What would happen if XP for kills was dramatically reduced to, say, 25XP, while other, more team oriented actions were buffed? Or instead maybe give a 10%-15% XP bonus around objectives, including points, SCUs and generators. What's more, SOE could introduce an objective attack/defense bonus of 75XP to all kills in close proximity of any objective. My hypothesis is that this would discourage farming around the spawn points and move it where it actually matters and is more fun. Give vehicles things to defend/attack between bases and things, I think, would be much better then. Edit: Please avoid trolling, as mods seem to love to lock and delete my threads.
Well, the idea is to compensate with XP coming from other sources. I think the problem with farming is not that people want XP, but that it's done at the expense of other players' fun or in other words, by spawn camping. Biofarms, which is the other type of farm, would remain as they are, considering how small they are and that most kills actually happen very close to capture points. I am not suggesting to decrease cert gain, but to migrate a large part of the XP that comes from kills to other sources.
Squad support XP from revives, ammo resupply and repairing squad MAXes are already really big cert farms. Teaming up with other people generally already results in much higher XP gain. You stay alive and in the fight for a lot longer so you can make more points.
NOTHING will discourage farming so long as Cert points are critical to load outs. Early on base caps were worth a ton of points..... so everyone ghost capped around each other rather then get stuck in a stale mate. Then they tried adding more XP to support options like the Sundy spawns.... so everyone blew up each others sunderers so they could plant their own. When they put more emphasis on XP for fights, went out of their way to start Bio/Tech farms. Liberator spam HE tanks HEAT lightings AP Harrassers Fury/Maurader Scatter MAXs And now Battle Gals and Battle Sundies People will naturally gravitate to whichever generates the most points, because ultimately only the XP/Certs matter. It takes an insane amount of Cert points to get spun up in one line of Combat. Much longer if you need multiples (like vehicles). This made worse by the fact you can only equip one option per slot type... so which ever you pick MUST be on a competitive level. So they are stuck in a catch 22 design philosophy. They force progression as important in order to generate revenue, but the game itself is designed around the idea of asymmetrical balance, and the assumption of everyone being fully unlocked. So the only way to De-emphasise farming is to remove the progression curve and rebalance around the idea of function. But monetizing function is a huge P2W ear mark, making the entire situation a difficult idea to handle fairly.
What if XP was reduced for kills away from points and consoles, but dramatically increased for kills around points and consoles? Additionally for kills with turrets or kills of turrets? Alternately, or along with, you could reduce the xp of kills of lower force multpliers and increase for equal or higher. That is to say, a lightning killing infantry would yield little, while a lightning killing a liberator or a MBT would give much more, and a lightning killing a lightning would give a little more. I'm really not sure why harder kills aren't rewarded more already.
Already in the game. They're attack and defend bonuses. Already exists in game. You get far more points per kill destroying a large vehicle than you do for killing infantry. I only ever use vanguards with an AP/enforcer or halberd setup and each life is usually 30,000-50,000 xp. I'd say that using an AP cannon to shoot down ESF's and liberators is already vastly more rewarding. Farming infantry is on the mid-tier in terms of xp/minute. Farming vehicles is where the certs are at. HE tanks fighting back against an AP vanguard is about as unfair as a single burster MAX fighting back against a bulldog galaxy.
10 "regular" kills to earn a single cert, 100 to get 10? Yeah, that ought to put a big *** titan nail in the coffin of this game!
So killing that sniper way up on that hill far away that is killing everyone repairing friendly tanks, who are also far away on another hill camping the spawn preventing the enemy from getting out so we can easily cap the base, isn't a "team oriented action"?
There already is a bonus, I get it often enough to notice it but not often enough so that I fail to celebrate when I do. I think it's called "extreme menace kill" or something, isn't it?
This doesn't work, Other PvP MMOs have tried it. The players learn that avoiding fighting each other gives you more XP and stop fighting each other in favor of capping bases and leaving them undefended
I think I would still go for the kills. Killing other players and doing whatever it takes to win a fight has always and will always be more important to me than gaining certs. If farming 150 people in a doorway caused me to end up with 5 certs total I would still do it because I know that I am having a large impact on those enemies and helping my team. There's a reason getting farmed over and over sucks, it's not XP envy, it's because it means you are losing. Same goes for blowing up sundies, healing, reviving, hacking, AA work, running head first into spam to retake a point at the last second, or whatever other noble actions you would consider worthy of XP. Even if those things gave me no XP, I would still do it if it helped my team win. I don't get any XP for sharing important information via /Region or using smoke and reinforcement icons on the minimap, but I'm pretty sure those have helped a lot of fights I've seen us win. At BR100+ XP is barely if at all a motivating factor in the way I play.
I find if you are smart and just do what will have the biggest impact on the battlefield,using all the tools are your disposal, you always end up on top of the scoreboard with the most XP.
