Rewarding Skill, Emphasizing Risk/Reward, Current SP Problems and How to Fix it

[Rentahamster]

I made a blog post about this a while back. It deals with the problems the current SP system has, and the tweaks (just tweaks, not overhauls) that are needed to refine the system and promote a more varied and entertaining experience for the players.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...entry?e=155735

I feel that we have made much progress since the darkages of random SP gain that we had back in September. The current system allows us to kill mobs without having to worry about inconsistent SP gain. However, there are still a few issues with the system that need to be addressed.

The current SP gain calculations go as follows:

[SP] = [party modifier] x [mob's base SP] x [dlvl modifier]

More detail can be found here:
http://kanican.livejournal.com/51730.html
http://kanican.livejournal.com/52445.html

The current system incentivizes the right behavior: killing the mobs as fast and efficiently as possible. I do think it can still be improved with several adjustments that would not be very hard to add.

Proposed solutions are in red, with the reasoning behind them detailed in regular text.

Here's what we could do:

Increase the dlvl 10 restriction so that killing even harder mobs rewards the player with more SP.

Right now, the highest rank mob you can fight until your SP is capped is 10 ranks above you. That means, if you are rank 40, you will see the same SP gain from fighting a mob that is rank 50 and a mob of the same type that is rank 55.

I think defeating harder monsters should be rewarded, so if the dlvl restriction of 10 were raised to something like 15 or 20, it would give skilled players an incentive to go exploring and to take down harder monsters without feeling like it's a waste of time.

This issue is especially noticeable when you are in a party of around 8 or more. Fighting mobs 10 level higher than you becomes ridiculously easy and boring, yet if we fight harder mobs, we won't see any additional SP gain.

This small adjustment will make a lot of other options available without negatively effecting any of the currently established strategies. If you want to kill moderately difficult mobs in a party of 4, you can. If you want to kill really hard mobs in a party of 8, you can (and be rewarded appropriately). If you are skilled and want to low-man really hard mobs in a party of 4, you can (and be rewarded appropriately).


Enlarge certain mob populations and respawn rates so that the number of viable SP grindable areas increases.

Say that you are rank 47. If you want to find a good mob to grind on and check YG (http://ffxiv.yg.com/npcs?f=c=2) you'd see that there are at least 28 or so mobs that are 55-59. However, only one of those mobs is good to rank up on. Raptors. Why? Well, it's because there are so many of them in one place, and their respawn rate is pretty fast.

Most of the other mobs on that list are dotted sparsely on the landscape and/or have terribly slow respawn rates, thus are not suitable for a sustained grinding session.

If you kill a 5 mobs in any given area and have to wait 5 minutes for them to respawn again, it's very frustrating. This also adds to a lot of confusion as to only the players with a lot of knowledge know where the good grinding spots are because 1. there's so few of them, and 2. it's really hard to figure out what makes a grinding spot good to begin with.

If there were more places that are viable to grind SP, that would encourage parties to seek out these places and explore the world more.



Increase Base SP for certain mobs to make them more desirable to rank up on.

Taking a look at that same list again, and cross referencing it to Kaeko's "base SP' chart, you'll see that there are only 3 mobs that have a base SP of 150: raptors, efts, and peistes. Everything else has a lower base SP, and while the effort to kill those lower base SP mobs is pretty much the same, that effort does not give you as much SP as killing raptors, so you're pretty much stuck with killing raptors if you want to maximize your SP gain.

If more varieties of mobs are just as worthwhile to grind SP on as raptors and efts, we'll see a variety of options open up to the player.

Implement EXP chains like in FF11 to encourage speed and efficiency, and to also give players a dynamic mini-goal to work towards.

This will give an extra incentive to kill quickly and motivate the party to do better. It's just a plain old fun gameplay mechanic, as anyone who has played FF11 can attest to.

In order to prevent abuse and reward skill, I'd limit SP chain bonus eligibility to only mobs that are at least 5 levels higher than the player, and give an extra bonus to mobs that are more than 10 levels higher than the player.

Looks like this one is on its way to becoming a reality!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...erience-Points

[dev1132] Addition and Adjustments to Bonuses on Experience Points

* This feature, planned for patch 1.19, is still in development, and therefore subject to change.

• Patch 1.19 will see the introduction of two new systems, along with adjustments to the amount of obtainable experience points and how they are distributed.

  We plan to introduce new systems which will allow players to receive more experience points by tactically defeating enemies. We will also be implementing adjustments to overall experience point rewards and the current party bonus algorithm.

  • Link Bonuses

    Link bonuses will be granted based on how many enemies are linked to the current target. The more enemies that are linked, the larger the amount of bonus experience points will be granted.
    
    Peruse the details of the enemy link system.

  • Chain Bonuses

    Chain bonuses will be granted when players consecutively defeat enemies that have levels equal to or higher than their own, within a specific amount of time*.
    
    As the number of chains increase, the experience bonus will increase, but the amount of time* granted to maintain the chain will shorten.
    
    * A time limit within which players are required to defeat an enemy to maintain the chain after defeating another.

Increasing the number of simultaneous overworld mob claims to 5 at once, so that AoE attacks play a larger part in non-leve battle (but with suitable safeguards in place to prevent exploits like Astral Burning).


Single claim only is BORING. Why do we even have AoE attacks if we can't even use them most of the time. AoE blasting multiple mobs is FUN. Increase the number of simultaneous claims to at least 5, so that I can have fun using Full Swing and Brandish. This will also give parties an avenue to create more strategies and give an outlet for emergent party gameplay.

This new claim system coupled with the SP chain system would discourage players from AOEing trash mobs for SP, since the gains would be rather minimal, and not worth it. The emphasis is always on fighting mobs that are an even match or harder - with increased rewards being directly proportional to the amount of risk a player takes.

Looks like this one is getting revised as well. Yay!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/286

[dev1026] Changes to Claiming and Engaging Enemies

* This feature, planned for patch 1.19, is still in development, and therefore subject to change.

• Patch 1.19 will see changes to both the claiming and engaging of enemies.

  Currently, when a player claims and engages an enemy, they can earn experience points and loot, as well as credit for quest objectives, upon defeating the enemy. However, a player can only engage and hold claim over one enemy (or group of enemies) at a time as the system does not allow players to engage multiple enemy groups simultaneously.
  
  In order to address the above issue, as well as several others, the following changes will be made.

  • Claiming and Engaging Enemies

    Players will be able to attack any enemy*. However, only the player (or party that the player is in) that initiates the first attack on the enemy will earn the rewards.
    
    * Only players that are participating in levequests, or in behests, can engage enemies that are specific to those battles.

  • The color of an enemy’s name will indicate whether or not you will be granted the rewards upon defeating it.
    • If the name of the enemy is red, you or your party will earn the rewards.
    • If the name of the enemy is purple, another player or party will earn the rewards.
      
      An enemy’s name will appear in orange if it is unclaimed, but is attacking another player.
      * Once you have engaged the enemy, you or your party will earn its reward.
  • Claim on an enemy will be lost under the following conditions:
    • If the party that initially claimed the enemy is defeated.
    • If a claimed enemy returns to its territory.

[Maxi_Irving]

A very well thought out post. I agree with everything you've said.
I would like to emphasize on the single claim bit. Fighting one enemy at a time is indeed boring. A group should be rewarded for putting themselves in more potential danger, not penalized.

[ClawFury]

they need to remove this class fatigue thing first if you get the message 'your hand-to-hand skill [or whatever class your playing] bonus increases your fatigued and are now being punished for your hard work with less sp per kill

the bold/italic part means it should be a good thing but is in fact a trick

[Rentahamster]

they need to remove this class fatigue thing first if you get the message 'your hand-to-hand skill [or whatever class your playing] bonus increases your fatigued and are now being punished for your hard work with less sp per kill

the bold/italic part means it should be a good thing but is in fact a trick

Indeed. It is curiously Orwellian how surplus SP is worded. There is a large thread here about how the fatigue system needs to go, and I agree. It is a horrible game mechanic.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-of-surplus-SP

[DarkOrca]

Can't agree more, though I have one more to add:

Make the battles more difficult (and more rewarding accordingly) even for a well form PT - this will further increase the incentive for players to perform better and promote team play. What about solo players? SE can introduce zones with "elite" mobs which are primarily designed for PTs to level up.

[Shiyo]

Can't agree more, though I have one more to add:

Make the battles more difficult (and more rewarding accordingly) even for a well form PT - this will further increase the incentive for players to perform better and promote team play. What about solo players? SE can introduce zones with "elite" mobs which are primarily designed for PTs to level up.

"Elite" party mobs kind of exist, crabs, goats,efts,raptors and a bunch of other mobs have a LOT of hp and hit harder than some other weaker/smaller mobs.

[Jinko]

To solve the problem of respawning monsters, they should have a floor on the monster population within an area.

So say for example 40 monsters are spawned and someone starts killing them, once the monster population falls below 25 the server will then start spawning 1 monster for every one that dies, so the lowest the population will become is 25.

It doesn't matter how many people are killing monsters in an area because the server can always produce more mobs to sustain the player.

Agree with the base sp suggestion, the base sp should based on the monsters level and then calculated based on the players party size and level. (although they need to be careful not to make coblyns the path of least resistance again lol)

[Rentahamster]

To solve the problem of respawning monsters, they should have a floor on the monster population within an area.

So say for example 40 monsters are spawned and someone starts killing them, once the monster population falls below 25 the server will then start spawning 1 monster for every one that dies, so the lowest the population will become is 25.

That's a neat idea. I think there are some other games that use dynamic respawn timers that adjust depending on how crowded the area is. It would have to be carefully implemented to prevent abuse.

[Physic]

its interesting thinking but it still makes some mobs into, you should never fight that mobs, also to do this well they have to figure out difficulty of monster a lot better. I also think that killing monsters fast is not necessarily the best path, because sometimes longer battles are more entertaining, or fit a certain classes playstyle better. Ideally the SP reward should accurately reflect the difficulty/rarity of a monster. I add rarity, because maybe it wouldnt be so bad waiting for a respawn for some people if the monster actually gave better rewards.

I agree that you should be able to claim multiple monsters, but first they need to increase the available pool of monsters. In all honestly some of this game looks like it was built with multiple claims in mind and they just slapped a one mob rule on top of it.

Also since they are axing pts of more than 8, some of your ideas for high level monsters may no longer matter that much

[Rentahamster]

Also since they are axing pts of more than 8, some of your ideas for high level monsters may no longer matter that much

I still think it does. Even in a party of 8, mobs that are 10 levels higher than you are still way too easy.

Being able to fight mobs 15 or 20 levels higher than you (and be rewarded appropriately for the time spent) would be a good start for 8-man parties.