Confuse, and the XP loss
By
Ammon,
Posted on: 2010-09-24 14:07 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Well my theory would run thusly: We have in general such a nice and upstanding group of forum goers that for the Trolls to get their needs filled they are forced to necro post.|
Originally Posted by Roderick
This argument ran around in circles for three days before dying of exhaustion three months ago. Why was it dragged back up to the top?
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There just isn't enough derision or spite in the day to day posts to feed them.
Global: @Kelig
Because it didn't run in circles.
Basically, there were a group of people all claiming that Confuse means more XP, and only the numbers they cited varies.
Unfortunately, the arguments were over a different thing. A fact that some people still can't quite wrap their heads around.
People made claims that less XP really equals bonus xp, a blatant fallacy.
Do fifty mobs with Confuse and without, and the group without get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.
It is only by doing more/bigger/higher mobs in the same time that Confuse can even break even, and only by doing far more/bigger/higher mobs in the same time that Confuse helps a team get more XP than they would have. Again, facts.
Not bonus, because you had to fight more mobs. Not free.
Not all of us play with a stopwatch.
Some of us come on and do a single TF. Those people will get less XP if someone on the team is habitually using Confuse, unless they specifically turn up the difficulty to ger more/bigger/higher mobs than they would otherwise do.
That doesn't deny, or dismiss that those who play the game like statisticians, timing the XP/hour, rushing from mission to mission to mission won't benefit from higher xp/hour from Confuse. They will. If that floats their boats then good for them.
But that is not the only side to the story, and by no means are all players farmers and clock-watchers. For them, the facts are as I have stated. Both sides of the story give the balanced view.
And a balanced view is what any discussion should arrive at.
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So, you're saying if a dev is screwing with you despawning all but X mobs, throughout the entire game, then you'd get less exp using Confuse than without. Fine, I suppose that might be true. However the likelyhood of that happening seems to be about five decillion to one.
You could always get another mission, set the dificulty higher, street sweep, kill more of the mobs that are in the map that you might not have killed otherwise.
And you *do* earn bonus exp. You can do 50% of the damage and earn 80% of the experiance you would've without confuse. That's 60% more experience than damage done.
Also confuse makes it so that the foe isn't attacking/debuffing you, buffing it's allies, or causing any sort of trouble for you. It's the most effective control out there, many times stronger than even holds.
And just to add, if you truely insist on doing nothing at all outside a single TF a day, then confuse finishes that TF faster, getting you back to whatever else you have to do that day that much faster.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.
Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with. |
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Defeat fifty enemies with a team and without, and the player without a team will get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.|
Originally Posted by Ammon
Do fifty mobs with Confuse and without, and the group without get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.
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Teams reduce XP.
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True, but teams kill far faster than any solo player and you get bonus XP for teaming... the game doesn't divide the mob's normal XP between members, it first increases that XP by a factor that depends on team size and then divides it. So unless you plan to log in, kill X mobs regardless of how long it takes, and log out you will get more XP per minute teaming.|
Originally Posted by Dersk
Defeat fifty enemies with a team and without, and the player without a team will get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.
Teams reduce XP. |
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Originally Posted by Roderick
This argument ran around in circles for three days before dying of exhaustion three months ago. Why was it dragged back up to the top?
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On the other hand, you've blasted through there faster and with fewer chances for faceplants. A worthwhile trade-off.
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Originally Posted by Ammon
Do fifty mobs with Confuse and without, and the group without get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.
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Every point defending teams for experience can be used to defend confuse for experience... except confused enemies can't start a taskforce.|
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
On the other hand, you've blasted through there faster and with fewer chances for faceplants. A worthwhile trade-off.
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I suggest confused enemies count as teammates for the purposes of starting taskforces!
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If you are significantly reducing your total amount of XP available (NOT Lose XP because you never earned it), then you and your team don't know what they are doing.|
Originally Posted by Ammon
Because it didn't run in circles.
Basically, there were a group of people all claiming that Confuse means more XP, and only the numbers they cited varies. Unfortunately, the arguments were over a different thing. A fact that some people still can't quite wrap their heads around. People made claims that less XP really equals bonus xp, a blatant fallacy. Do fifty mobs with Confuse and without, and the group without get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable. It is only by doing more/bigger/higher mobs in the same time that Confuse can even break even, and only by doing far more/bigger/higher mobs in the same time that Confuse helps a team get more XP than they would have. Again, facts. Not bonus, because you had to fight more mobs. Not free. Not all of us play with a stopwatch. Some of us come on and do a single TF. Those people will get less XP if someone on the team is habitually using Confuse, unless they specifically turn up the difficulty to ger more/bigger/higher mobs than they would otherwise do. That doesn't deny, or dismiss that those who play the game like statisticians, timing the XP/hour, rushing from mission to mission to mission won't benefit from higher xp/hour from Confuse. They will. If that floats their boats then good for them. But that is not the only side to the story, and by no means are all players farmers and clock-watchers. For them, the facts are as I have stated. Both sides of the story give the balanced view. And a balanced view is what any discussion should arrive at. |
Your point that Confuse can POTENTIALLY reduce the amount of available XP has some validity in the context of a limited amount of XP within the context of a task force or limited number of missions. HOWEVER, anyone who understands how Confuse works will kill foes long before they have a chance to do much damage to other foes. In practical use, I bet the actual reduction of the amount of Available XP is probably around 2% or less.
Why? Look at the nature of Confuse powers.
- Illusion's Deceive and Mind's Confuse are single target -- how much damage can one foe do, compared to the total XP available in a TF?
- Mind Control's Mass Confusion is probably your best argument . . . but on a Dominator, the Dom is probably doing plenty of damage. On a Controller? Teammates are probably cleaning up foes hit with Mass Confusion pretty quickly. And this power is on a LONG Recharge, so it can't be used very often.
- Plant's Seeds of Confusion? It is almost always followed by Roots, which is instantly doing AoE damage to all foes in the area. The actual damage that foes do to one another is pretty small . . . and Seeds is probably the most often available AoE confuse power.
- Ice Control's Arctic Air? The confuse pulses are so short that foes rarely attack one another . . . and when they do, they are slowed and their Recharge is debuffed.
- Electric's Synaptic Overload? The chaining mechanism really limits how often the Confuse power really results in foes attacking one another, and since Static Field is usally putting the foes to sleep, there is very little damage being done by confused foes.
- World of Confusion? Puh-lease! The radius of this power is so small as to be virtually worthless, and it has very short confuse pulses.
Compare this to the overall benefits of Confuse powers:
- Foes are controlled. They don't do any damage to you, your team or your pets. That means less time healing, less time re-casting, fewer inspirations used, less time spent on other controls. Even on teams of well-built characters, control powers help the team kill off foes more quickly and more safely.
- Turn their mez on them. Confuse will result in foes using their mez on themselves instead of on your teammates. That may not matter to a Scrapper, Brute, stalker or Tank, but it makes a big difference to Blasters, Controllers, Dominators, Corrupters and Masterminds. And again, foes controlled are easier, safer and faster to defeat.
- Confuse powers often help foes group up into tighter groups. The benefit of that is pretty obvious.
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Originally Posted by Ammon
That doesn't deny, or dismiss that those who play the game like statisticians, timing the XP/hour, rushing from mission to mission to mission won't benefit from higher xp/hour from Confuse. They will. If that floats their boats then good for them.
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You've got your factions confused. The only people who should care about losing XP to Confusion are folks who play in exactly the OCD manner you describe.
Maybe we can start a thread about Fulcrum Shift causing Blasters to overaggro next.
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The rest of your post is awesome, but I've never met a single person in-game who didn't like confuse, and my main is a Mind/ Dominator.|
Originally Posted by Elimist
Alot of people don't like confuse, for the obvious reason of XP loss.
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I'd also like to add, Confuse is such a powerful hard control that faceplanting will be rare, and since debt makes you earn 50% exp for doing 100% of the work, I'd take Confuse over that any day.
The only downside of confuse is that foes that can rez their teammates still do so even if Confused
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This is the same kind of thinking that causes some players to insist on fighting +4s even when their team clearly isn't equipped to handle them. They take forever to kill a spawn, the team keeps dying, but when that +4 is finally defeated the XP is more than if it'd been a more manageable +2.|
Originally Posted by Ammon
Do fifty mobs with Confuse and without, and the group without get more XP. Period. Fact. Unarguable.
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What these players (apparently) have trouble grasping is that XP per kill is not what's important, at least not from the point of view of progressing in the game. What's important is XP per unit of time. The aforementioned team would get less XP per kill on the +2s, but faster kill speed and less debt would mean they'd get more XP over time. Similarly Confuse, especially with its mob-damage-counts-for-less mechanic, will on average result in an increase in XP over time - the mobs die faster, and give more xp per point of damage dealt by the player (i.e. less effort expended for the each point of xp).
Sure, those fifty mobs give less xp when they're defeated with confuse, but they're also defeated faster, and there's fifty more mobs available to kill right around the corner (or in the next mission, next TF, or out in the streets). While confuseless team is still working on their higher XP for killing the first fifty mobs, confuse team is half way through killing mobs fifty-one to one hundred. If you don't want to move on and fight mobs fifty-one to one hundred that's your choice, not a failure of Confuse (and even factoring those situations in, the argument has generally been that *on average* Confuse increases XP gain - that allows for there being situations where it doesn't, it's just that the situations where it does come into play more often for more people).
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To the confusion doubters: Log in and build yourself a Plant Dom. Level up to 10 or 12 or something, high enough to get Seeds and a couple slots. Even as a lowbie, you'll still see Seeds of Confusion every other fight or so, and most Doms have a good selection of damage powers and a respectable sort of attack chain by double digit levels.|
Originally Posted by Come Undone
And you *do* earn bonus exp. You can do 50% of the damage and earn 80% of the experiance you would've without confuse. That's 60% more experience than damage done.
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Here is what will happen: Every fight where you lead off with an AoE confusion will be over in a fraction of the time it takes you to finish off the spawn you couldn't confuse; perhaps the confuse drops time to defeat to one quarter or one third what it is without. Your blue bar will be closer to full because you had to use fewer attacks and since all the click confuse powers last a really long time, it's likely that you were barely even attacked by anything in that spawn. Not only did seeds speed the defeat of that group, you're also in a much better place as far as recovery time when you move on to the next group. In exchange, you'll wind up losing maybe 10% - 15% of the XP for that spawn.
While 10% to 15% of total XP is not insignificant over time, I've never seen anyone make the argument that fighting anything but Malta and Arachnos is sub-optimal because those mobs offer bonus XP on defeat compared to less challenging mobs like Council, and moving on from one spawn to another in 20 seconds instead of a full minute is a huge and significant advantage for any player. If XP over time isn't what's really important, why not spend all your time in game fighting against +4s that give the biggest XP reward?
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Rubbish.|
Originally Posted by Ammon
And a balanced view is what any discussion should arrive at.
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Many many times one side of any discussion is outright wrong.
Some people believe the Earth is flat, others believe that it is essentially a sphere. That doesn't, in any way, mean that the best outcome of a discussion between those two parties should result in the agreement that the Earth is some kind of curved plane, half way in-between being completely flat and being a sphere.
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Originally Posted by StrykerX
True, but teams kill far faster than any solo player and you get bonus XP for teaming... the game doesn't divide the mob's normal XP between members, it first increases that XP by a factor that depends on team size and then divides it. So unless you plan to log in, kill X mobs regardless of how long it takes, and log out you will get more XP per minute teaming.
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Being on a team you lose XP to your team-mates, but you also get a boost to the overall XP to make up for the loss. The end result is less XP per enemy, but far more enemies killed, so more XP over time.
Using confuse you lose XP to the mobs doing damage, but you get a boost to make up for the loss. The result is less XP per enemy, but far more enemies killed, so more XP over time.
Anyone willing to argue that you lose XP to confused enemies must also be willing to argue that you lose XP to teams. After all, nothing's stopping you from soloing on x8.
If you're only going to do a single TF then it's undeniably true that doing that TF with 4 people on x8 is going to get you more XP by the end than doing that TF with 8 (on x8), but you're going to get through it much faster with 8 people than with 4.
(Personally, I am willing to argue that you can lose XP both to confuse and to teams, but such situations are very rare in both cases and not really worth worrying about.)
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A: Yes, I am necro-posting
B: Yes, I started this thread
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D: Umm.... yeah the servers are down for like six hours, so yes, I'm trolling
Since posting this, I've learned alot about confuse, and my mind dom has become one of my number 1 50s (Yes, that makes sense, so whatever.)
I didn't read the names of posters, because I didn't want to read a name I liked and choose to go easy on them.
For those of you who think getting less total XP on one task is a bad thing (not to be confused with my referring to those of you who say that you do get less XP per task and are neutral on that matter):
That's dumb. If you have 3 hours to play this evening, and if you can cut the time it takes to get a task done in 3/4 while getting 7/8xp due to the mass confusing fortunada and mind dom you brought(just a figure for argument's sake) and you had planned to run 3 plow task forces at an hour apiece... well that means 3/4 of 3 hours is now 2 hours and 15 minutes..... at 45 minutes per task force. So guess what? You now have time to run one more task force at that same rate. So now you've done 4 task forces. at 7/8 XP apiece. 7/8=28/32. If you figure 32 represents the xp you'd have gotten if you'd gotten 100% of your xp from those TFs. You now get 28. 8/8 for 3 task forces would have been 24/24, instead of 28/32. Total, that's 28 units of XP compared to 24...... for the same amount of time..... yes, I'll say it again. For the same amount of time. Now, for arguments sake, let's say that task force gives you 35 merits. 35 merits will get you about 45-60 mil on the market selling recipes, give or take depending on your method and supply and demand. Now for another argument (and I'll point out here that without these extras, you still come out ahead as I already said) lets say on task force number 4, BAM!!! You get those purple letters scrolling across saying Recipe Found!!! Guess what, that was an armageddon 3stat, and you have now either saved 300mil because you can slot it for free, or you're dumb and decided to sell that gem. So on that fourth task force, you just
A: Got more fun from another TF.
B: Got more XP total.
C: Still met your 3 hour deadline of playing time (but lets face it, you're probably going to stay up till 2am with the bacon that fell of your pizza 2 hours ago buried in the crotch of your... oh wait, this is triumph, no pants)
D: Made at least 60mil off those merits if you're smart
E: Potentially made 360mil with your purple recipe drop+merits
F: Got schooled on basic mental math by a high school dropout who's smarter than you even with your college degree
Gratz on accomplishing letter F by the way
P.S. SOmeone please check my math, I did it in my head and could have made a mistake. Please retort if I did.
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Well, when I'm on my Plant/Psi/Soul dom, whether I use confuse depends on the group I'm in. If someone else (mainly Tanker/Brute/Scrapper) is consistantly the first one to engage a mob to soak up the aggro/alpha with little issue, then I'll forego on seeds and just focus on my AoE slaughter spree. However, if the above Tanker/Brute/Scrapper is slow or skittish about it, then I have no reservations about being the first one in, usually leading with seeds. Keep up if you can and no complaints.
Thank you baron, you reminded me of another point, in an indirect way. If you want to soak up XP, why are you opening your trap and looking a gift horse in the mouth? Whichever 50 has the star, please kick that stupid noob for complaining that you're not farming him fast enough and that you should quit confusing the mobs.
Confuse. All day. Often. And without remorse.
Thread complete.
*throws seeds in Elimist's face*
Don't I know you???
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Hey, I almost always have pants on even while playing on Triumph and my staying up till 2-3am never has anything to do with crotch bacon.|
Originally Posted by Elimist
A: C: Still met your 3 hour deadline of playing time (but lets face it, you're probably going to stay up till 2am with the bacon that fell of your pizza 2 hours ago buried in the crotch of your... oh wait, this is triumph, no pants)
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I think the people who had a problem with the "less exp per task" thing-
A) cared nothing for logic or reason
B)Insisted that they only do 1 (or two, or whatever) number of tasks, no matter how quickly those tasks got done (so 1 task that takes 3 hours would be fine, but 2 tasks done in an hour would be out of the question), and absolutely refused to even consider street sweeping between tasks.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.
Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with. |
Hey hey hey!!! You guys are supposed to be arguing, what's wrong with you. That's what threads like this are for.
And pajama bottoms don't count as pants.
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Erp ----->
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Originally Posted by dougnukem
*throws seeds in Elimist's face*
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<:[ shark goes nom nom nom ]:>
[QUOTE=theOcho;3409811]As to the REAL reason I'll be leaving, I'm afraid it is indeed because Tamaki Revolution dc'd on me during a RSF.[/QUOTE]
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Ok fine, then I frequently have pants on while playing on Triumph.
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Originally Posted by Elimist
And pajama bottoms don't count as pants.
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Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler
That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it.
Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with. |
My first 50 was a Mind/Kinetics controller. I estimate somewhere between 1/2 to 2/3 of her career has consisted of soloing story arcs. And I freaking love Confuse and Mass Confusion. More than anything else about it, those are the powers that make Mind Control my absolute hands-down favorite Controller/Dominator primary.
My gaming philosophy is that a pound of my enemy's food is worth ten of my own. I always lean toward abilities that create a "2 point" swing in my favor, by simultaneously giving to me and taking away from the enemy. (That's why I prefer Warshades to Peacebringers and buff/heal sets like Darkness and Kinetics to Empathy, but I digress.) Confuse creates a pet for you and reduces the enemy's numbers.
Ammon, I disagree with your assessment for two reasons:
First, in my experience (anecdotal though it may be), players tend to go over their self-allotted playtime if the specific task they have set out for themselves (a task force, for example) takes longer than they planned. But if they finish that task more quickly than anticipated, they will tend to keep playing until that allotted time has run out. I have seen plenty of friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike remark that "I should have gone to bed an hour ago, but I really wanted to see this task force through to the end." I've heard "Wow, we finished that task force a lot faster than I thought we would. I'm gonna go do some alignment tips / do a radio/newspaper mission / grab a nuke / get a Shivan before I go to bed." But I have never heard a player say "Well, we finished that mission earlier than I thought. I'm gonna make an early night of it. Goodbye, All."
Second, in my experience (anecdotal though it may be), no matter how much you do or don't try to remind your teammates that "Purple dots over the villain's head means he's on our side," they make no effort whatsoever to save the confused targets for last. Instead, the confused villains are killed almost as quickly as their comrades. I say "almost" only because the non-confused villains die slightly faster, on account of a slight hit point debuff inflicted by their confused fellows. Confuses contribute controls to a team, not any significant additional damage. The important part is that the confused villain doesn't spend his short life attacking the PCs.
If you do find yourself losing a noticeable, unnacceptable amount of XP while tossing around confuse effects, my advice is to concentrate the single-target confuses on Minions, rather than Lieutenants or Bosses. In my experience (anecdotal though it may be), even LTs, let alone Bosses, tear through their own Minions at a terrifying pace that only the most purpled-out crit-lucky Scrapper or Fury-maxed Brute could even hope to match.
This argument ran around in circles for three days before dying of exhaustion three months ago. Why was it dragged back up to the top?
@Roderick