EverQuest XP Gain - A way forward?

There appears to be a divide in how 'best path' XP gain in new expansions should be handled. In my view, the game appears to be emphasizing content completionism and character development over the old ways of "PVE your way to power and loot, quest if you want to".

Two ends of the spectrum here:

- Progression Path: This group supports the method of gaining most of your regular XP from progression. The problem with this method appears to be related to the attractiveness of replay-ability. Once the bulk of the playerbase is finished with the progression, no one remains able or willing to go back and help anyone trying to catch up.

- Grind Path: This group supports gaining most of your regular XP and AA XP from grinding/killing. This method is the most flexible. It may not provide a large enough incentive to complete the progression.


I propose a hybrid of these ideas for future expansions:

> Completing Merc/Partisan/Mission progression in the expansion should bring a person to max level if they are within 5 levels of max.
> Per-mob-kill XP should remain reduced (a la ToV) until Partisan is completed. "Unlocking" regular per-mob-kill XP for your account.
> For every character on your account that reaches max level, a 10% XP bonus is applied to your account (capped at 100%).
> Another 10% XP bonus is applied to the account for every character that completes all progression in the game (further incentivizing completing old content in the same way TBL chase items have done)
> All Merc/Partisan/Missions should be able to select alternate rewards (currency/tradeskill mats/collectibles) via Overseer, providing another incentive path for people who have already completed the progression.


I'd enjoy hearing your feedback and ideas. Thanks in advance!

Are you ready for the Tappin?

A big 'no' from me for this
Don't muck about with XP
At all
Get rid of the XP penalties for older zones (why force everyone into overcrowded current content? There is a natural attrition as levelling happens, leave it at that)

Don't force people to do missions/quests. Why lose people who don't like doing this/don't have folk to group with?

Keep it simple. Throw some XP bonuses at quests if that's popular, but why undermine other folks' enjoyment by making it essentially mandatory?
(eg see how unpopular TBL is outside raiders - pretty much no-one can solo those quests to get access to various zones - so a pretty bad buy for many)

Interresting, but I don't know how/if the old spaghetti EQ code will be able to handle that kind of shared global account bonus correctly.

What do you mean by via Overseer?
You mean, like Overseer, with some choice?
In this case, ok.

But I don't want to see Overseer linked, near or far, to the progression and leveling, as a mandatory tool.
Please no ...

Leave that thing alone.
As an alternate way to get xp/mats/whatever for people who want to use it : ok.

But I don't want to have to use and touch this thing ... even with a stick

Overseer adds a ton of passive experience from a few blind clicks a day. I can't imagine why people are still crying about exp rates when they can level to 115 without ever leaving PoK or sitting down at their computer for more than 5 minutes a day. In fact, if anything should change to encourage people to play together more it should be the exp reward from overseer being heavily reduced if not removed completely.

Honestly, this Overseer suggestion was a half-effort. I don't want to see Overseer linked with progression. What I want to see is reward options. Rather than XP, perhaps you'd like 15 various Tradeskill Mats from any previous expansion? Or a collection fragment? That's what I was going for.

Having people repeat content with alts to get a bonus isn't likely to help those who are struggling to finish it as it is.

The current system is anything but simple and plenty of people were unhappy with ToV's XP arrangement. I am just throwing ideas at the wall and see if anything sticks. I am operating under the assumption that the Dev team is likely to continue the ToV XP arrangement into the future in one form or another.

Are you suggesting that having more people running the content won't help people who are trying to run it for the first time? /blank stare

If they only group with their alts, then I think you are right.

Yeah, it gives passive XP.
Great ....
But in my own case, I don't care about XP for just XP (and personnaly never really cried about the bad ToV XP, we leveled 14 or 15 different characters up to 115 over 6 accounts, it was a bit tedious to repeat the same progression all over again, but we're not dead).

I do play games in general, and EQ, to ... play ... games, and have fun with my characters, the gameplay, the lore, etc.
It's a game.
But fundamentally, I don't care about XP.

If you like Overseer, then fine, go play with it, I won't judge you.

But for me (and it's even worse for hubby), I don't like it, at all.
I just don't want to be forced to play that way, that's all.

Pie or cake, apples or bananas

I don't know about removing the Overseer XP.
I don't use it, so I don't know, but really? Some people are leveling only with Overseer?
Honestly, I don't know what to say. Where is the fun to play ... without playing?

In that case, 100% agree.
More choices can't hurt.

I do not agree with this .. Overseer does not give that much xp per quest .. most peeps aren't at the Elite quest stage and for those of us who are still doing simple quests up to rare the xp gains per quest are not that much barely covers the loss of xp due to deaths from raiding(which I do not do) or just a bad day and dying alot(which I do alot )

Ive been playing Overseer alot these days and If your just doing the 5 or 10 quests a day the max xp your going to get with no crits is between 4 - 10% .. sure some of the 24 hour quests have 2-3% xp on a success, but their is usually only 2 or 3 of those per day you can do and those 24hour ones locks you up for 24hours .

the 12 hour quests only give me about 1% to 2% (on a crit) so i end up usually doing 2 or 3 12 hour quests and 1 24 hour quest and 1 collection quest (for the collect thingamajig) or i'll switch out the collect quest for a recruit quest..

so I usually only get 6 to 8 quests a day done .. and 2 or 3 of those have nothing to do with XP .. so 5 quests for XP i might get between 3-6% xp per day ..

to me that doesnt feel very Overpowered for Overseer .. I think it brings a little balance for the partial lack of XP we have to endure from grinding mob vs Xp ratio .. killing mobs in ToV with XP bonus and my xp bar moves .08 - .10% per mob .. and thats in ToV .. some ToV zones might be a tad better than others but not by much ..

so I think overseer shouldnt change at all .. I was against overseer at first, wasn't until recently I really started using it to get my main to 115 ..

If anything i think the dev's should add the current expansion Collects to the list .. keep those baz mules peeps from price gouging some of those rare or mob only drops .. and before ya say that would be too overpowering .. Really !!! have you gotten any collects from overseer .. you have to complete and succeed at 4 collect quests just to get 1 collect .. and collect quests are the 12 hour ones..

btw ^^ is rare and ive never seen Xp this high.. but it was a crit and an ELITE quest .. also was prolly a 24 hour one ..

ok think that post is long enough btw that is jmho .. YMMV ..

Woaw ... 8.10%? Nuts ...

But still no, thanks haha
Yeah, stubborn as a mule

I would happily give up overseer XP in order to have mobs give a reasonable amount of XP in ToV+

I would rather play to get XP than log in click on overseer for xp & log off again.

I would give up OS if mobs gave decent xp ..

I still play and grind and progression .. but now i do OS for those times i either cant play or die too much

I honestly don’t care anymore. The Devs acknowledged they made mistakes with hot zone quest among other things, but yet again, they clearly haven’t learned from prior blunders. It’s just copy + paste with few changes and void of any vision.

It’s a lot like the Moro arc in DBS - copy and paste cell arc with minor changes... now I hope I don’t have to file the manga.

I really hope the devs can find away to monetize level changes without trying to railroad players into doing it their way.

We honestly don’t need another exp thread. Maybe the sandman can clean it up.

I think the main issue with the XP is solo players trying to find groups to either do the quests/missions (ToV) or doing the grind, so many rely on Overseer to get a good chunk of their xp. It is easy for a bot group to find a spot in GD or EW and grind the xp and not have to worry about the quests/missions. For a solo player like myself, I enjoyed getting a group and getting the quest/mission xp, which meant that I didn't have to find a grind group for very long to max my levels/aa's. I only use Overseer to keep missions banked to max my level again if I died.

If the they are just grouping with their own alts or a small group of people it won't change anything.

I think the problem is the fact that AA xp is a set amount per AA. So that makes the problem of gaining levels at this high taking so much xp, that is they set the xp to be high enough that you didnt "feel" slow in the grind, that you would get 2-3 aa per kill every kill in the new xpac. Then as time progresses you would hit the 5 AA max per kill every kill within a couple xpacs. That would not be so good for the game, so they tie the big chunks of xp to the quests where they can set the amount and you cannot alter that to go into AA.

There are 2 sides to the perception that devs have to think about. the new returning player, if the devs have to make ever AA cost 100+ cause every mob is giving 5 aa, then a new player comes in and goes oh i have to gain 150k AA, nope. The other side is, it would help people catch back up on the basic AA even faster, which while not a bad thing, you have to get them to stay to do that, and they have to be able to kill the harder mobs to get the AA,

in a couple xpacs it would also hurt solo play, as you would gain so much AA xp while in a group, groups would be even faster and leave the solo players behind even more, while not the worst thing, it is something they have to take into effect.

Also, after completing progression in a couple xpac you would just go to older xpacs and mass kill for the fast easy AA cause they would give 5 as well. I know they put the effect of the puller bypassing the coding to reduced xp in older xpac, so groups would just alternate the puller and everyone would gain a ton really fast.

I think they are trying to avoid a rabbit hole in the future that wouldn't be good for the game, and they done have the resources to design a new system to compensate.

All just a theory.