Yeah same here. Now we skip as many mobs as we can. I just mezzed most of the mission this last time and we only killed what mobs we had to.
It's actually somewhat comical, they are punishing trying and only rewarding victory, SO now i will only do the ones i know i can finish. Before I was doing them all because the exp was ok and a wipe or two wasn't horrible, now i just do the ones i know i will finish. the did switch how i did them from How they wanted me to do them to how they didn't LOL!
'They probably chose the best one' -Out of curiosity - why do you think killing the mob xp was the best of the three? Or am I misinterpreting your comment? I am just wondering as I would see #2, applying a lockout on entry as better as such a system would have resulted in decreasing returns of scale for more uber characters rather than the constant returns to scale of the current system - with the most impact on bleeding edge players like yourself able to blast through mobs in a sixth or an eighth of the time of more casual players but had a significantly lesser impact on more casual players. Doing lockouts at zone-in could have facilitated SOE setting what they saw as a 'desirable' rate of exp gain. You could have beaten the 'desired' rate by bouncing between different quest-givers, but instead of gaining exp at 6-8 times the rate (or more) of casual players, you maybe would have gotten it as 2-3 timers the rate due to the inefficiencies of zoning and running to hit up different HA task givers, etc. As it is now, before yesterday's (or last month's) nerf, you could get experience at a rate close to an order of magnitude faster than more casual players. With today's system, you can still get experience at a rate close to a full order of magnitude faster (subject to the impact of the 'HA Dailies.') Currently exp rates are pretty linear - an uber group able to put out 6x the DPS of a casual group results in probably roughly six times the rate of experience gain as the casual group. This forces SOE to balance around what the uber players can do - which can feel pretty painful for more causal players. Meanwhile if they changed problematic situations like the HA's so that the group putting out 6-8x the DPS might get only 2-3x the experience (and those in between get something between the two). . . the higher end players still get more exp per hour spent exping (which is right), but it could also result in less heavy-handed impact on more casual players, who simply didn't/don't have the capability to chew through mobs the way that you can (nor likely the time to exp as much as some) - hopefully helping keep their interest in the game, and hence playerbase, and EQ's viability going on longer. I see the approach that they took as a missed opportunity to inject some decreasing returns to scale, and unless they figure out a way to start doing that then basically all we have to look forward to are more nerfs as time goes on. Please note that I do not mean to be argumentative or critical - just trying to get more insight on other approaches. A long, long time back I was in an open-ended game that had no decreasing returns on scale, and after awhile it became clear that once one position achieved dominance, it was virtually impossible to unseat them - which made for a rather frustrating or boring game, depending on where you were in the power hierarchy. Since then I've been a bit biased against open-ended games with constant returns to scale. That other game wasn't PVE, so many of the dynamics were different, but I see a lot of the same sorts of issues as SOE tries to balance constant vis-a-vis 'bleeding edge' players in ways that simply reduce effectiveness of all players equally across the board, instead of trying to come up ways that reduce the 'relative edge' of high end players in group content, while still giving them a (significant, well-earned) edge. Maybe some folks who work on the west Coast can use some ideas. quote="Pwnography, post: 3148555, member: 402607"] My question isn't why - I know why. My question is 'why now?' This problem has been in existence, and they've known its been in existence, for a long time. We've had free reign on this for a full year now. I find it hard to believe they didn't see this coming. If they didn't, they're way more out of touch with the player base than I ever imagined. I still ponder why they did this with the release of TDS, associating the new expansion with nerfs that should have been resolved with a better solution long before we ever got so accustomed to the broken status quo. Riddle me that - a compelling answer would be great.[/quote] Oh, yeah - I would looooove to hear them explain that. I am pretty sure that there is enough creativity in the player base that if they used the 'Sense Heading' forum to describe and solicit feedback on some of these issues early on, *everyone* would be a lot happier - players, devs, and poor Roshen getting beaten up like a White House Press secretary. If we are going back to once a year expansions, maybe we can start to see some of these issues raised after New Years? So no one is pulling stuff out of various bodily orifices near the end of Beta, and the player base knows what is coming? I've had to work with multinational teams a lot over the last nine years. Things go a lot better if you have transparency and dialogue to try to build consensus, or at least ensure that everyone at the table knows why/how the group decided to do A vs. B. Some of that would help a lot here as well.
LotD and experience potions notwithstanding, of course. Just a lot fewer available viable ones relative to when ROF came out for the last level increase.
These are the two biggest problems, at least in my opinion. Lessons should let you benefit from HAs in some way.
The reward always scaled in this way. Each "task stage completed" flags you for some coins and some xp when it finishes.
Right. There was some speculation that it might change with the new way of doing things, so I tried it out and answered the question of someone who brought it up.
Your perspective is, perhaps, selectively narrow. I would have voted for: 4. Nerf the class(es) that can steamroll the mission in 5 minutes. There's obviously an exploitive design flaw since the tactic you've just described is swarming. Deflating xp for every class, instead, was a bad decision.
If you're on the swarm crew, the xp change makes little difference. 5 minutes of effort is still the same xp as before (sans lesson and xp potions).
I completely agree with this part. Considering the description for the Bottles of Adventure read "Increase experience gained by 10%/25%/50% for 4 hours" and they're charging cash for it, they're going to end up in hot water
The barn door has been open way too long for that. EQ has set up DPS increases to increase on a straight linear scale as weapons ratios change, focuses get applied, etc., etc., etc. So the guy with more AA, focus, etc., et. will blow the guy without out of the water. Trying to re-engineer EQ to have benefits of better gear, etc. increase using a (logarithmic?) function so that a doubling of weapons ration would result in increasing DPS by, say, 1.4x the old DPS instead of 2x the old DPS (just a random example) . . . well, it might be theoretically possible, but I don't see it happening. Far, far easier to design a new game from the ground up. I believe that he said he was beaming, not swarming. Regardless, these mass-killing tactics are only really available to the top geared players - I doubt guys in Latent could do it. So simply 'nerfing the class(es) that can steamroll the mission in 5 minutes' would also result in unnecessarily nerfing the 95% of a class that can't do it. Nerfing and deflating XP for every member of X___ class(es), regardless of whether they can mass kill on the scale the nerf is intended to stop . . . while it may result in sparing *every* player from feeling the heavy hand of the exp nerf, it still results in many players unnecessarily feeling the heavy hand of the exp nerf. Not much better from an ethical - or player retention - point of view, particularly looking at the past history of nerfs. EQ needs to figure out some other way to balance against the top tier, or we can just plan on seeing more of this in the future.
Tested it last night and found them moving the exp to the end is useless as a power leveling tool. Ran a Grimble with my 105's and TA'ed a 89 and a 98 to see what they would get from the final hail. both only received one Mark of Valor, maybe 5 plats and no visible exp. I do not know if this was how it worked before but it looks like you have to be present for the entire event to get the end exp. Good news was when i logged my two 105's back in I got a message to enter the instance and receive my award, as soon as they zoned in they got 15 aa's and their coins so at least I did not loose that. Total AA's are definitely down because of the exp being pushed to something kill exp bonus things will not effect... i used to get 40-42 aa's doing a Grimble on my RaF accounts with 100% exp bonus for kills + Lesson.. now I get 23-25
To gain experience you always had to be in the instance, since each step you gain some exp/currency, so if you weren't present for the experience on the kill, you don't get the experience now on the end round. We did descending the tower (Captain Randall Cooper DH HA) last night to finish off Partisan/Savior for us. My husband turned on AA experience initially to 100%, got 10% of an AA in one yellow kill. He then switched it to 100% experience (he's not 105 yet) and in the entire rest of the mission, he and I picked up 2% real experience and that was killing most mobs in zone (with lesson running as otherwise it would have been wasted for the night) - we left about 5-8 up only because they weren't in our path. (We'd wiped on this HA the night before on the 2nd to final part because we weren't ready for 4 mobs to aggro us.) When we did the final hail, we each got 13% real experience, so a total of 15% real experience which was pretty close to what we'd have gotten before. Only main difference in loss of experience is the lesson being rendered useless if you do any HA's now.
Yes, the swarm crew finishing it will get the same xp in five minutes killing the mobs and doing the hail as a casual group that takes 35 minutes or longer. And both suffer the same sucky experience if they just kill mobs. [Does anyobody think it is worth swarming the mobs now if they don't hail?] However if they did the lockout at the start of task: - they could have left the exp on the mobs, which would have retained utility of lesson and xp pots - the impact on the xp gained by a casual group over, say, three hours would likely be relatively minimal, as while the casual group could not have chained the same mission over and over again, they likely would have had to change locations only once or perhaps twice to find a task giver they didn't have lockouts on. - meanwhile the group AEing down all the mobs in 5-6 minutes would have to transition to a new task giver 5-6 times if they were going to HA for the same three hour period. While they would still get significantly more exp over the three hours, those transitions would have reduced how much they gained vis-à-vis the casual group compared with the rate before the October nerf. Looking at it again, I guess I see that the impact on XP gained for either type of player - disregarding LotD and xp pots - is pretty much the same between option 1 and option 2. It really comes down to: Option 1: (nerfing mob xp) - kills use of LoTtD and XP pots, but makes it easier for those doing Hunter tasks if they are willing to grind repeatedly for no exp. Option 2: Keeps HAs as a good place to burn LotD and xp pots, but makes it harder for those doing Hunters. I guess I prefer option 2, but that is a preference. On the other hand, putting on the evil developer hat for a minute, wanting to stretch content out, forcing a lockout for every run for those trying for Hunters would do that - Trials of Mata Muram, anyone? Maybe another argument for Option 2. <diabolical laugh>
I love people's point of view on this, seems the world is full of others who can't see the world through anyone's perspective but their own. I am a raid geared necro that is tearing through TDS. Are the challenges hard? Nope. Do I find the expansion fun? Nope, Just another thing to kill time between raids. I get where the OP post is coming from, prior to having to commit to raiding (which not everyone can) I was in the same boat. I wanted something tuned to a group (back then I rolled Monk Shaman and Enchanter) that I could kill and get some kind of reward out of. HA's were great for 30 minute players because you didn't have to complete them to get a reward. Did raiders use them to get max aa? Sure they did but they do not play for the same reasons the average player does. I use to run through one partially prior to going to work in the morning. Now I don't log in in the morning cause the exp sucks. I personally think this a move made in haste with very little understanding of the affects it will have on the casual players. Someone asked today in Guild where is a good play to burn Lesson? Rof - Nope, CTOF HA - Nope, Maybe the upper tiers of Ctof, though don't accidentally spawn a named, or go through progression to the upper tiers in TDS (which isnt crowded right now but will be soon) - but expect garbage exp till then. Vote with the wallets I deactivated and did not buy the expansion on my two alternate accounts. Some in our guild are only logging on now for raids because the satisfaction of completing things is so little and the reward is so little that if you are in a good spot why log in ? .
I love that i get crucified because i have a busy real life and dont have time to devote my life to eq like some people. Going to another mmo isnt an option for me either because i've tried and they all suck imo. Now EQ is like them. Just stating my opinion's so take your chess game darkark and do what you will with it.
I had to take a sick day yesterday because my kids had colds. I ran through some CotF progression that I had put off because I didn't need the xp until level increase. Here are some of my observations that I found. Putting the lockout at the request would very seriously hinder Cotf partisan quests. I had to request some of the Bixie ones 4-5 times to get the steps in order to update the partisan, if the lockout had been there, it would have stopped my progression for a while. Doing the Ha quest from the guard in EWK, we ran into the issue with the bixie HA from the merc 2 line with the step: help the general kill 100 mobs and protect her when shes exhausted. Well we spent a lot of time on that one, because you have to wait for clicknar to come into the tunnels for the first part and then got to that step, and the task bugged out, one of the 3 that spawn while she was exhausted went under the world. We had to drop the task. Doing Skulk 3 was a long annoying quest for the guards extra xp from HA, The sad thing is, I can plow through most of them 3 boxing (105 sk, 91 war, 102 pal), in about 25ish minutes, this one took me almost an hour, because of the amount of kills and moving. When I finished it, even with the second xp boost from completing the guards HA quest addition, I would have been much better off running 2 other HA's XP wise. As noted above I'm leveling up a war, and when I completed the Skulk 3 mission, the pal gained 18% from the complete of that + the extra from the HA bonus from the guard, the War (12 levels lower) gained 20%. Something isn't quite right there. both were set to 90% regular XP 10% AA xp. I noticed that they put the bonus HA's on really annoying ones, maybe just a bad set for my first time getting it, but after testing, it wasn't worth running those ones as you can run 2 other quicker ones for the same amount of time and better or maybe just less frustrating xp.
i think someone had said they plan on making the guards required HA's different each day. i cannot confirm that tho because i havnt been able to log in the past 2 days due to long hours at work
