reward quests over and over again.

So now, it's being changed so that doing a variety of quests isn't the optimal route and instead we're going to figure out which small handful of quests give the most exp/minute and just spam them because there's no real inventive to do others?

Also, as pointed out, there are many quests where conquest is an unreasonable trial to achieve (or even impossible).

Trial by Fury: many think it's impossible, but it actually is... however, you have to explore everything, including the jump skip path that many feel is an exploit, AND jumping to the outer islands that look like background art but actually do spawn some enemies on them... but they are a pain to get to because of all the invisible walls everywhere you have to navigate around.

Haunted Halls of Eveningstar getting conquest takes hours of farming the respawning zombies to achieve (over 730 kills give or take)

Sunrise takes farming the respawning zombies without destroying the 'Dismal Shrine' in the middle of the room for potentially hours to get to conquest (almost 300 kills from a one zombie every 15 seconds spawner)

Just as a few random examples of the extremely difficult ones from the top of my head. Once players are done experiencing something for the first time, and have the gear they want, their next main concern is usually past lives, which means exp/minute becomes the metric they care about. These changes means they will most likely be focusing on less quests during their journey, which increases the chance of burnout (which was a concern mentioned when defending adding ransack to optionals to promote doing a larger variety of quests, which applied to first time bonuses as well)

 

[Monkey_Archer]

Heres what I typically run in a heroic life run, I run with a duo who has no vip and no pots so we often will run some extra at the end. I'll run a life and keep note of which ones I get conquest in and update this post.

Kobolds New Ringleader R1/E/H/N/R1, - No bonus
Waterworks 1-4, - No bonus to agression depending on quest
Gatekeepers, - Agression typical
Fire Caves Part 1 R1/E/H/N/C/R1, - No bonus to aggression
Rest of 3BC, - Aggression typical
Tear, - Agression
Gwyland, - Conquest possible but usually Onslaught
The Pit, - Aggression at best
Dread, - Varies from quest to quest, average Aggression
TOEE 1/2, - No Bonus
Spies in the House, - No Bonus
Von 1-4, - Onslaught typical, conquest possible for some
WPM, - No bonus
Shadow Crypt R1x6/E/H/N/C, - No bonus
RL Part 1, - No bonus to Aggression
Tempest's Spine, - No bonus to Agression
VON 5-6 (If Enough People to form a group), -Usually Conquest
RL Part 2 and 3, -Varies, average Aggression
Enemy Within, - Onslaught to Conquest
And the dead shall rise, -Unsure
Tomb of the Blighted, - No bonus
Offering of Blood, -No bonus to Aggression
Wiz-King, - No bonus
Relic, - Aggression I think
Planar Eyes, - Unsure
Lordsmarch, - No bonus
Archons, - Unsure
Gianthold 13's and 14's, -Agression typical, conquest for some
Necro 4, -Agression typical, conquest sometimes
Litany of the Dead, - No bonus
Missing Part 1, - No bonus
Lost at Sea, - No bonus
Sharn 1 and 2, - No bonus to occasional conquest
Cogs to Cap. - No bonus common, some conquest

Piggybacking this post to provide feedback for what I will typically get for each quest listed. Responses in green orange and red