Double XP

There is one thing that I feel is missing in this game, namely...double XP. I remember seeing a post the last double XP that we had. Yes, the one that didn't happen when NCSoft said, but was moved. Someone said in chat that "it was great to see all the players on", another replied "yes, twice a year when they have double xp". Since I haven't been playing that long, is that a true statement?

My take on the subject. Double xp is a "no brainer". I have experienced double xp bonus weekends in some of the mmo's I play on ALL US major holidays. I don't know the statistics on this games demographic, so I can't comment on other countries. The reason is simple. People usually have time off to play and know when it's a holiday, so even casual players "appear" and play.

My observation, the last double xp period was awesome. The game felt "alive" and buzzing with activity. Isn't that why we play on a mmorpg and not a traditional PC based rpg? My thoughts. If someone "grinds" their way to 50, it doesn't mean they are good at playing their AT. Practice makes PERMANENT not perfect, unless the practice is perfect.

I feel this is a "win-win" for both the publisher and the players. You "ney" sayers prove me wrong, and I'll admit it. If you support this, say so..its super easy to implement if they get feedback. I'm told the devs read these, so its a shot.

By the way, I can't tear my wife away from the "other" mmorpg to play CoH because its double xp weekend in a game where she has maxed out toons because its "alive".

Double XP weekends may be a thing of the past. When Freedom goes live players will be able to buy Double XP tokens from the store and use them whenever they like.

Now if they do decide to keep Double XP weekends they'll probably devise a way to disable the tokens during the event to prevent people from exploiting them for Quadruple XP.

You realize you didn't actually make a suggestion right? You elaborate nicely on Double XP but stop short of actually suggesting anything.

I'm going to go ahead and infer that you are suggesting making DXP permanent. As a way to keep the population pumped up. This would have the exact opposite effect though.

2 months in to DXP all the time and it's now 'standard' XP, combined with the fact that everyone now zooms through the 1-50 like nothing, eliminating 7 years worth of content as they blaze through levels so fast they'll outlevel every arc.

As much as I love DxP weekends, I'm going to have to say this would be a bad thing to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by medic57 On a same note, I don't see a problem, as far as folks searching for help, in this game with "powerleveling". That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Its annoying to group with higher level folks who don't have a clue how to play their toon. Why isn't powerleveling at least visible, or am I just blind?

Huh?

So... no chance of getting the "It's over 9000!!!!!!!!" XP Boost then?

There's another issue I'm surprised nobody brought up - which also goes into the powerlevelling bit. (MM touched on it a bit.)

In many, many MMOs, "the game begins at level cap." That's when you get "the good gear," you raid for gear to raid for gear, etc, and you really might as well not show up if you're not at or near the cap. (Aion was like this for me, for instance. Bring my 30-35 to a Fortress raid? Pointless. I couldn't do much damage to the tweaked-out enemies and died in 1-2 hits - and there was a serious penalty, money wise at least - don't remember what else - for dying.)

Here, we have a lot of content *actually worth playing* from 1-50. The point *is* going through the storylines. Yes, you can use Ouroboros to go back, but... really, that's like fast forwarding to the last ten minutes of a movie, then catching bits and pieces of it on TV afterward. And the experience *is* different (not the XP) on different characters/archetypes. You'll see the Tank, Scrapper or Brute that was just tearing through mobs two levels ago suddenly hit (say) the Romans or rogue Vanguard, rush in and faceplant in seconds, while the Controller is going "huh? What's the problem?" Or even different powersets in the same AT - quite a few people can't stand Malta (for Sappers, quite often) while Electric, Energy (and to some extent Dark) just shrug it off.

See my Guides and Tutorials

To clarify. I feel powerleveling is dumb. It allows a person to max his/her toon without knowing how to play it correctly (and I'm sure to get "flamed" for saying it out loud). I know there are exceptions. Everyone <gasp> isn't a "perfect" player.

Content. I like content, some don't and it doesn't bother me. Having said that, folks who want content, and have sped by it leveling, can team with any level below them easily and "relive" it.

Example. I have done Praetoria several times with different toons to experience the storyline, which I feel is interesting. If someone goes to Praetoria and doesn't read squat, it doesn't hamper me in the least.

Ah I see. Having a few more DxP weekends would be fine with me. Though we'd bound to have some complaints about players not being able to play for DxP because of family vacations etc. Such is the internet though.

I also think you may have misunderstood Bill's point. This game is about the journey, not the destination. Up until recently we didn't even have an 'Endgame' in the traditional sense. PLing in this game results in...

Well, since you weren't here for the infamous AE explosion watch this;

AE Babies
Then imagine that guy multiplied by 10,000.

It wasn't pleasant.

After that, it's easy to see how we would react this way when thinking you asked for DxP constant.

Now, major holidays? Sure!

holidays wouldnt hurt, but my guess is it would diminish some of the effect you are looking for. People go nuts for dxp weekends partially because they are rare, when they hit, lots of people rush in and play looser so they team more freely, the event is more of the event than the purpose of the event. this isnt always true, and players with more free time seem to wind up leveling chracters from 6-50 or so, so some really do go nuts on dxp weekend. whats funny is if you have a stable of alts or/and a full time job, you likely are going to have at least a level of patrol exp going every weekend. I have no problem setting them up every major holiday, but I just suspect you would see a normalizing of the effect, and teaming would go back to closer to everyday teaming.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

The funny thing about Double XP Weekend is that it is not the double xp that actually makes leveling up so fast. I was talking to someone in game and they were ecstatic that they managed to get a character from 1 to 50 in two days.
Hmm... 2 days under double xp... that would mean that if she were to do the same thing when it was not double xp, it would take her an entire FOUR days.

Except, as I said, it's not the XP that actually provide the majority of the increased leveling speed. Most of the speed increase comes from the fact that there are so many players on at all hours, all eager to team up with anyone and everyone they can get their hands on.

Part of what brings in the players for Double XP weekend is that it only happens twice a year. If it became a regular occurrence, the draw would be much lower. It goes from. "Double XP is next weekend. I better plan to spend a little (or lot) of extra time in game." to "Double XP is next weekend, but I dunno if I will be there or not. I may just wait until it rolls around again next month."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

the only problem i have with seeing 2xp more often is that it wouldnt be a special event anymore, it would become the norm, and then once thats norm the players would then ask for more events and it just wouldnt work

it would be nice to see 2xp more than 2x a year, but its also nice that 2xp is not too often because then it wouldnt be special

if 2xp became the norm, you would see the same population balance as it is on non-2xp weekends, also making 2xp the norm would drive market inflation through the roof since everyone would be raking in a LOT more inf but not getting any more drops than normal

Something just occured to me. The demographic this fourm would most likely benefit would probably never see this or any CoH fourm. I know that hardcore players are the ones most likely to be on fourms. I like hardcore players. They provide the best feedback, knowledge, finance, stability, and longevity to a game.

I still contend that bonus weekends (I keep saying bonus to illustrate the flexibility of reward) on holidays doesn't "water down" the event. "How can I be so certain?", you may ask. Because, I have played other games that do this, and this IS NOT the result.

The actions of NCSoft by shifting the playstyle of CoH to F2P when Freedom comes out demonstrates that a population increase is desired. The reasons for this is debateable. I, for one, welcome this. I have my reasons which are better saved for another fourm.

Back to the question. Holiday bonus play, yes or no, and why?

I'm in complete agreement with you, medic57. Having also played other MMOs where DXP weekends are a regular occurrence (up to once a month), people were eager to log on and play each and everytime.

Having higher peaks tends to be better even if it results in lower troughs, because these highs will occur during primetime for most players whereas the lows will happen during the week at off hours and affect a minimal amount of players. More importantly, people bring people, so even averaging it all you gain much more than you lose in net activity.

Another bonus of DXP weekends, for this game in particular is that they tend to bring people out of the AE. While AE farms are still much, much faster than regular playing even with double exp outside, the gap is lessened enough to make normal leveling an attractive alternative to some of the players who just AE the rest of the time.