Poll: Creature Kill Experience Points

[chad878262]

I have to say I'd like an increase in RP xp, currently playing a drow fighter/wizard in the UD and leveling through grinding is a real pain although I try to keep that at a very low amount.

It actually isn't too bad once you get a few levels under your belt, if you go to the right areas. However, the closer you approach to 20, the more it becomes only worthwhile to quest once per week and maybe go to one specific area with a group now and again. From ~8-18 it is a decent pace though.

Wonder why the UD is so underpopulated... Guess the harsh leveling might be one reason.

It's smaller than the surface, has less quest XP, has one low-epic area and one epic boss. On the plus side you can loot it quick and quest quick, but outside of RP reasons the surface is just a far more interesting place to play. That said, as someone who played almost exclusively on the surface for over 2 years and has spent a great deal of time in the UD for the past couple of months it really is full of very nice looking areas, it just lacks diversity of enemies and a sizable number of maps.

[Egg Shen]

And here it is in a nutshell after a TLDR intro:
We decide what a reasonable time frame is for a character to go from level 1 to level 30. We divide the xp required for level 30 (ECL 0) over the number of days we decide is reasonable. It is automatically granted to you on a daily basis.
Quests do not give xp. They give gold. Mobs do not give XP, they give gold, items, and fun. DM's do not give xp (or items, for that matter, but that's another argument for another day). The only way to gain xp faster than your daily allotment is via roleplay xp.

It completely eliminates xp as a distraction from the more interesting aspects of this server.

That's the gist. Yes, a player can log in after the time frame with a level 30 character they didn't "earn." So what? They will not have had fun in the meantime. They will not have cultivated roleplay relationships. They will have terrible gear.

We would probably need to put some checks and balances in place so it doesn't get out of hand or abused in unforeseen ways (i.e. limit on number of characters in vault, or bosses you must kill to progress past certain level increments, or forcing you to level up at 20 to abide by the 3b20 rule or other clever things I haven't thought of), but I would really love to see what sort of player this would cater to. Would it be incorrigible power gamers? Or people that just want to have fun with roleplay and adventuring? A mix of both and more, all for their own reasons for preferring such a system? A separate instance of the server with these xp rules in place would make for an interesting sociological experiment if nothing else.

Most intriguing. I like the lateral thought happening here.

You did identify the question... why do people like the xp grind mechanics. Typically its a sense of achievement. If there's nothing beyond story making and gold/loot farming, i foresee a lot will leave rather quickly. And sometimes, those of us that enjoy a good story making session, also like the occasional bit of adventure farming to 'wind down'.

Surely the adventure farming to wind down is still possible. It's just no longer necessary with the rough idea of an xp system that I proposed. If you want to go bash some monsters (IC or OOC), then go for it. The rewards are all essentially 'in character' rewards (i.e. the gold you need to survive as an adventurer), whereas for the most part the xp grind is about OOC rewards (dopamine in the brain when you hit that next level). Yeah, most adventurers want to improve their skills, but from an in character, story driven perspective, I can't imagine many people killing the same compound of Xvarts for months on end. Chapter 32 - The Xvart slaughter continues. Chapter 33 - Hope you like dead Xvarts. Chapter 34 - You guessed it, our intrepid heroes are "training" on Xvarts.

With passive xp gain, we can assume that when we aren't logged in, our pc is doing mad push-ups and stretching exercises and really letting combat dummies have it.

As for the other questions you asked, I never feel threatened. I do get jealous sometimes, but the jealousy is more about my lack of free time compared to others, not so much that they are leveling faster than me.

[Egg Shen]

[Snip] We decide what a reasonable time frame is for a character to go from level 1 to level 30. We divide the xp required for level 30 (ECL 0) over the number of days we decide is reasonable. It is automatically granted to you on a daily basis... [Snap]

Basically, what you suggest is some kind of script that runs on the entire server vault, and takes the experience value of a character and updates it with that predetermined increment.
I suppose it would have to be done when the server is down, which might prolong the server down time for a considerable extent.

Not to mention that many could be annoyed at a possible limitation on the number of characters. After all, there is still a need for mule characters and sometimes you just want to try out a new character concept without having to axe one of your older characters - and there would be those who can easily circument such charatcer limitations and therefore gain unfair advantage over the others. Additionally, any clever builder can easily make do with just +2 or +3 equipment - something you can pull out of the consignment store for a mere pittance. (Not to mention how you could just stomp the low level dungeons for loot and that too takes care of any lack of equipment.)

What would make this system incorrigible in my opinion is how it would tear away any adventuring soul this server has. There would be no point to take on any in game challenge, because all that you get is just an empty ale stein and an experience penalty upon death. In fact, you would not even need to log in for months, and the "DnD" player inside me protests how no experience has been actually earned.

However, it would be great boon for those who just stand around the campfires and often are 'AFK' for several hours in a row to boot.

Well, maybe a character limit isn't even necessary. I mean, what's the difference between 3 level 30 pc's, and 10? It's not like you can play them at the same time. I don't see how that would give you an advantage over anybody else. But wouldn't somebody need multiple cd-keys to have multiple accounts? If so, I'm fine with that.

As for "needing" mules, I'm not so sure we do. Disregarding the fact that mules and twinking are completely anti-roleplay, we do have in-game merchants with persistent storage now. I can't think of many (any?) players that would OOC betray you for your gear during an OOC transfer of items. And I think there are ways to use the disguise skill to completely eliminate the need for a helper anyway.

Some builds don't need amazing gear to be good? Stomping low level dungeons for gear? How is that any different than the current set-up?

As for killing the adventuring soul, I strongly disagree. Either your character is an adventurer, or it is not. If you sit down at a tabletop pnp game with a character that wants to be a merchant and loiter in town hawking his wares all day, it's not going to work out particularly well for you. The DM is making some sort of adventure for you to experience. The least you can do is create a character that wants to be an adventurer.

On this server you actually CAN be a merchant if you want. It's amazing. But if your character IS an adventurer and has in-character goals and desires conducive to adventuring, then I would imagine going on a raid of some foul creature's lair would be right up said character's alley.

And as a DnD player, if your DM's campaign was to kill the same mob for two straight months because you need to 'earn' your xp, I'm sure you'd find a new DM. A tabletop game is fun from start to finish, with the DM in total control of your xp rewards and how fast you level up. If BGTSCC was the same way, would it be so bad? Sure, finding an ale stein isn't fun. Perhaps treasure rewards could be examined more closely or something, but I feel like that's a separate issue that affects the current server as well.

It isn't all about afk campfire RPer's either. By the time I finish this epic post, I'll have approximately 1.5 hours max to play before my wife gets home. I might be able to find some interesting roleplay somewhere, but I can't go on much of an adventure. There will be no noticeable mechanical progression from xp rewards. . . UNLESS, I run the quests with a character. I'm sure I have a couple who are due. 6000 xp in 1.5 hours is hard to pass up. . . since I've already said I like higher level action, what am I likely to do?

In some ways, the current server already HAS the system in place I'm advocating. But instead of doing nothing to get xp, you have to do something unfun (like slowly driving an ice pick into your brain...). You see a character running quests or grinding, grinding, grinding, you have no interesting rp with them, and in a few months, they're level 30! It's okay because they "earned" it? Bleh. The end-game is worth it to me, but for many, it's just not.

[Rask]

Like I said the issue is not the XP gain but how you can earn the XP already given. Not looking to make 30 faster. Looking to make 30 on my terms and not be forced to quest or grind all the time.

At the heart of it, this is really my issue as well. With limited playtime, you have to maximize your XP gain when you can. Currently, that means running around in circles for an hour or so when you log in. If you don't do this, you lag so far behind everyone else in level that you cannot go on meaningful journey's and have as good of RP experiences with people who have a lot more free time.

If the XP gain was higher for just RPing, or there was a much larger incentive on RP for progression rather than grinding, then I would likely spend a lot more of my limited playtime doing that. Or, if simply grinding was more group-friendly and more interesting, it would definitely go a long way.

So far the best idea I have seen is the "ticker" that gains you XP as you hang out. Combine that with the current RP XP system and you no longer have to grind anymore. If you do, you'll certainly level faster, but it will not longer be a prerogative for those folks with less free time, as just being active will gain you XP and progression over time.

[Steve]

The problem I have, personally, with an XP ticker is that one can simply log in and for nothing, have your PC gain experience—where is the risk vs. reward?

If memory serves, RP XP was somewhat recently adjusted so greater amounts are gained the higher level your toon is, per tick, when RP chatting. As well, when in tavern/inn interiors, the rate of ticks increases.

But it would seem that, in a time comparison between what one gains for 1 hour of mindless mob grinding vs 1 hour of tavern talk, the RP XP is far short in total gain per hour.

However, the problem with RP XP is still that one gains mechanical power through chatting, and it's not like these chats are about sword fighting or intracacies of spellweave. So it does make a boat load of sense that RP XP is limited and less fruitful than ANY situation where there is actual risk v reward (adventuring) and use of mechanical abilities (adventuring).

Where I personally find interest is the idea that, if one slays 1000 XP of mobs, that PC would pool double (2000 xp) that can be gained through RP XP at more or less the current going rate. So, essentially, a PC has to earn the Pool via risk v reward, and is left with a POTENTIAL to gain more XP through RP, and a potential that is greater than mob slaying alone, or RP XP gain alone.

Honestly, I think the whole XP system and Levels needs a huge reworking, but in this proposed context and of this thread...well, work with what you got!

[Calodan]

Realms of Trinity has the XP ticker that awards so much XP per time you are logged on. Believe me it was never enough to be a thing that I wanted to sit and let my PC just gain XP. I did it yes when I was not home. ROT did it and does it because they want more people logged on. One of the reasons they make themselves viable is through that allowing you to log in and gain XP while not playing. It gives them a server that tops out with players on and other players get on more often because of that. BG DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM!!! We have 75 full server most days at some point. They never do that. So something like this would be a bad thing for a server that runs full most days. It would encourage people to log in and do nothing too much. I would be fine if that went into a XP pool that can only be ticked off by XP awards through the XP reward system we have. IE Pickpocketing, lockpicking, talking, killing and fishing.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Maybe an idea to make grouping more efficient would be to adjust the xp gained to the CR the group should be able to fight together and remove the splitting of xp.
So if you group to fight stronger monsters you'd get more xp because you could fight bigger challenges while you'd get less if you're just fighting creatures will below your CR.

I hope this makes sense... Might need to edit it when I got some more time at my hands.

[aaron22]

when i solo grind an area with a low chance of death i shoot for about 1.5k xp/hr. that is pretty low but with much less risk than if i were to move into an area where i can achieve 2-2.5/hr. when i rp i gain xp at less than .5k xp/hr @level 20. that would be in a tavern and in a duo where i have seen xp ticks at its highest.

to me that seems pretty good. i dont have any complaints on that kind of percentages.

edit: in a group i gain xp similar to the number in the group as a multiplier up to 5. at 6 or more members in the group, the group xp rates slow due to scattering, uneven rest rates, deaths due to scattering, RP, etc. so a group of 4 would give me a about 2k xp/hr*4 so about 8k xp/hr. this is pretty awesome really and the only thing i would suggest is having grouping become easier. we have a LFG tag in our scry, but not too many use it. maybe if we used the tools we have we could make this process easier to get into.

[Vogar Eol]

I didn't read Egg's suggestion as an XP ticker. I read it as complex math tied to a login bonus.

Wouldn't it be simpler to give a daily/weekly login bonus for free and kill the quests? Log in once a day, and you get 1,500XP. BOOM, epics stopped from disrupting lowbie areas in one single blow.

[Egg Shen]

You read mine right. I think the xp ticker idea is more associated with what Calodan (sp?) suggested in his original post.

Honestly, anything is better than the quests and the grinding. I'm game for whatever. Would a serparate instance of the server with it's own separate, clean-slate vault and a new experimental xp system be super expensive and/or difficult to implement?

But just for numerical reference, if we decided one level a week was a decent rate, it would still take roughly 7 months to get a level 30. So in my proposal, yeah, somebody could conceivable not log in at all, and then after 7 months, he logs in and gets a free level 30. For some reason the thought of that doesn't terrify me, it just makes me laugh.

Or we could stagger it. Levels 1-5 only take 3 days to level.
6-10 take 4.
11-15 take 5.
16-20 take 6.
21-25 take 7.
26-30+ take 8.
the only way to make it go faster is to get roleplay xp via the existing script.

What would that be? 6 months, maybe less with lots of rp? You could tie it to achievements and stuff if you really wanted to, but I truly don't think it's necessary.

[V'rass]

I would not mind such a system... frees me from having to quest and grind and 1 lv per week or even every 3 weeks is a fair rate. Still takes the better part of a year to hit lv 30 unless you rp it up.

[Rask]

Well however it's done, it looks to me via the votes, that the majority of people are wanting an XP increase for spawns. Most want it for all, some want it for bosses. But either way, most people want to see some kind of change so far.

[Ariella]

Of course it has more votes for yes, Sigil nets 300 - 500 xp a kill and still constantly gets the same xp increase polls. Players on average will always want more xp, gold and items it does not mean its actually a good idea.

[Tekill]

There are so many different opinions and suggestons on this topic. It would be interesting to see what the path of least resistance is, to a concensus on what the actual changes should be.
And would we end up even liking like said changes?
I was resistant to changes at first because I don't want the game to be too easy.
But Calodan's suggestion seems to offer some good balance ...

[Kiran]

There are so many different opinions and suggestons on this topic. It would be interesting to see what the path of least resistance is, to a concensus on what actual changes should be.

From what I see in the poll the consensus is showing what majority of people want.