Experience Sharing

Penwize

@Sarapis:
I think that's a great place to start, but with respect to staffing issues: have you considered opening up more mortal-builder type roles for people who would like to contribute to that effect?  I know at least I'd be willing to help out there, and I'm sure a lot of others would too, if it meant gaining more PvE content without taxing the current staff.

Sarapis

Well there's not really any such thing as mortal builder roles that don't tax current staff, as there are learning curves and everything has to be reviewed and approved, which is not a small amount of work. Like anything else, there's just management overhead generally, though some of that can be reduced via better systems.

Beyond that, and more problematic, is that there is currently no building framework that would allow people to create the kind of content you're talking about. It requires a hardcode framework to support additional building options, which isn't going to make it into the priority column currently.

Rangor

Within the current limitations of the game mechanics/building options..

The most interesting and famed area for hunting is the Lupine Hunting Grounds. The creatures roam, they have starburst and crystal tattoos to throw you off, they will drag you back into the room if you try to escape, one drops retardation on you and so on.. In my opinion this turns the LHG into an area that -usually- has to be hunted in a group. Most people will need someone setting up reflections, healing with active abilities and so on to survive and clear it.

For some reason LHG has also really bad rewards compared to risks though... XP is moderate, essence is horrid, gold drops are average...

Maybe take a look at the xp sharing formulae, encouraging people around the same levels to group up (dragons boosting people is already quite effective). Model some hunting areas around similar mechanics as is done in LHG (if lupus is still around and wants to do that?).

Trevize

Rangor said:

Within the current limitations of the game mechanics/building options..

The most interesting and famed area for hunting is the Lupine Hunting Grounds. The creatures roam, they have starburst and crystal tattoos to throw you off, they will drag you back into the room if you try to escape, one drops retardation on you and so on.. In my opinion this turns the LHG into an area that -usually- has to be hunted in a group. Most people will need someone setting up reflections, healing with active abilities and so on to survive and clear it.

For some reason LHG has also really bad rewards compared to risks though... XP is moderate, essence is horrid, gold drops are average...

Maybe take a look at the xp sharing formulae, encouraging people around the same levels to group up (dragons boosting people is already quite effective). Model some hunting areas around similar mechanics as is done in LHG (if lupus is still around and wants to do that?).

I used to hunt LHG as a serpent. Evade bypasses the braziers of the werewolves.

Silas

Yeah, LHG risk/reward is all screwed up. Much more fun to hunt, though (at least insofar as bashing can be fun).

Santar

LHG wouldn't be balanced if the reward were much higher. It's a little risky, yeah, but a smart dragon with runes and a couple of artefacts can do it. You can't just go in there and 1a2a3a by any means, but if you've studied the area and know well how to approach each part of it, then it's pretty easy.

Iocun

I wouldn't say the LHG has a terribly bad risk/reward ratio. I make better gold and XP there than in almost all other places I hunt. Admittedly, that is partially because of Iocun's rather strict personal hunting code, which excludes me from hunting most good places, as well as playing a serpent, which helps a ton against werewolves while being really bad against stuff like DKs, as well as the fact that many parts of the LHG are rarely hunted and thus gain a long-time-not-hunted XP bonus (the piranhas are sometimes quite extreme in that regard: they're extremely easy to kill, but often give quite nice XP, due to the fact that most people can't get to them through the werewolf cave, and the ones who can are usually high level dragons who don't bother with them).

Granted, it's not particularly fast hunting, due to having to be relatively careful, but I generally prefer being a bit slower but enjoying myself, than just bashing easy targets over and over for all eternity.

Xith

And make puppet leech some kind of useful, while we're on the subject of xp share.

Kyrra

Leech is plenty useful already. Unless it's another shaman > jester thing again.

Xith

Kyrra said:

Leech is plenty useful already. Unless it's another shaman > jester thing again.

Not useful enough to be the trans skill, especially since enemy puppets are not permanent anymore.

Seftin

True fashion.

Rangor

Had Seldin leeching off my hunting trips when he were around lvl 74. I could get him half a level fairly quickly with him idling in Eleusis.

Kresslack

I'm not sure how it could be arranged, but I'm all for this. The only time I've ever been part of a group hunt is in relation to House drives for shards.Currently, it's just not viable to do group hunting for the purpose of experience gain, because someone is going to have to follow someone else around and just let them kill everything. While they're doing that, they could be clearing areas that, while challenging and a bit tedious, will yield noticeable experience gain for them over time.

As @Penwize mentioned, hunting is so incredibly tedious for some people (such as myself), that it's not widely taken on as anything more than a necessary grind, and even then only at least to level 80 perhaps to avoid the need to eat and sleep. I've started hunting full time recently, and it can be exhausting and dreadfully dull, even when accompanied by music.

I think something being worked out for certain dungeon areas that would actually Require people to group up in order to clear them would be interesting. The risk would be higher, the mobs significantly more capable, and the yield adjusted accordingly to match the difficulty.

That, or we need more bouts of random, challenging waves of mobs popping up trying to lay waste to our precious text-civilizations. Those never fail to unite and are very fun.

Lyrin

How about creating a type of party where all members' level (read: base hp, mp and crit rate) are reduced to that of the lowest member of the party.  It would then be possible to increase the total XP distributed to the party or alter the distribution between truly low level members and gimped high level players.

This could allow higher level players to find a higher risk form of bashing without having to develop a pile of new content.   

An example:  Penwise (level 100), Lyrin (level 80) and Newbie (level 25) party up.    Penwise and Lyrin are both reduced to level 25 and the three go out hunting.   They could hit great rock for an easy trip, or, they could try higher level areas for a greater risk/reward.   Penwise and Lyrin don't have huge health pools or crit rates but can bring their experience, arties & higher level skills to bear and make the hunt go smoother.   Newbie is able to bash higher level things than he otherwise could at level 25 and everyone gets a more exciting experience than grinding whatever level appropriate area they could do individually.

Nellaundra

That'd absolutely screw raid parties and the like.

Lyrin

I imagine there would an option to enable/disable the described functionality.  I'm not suggesting all parties would use this mechanic.