No more bonuses to exp/drops from team size

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

And, you know, the whole human interaction thing? :P *Shakes fists at nooby MMs (Ones who buff only their pets) who are a disgrace to my kind*

And given how stingy the game is to begin with, sharing sucks.

This much is obvious.

Before we get any further let me explain what the bonus actually is and what it is not and why it is in virtually every MMO on the planet. It is not some mechanism that simply gives you more experience for an individual kill just because you are on a team. What the system does is provide a larger portion of the experience you would normally receive from that target than you would if the experience were evenly divided. With the system, when you're on an 8 man team, you get (iirc) 1/6th of the experience that you would receive if you killed that target alone. This means that the target is, functionally, granting 1/3rd more experience than it would be granting if everyone went out and killed one of the target on their own
(8 * (1/6) = 4/3).

If it didn't exist, there wouldn't be a reason to team with anyone that wasn't killing as efficiently as you do. Take 2 Scrappers for example (so we don't get into the complexity of buffs and contributed efficiency). One of them kills at a rate of 100 targets/hour, and the other kills at a rate of 75 target/hour. If they teamed up, they'd be killing 175 targets/hour. However, because they're teamed up and there is no "teaming bonus", they're each getting the experience they would get if they were killing 87.5 targets/hour. Essentially, the first scrapper is losing experience because the other scrapper isn't as good as he is. Now, let's apply a teaming bonus so that, when teamed, you get 4/7s of the experience you would get killing that target solo. They're still killing 175 targets/hour, but each scrappers is getting experience as if he were killing 100 targets/hour. The first scrapper loses nothing and, in fact, gains the benefit of having someone to talk to and pal around with while the second scrapper gets the benefits of having someone around to help him kill while he's there. Without it, skilled players would be penalized for teaming because other people aren't pulling the same amount of weight as them. With the teaming bonus to xp/inf, there is a reason to team up with people that are worse than you are because you don't need to pull as much weight as everyone else on your team just to provide everyone else with a benefit.

First off, the game isn't designed for people to solo groups sized for 8 individuals and people were doing that well before the current difficulty was added in (you just invited 7 people onto your team, spawned the mish, and then kicked them).

Secondly, just because you're on a team doesn't mean that you're killing faster to such an extent that you're actually getting more than you would be solo. Not everyone contributes the same amount, nor does every person with a buff always apply it, much less apply it to the target that will benefit the team most. Teaming does not necessarily equate to speedier killing than would be accomplished solo for each individual member. Most of the time, if there were no teaming bonus, Scrappers, Brutes, and other ATs that solo well would actually be losing experience because they kill stuff at quite a clip on their own and they wouldn't have 7 other people stealing their experience.

Thirdly, the game does not penalize the drop rate when you're on a team. The drop rate remains the same but the drops are simply divided equally amongst members of the team. There is no teaming bonus or penalty associated with drops. The only reason people say that you are penalized on drops for teaming is that there isn't a bonus to drop rates so that, if you're doing more than the rest of the team, you're getting less than you would while solo (as I demonstrated earlier on).

Those other pets never stay when I tell them to. It's not my fault they insist on running out of range of my Traps.

Just because some people can run in an advanced state doesn't change the status quo so that everyone else is being "penalized"

Takes work and time to get a character that can run at x8. Being able to reap the rewards of that are just.