[dev1021]SP in non-leve parties

[Alise]

Just reduce the time require that people need to finish their leves, and then people will start doing more free roaming.

10 hours per leve reset is too much, and most doesn't have time for anything else.

[Betelgeuzah]

What I mean is that there are not enough ways to get good SP.

I think that this is way too subjective and we need to specify this even further. What is considered "good SP", as it is quite an abstract term? Is our "good SP" the same as the developers' "good SP"? Does this mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is be able to gain the maximum possible SP per hour"? Or does it mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is able to gain an average number of SP per hour" (the median from the lowest and the highest possible SP gain)?

The best way to get SP right now is through leve-linking.

This also depends quite a bit on what you consider "the best way". Do you mean "the maximum possible SP in the lowest amount of time possible"? Because if we want to get the best amount of SP on average and we have enough time to go through the leves more than once, leve-sharing is more efficient (you gain +100% more SP per leve when you share instead of +50% by linking).

pick-up-parties usually take a long time to get started.

We should also analyze what causes this. You mentioned the lack of proper search function, but that is not all. If the playerbase is divided between grouping for leves and grouping for "camping"/monster grinding or whatever you want to call it, there are roughly half the amount of people to party with at any given time for whatever activity you wish to do. Since both features' functionality depends on the participation of many people, this can hinder the gameplay quite a bit. And if the positives aren't enough to make up for the negatives (in this case, if the SP/hour by leve-sharing/linking is not worth the effort as you can solo or duo monsters instead for roughly the same SP), players will be less likely to make use of the system in place, thus making it even harder to build a pick-up group.

If you do not have any leves to contribute to the party, you are considered a leecher, and will probably not get invited.

Now, what causes this? As far as the party bonus goes, you do not suffer from any Sp penalty for having two people in your group. Therefore, it does not make sense to not invite a duo partner even if he has no leves, as you can A) finish the leve twice as fast for no penalty, and B) you may even be able to raise the difficulty of the leve. And the party bonus is very forgiving for up to 8 people, and you can raise the difficulty to make up for the losses (as well as finishing the leve faster of course), so why do people consider these players 'leechers'? This is a problem that needs be tackled, but unfortunately the hardest thing to change in this game is people's perception of it. We can not cure the problem with just the symptom alone, we need to know the disease too.

Furthermore, all this time spent creating a pick up party probably took you 30 minutes or more, which is a big waste of time.

What is it that makes these people focus on creating the party? Can they not use their time better? Does the game offer no alternative for such thing (soloing, etc.)? We need to know what causes this kind of mindset that when you build a party, you can do nothing else during the process.

One more thing - The base SP for only 4 mob types are good, while the rest suck, so that only those 4 mobs are really worth grinding on.

I don't think the monsters in this game are equal, and the base SP reflects this. SP per monster is not really as important as average SP gain per hour for example.

But as previously mentioned, dividing the playerbase can have negative consequences, and for the developers to be able to build a fun, balanced progression system, they need to be able to control how we play the game effectively instead of trying to guess how the players interpret the systems in place. If they want us to play the game a certain way, they need to make us play it that way. Right now they are only confusing the players with various ways to progress that we can choose from and we are all kind of drifting along, interpreting the game in various ways and none of them are that exciting or fun. In XI it was clear that monster grinding was the way to EXP, yet because the developers did not dictate exactly how we should monster grind aside from setting the proper party size to 6, we ended up fighting the easiest monsters in the most efficient places for every level range. The developers let us choose, and the end result was that they could not control how we ended up playing the game. Only Treasures of Aht Urhgan saw some kind of controlling process with clear camp spots for different party set-ups.

Granted, do not get me wrong- I don't want the Big Brother to watch my every step. But it is clear that right now, the developers need to enforce what they want us to do, for both the progression and the class system. Absolute control is not the answer, but neither is absolute freedom. We can find various MMO's that tend to focus on one more than the other, and the only solution for the development team is to find their own balance. I'm all for more freedom than control, but right now they have gone too far and we can see the consequences here.

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Make leves solo only, don't change SP/EXP boost rate, reduce the leve counter to 24 hrs.

With this change people would have to go out and party get increased rates of SP/EXP.

Leves when properly implemented will be better than simple monster party grinding by a mile. That is the last thing they should do. Grouping needs to happen, but not in an environment that doesn't take into account that the genre has evolved since 2002.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Leves when properly implemented will be better than simple monster party grinding by a mile. That is the last thing they should do. Grouping needs to happen, but not in an environment that doesn't take into account that the genre has evolved since 2002.

Well I did say I would want my ideas implemented after more PvE content. If they did the stuff I said hopefully we would large scale battles and content similar to Dynamis by then. If we had a bunch of stuff that people can do in a party other than grinding then people would be less likely to do it.

[yukikaze_yanagi]

With my linkshell we always do grind party for the same amount of rp of leves, and a lot more of fun. But right now i don't see the method of encourage party, in not a huge amount of party bonus or a huge nerf of leves. And the second is pretty unwilling

[Betelgeuzah]

The first step is to nerf the solo SP outside leves.

The next step is to adjust and tweak the Leve functionality and make it more clear to players what is expected of them.

The third step is to tone down the group SP outside leves.

The last step is to expand on the Leves (and this trend can continue until the first expansion and beyond).

[MonsieurVerde]

The third step is to tone down the group SP outside leves.

.

Err...why would they tone down exp for normal parties outside leves? >_> It's already at a good point.

[Betelgeuzah]

Err...why would they tone down exp for normal parties outside leves? >_> It's already at a good point.

Because they need to control what we do in order to offer the most balanced and fun gameplay experience.

[Rentahamster]

I think that this is way too subjective and we need to specify this even further. What is considered "good SP", as it is quite an abstract term? Is our "good SP" the same as the developers' "good SP"? Does this mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is be able to gain the maximum possible SP per hour"? Or does it mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is able to gain an average number of SP per hour" (the median from the lowest and the highest possible SP gain)?



This also depends quite a bit on what you consider "the best way". Do you mean "the maximum possible SP in the lowest amount of time possible"?

Subjective? The parts of my post you are quoting were a more detailed description of what I was talking about in a previous post - that you asked me to expand upon.

Leve SP:
You can get anywhere from 50-100K per leve reset, but that's only for about 1-4 hours every 36 hours, assuming you have a decent group to party with.

Grind SP:
You can get anywhere from 10-20k SP per hour, and you can keep on grinding as long as you want, whenever you want, assuming you have a decent group to party with.

Is our "good SP" the same as the developers' "good SP"?

I was going on this assumption, but I don't think I've mentioned it in this thread, so I'll say it again: The devs tuned the stupid fatigue system so that it'll kick in if we get about 80k SP within an 8 hour time span. Therefore, the dev's idea of "good SP" is somewhere around 10K/hour.

Does this mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is be able to gain the maximum possible SP per hour"? Or does it mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is able to gain an average number of SP per hour" (the median from the lowest and the highest possible SP gain)?

I believe I answered this already. There's only 2 choices: leves and normal mob grinding, and they both have flaws that include, but are not limited to, the difficulty involved in "building a set-up" (regardless of whether or not you're looking to maximize your SP gain, or settle for the average).

This also depends quite a bit on what you consider "the best way". Do you mean "the maximum possible SP in the lowest amount of time possible"?

Yes. Throughout this thread I have nearly always framed my points in the context of "SP/hr", so you can assume I am talking about maximizing SP/hr.

Because if we want to get the best amount of SP on average and we have enough time to go through the leves more than once, leve-sharing is more efficient (you gain +100% more SP per leve when you share instead of +50% by linking).

I think you mean "if we want to get the best amount of total SP, regardless of time spent", right?

Also, that's not an "efficient" way of doing it. You may end up with more SP when you're done, but you also take 2,3,4 (or however many times you are doing the same leve again) times longer. Not that many people can sustain a leve group for 3+ hours.

It's also not "efficient" because it's a waste of Guardian's Favor. You get more utility from enabling guardians' aspect on one leve with 3 links, than using GA 4 times on 4 seperate, shared links. When you factor in GA usage, leve sharing is even more inferior to leve linking.

And if the positives aren't enough to make up for the negatives players will be less likely to make use of the system in place, thus making it even harder to build a pick-up group.

Agreed. But -

(in this case, if the SP/hour by leve-sharing/linking is not worth the effort as you can solo or duo monsters instead for roughly the same SP)

Not really. Leve-linking is always better SP/hr than solo grinding.

If the playerbase is divided between grouping for leves and grouping for "camping"/monster grinding or whatever you want to call it, there are roughly half the amount of people to party with at any given time for whatever activity you wish to do.

That's not what I was talking about. Players are always going to prioritize leves first since they are an easier way to get SP, and you can potentially get more SP/hr via leves than via grinding normal mobs.

When I said the player base is "split", I mean that it is split amongst those who have leves to share, and those who do not have leves to share. Like I mentioned, a player shouting to create a pick up leve party in Uldah isn't going to invite you if you don't have some leves of your own to link.

As far as the party bonus goes, you do not suffer from any Sp penalty for having two people in your group. Therefore, it does not make sense to not invite a duo partner even if he has no leves, as you can A) finish the leve twice as fast for no penalty, and B) you may even be able to raise the difficulty of the leve.

Correct. But we're discussing ways to get the best SP, and duoing isn't one of them. (but it's still decent if you have the right setup).

And the party bonus is very forgiving for up to 8 people, and you can raise the difficulty to make up for the losses (as well as finishing the leve faster of course), so why do people consider these players 'leechers'?

You can only raise the difficulty so much before you hit the dlvl 10 cap and don't get any more SP from raising the stars. In the worst case scenario, if you invite only leechers to your party, you can do Dunesfolk and get about 100-200SP per dog. If at least 3 of those other 7 party members had a leve to link, you'd be seeing SP gains of 500-800 instead. If you only invited 3 people who have leve links, then you end up getting 1000+SP per dog.

What is it that makes these people focus on creating the party?

Partying is how you get the best SP, like it should be in an MMO.

Does the game offer no alternative for such thing (soloing, etc.)?

It does. You can solo for okay SP (5K/hr-ish, or more, if you're rank 30 or lower), which is fine.

I don't think the monsters in this game are equal, and the base SP reflects this. SP per monster is not really as important as average SP gain per hour for example.

Yeah, I know. I think I already established this.

But it is clear that right now, the developers need to enforce what they want us to do, for both the progression and the class system. Absolute control is not the answer, but neither is absolute freedom. We can find various MMO's that tend to focus on one more than the other, and the only solution for the development team is to find their own balance. I'm all for more freedom than control, but right now they have gone too far and we can see the consequences here.

Actually, I would say that the problem right now isn't that we have too many choices and too much freedom.

While we technically have a variety of choices in how to get good SP, the majority of them suck. For all intents and purposes, we are stuck with a few narrow ways of getting SP as those are the only ways that are any good. The problem is that the game is still in its early years, and not many people know what the best ways are.

That doesn't mean I let the devs off the hook, however. I agree that they do need to find some sort of plan to make the whole process more intuitive and obvious so that we don't have to spend weeks of playing "guess and check" in order to figure out what we're supposed to be doing.

for the developers to be able to build a fun, balanced progression system, they need to be able to control how we play the game effectively instead of trying to guess how the players interpret the systems in place.

In other words, I would not use too much "control", but rather make the system more user friendly so that the players naturally play the game in the "best" way. I think it can be done with a minimal amount of forcing on the devs' part.

[Rentahamster]

The third step is to tone down the group SP outside leves.

Because they need to control what we do in order to offer the most balanced and fun gameplay experience.

Disagree.

They don't need to control us by taking away more choices. I, as well as a lot of other people, find party SP grinding to be "fun gameplay experiences".

[Betelgeuzah]

I was going on this assumption, but I don't think I've mentioned it in this thread, so I'll say it again: The devs tuned the stupid fatigue system so that it'll kick in if we get about 80k SP within an 8 hour time span. Therefore, the dev's idea of "good SP" is somewhere around 10K/hour.

I don't think it is that hard to achieve 10k per hour of SP gain even with the current systems?

Secondly, even though the fatigue system (which is not stupid) kicks in after 80k continuous SP, the reality is much different. You can pretty much gain double that much SP in a week's time even with a slight fatigue.

You did not also answer my question. "There are not enough ways to get good SP", what does this mean? You listed leves and grouping, what am I supposed to look at? Are you simply not agreeing with the developers idea of 'good' SP?

Yes. Throughout this thread I have nearly always framed my points in the context of "SP/hr", so you can assume I am talking about maximizing SP/hr.

That's not the point, because you don't tell me whether you mean "maximum SP in an hours worth of exping" or "maximum SP in 5 hours of exping", for example. If you want to maximize your SP gain for 5 consecutive hours a different method is used than if you want to maximize your SP gain for just one hour.

Also, that's not an "efficient" way of doing it. You may end up with more SP when you're done, but you also take 2,3,4 (or however many times you are doing the same leve again) times longer. Not that many people can sustain a leve group for 3+ hours.

If is efficient if you want to gain more SP and do not have to care about the time spent. It is not efficient if time is a concern. There are two methods that both achieve the best results for whatever your time resources are. If you want the most SP over-all, you should leve-share. If you want the most SP in the smallest possible timeframe, you should leve-link instead. Both ways have their pros and cons, and are efficient.

Not really. Leve-linking is always better SP/hr than solo grinding.

Yes- but the point here is, is it good enough?

Say, theoretically if you could solo a rank in an hour but by doing leve-linking you could get a rank in 50 minutes (when everything involved has been taken into account)- sure, it's faster but is it fast enough to make the players feel it is worthwhile to build a party and go out there for the sake of 10 minutes of time saved?

This is important, because it's not enough that it's simply better SP/hr than the alternative- it has to be so good that the player wants to gain that advantage, and the alternative needs to be so slow that the player cares about getting that advantage too. If they think "eh, it's just an hour, not too bad" they are much less likely to go out there and group. But if they think "damn, another three hours to get a rank... by grouping I could be done in an hour!" the situation is completely different.

That's not what I was talking about. Players are always going to prioritize leves first since they are an easier way to get SP, and you can potentially get more SP/hr via leves than via grinding normal mobs.

I know that's not directly what you were talking about, but it is a factor that affects the problem you mentioned nonetheless. It's not just about "having leves" and "not having any leves", even if that is a factor too.

You can only raise the difficulty so much before you hit the dlvl 10 cap and don't get any more SP from raising the stars.

Up to rank 40 you can simply change to a higher rank camp?

In the worst case scenario, if you invite only leechers to your party, you can do Dunesfolk and get about 100-200SP per dog. If at least 3 of those other 7 party members had a leve to link, you'd be seeing SP gains of 500-800 instead. If you only invited 3 people who have leve links, then you end up getting 1000+SP per dog.

I know that having people with leves is better than having people with no leves, but that doesn't explain why you wouldn't invite people without leves if people with leves aren't available. That's the question here. Why not invite them in that case?

Partying is how you get the best SP, like it should be in an MMO.

It does. You can solo for okay SP (5K/hr-ish, or more, if you're rank 30 or lower), which is fine.

Then why is the 30mins required to build a party a big waste of time, if you can get 5k/hr SP during it?

While we technically have a variety of choices in how to get good SP, the majority of them suck.

Because there is not enough developer control, because we have a variety of choices and the developers can not balance their game properly because of it.

The problem is that the game is still in its early years, and not many people know what the best ways are.

The problem is, honestly, that the developers don't dictate what the best ways are and make it obvious. We are left to figure out the "best ways", and honestly, they won't be any good. We'll end up fighting one monster type in few select areas in the whole world, because that's the "best way" and there is nothing the developers can do about it (unless they control us instead of us controlling them).

In other words, I would not use too much "control", but rather make the system more user friendly so that the players naturally play the game in the "best" way.

That's what control is all about. The developers dictate what we should be doing, and we'll end up doing it. Either directly or indirectly. In the end it's just a different approach to achieve the same end result.

They don't need to control us by taking away more choices. I, as well as a lot of other people, find party SP grinding to be "fun gameplay experiences".

That's exactly what they need to do, and of course you will disagree with it, simply because the opposite of control is freedom- and the players like their freedom. But the reality is that the developers can not build a good game without controlling us, more or less. This problem will not be solved until they start controlling what we do and how we do it. The more choices (freedom) there is, the less they can control us. You, as well as other people, simply need to deal with the fact that they may not choose your way as the way they will enforce. One system is going to end up being a remnant of the past.