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While that is clearly stated, I am unaware of any change since issue 2 that has been plainly stated as a bad idea by what (at least to me) seemed a majority of posters (at least) were not in favor of and removed as a result. I'll believe it when I see it. I would believe it more if you ( or anyone) can point to a couple or recalled changes (not tweaks)
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This one's dirt simple. The patch that boosted 25+ level bosses. It was rolled back to pre-patch after squishy AT's complained en masse about the massive difficulty boost this produced (though as a slider option, maybe it'd give some of the non-squishy types a challenge). If you didn't call that a major change, you weren't one of the folks faceplanting repeatedly trying to do missions.
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Actually that's an example of what I am talking about. There is a pre-live thread here So much for the promise that all can solo ( i think) and here is the thread post-live Petition: Roll back boss hp and damage increases. The devs wer told it was bad- did it anyway- and were forced to roll it back showing to me that test was for testing code, not testing a change.
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I think powerleveling is a problem from my experiences elsewhere on MMORPG's. I've been "uber". I've done my share of the big stuff on other games- raiding, camping the uber mobs, keying for areas. I've seen what happens when a playerbase shoves their way to the top and then expects everything new to show up there. It creates immense pressure to focus all development on the top levels of the game and "benign neglect" of the lower level ones. The game becomes intensely top-heavy, and PLing stops being a choice, but a need if you want to "escape" to the fun part of the game.
That demand kills games.
[/ QUOTE ] As far as I know, COH is the only game that allows you to "go back" by exemping and doing any pre-endgame content. This seemed to work for Striga. I noticed alot of 45-50 chars. in that area when it opened.
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The #1 reason a change should be made is because it makes the game more fun. I haven't seen anyone argue that somehow this change makes the game more fun. [ QUOTE ]
Agreed. This change makes the game -less- fun. That's why I suggested an alternative myself.
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But I would disagree that development time needs to be wasted on changing the XP system at all
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If a player is in a zone, did NO damage in a combat and has dead for more than a minute, he receives no XP.
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That's not a reasonable set of limitations to place on Defenders and Controllers (or even Tankers).
A Mind Controller might put the whole crowd of MoBs to sleep (doing no damage), and then get killed by the Boss who she failed to affect. By the time the team kills the boss a minute has elapsed and she gets no XP, even though she neutralized all of the minions for most of the fight.
As an Empathy Defender I might help my team survive for most of a long battle, then fall in combat withouit ever doing any damage. If I am down more than a minute I get no XP for the team's final success, even though my efforts kept them alive long enough to achieve it.
The damage requirement is very slanted toward the attack-oriented classes and insults the contributions of support classes.
I would be very irritated to see this set of parameters go live.
BB
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I agree with this assessment , but its such a difficult thing to fix. In other games say DAOC, healing works much differently. You actually DID get exp for healing (if you healed someone who was in battle) you could get exp even if not teamed with them. Healing random folks on the streets is KSing though since you sap exp! Also, If you healed somone in battle, it generates agro. If you are healing more than others are damaging-healers would often get the agro of a full group! In this game-they cant give exp for healing-casue its healing without risk since you generate no agro....
Personally if the risk vs reward factor is the angle here, I think there are probably betters way of doing this without severely limiting your average player. It's easy enough for a tank on the street to herd/dumpster dive, where someone can just hang out and easily be within the 300ft range while not contributing diddly, or for someone to be teleported around while other teamates do the fighting. Not a ton of risk there, but support types who HAVE contributed to the team are limited to how effectively they can fullfill their role. It's extremely common for me to be bouncing around all over locking things down/debuffing/chasing down and healing a teammate who got hurt and ran and is prolly more than 300ft away. Or in the event that I for some reason face plant, I might be down for a while or it might be more effective to go to hosp and run back to get back to aiding the team sooner- in the meantime my team has benefitted from being buffed and/or mobs not moving, but I've been dead for more than a minute or am out of range and have done no damage to speak of. So the way I see it, I'm busting my [censored] so my teammates who are doing damage can do so more effectively with the potential of losing quite a bit of reward [xp] despite being an active member of the team.
I think something that would be far more effective and less limiting/harmful to normal game play would set a basis in terms of idle time/targeted powers activated. If a targeted power has not been activated by the player within X time they will not receive xp. Theory is most people would need to at least be remotely close to the action to keep targeted powers going tho there are some builds that would have a few ways around that, you'd at least have to periodically do something for your xp thus making it at least a little less convenient to be an idle xp sponge. Also another idea may be limiting the number of times a mission may be reset either within a given time period or X times reset and cannot be reset again for X time to prevent mission farming. On a similar note, I understand that the spawns from portals no longer give xp to prevent farming but dear god that's really, really, really high risk depending on how long it takes [or if another portal was aggroed by accident] for almost no reward. Maybe throw us a bone and at least receive xp for the first wave or do away with the nasty things altogether?
Anyway theres my 2 inf
BB
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I agree with this assessment , but its such a difficult thing to fix. In other games say DAOC, healing works much differently. You actually DID get exp for healing (if you healed someone who was in battle) you could get exp even if not teamed with them. Healing random folks on the streets is KSing though since you sap exp! Also, If you healed somone in battle, it generates agro. If you are healing more than others are damaging-healers would often get the agro of a full group! In this game-they cant give exp for healing-casue its healing without risk since you generate no agro....
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Tell me about it I played Cleric on Kay server lvl 50 in DAOC (Hejtmane) talk about agro I had a group instant heal button plus I had what was called wild healing which gave me a % chance to do a crit heal (double helath point heal). When things went bad that was the button the problem is you got agro not some but all. I called it my instant death button rlmao.
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
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BB
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I agree with this assessment , but its such a difficult thing to fix. In other games say DAOC, healing works much differently. You actually DID get exp for healing (if you healed someone who was in battle) you could get exp even if not teamed with them. Healing random folks on the streets is KSing though since you sap exp! Also, If you healed somone in battle, it generates agro. If you are healing more than others are damaging-healers would often get the agro of a full group! In this game-they cant give exp for healing-casue its healing without risk since you generate no agro....
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Tell me about it I played Cleric on Kay server lvl 50 in DAOC (Hejtmane) talk about agro I had a group instant heal button plus I had what was called wild healing which gave me a % chance to do a crit heal (double helath point heal). When things went bad that was the button the problem is you got agro not some but all. I called it my instant death button rlmao.
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Yep-When things woudl go awry I would I would usually shed a tear then hit my "Group Instant heal" key, knowing full well that my group woudl live, and 3 purps would beeline right for me and beat me to a bloody mess before any tank could get the agro back... Druid/Cleric/Healers were real martyrs in that game! At least we had decent armor!
thank you for giving me a reason to cancel my second account
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Your logic is flawed. If the devs are going to do this (and I have to agree that is will happen, since I believe the devs have no interest in any playtesting other than seeing if the code works as they plan). There is no point in attempting to find the "holes" since the entire concept is far worse than whatever holes are created.
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I disagree with you. This statement on the Regen thread is why.
[/ QUOTE ]While that is clearly stated, I am unaware of any change since issue 2 that has been plainly stated as a bad idea by what (at least to me) seemed a majority of posters (at least) were not in favor of and removed as a result. I'll believe it when I see it. I would believe it more if you ( or anyone) can point to a couple or recalled changes (not tweaks)
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Just incase there are those here that have not checked the Official Regen thread in the last few days (which is now locked by the way) the regen nerf for I4 has been cut. They have decided that their testing was not what it needed to be and will be redoing their testing.
Statesman on Official Regen Nerf now a locked thread.
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Your logic is flawed. If the devs are going to do this (and I have to agree that is will happen, since I believe the devs have no interest in any playtesting other than seeing if the code works as they plan). There is no point in attempting to find the "holes" since the entire concept is far worse than whatever holes are created.
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I disagree with you. This statement on the Regen thread is why.
[/ QUOTE ]While that is clearly stated, I am unaware of any change since issue 2 that has been plainly stated as a bad idea by what (at least to me) seemed a majority of posters (at least) were not in favor of and removed as a result. I'll believe it when I see it. I would believe it more if you ( or anyone) can point to a couple or recalled changes (not tweaks)
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Just incase there are those here that have not checked the Official Regen thread in the last few days (which is now locked by the way) the regen nerf for I4 has been cut. They have decided that their testing was not what it needed to be and will be redoing their testing.
Statesman on Official Regen Nerf now a locked thread.
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As much as I appreciate Statesman's apology and retraction over the Regen thing, Ericose does have a valid point. Players on the Test server seem to have just about the same reaction, percentagewise, to any changes that the general population has. And most of the unpopular changes on Test go through and become unpopular changes on Live. I haven't been keeping track of it closely, but hopefully the Devs can make a quick comparison (provided those threads are archived at all). I may be way off in my impressions, but that's the way it's seemed to me.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Your logic is flawed. If the devs are going to do this (and I have to agree that is will happen, since I believe the devs have no interest in any playtesting other than seeing if the code works as they plan). There is no point in attempting to find the "holes" since the entire concept is far worse than whatever holes are created.
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I disagree with you. This statement on the Regen thread is why.
[/ QUOTE ]While that is clearly stated, I am unaware of any change since issue 2 that has been plainly stated as a bad idea by what (at least to me) seemed a majority of posters (at least) were not in favor of and removed as a result. I'll believe it when I see it. I would believe it more if you ( or anyone) can point to a couple or recalled changes (not tweaks)
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Just incase there are those here that have not checked the Official Regen thread in the last few days (which is now locked by the way) the regen nerf for I4 has been cut. They have decided that their testing was not what it needed to be and will be redoing their testing.
Statesman on Official Regen Nerf now a locked thread.
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from the post by Statesman cited:
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A bug disabled the damage combat modifiers in one of our testing branches.
Result? Scrappers (and all Archetypes) were doing more damage to higher level mobs than they should have. I should note that this is on our internal Testing Server only - not the Training Room.
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So this wasn't a case where the change was wrong (a bad idea) and retracted, it a case of the code didn't work. Yet another proof of my statement. Test is for testing code, not for testing changes.
With the new nerfs(Elude, SS, SJ) this thread should not be forgotten or silenced.
The way those nerfs are introduced seems to me very much like a divide and conquer strategy.
I'm new to COH, I got my account about 3 weeks ago. Its a great game so far, and I am very happy with the content.
But just last night, I was on a big team, and we split up a few times to get some kill X missions done. I think it's right that we all get XP for the kills. Being new to COH, making it so that you don't get xp if you are 300ft away doesn't seem right. I ran back a couple times to my contact, who was probably an average of 600 yds away, to get inspirations for the team. I was the "Go-to" guy, if you will. I was handing out lucks, greens, reds, and even awakens for my team in the Hollows.
I don't think it fair that I should be penalized for helping my team out. I was sincerely trying to help the team by getting the inspirations badly needed, and at low levels, you know blues are really needed.
So, I see this as collective punishment. A few "bad apples" as you imply them to be, are forcing changes like this on the rest of us. Forgive me if you disagree, but being a fan of COH, and my experience so far, that range thing seems unfair to me. I worked hard to keep my team going, but not recieve XP for it?
Again, im new to COH, so maybe what we were doing on the team wasn't the way we are "supposed" to play. I am sure things will change at higher levels. I just wanted to post an opinion from a real newbie.
IMO its not worth adjusting anything for the exp range.
It doesnt allow for split group killing in city zones, thusly forcing the group to stick together.
And kinda dorks emp defenders who dont attack, but die anyway, during long fights.
All that aside I find it ironic. The dev's went out of their way to add in SK and EX'ing of players to they could group together regardless of level range... now, they're fighting to correct it. *boggle*
No it wont stop PLing. The lowbie will just have to /follow the PLer. I dont see a point it droping all exp if they havnt seen a trainer in a few levels. I did that myself before 30. I dont like being unable to hunt for my teammates when somebody goes AFK.
It seriously doesnt adjust anything other than add in a general annoyance factor game-wide. I figured the dev's would be happy to see people playing the game in any aspect.
Eh well,
Smitten / Regen Katana scrapper
Amon-Re / The ever-in-debt Energy Energy blaster.
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4) In order to get XP and Inf, you must do damage to the mob. No holds and roots dont count. No more of this Im just a defender, I just buff and heal Nope not good enough, if you arent in the fight attacking then you are leaching and trying to get something for nothing
No damage = No XP got it? Good.
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I do not agree with this step. OKay I have a lvl 50 empath defender that was never pled. In my case, when I teamed that is all I did heal and buff. I did not concentrate on attack powers, because in my opinion that was not my main objective when on a team. Also you say that we would be "getting something for nothing," okay last I checked keeping everyone alive was not considered "nothing". Empaths may not contribute damage directly to the mob, but in most cases we make it possible to defeat them. That is why this "step" of yours is BS.
TRIUMPH:
Star Aura - 50 - Emp/Elec
Death Quills - 50 - Spines/Invul
Flaming Aura - 50 - Fire/Fire Tank
Star Eclipse - 50 - Warshade
Divine Slasher - 50 - BS/Regen
Grim Striker - 50 - DB/WP
Burning Fusion - 50 - Fire/Kin
Several Alts
FREEDOM:
Ember Fusion - 24 - Fire/Kin
The only thing I keep thinking is, "What about someone like an emp defender?" There are many builds that are based on debuffs or heal. Will they get their xp for healing or debuffing?
Scrapper Slotting Basics
Brute Slotting Basics
...yeah, after just suffering through this, i hate it.
If the devs want to force my blasters to be within 300' of a mob to get exp, they'd better give me enough defense to withstand the damage a couple of tanks draw from AoE attacks when they've got 20 baddies around them.
If i stay, I die... if I run, I get no exp... if i try to move far enough away to heal, i usually get one or two baddies following me and wind up dead.
Yet another fun aspect of the game ruined. I'm beginning to wonder if the people who make these changes even play this game.
I was dismayed to discover that the XP is still split as if there was a full team, even if some team members were out of range. We had started new characters and some of us were hunting while we waited on the others to train up. They didn't get XP, but we were still splitting xp as if they were.... If the goal was to make the reward match the risk, I think this is not the correct behavior.
I'm also concerned about the death timer. If I'm mentoring someone and get defeated, I don't go to the hospital because I don't want to get out of sidekick range. Sure I understand that this isn't an issue in a mission, but there are some non-mission situations that could cause problems. The Babbage ambush is the first one that springs to mind - it can be a tough fight for some teams. Should I not get xp for Babbage because I died while healing my team or debuffing Babbage?
The power levelers really didn't affect my gameplay until you tried to put a stop to it. In my opinion, these changes have too much of an impact on the non-power levelers to merit the small impact it makes on the power levelers. It doesn't stop people from farming wolves. It doesn't stop fire tanks from herding up a mission map and burning them with practically no assistance from the team. I've been "power leveled" running around the docks in Peregrine when I wanted to get my lvl 38 to 39 quickly so I could participate in the Eden trial with my SG, or when I wanted to get a new character up to a level to get into a hazard zone with my friends. Since I was following my mentor around even though I was absolutely no help in the battles, these changes wouldn't have impacted that at all.
There will always be people who want to skip ahead and get all their high end powers without a lot of effort, except the effort they expend trying to figure out how to get around actually playing. It yanks my chain too sometimes to see characters just standing around leveling and not trying to contribute to the team. However, I don't think it's possible to get rid of egregious power leveling without having a high negative impact on the folks that don't do it. The begging for influence and "PL me plz" tells are much less of an impact on my fun than the game mechanics changing. It's not fair that some folks can get to 50 in 8 days, and it takes me 8 months. but I'm still having fun in those 8 months, so I don't particularly care.
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and annoys the pig...
This is too funny. You have to be kidding. I play my Empathy Defender in close all the time. I get hit, sure. That is part of the game and part of being a Defender that cares about her team mates. As a Blaster, the idea is to let the Tanker Tank. Pick off targets that are already aggroed by the Tank. Then you don't have to worry about getting aggro from them. If you are so impressed with your ability to do gobs of damaged to mobs, then go ahead and use your AoE's, but be prepared for the consequences. You guys do incredible damage, but everything has a price. You are squishy for a reason. If you go squish, it probably means it is something YOU asked for in your style of game play. I have a great friend that loves playing his Blasters like Tankers. Well, when I am playing my Defender, it is difficult to heal anyone else on the team because he is always catching aggro from his style of game play, and I am spending all my time keeping his Blaster alive. It doesn't have to be that way, but it does for him. Either way, it is no big deal. Like I said, everything has a price, and there is no way to avoid paying it. Have fun with your Blaster and enjoy not having to get face to face with your enemy and not having to physically move to target and hit them. I still envy those aspects of my Blaster, when I play him.
Sincerely,
Fashion-Pixie
50 MA/SR Scrapper
Champion
Please reread Stateman's initial post. As long as you are in range, or you are on a mission map, then it doesn't matter what you do, you will get full xp.
Enjoy your Defender. I know I enjoy mine
!
Sincerely,
Fashion-Pixie
50 MA/SR Scrapper
Champion
When more than 300 feet away outdoors, you don't get xp. I think it should be more like 500 feet. Besides, if this change was made to reduce one form of powerleveling, thats one thing, as the old street sweeping form of PL'ng will separate the PL'rs by a lot more than 500 feet anyway, the 300 feet limit can be safely increased, while still reducing this form of PL'ng.
Now... If team-members do happen to be far enough away to not get xp, the ones within range, should get a fair share of the xp, not the split up amount. They shouldnt get only a portion of the xp, while part of it gets thrown away. Give the team-members that are in range, their fair share.
That's what I think it should belike if the xp range thing is to stay, however, I would like to formally object to the xp range limitation.
Well... this change would really suck for 2 of my defender toons that I purposely set up as teamates. I've have a force/energy Defender and and emp/rad defender set up for buffing and healing. Infact my F/E def, I don't even use his attack form because it cost too much end to keep up with the force fields for the team. So if said changes go into place i would have to delete him. He does no damage (i could blast a bit, but his job is to defend the team). so he would get no xp as i understand it. Also the timer is a good concept but needs to be lengthen. There is alot of honest players out there that are just waiting for the defender to raise. Also some fights last longer because of the fleeing of Mob in which can result in another group aggro'in on in which the dead have to sit and wait.
Just my two cents...
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Well... this change would really suck for 2 of my defender toons that I purposely set up as teamates. I've have a force/energy Defender and and emp/rad defender set up for buffing and healing. Infact my F/E def, I don't even use his attack form because it cost too much end to keep up with the force fields for the team. So if said changes go into place i would have to delete him. He does no damage (i could blast a bit, but his job is to defend the team). so he would get no xp as i understand it. Also the timer is a good concept but needs to be lengthen. There is alot of honest players out there that are just waiting for the defender to raise. Also some fights last longer because of the fleeing of Mob in which can result in another group aggro'in on in which the dead have to sit and wait.
Just my two cents...
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With the new change, you don't have to do any damage if you are within 300 feet, so if all you do is heal and buff the team, you woulds still get your share of xp as long as you are not more than 300ft away.. But I still think that this change is not good.
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Still confused about one point: if (for example) you've got a three person team, each person on the team is 400' away from each other person, and person X defeats a bad guy -- does person X get "solo XP" or XP for being on a 3 person team?
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He'd get XP with the 3 person team multiplier...BUT that XP would still be divided appropriately between each teammate. The others, however, wouldn't receive their shares.
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Doesn't this seem a tad unfair? Are we supposed to not want to team?
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No, you're not supposed to "not want to team". You're supposed to actually work as a team when you are teamed. This means, instead of everyone splitting up and solo'ing to benefit from the team multiplier and your teammates kills, you are encouraged to stay togethor. Basically, if you want to solo, solo. If you want to group with other human beings, you will need to actually group with them to benefit from their defeats.
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Still confused about one point: if (for example) you've got a three person team, each person on the team is 400' away from each other person, and person X defeats a bad guy -- does person X get "solo XP" or XP for being on a 3 person team?
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He'd get XP with the 3 person team multiplier...BUT that XP would still be divided appropriately between each teammate. The others, however, wouldn't receive their shares.
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Doesn't this seem a tad unfair? Are we supposed to not want to team?
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No, you're not supposed to "not want to team". You're supposed to actually work as a team when you are teamed. This means, instead of everyone splitting up and solo'ing to benefit from the team multiplier and your teammates kills, you are encouraged to stay togethor. Basically, if you want to solo, solo. If you want to group with other human beings, you will need to actually group with them to benefit from their defeats.
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Right. Thanks to the XP leash the only incentive I have to team, rather than solo outdoors, is when I play my controller and have to team to complete those kill ## villans. Soloing outdoors is far superior now to teaming. You are right- you are not supposed to "not want to team", but that certainly is the effect both predicted and , it seems , exhibited.
This thread is really long so i didnt read all of it.. if this has already been asked, sorry.
I just wanted to clarify something.
If im in a group fighting.. and Im attacking one guy.. and the rest of my group is using AOEs.. Do I only get the XP for the one guy I attacked, or will i receive XP for the whole mob?
I imagine id receive XP for the whole mob.. otherwise this whole system would be broken from the get go.
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I think alot of that is due to careful aviodance of low-damage powers early on. I suck really bad though if I exemplar down very far, because I only had primaries and Taunt back then. The BA secondary has the highest S/L damage a tank can wield, but has a lack of any type of unique damage. Any mobs that are resistant to S/L, are resistant to my damage. I have to just clear missions containing those types of mobs, because I can't kill them effectively. I never hesitate to invite friends in to help me kill if I think they are up to it.
If there was a way to get more experience and difficulty out of a mission (in other words, higher settings) would you do fewer missions if the total yield per mission was higher?
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I'm guessing you mean if I could just herd it once and skip the farming? I'm going to herd regardless, until it is impossible to do it, because it is fun and is a challenge I can control dynamically by how many I try to herd. I could easily do without the farming if mission bonuses were astronomical, but... Well, it's kind of hard to determine... I am usually farming to get to my next set of contacts *without* streetsweeping. I get alot of lag on the street and none in missions, 'Nuff said. Unless the 2-3 level gap left open by missions could be made up in the mission bonuses, it's unlikely it would be sufficient. Here's a few numbers...
"Protect the artifact" Warriors mission set to Unyielding:
All mobs combined are worth 10,832 xp + 1,024 xp completion bonus if I'm alone. That's 11,856 xp for running it normally, and it takes 10 minutes to gather and kill them all once. 5 to gather, 5 to kill. Do I stop at 10,832 xp or do I need alot more to level? If I herd the mobs only 3 times then finish it, thats 33,520 xp from it. 11,856 or 33,520, which is greater? Now I may run that mission until I level, however many times that is. Herding a mission allows the mobs to become a threat once again and at the same time I have less xp-earning downtime due to endurance. No matter what the bonuses, I will probably always want to herd for the challenge it provides.
Sometimes I wonder why I'm not just letting a buddy PL me to those next contacts, but it really comes down to me having fun and being personally rewarded. By being personally rewarded, I mean having a feeling that you did something not everyone can do, a feeling of success that completing missions like anyone can, does not offer. If it were alot easier to fail missions and players got bars of xp for completing them, this would not be as much of an issue. Instead, everyone can complete almost every mission, and the bonuses are setup to coincide with that. It's nothing special to complete all your missions. Even I cannot herd all of them, some mobs are tricky buggers, but the ones I can use to farm take the place of any streetsweeping the devs calculated into the xp needed for each level. If you want to streetsweep for me, go right ahead, I'll be over there farming instead.
I like to believe the devs are in control of what is rewarding and what is challenging, and that they are aware even of what is going on in my missions. I don't believe for one minute that no one at Cryptic has tried herding mobs. People have been doing it to level fast, it has been complained about, yet it's still here. Why? Maybe the dev team thought it was just great that a tanker can herd up a whole mission and a blaster/scrapper can kill the whole herd. I can't say, but it's not on par with Curbherding, abusing smoke grenade, or any of the other bigtime bugs that rewarded players for a no-risk battle. My experience with this game has been that if something produces xp, it must in turn produce the risk of death. Every fix the devs have scrambled to put together was because someone found a way around the risk and still got the rewards. Herding fits the plan, why not do it?
I am the type of player who'll try and finish a TF by myself after the rest of the team has deserted, only because it shouldn't be possible. I want to be the "Hero among Heroes", Superman's superior, etc., and the closest I have come is either being the herder or being the herdkiller. Everything else is just felt like "meh" to me. I'll bet it isn't too bad for a defender backing up a herding tank, but I haven't tried it yet.
For me, my way is fun and is personally rewarding, PLing is not. Completing the goals normally and finding out you're way short on xp sucks the big one though too. Most importantly, I am able to do what I want to do(avoid street hunting), and am still getting a fair shake both ways on the risk=reward ideal. The only thing I could even imagine someone disliking about it is that I am netting roughly 3x xp for the time invested. Time shouldn't be an issue at all. Good players should be enveloped by fast leveling. Bad players should feel the immense pain and grind of slow leveling. I kinda hoped that I was just reaping the benefits of being a long-time, experienced player and a badass who fears not death.
My stance on missions is this:
Missions, as they currently exist, are far from what I expect. Cookie-cut missions cannot be expected to entertain 5 completely different classes of character. Kelds get their own missions, and I commend the devs on that.
I would like to see all non-badge missions be custom tailored by AT. There should be tanker missions, defender missions, controller missions, etc. Each type offering a different type of challenge, exclusive to that character's team role, instead of producing a "solo or team" way of doing them all. "Why the hell is my contact sending me on a controller's mission? I'm a tank! Doesn't that idiot know any controllers he can send?"
I think that the mission bonuses and AV rewards are very skimpy, and could be alot better, but then again getting the same amount of xp I get from a herd as a bonus would be alot of riskless xp. When I herd them, I am at least at substantial risk, it takes time to do it, and the xp doesn't have to end when the herd does, I can just do it again if that's what it takes to level. Mission bonuses picking up the slack is still limited, while my capacity to herd and the amount of potential xp I could get is only limtied to the amount of time I am willing to put into play.
I would like to see other more dynamic ways of getting xp besides just arresting mobs. Is it so much to ask?
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Yes, you're a tank. You handle hits well. Being able to deliver enough damage on top of that to destroy the entire mission in 10 minutes at that difficulty level is well....kinda impressive.
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Well, we can thank I3 for that...
I burn alot of the useless(to me, anyway) inps to make room for more purps and reds, and I'm not afraid to drop a few mobs to get more when they are needed. A big portion of the reason to herd them is that I can use 8 reds to kill them all quickly at the same time. Those same 8 just aren't getting me the same milage if the darn mobs are all over the place.
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Everyone is useful- but none of them seem to be needed. And by herding, it means a single tank becomes a catalyst no other AT could be for anyone whose abilities cover more than single targets. I've been on missions where the tank herded- the simple fact that I could hit a dozen, or two dozen targets at once with Frost Breath means my normal effectiveness went up about 400-800% at the least. And I'm an Ice Blaster- my AE ability is minor at best compared to most Blasters, or even Defenders in some cases. If those mobs scattered even a bit, it'd make that multiplier lower considerably. Should herding really be that powerful?
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Until there is a "Herd" button, yes. I don't think you realized just how deadly that herd could have been to you, i.e. very risky. If the tank fails, everyone else will likely fail too. It takes alot of skill to handle masses of mobs, even moreso if someone else dares to attack them or heal the tank they are aggro'd on. It would be completely asinine if you could be at risk from those mobs yet not get xp for killing them. It doesn't matter how many there are because more of them just means more risk. Eventually, players will wise up and realize that a death is a death whether it took 1 mob or 500 to kill you. Herding mobs puts everyone at exponential amounts of risk, why shouldn't there be exponential amounts of xp rolling in if you do succeed at it?
If you as a blaster could herd them all, then still kill them with a few applications of breath, it would be a bit unbalanced. Most herders other than Fire tanks will need an AoE damage dealer to help them kill their herds. Luckily, I manage to get by most of the time without absolutely needing one. Don't think I wouldn't love to have you standing by ready with breath though. Teaming really speeds things up for everyone, as long as everyone on the team *is* useful.
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Would you have fun if you were doing smaller herds that still involved risk? Would they have to have significantly higher exp value to do it?
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I think I would and have. That is more or less what the early levels were like, I just couldn't herd like I can now with SOs 6ed in most of my powers, and I couldn't kill at all back then. I won't kid you, everytime I do something I am watching what kind of xp it is netting for me. If I think something isn't worth the time, I try to skip it altogether.
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Logically then, when large numbers of status-inducing mobs are involved, you're not herding the map- you're taking smaller groups...and I'm guessing the rewards are lower, too. Not quite as bad as Vahziloks or Banished Pantheon, but bad?
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You're logic is sound. I have yet to face any status-heavy mobs though other than Rikti and The Council, which I have just started facing alot at lvl30. I can still herd both, but in more limited numbers than other villain groups.
No matter what I do I will never have damres or def to psi, and I have to avoid psi mobs unless we're just fighting them a group at a time. They aren't herdable by me at all from what I've seen so far. The vahz and BPs just really take longer to herd than to kill group-by-group. They are so slow to gather, that you can't speed herdkilling them up by very much.
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Just out of curiousity- how much playtime did it take you going from say, 22-28 with your Tanker? How was your exp/hour? It strikes me as being about as high as the bar would need to be, considering it does sound like the highest reward-for-risk that's "clean" in the game.
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Hrm... I knew I should have been writing all that down!
Ok... Getting from 22-28 took 5 days of RL time. Got 22 sunday night, got 28 the following friday night. I play from 4pm-1am on weekdays and as much as I can spare on the weekends. Of that 5 days, I played my other characters a small amount, but my tank got almost all of my gameplay this past week. The xp/hour rates changed drastically with my level, but at lvl 28 I would say a good estimate is about half a bar per reset, or 20 resets per level. Resets run between 10-15 mins, depending on the layout of the map. Anytime more people joined the adventure, the xp went up a little bit for the extra mobs they help spawn, maybe to around two thirds of a bar per reset with two people. Solo is definitely not the best way to herd.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily the fastest way to level, "clean" or otherwise. I've gotten better xp/hour from well-oiled teams running missions, but that isn't an everyday event, more like once a weekend if that. Those teams are including people I've been playing with for a long time, and we know each other well. I know how few and far between players of our caliber are, but when we all manage to team it adds up to fantastic xp for everyone. Often we're just herding maps, but we're doing it in force with enough mobs to make gameplay choppy. Not PLing good, but way better xp than I can produce alone.
My main comparision is between running missions alone, including travel times and streetsweeping alone to make up for the missing xp, and farming the farmables alone until they are outleveled. Compared to soloing without farming, it *is* better xp for your time. Just the time I save on traveling to and from contacts/missions adds up quick. Running around to contacts is not challenging, and does not reward. Instead of running around doing 15 missions and streetsweeping, I do 5 or more until I find the farmable, and then farm it until I outlevel it. Then I go back to clearing missions looking for more farmables. When I recognize an arc, I do it just because it's an arc. Most of the arcs contain the more challenging, highly farmable missions. Again, I have to stress that most of my goal is to challenge myself while I'm alone, with the small number of mobs that spawn for one person on Invincible. Unyielding offers better xp(more mobs), but less challenge.
I like teaming. I like the "regular" game. My only problem with any of it is that alot of the time(pickups in particular) it feels like I'm taking time off from leveling to be a part of it.
I am on the hunt for my next farmable tonight, and I will keep track of my sustained xp/hour once I find a keeper. Cheers and good day.
Time to go home and play...