TOV experience design will hurt raiding

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Fian, Dec 23, 2019.

  1. Fian Augur

    I have a lot of thoughts about this, but let me first start with the impact to raiding. With a 96 rez at level 115, you lose about .5% of a level. In a TOV T2 zone killing a white con you earn less than .05 per kill, which means to recover the lost experience from a single 96 rez is 10-15 kills. With a 90 rez, you can expect it to be something along the lines of 25-40 kills to recover from a single rez. Now in raiding, dying is very frequent, especially when learning a raid, and for tanks. People aren't going to want to take 90 rezzes, and even a tank getting a ton of 96 rezzes is going to be making for a very unhappy tank. I can easily see a tank opting to skip a raid simply because their experience is too low and risk deleveling.

    In my opinion, they either need to increase the exp gained from killing mobs or add new rezzes to the game. Give clerics a 98 rez, and the other rez classes a 96. Maybe for next anniversary event, give the opportunity for the rez classes to get a 96 rez stick (or 0% rez if you prefer).

    Now that I've covered my concern, let me explain in more detail how experience works in TOV. At level 114 in a T2 zone with a full group of 6 players I was killing a series of white cons. Each kill gave me .052 experience towards my level. At that rate, to go from 114 to 115 would involve about 2000 kills. Even more when you consider that many people prefer to kill dark blue cons instead. While the prior levels were not quite as bad as 114 to 115, all of them were quite bad. The amount of grinding required to get to 115 would take an extremely long time for the average player, much more than is enjoyable.

    To make things easier, significant experience awards are given for completing mercenary, partisan, and especially mission achievements. In fact, beating a single mission at 111 gives you 40% of a level. If you can get a great group, a newly dinged 111 can get very close to 113 in a few hours by just doing the 4 missions. Doing all merc, partisan, and missions along with my exp gain set to 100% regular exp, I was at 114.85. It took me another 12 hours grouping or so to ding 115, which I personally did in just over 3 days (1am on the third day). So basically your choices are an extremely effective, progression approach to gaming to get to 115, or an ineffective slaughter of thousands of mobs.

    You can argue that there is nothing wrong with a quest/achievement oriented approach to leveling in EQ. In fact, many other games have taken that approach (Elder Scrolls Online comes to mind). Having done both approaches, I prefer the old EQ method better. In fact, that is the type of player that EQ has already attracted. If you want the quest based method, it already exists in multiple MMORPG available to play. Personally, I find PLing via quest to be rather exhausting. At first it is fun, but after a while, you just want to pick a camp site and kill for a while, before engaging in more questing. In addition, it benefits those with connections to get in good groups to an even higher degree over those that like to molo or duo in easier corners of the game. It should also be noted that you are going to end up running the same merc and partisan quests over and over to the point you are sick of them as you help your friends complete their achievements.

    While I think a greater benefit from questing is reasonable, they have totally shifted the balance too far in one direction. IMO, it would be better if they instead cut the quest exp gain from missions in half, and increased the exp gain from TOV mobs. That could solve the rez issue I described at the start, plus have EQ support different play styles.
  2. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

  3. Dewey Augur

    Repeating the task should give some xp.

    I just did the merc task for tofs over again. I was in zone and thought sure why not just do these again.

    Anyways, I think it's a little messed up that doing the same task a second time yields 0 xp.
    Kinadorm and Miss_Jackie like this.
  4. Derka Power Ranger

    Not sure if I'm the first to say it and it will indeed start a fire but if they were trying to combat the massive amount of AFK killing in the game today then that is how you do it. As you stated, if you actually play through the whole expansion, you will almost be 115. If you setup a camp (similar to FM) and go AFK for a week, you might be 115. This isn't targeted at anyone specific, we all know it exists on every server.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and code-zero like this.
  5. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Only problem with the AFK theory is an AFK killer doesn't care about time, they will happily take two or three or ten times as long doing that same thing, why should they care?

    All it does is force anyone coming up later on to go through the progression, they won't be able to skip it & if they are being levelled by friends this means those friends have to go repeating the same crap they already did umpteen times which means people are going to be less inclined to help others catch up, it also means catching up on alts is now more onerous having to go through that same content ad nauseum.

    I think it's a bad model myself & it hurts everyone except the AFK botters - ALL XP removed from mob kills would hurt the AFKers but at that point the game would have just gone full mongo.
    NeverPayForLag and cadres like this.
  6. enclee Augur

    AFK killing isn’t impacted by time, it’s actually a benefit if by having slower progress. Now, you’re going to drive up the market for power leveling services and make it more profitable.
    Verily Tjark likes this.
  7. Verily Tjark Augur

    Also, more mobs they kill the more plat and loot they farm while afk
  8. Fian Augur

    So what I said in the beginning, if DB is determined to keep this exp dynamic, they should improve the existing rez spells available to players.
  9. Moege Augur

    And more chase items. The OP is very correct, this will hurt raiders more than anything.
  10. Pano Augur

    Oh no, us raiders will have to log outside of raids.
    Dibab, Fenthen, Mehdisin Mahn and 5 others like this.
  11. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    It is about time death ment something again.

    What class is still giving 90% rez? Pallys had their combat rez increased to 96% a few patches back. Cleric and necro have always been 96%. Rez tokens are also 96%.

    As for more exp for doing quests. This is Everquest after all, from day one quests were always a good way of getting experienced. Not great exp for doing multi times which is possibly a good thing I'm sure many can remember crushbone belts and how much exp that used to give for minimul effort. This isn't the first expansion to give large exp bonuses for achievements RoF did as did TBM, I'm sure others did as well just those spring to mind. HoT did as well at release but I think that got nerfed when VoA came a long.

    From what I have experienced ToV is giving better or the same experience as other zones from 110 onward.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and Petalonyx like this.
  12. Fian Augur

    Pallies are still giving 90 rez I believe. Druids/Shamans have a clicky that gives 90 rez. Hey, if raiders can ignore 90 rezzes during a raid, that would make things better. Right now the expectation is if you get a 90 rez, you are expected to take it.

    As for quests, you are talking about level 10ish quests, that were a PL tactic of collecting massive amounts of turn ins to get some early levels. Most players didn't do that, and were just as effective at leveling the old fashioned way. TBM quests that gave big exp gain? I don't remember seeing any. It is hard to miss the TOV mission bonus, 40% gain for a level 111. Doing them all probably puts you around 114.5. This is a major design change in the game. And I, for one, am not a fan.
  13. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Druids and shaman usually use call of the wild 0% rez, so we just get a rez after event. I've had 100% rezes from clerics complete with a full mana bar, depends on cleric.

    crushbone example was to show large exp from quests isn't a new thing. TBM quest line for getting the mirror gave a large chunk of exp for completing especially if using lesson. Pretty sure I got close to a full level with bonus exp and lesson when I did it recently.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  14. Fian Augur

    If you are level 75, yes running 2 quests in TBM can get you a level. But at level 105, the rewards are minimal. Traditionally, quest achievements have given you something like 2% of a level. Now for missions, it is 40, and for merc, partisan, savor achievements about 8% each (maybe 10 at 111).
  15. Repthor Augur

    trying to make a case to increase exp cuz raiders lose exp on raids. if anything this arguement whould only make devs decrease it more. as a raider lose exp from raids then getting it back is such a non issue and im a tank and i couldent die enough on raids for it to matter one bit. even if i got a 0% rezz i whould regain it in within a lesson burn, its such not a consern. i mean im almost maxed aas alreaddy what els im a gonna do
    Thunderkiks and Petalonyx like this.
  16. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Was 100 - 105 at the time.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  17. Lynnes New Member

    I feel like because of my play style i am being punished even more. I don't do flagging o progression and never have and i get punished for it. I don't get end game gear that raiders get and now with the last few xpacks i don't get some the over powered clicky buffs people have been getting for finishing progression. The exp loss seems like a huge slap punishment on top of already losing out on so much game content because of how I play. I have spent alot of time riding since the xpack came out and i am one yellow and one blue into 111, its crazy.
    Even if i wanted to do progression groups just are not there, you never see pick up groups in general or even in my guild which is about the 4th largest on the server. People do progression with the friends they been playing with for years and if their buddies are not around to do it then they do other stuff.
    cadres likes this.
  18. Fcseven XIII Journeyman

    I’m not a fan of this change. I avoid the main quests and grind exp the old fashion way. It looks like they are phasing us out. We have been through this same thing years ago when they tried to implement it. Now they are trying it again. The players hated it then and the players still hate it now.
  19. smash Augur

    I dont think it will heart the raiders much.

    It will however hurt the casuals, for the record, I am a raider big time so for me it means nothing.

    I got some friend who are casuals, they hated the last level 109, 110, because of taking too long.
    My advice for them, do not buy the expansion, until I tell how leveling in it, because it might hurt a lot. I played some days, and I could see where the wind was blowing and told them.

    They liked the dropable items, they however hate the level system, so 1 of them are buying the expansion, rest are stopping.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  20. p2aa Augur

    People that only kill stuff and not doing progression quests are casual players, as it's being said.
    Casual players have 1 year to get to lvl 115, as they are not in rush by design (casual player), why would it matter that they would not be lvl 115 asap ? Failing to see where is the problem.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and code-zero like this.