Balancing the skill point rewards of the Guildleve System

EDIT: Please make sure to read this post before replying against the idea itself.

To clarify: This is about Regional Battleleves, and about doing them to level up.

The problem

Currently, experience points are awarded for killing mobs in guildleves. Anyone who is playing can see what this has lead into: most players look for the guildleves with the highest number of enemies and purposedly fail the guildleve at the end so they can redo it on the next reset.

Personally I feel that for as long as we don't want to complete the guildleve (how many people here want the necrologos page to drop, which is the objective of the guildleve?), the system is failing. Gameplay based around (and rewarding) failure in guildleves is akin to how the old skill up system was - backwards.

The way experience/skill points are awarded also leads to a lot of guildleves being completely ignored, and this will not change even if they add new, interesting guildleves, if they don't give a lot of skill rewards.

Balancing guildleves individually would not only take a long time, but I also doubt it could be done well with all the variables involved in calculating the skill up rewards from leves (guardian's favor, links, stars). In the end, leves with a lot of mobs would still be best.


Something has to be done across the board:

The proposed fix

One thing they could do (and I'm sure there are a lot of ways to fix it) is giving all guildleves a set "pool" of experience points that will be rewarded at the end:

Every time you kill an enemy in a guildleve, the experience gained from killing the enemy is removed from the pool. At the end of the guildleve, the remaining experience points in the pool are awarded. This pool should be the same across all guildleves of a level range, and big enough so that only being really unlucky in getting drops would make the pool reach 0.

The Pool would be boosted by Leve-links, Guardian's favor, and Stars (just like they boost the skill points gained from the enemy right now).


A picture
Here's a visual aid, in case my suggestion is not clear: http://i55.tinypic.com/25txqow.jpg



What this change accomplishes

This would make most guildleves equal, except for the completition time. However, The difference between the time needed to complete two different guildleves, barring being really unlucky with some necrologos/drop ones, is minimal.

While some people would prefer to do fast guildleves with this change, those that simply did any guildleve that was offered would only waste 20-25 minutes per leve reset compared to them, instead of "losing" up to 50k skill points (or more, taking good links and other things into account) for taking this approach. There's also the option of making drops from guildleves have a 100% droprate once the experience pool has reached 10-20%.

This change also means that they could focus on guildleves with more diverse objectives and they can stop adding guildleves that are solely about killing mobs. This is one of the reasons why I think my suggestion is better than simply boosting the "bad" or "unpopular" guildleves. Also, while that could be done instead and we would still achieve the same end result, I think that'd be harder than performing a general fix like this.

Guildleve-link parties would also be more casual and laid back. Pressure would be relieved off having to have the "good" leves in order to be able to join. You could simply link what you have, and party up for what you have.

Lastly this change fixes a pretty important problem - currently, the best way to level up from 32 to 50 is in the same camp, doing the same set of guildleves over an over: in Broken Water. This is something caused by the things I mentioned in the first part of the thread. It's bad enough having to spend over half of your leveling in a single area, but in a single camp?



In closing

Please keep in mind, the intent of the system is neither to make our current experience points per reset worse nor better than they currently are. The intent is to let players choose whatever guildleves they want while getting said experience points. At the very least, this system should make us stop redoing the same 8 leves over and over. This could be accomplished by a lot of other ways, but this system keeps your array of options surprisingly huge (pretty much every guildleve that exists is viable for experience points).

If guildleve rewards were normalized, you would be able to see more variety without feeling like you're wasting your time for it. You'd be able to simply complete the guildleves that are offered, or even pursue the ones that you actually enjoy doing.

I honestly think that with this change, and enough guildleves added over time, the adventure could actually be about doing guildleves, rather than simply about doing them for EXP. I believe EXP would feel more secondary when engaged in doing guildleves, and it would help with the "feel" of the system. I think it'd definitely help to drag more mainstream players in, while not giving up our own unique system.



NOTE1: This is not anywhere near the only change the guildleve system needs. It is, however, a very basic one. There are more changes needed, but those are fodder for a different thread, and I'd appreciate if only skill up rewards were discussed here. This is just a start, just the barebones.

Let me explain: the way I see it is: what's the point of having 20 guildleve slots if there are only 6 guildleves worth doing? What's the point of adding more guildleves if I'm going to keep on doing the old ones every day? What's the point of a cooldown removal/change if I'm just going to repeat the same guildleves? I believe exp rewards should be adjusted first, and then more ideas should be built on a working system.

NOTE2: This thread is mainly aimed at doing guildleves for experience points or skill ups. If you're doing guildleves for item or monetary rewards, then you can keep on doing so under the new system. You're also getting guildleve variety right now, as the money/item rewards aren't tied to a specific guildleve, so both systems (current one and this one) work well for that approach.

NOTE3: Because someone will point it out: I'm using skill points and experience points as interchangeable terms. In all of the cases, I'm always talking about skill points (which are what matters in this game).

Thanks for reading, and please let me know if anything needs to be clarified, as English is not my first language.

For someone whose native language is not English, you sure do have a better grasp on it than some who know only English.

In regards to your idea, I like it. I agree with the problem, and your solution will likely take care of that. Your idea is likely to upset those who abuse this method for leveling up, but that doesn't negate your point. I hope the devs pay close attention to this thread.

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Originally Posted by solracht

The problem

Currently, experience points are awarded for killing mobs in guildleves. Anyone who is playing can see what this has lead into: most players look for the guildleves with the highest number of enemies and purposedly fail the guildleve at the end so they can redo it on the next reset.

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There is an easier way to fix this problem.

• If you fail your leve (via time-up, or abandonment, or lost connection), it's marked as failed. You can do it again, but none of the mobs give you any SP when you kill them.

• You can still earn the reward for a failed leve. Just not any SP from killing mobs.

• When you accept leves at the adventurer's guild, you are not limited to 3 random leves. You can pick and choose from every leve possible at any given camp.

• Make adjustments to the leves (mainly mob type, mob count, and mob base SP modifier) so that they are all able to be completed in a similar amount of time, and yield similar amounts of SP.

This would require minimal work to achieve the same ends and give players more variety in the process. The first 3 points would be easy to do, and then all you gotta do after that is just boost mob count for all the other leves that no one ever does.

This is an excellent idea! With anything some balancing would need to be introduced, but I too agree that having the objective set to "fail" kills the fun of the game. I love this idea, and hope that something like this (if not this) gets introduced into the game. :)

This is a good initial fix.

Thanks for the comments.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

There is an easier way to fix this problem.

*list*

This would require minimal work to achieve the same ends and give players more variety in the process. The first 3 points would be easy to do, and then all you gotta do after that is just boost mob count for all the other leves that no one ever does.

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Please keep in mind that your last point is difficult to achieve - avoiding that approach is the reason why I suggested the solution I did. While the technical part behind adding an EXP Pool may be harder than simply boosting current mob exp rates, achieving the same end result is way harder with your approach, as you have to take care of leves on an individual basis, while also taking into account whether extra mobs can spawn or not.

Just being realistic here, I do not think they'll be able to correctly balance guildleves if they try to "hand-craft" the exp rewards.

It also doesn't address the fact that most leves you'll do will still be about killing mobs. By using the "Pool" system, you give the devs a lot of freedom in what type of leves they can make, and which objectives they can attach to them, as the exp reward will be good regardless because of the Pool. All that'll change is whether you get most exp during the Guildeve (because it's about killing mobs) or at the end (because it has a non-combat part).

Your first two points wouldn't be needed under the Pool system, as you'd truly want the reward instead of being "forced" to take it. I'm impartial on the third point, and I'm sure eventually they'll let us pick more than 3 leves per camp... so I won't comment on that.

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Originally Posted by BlaiseLallaise

Your idea is likely to upset those who abuse this method for leveling up, but that doesn't negate your point. I hope the devs pay close attention to this thread.

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I do not think there's any need to upset anyone. People are used to a certain amount of skillups per reset nowadays, and I think the Pools should be made with that in mind. While you might not get as much from a single Dunesfolk for Dinner (rank 40 leve) under the Pool system, you'll probably get as much if not more from the entire Leve reset... since your 8 regional guildleves will give good experience point rewards.

The only people who might see a small decrease in skillups per reset are those that currently do 8 optimal regional leves per reset, but from what I've seen, they are not the majority. Most people stick to 5-6.

OK so I'm not clear if this is proposing that once the pool is exhausted mobs continue giving SP. I'd assume not since then obviously the best leves would continue to be the best leves, unless you set the pool for every leve to give the highest amount of SP attainable on any leve under any conditions.

So unless I'm missing something, there is now no real incentive to push the stars higher, or form a large group, as the SP pool would just diminish faster, but for no greater reward.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, not sure I've fully understood.

I didn't clarify one of your questions, and I didn't mention anything regarding the other one. I'll edit the OP in a second, and reply here:

Mobs would not stop giving skill ups once the pool was depleted, however see these two comments:

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This pool should be the same across all guildleves of a level range, and big enough so that only being really unlucky in getting drops would make the pool reach 0.

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making levedrops have a 100% droprate once the experience pool has reached 10-20%.

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Hopefully that clarifies how leves with high mob counts would not be particularly better than other ones. Either way, I'm fine with some leves being very slightly better - that won't make people carry 8 specific leves around. We carry 8 leves around because the difference between a good leve and a bad one is of upwards to 10k skill ups or more under the right conditions.


Now, on grouping: Just like base exp from mobs is multiplied by links, favor and stars, the pools would also be multiplied. Partying would be better than soloing, just like in the current system.

The only difference is how you would group up for any leve you liked, instead of specific ones that give a lot of experience points with the right multipliers.

OK and are pools personal to each player? E.g. someone out of party bonus range would get less SP per mob, but have a bigger pool (left at the end)?

While I do admit I wasn't thinking about the technical aspects of Linking and partying while making this suggestion, the intent is to leave EXP totals per reset as they are (or if anything, a little higher), but letting you do any Guildleves you want. Partying with people outside of your level range should be neither better nor worse than in the current system - it should be the same.

Whether this means that the pool should personal or not, I don't really care.

Do keep in mind that currently the bonus for simply being in a party is small. The pool increase would be too. It's the links/stars/favor that really increase exp gained, and those are what would have the biggest impact on the pool as well. None of these 3 are effected by the different ranks of the party members as far as I know.

This makes sense. I agree that GL's have severe balancing issues.

I'm assuming that if you fail a GL at the end you don't receive the remaining points in the pool?

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Originally Posted by kisada

I'm assuming that if you fail a GL at the end you don't receive the remaining points in the pool?

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You wouldn't get the remaining exp if you failed, otherwise you could fail them at the start to get the entire pool right away. You could get a small % of the pool if you fail after the 15min mark, but I believe we really need to move away from rewarding failure in this system.

There would be no need to fail guildleves on purpose unless you really really wanted to repeat that specific one, anyways, as doing any other guildleve would be as good as far as experience points go.

Another option would be to remove the auto-renewal of failed leves. Fail is fail then. And it would close another problem I just detailed in a separate thread.

Of course, it would make NM faction leves absolutely brutal to fail (bye bye 600 faction points). Perhaps those could be modified not to give SP but to auto-renew on failure.

Removing the renewal of failed leves without adjusting the system on a big scale would do nothing but piss people off. Likewise with renewed leves not giving skill points.

Most of our current guildleves are simply not viable for experience points.

Yes, it would definitely be a nerf to SP if they did that. But it would stop rewarding failure with extra SP :)

I think all that needs to happen is to allow us to choose from a larger list at each camp then just three leves, this way we could still coordinate to have all party members with the same leves. I wouldn't fail the leves if we could ensure all party members had the same ones on the next reset.

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Originally Posted by solracht

Please keep in mind that your last point is difficult to achieve - avoiding that approach is the reason why I suggested the solution I did. While the technical part behind adding an EXP Pool may be harder than simply boosting current mob exp rates, achieving the same end result is way harder with your approach, as you have to take care of leves on an individual basis, while also taking into account whether extra mobs can spawn or not.

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You'd also have to take care of leves on an individual basis with your system, too.

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Originally Posted by solracht

This would make most guildleves equal, except for the completition time. However, The difference between the time needed to complete two different guildleves, barring being really unlucky with some necrologos/drop ones, is minimal.

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The time difference is not minimal. Some leves take at least 20 minutes to complete (any kind of defense leves, Lightsome Verdue, Adamantime Wills, Thousandfold Agony, etc), others take around 10 miniutes (Dunesfolk, Levinshower, Inferno, Catch a Thief, Securing Horizon, Wights, Moon's Mistress, Save the Lettuce, that jellyfish leve at SV, etc), and some leaves take 5 minutes or less to finish (Where's the Meat, Most Imp leves, etc).

They're not all as similar in completion time as you think.

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Originally Posted by solracht

Just being realistic here, I do not think they'll be able to correctly balance guildleves if they try to "hand-craft" the exp rewards.

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You'll need to do the same amount of "hand-crafting" with my solution as yours.

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Originally Posted by solracht

It also doesn't address the fact that most leves you'll do will still be about killing mobs. By using the "Pool" system, you give the devs a lot of freedom in what type of leves they can make, and which objectives they can attach to them, as the exp reward will be good regardless because of the Pool.

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Since when is this a problem? That should be the basis of the objective. These are "battlecraft leves", afterall. I disagree about your system giving the devs "more freedom". It actually restricts them since they have to consider the time restraint and making all leves take the same amount of time to finish. This would render all defense leves useless.
If they didn't have to worry about the time restraint, they could design some leves last to last about 10 minutes (with the player getting about 5,000 SP each time), and then design some other leves that last about 20 minutes (with the player getting about 12,000 SP each time).

This way SP/hour is constant (with the longer leve getting slightly more SP/hour to balance it out), and to also balance for relative value disparity, the 20 minute leve could contain bonuses for faction points, or guildmarks, or items, or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

allow us to choose from a larger list at each camp then just three leves, this way we could still coordinate to have all party members with the same leves. I wouldn't fail the leves if we could ensure all party members had the same ones on the next reset.

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Agreed. This is part of my suggested changes and this alone takes away about 50% of the desire to fail leves on purpose.

I have to run so unfortunately my reply will be short (I'll reply with something longer later) but I think the problem is I might be giving the time you spend per reset less importance than the skill ups you get per reset, at least compared to you. I feel like if two people can get their 150k from the leve reset, they'll be content even if one of them finishes 40mins earlier every now and then.

Those 20min leves you brought up are actually a problem (and frankly they're horrible leves) but they would not take 20mins as mentioned by the fix at the top, which was making pages drop instantly once the pool is at 20%.

Appreciate all the comments and criticism.

TC I think its a great idea although it needs some adjustments and tweaks to fit into the party system but I love it because like you said, the leves don't have to be centered around killing a lot of mobs, they can be more story driven with some battle in between because at the end you'll earn your pool's full potential. I like it, I suggest you copy this topic into the General Forums so it gets a little more publicity, because if you don't I will (and I will take credit for it! :P kidding, but do it!)

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One thing they could do (and I'm sure there are a lot of ways to fix it) is giving all guildleves a set "pool" of experience points that will be rewarded at the end:

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This, This a million and one times this !

I really like your idea btw, hopefully the devs will take notice of it.

I would also like to see guildleves rewards normalised, so that all rank 40 leves would give the same SP reward regardless of what the leve entails.

Most other mmo's reward you XP for both the monsters killed and the completion of the quest, I still don't know why SE didn't do this, it would also make side quests more appealing.

More than anything SE need to follow the path of other MMO's if i dc I shouldn't be punished, if i have to log off i shouldn't be punished.

I should be able to complete the leve at my own leisure, leves need to becoming more like the current side-quests and not resticted by time limits or weather I DC or log out during the completion of one.

Until you compare this game to any other MMO out there, you don't realise just how many restrictions they have set up and its a large part in why people get fed up with the game.

Guildleves was a poorly designed idea from the start and if I was SE I would completely scrap the idea and go with repeatable side-quest content, which would give SP/XP on completion.

Sounds good and all, but instead of a skill point pool, just have the leve give a set number of SP/EXP at the end, adjusted by your rank, the difficulty, and links/aspect.

I didn't realize this thread got bumped.

This system has a few problems too which weren't as aparent when I suggested it (mainly related to links and party play, particularly with multipliers still making the guildleve experience a little too volatile), and I never bothered updating it to fix them. I think we'd be better off with it than with our current system, but that's not really saying much.

I still stand by the problems I raised, however. Our current guildleve system is not-intuitive, backwards and punishes "normal play". What the devs envisioned for the guildleve system was running up to the counter, picking up guildleves, and doing them. That's not really something that's possible in the current system, without feeling like you're wasting your time.

I've campaigned for this all over the forums so many times that I honestly don't feel like saying it again, so I'll just quote something I would've probably ended up re-typing:

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Originally Posted by solracht

the problem is how out of the way and counter intuitive the guildleve system is.

Most new players won't come to the forums to ask which 8 leves they should fail and retry. Most people won't think the system has such an obscure and backwards requirement in order to give you good numbers.

They'll pick up the guildleves offered at the counter, they'll do them, and this will work for a while. Then they'll get to rank ~25-30 around the time they completley run out of favor and then they'll end up in a situation similar to the original poster's, and reach the conclusion that the game is not worth their time.

There is not any kind of obvious hint, or any kind of indication in the game that says experience rewards increase exponentially when a lot of things align. Expecting most players (especially those used to other MMORPGs) to find enjoyment in the current system feels really far-fetched.


Lastly, the new player leaving before being able to experience the guildleve system under the right conditions is not even the only bad scenario: the system is pretty boring for someone who is using it to his advantage. Redoing the same 8 guildleves from rank 30 to 50 can't seriously be considered as a good gameplay feature, can it?

Something needs to be done, honestly.

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While I am not interested in promoting this specific suggestion at this time (although I will probably come back to update/fix it at some point), I'd like to encourage others to bring up and talk about the problems of the guildleve system. It's definitely not something that's getting enough attention in the General forums, and guildleves are content that we're going to be stuck doing pretty much every day.

Whether they fix these problems by following this idea, AlexiaKidd's idea (read her thread if you haven't yet, it's pretty much the same system but without a variable pool) or by messing with every Guildleve individually like some people suggested in this thread, I do not really care.

Personally I think the devs would be able to do more interesting things with guildleve objectives if the experience reward was about completition rather than luck while doing the guildleve, but that's just me.

I just want to feel like I'm playing to beat the enemies or completing the objectives, rather than like I'm playing to beat the system itself.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments again.

One last thing, to get rid of the problems in the current system you can't simply apply bandaid fixes. My original post did not mention it straight, but the root of the problems is actually pretty simple: most guildleves are horrible.

-If you simply ruin the failing trick, then people will travel all over the world every leve reset to find the 8 best guildleves that are offered. This will probably frustrate most people too, as linking will be harder and anima or time will be wasted. Odds are you'll have to suck up a few bad guildleves, too.

-If you make it so you can pick any guildleve you want from the counter, the leveling situation doesn't change: we're still stuck doing the same 8 guildleves. Leveling will still be boring as we'll still be doing the same 8 guildleves every reset.

While I won't argue that these changes could come eventually, they really don't fix the problems of the current system.

Solracht take a look at what I said in this thread regarding SP normalisation, I think it would be a step in the right direction, especially if each leve had a similar amount of mobs to kill in each leve.

It's mainly regarding the balancing of SP/XP that monsters reward which would also alter how leves, sidequest, behest and dungeon work as well. (and possibly even crafting)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ll=1#post96114

While in principle I really like your suggestion, especially if it encourages people to explore other camps what it robs us of is that magical Dunesfolk for Dinner or Levinshower where everything goes right and you net 20-25k SP off on leve with full party bonus and Guardians Aspect. There is nothing better than that! So, an addendum, make the skill pool the minimum guaranteed SP, so that you can potentially get more.