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Increasing group bashing experience

TeshaTesha
in The Golden Dais of Creation
Hi!

I noticed everywhere that people were enjoying group bashing a lot more than solo when it was bugged, because it was just more beneficial, and much more fun. There were tons and tons of bashing trips with larger groups (not only event-related) and a lot of the lower level players (maybe more likely to be newbies?) seemed to enjoy it the most. Before, I think it was kill experience / total levels of people, and your experience was your level percentage of the total levels. This was much less rewarding than larger groups and punished people for doing something social, which I always thought was odd. 

While I realize the group bashing experience was bugged (I'm not sure if it was a stacking +25% from everyone who had IRE elite or just a flat 25% if someone had it), the disappointment at the thought of it reverting to the old way of bashing being better if it's done in a much more tedious method says a lot. 

Would there be any possibility of looking into increasing group bashing experience? Maybe add +5% experience per group member, so the split isn't so bad. Or something like that, I hate math. What I did like seeing was people excited to group up and do things together, and it would be great to have that back - even if it isn't quite to the same extent as before.

 i'm a rebel

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Comments

  • ValariaValaria
    edited June 2014

    group experience bashing is one of factor of my active return and the reason i purchased credits to show my appreciation that gaming experience is better than what it was. Now this factor is gone, that experience is dampened and end up somewhat disappointing with that change. By the way,I like to be social basher than to beanti-social basher.


    2015/01/12
Tecton, the Terraformer has bestowed His divine favour upon you. It will last for approximately 1 Achaean month.
  • ValariaValaria

    we love to interact with you more, Jhui... :(


    2015/01/12
Tecton, the Terraformer has bestowed His divine favour upon you. It will last for approximately 1 Achaean month.
  • AtalkezAtalkez
    Would totally love this. Would make hunting so much more enjoyable.  Being able to hunt things you normally dont, especially for people like me who don't like to hunt anyway, with your friends is all sorts of win in my book.





    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • CaladbolgCaladbolg Campbell County TN
    Just for input, because im bored and slightly intoxicated.

    Group bashing experience is normally so terrible that I don't even try it. I think I tried it with bloodsworn like twice.. but that ended up in peeveepee in like 5 seconds.

    But it is much more enjoyable to talk to someone while your mindlessly cleaving your way through a horde of ashtani Mhaldorks Hashanites Mobs

  • AegothAegoth

    making group bashing > solo bashing is a great idea. The only thing I would caution if that it needs to represent a challenge and not just be "lol roaming bash squad tearing up moghedu". Incentivize and strongly encourage group bash over solo bash, because the community is what makes Achaea great!

  • KinilanKinilan

    Extra experience, no gold and no shards. You can hit above your level in a group, survive tougher things and get more experience that way plus the group bonus, or whatever you want to call it. Or do your usual things but faster and help someone else along but you get no gold and no shards in a group. Maybe throw in a reduced crit rate for good measure.

  • DaslinDaslin The place with the oxygen
    Pfft. I have fights over grabbing gold, but in the end, everyone comes out even (in the groups I hunt with) so it doesn't matter on gold. Just group hunting would be nice, iiiif you got exp that made it worth it.

  • JulesJules

    I'm trying to figure out how you socialize while bashing.  

  • VaetraVaetra

    I don't think it's necessarily IC socialization, but really any chatter whether IC or OOC REALLY goes a long way in helping alleviate the monotony of bashing.

  • JulesJules

    I'm to busy typing "DSL" :P because even if I were better at scripting, you gotta type DSL or grow leaves, right?  

  • JulesJules

    I do like some version of this idea, mainly so squishy level 80 people like me can take something fairly big down if needed (some quests are like this).  I don't need to steal poor Yudhi's wings or anything.  

  • SantarSantar
    edited June 2014
    Kinilan said:

    People were very happy because it was over the top. If people aren't sharing their gold in a group hunt you really need to find some better people to hunt with.

    I don't know exactly what was messed up in the formula, but from anecdotal evidence, most of the people bashing in mid-sized groups seemed to be gaining experience many times faster than they would have solo bashing. This is even more true for people that were lower level bashing with high level people. I'm fine with group bashing being as effective as solo bashing for individual gain, but the bug was clearly imbalancing the game. Group bashing should be about as effective as solo bashing ideally, not -more- effective, and especially not as over the top as it was.

    Jules said:

    I'm trying to figure out how you socialize while bashing.  

    Socializing while bashing is about the same as socializing while doing nothing. Basically one person leads and the rest of the party AFKs/chats on skype with their auto-basher running. The reason people enjoy socializing while bashing is because bashing is an otherwise tedious activity that takes up just enough of their concentration that they can't really do anything else. Thus, people engage in idle socialization that they otherwise wouldn't.

    image

  • JulesJules

    Yeah, I don't like that idea, and it's hard for me to understand how people would be socializing much without doing that.  

  • SantarSantar
    edited June 2014

    I'd compare it to talking to someone while in a car going someplace. You're not talking because you want to talk to the person. You're just talking to pass the time until you get where you want to go. Driving a car = Bashing in a nutshell.


    Sometimes driving can be fun - If you're going someplace new, driving a new type of car, seeing new roads and environment, or whatever else. But the vast majority of the time you're just driving to the same old place time and time again.

    image

  • JulesJules
    Right, and here, being a passenger is very emphatically against one of the biggest rules in the game.  It's only legal if you're at least back seat driving!

  • VaetraVaetra

    Santar said:

    I don't know exactly what was messed up in the formula, but from anecdotal evidence, I'd say a mid-sized group was gaining experience at probably 3-8x the rate of a person just solo bashing. I'm fine with group bashing being as effective as solo bashing for individual gain, but the bug was clearly imbalancing the game.

    I agree the bug was causing imbalance. My experience was close to 4 or 5x, and I agree it was far too much. However I don't think 1.1x or 1.2x rate would be over the top. As it stands solo bashing, for me at least, is about 4x more effective than with those same groups were previously. So the experience loss per time spent bashing actually makes me not want to join a group whatsoever.

    I think I may have a unique perspective as I only recently started playing. I solo bashed to 79, before being invited to a group hunt, I was really excited not even for the exp but more-so that I got to interact with other players, the experience bug, which I wasn't even aware of until after-the-fact was just the overpowered icing on the cake. The fixing of the bug has completely dissuaded me from wanting to hunt in groups again, and therefore that recently found camaraderie is now again absent.

  • EleisonEleison

    Agreed with all above. Heavily seconded, thirded and fourthed. I never quite understood why we wanted to encourage people to (a) hunt alone or (b) go off, uncontactable, to a new continent to hunt. The realms feel rather small at a lot of times, so anything that encourages interaction, communication and conflict is a huge positive to me. Looking forward to some new hunting changes!

    Few points of my own (which probably overlap):

    - I think that solo bashing should be at a significant disadvantage to group bashing - both mechanics and experience wise. If you want to "go it alone" against dastardly creatures, by all means, do so... but this is meant to be an immersive multiplayer environment, and let's be honest, hitting the same bashing macro (or DOR) on your own, and talking and coordinating with no one, doesn't really cut it. It seems to me that bashing alone just isolates people and diminishes the richness of this world.

    - for the first time, I enjoyed hunting new and scary areas. Doing so generated a lot of conflict, aborted hunting trips, deaths, attacks, and the like... something that, for once, was not Shrine or City-related. Would be interesting to have more "factional" hunting areas that were defendable, that certain sides could align themselves with...

    - it encouraged me to get to know city members, with a shared goal to pursue. The Reckoning no doubt helps, but a big part of it was the potential to talk and gain together, coordinating and learning without thinking to yourself "I could be getting more experience doing this solo".

    - encouraged me to buy credits (shield + mace) to hunt better and stay alive longer... would never have done this as I would have zzZzzzz hunting solo, and given up a long time ago.

    In terms of the downside - I think the experience was high, particularly with *super* large groups. These groups require no strategy, and involve little risk. To remedy:

    (1) lower experience to 30-50% of the bugged amount; and

    (2) employ diminishing returns for super groups (e.g. after the third or fourth group member)

  • EleisonEleison

    Saeva said:

    I'm not sure I understand why simply having a positive incentive for group bashing means you should penalize solo bashing.

    There are people and character types who are just going to want to go it alone and I'm not sure why having perks for group bashing means there should suddenly be penalties for solo bashing.

    I think keeping solo bashing the same as it was doesn't seem unreasonable, personally. While also having group bashing have a perk or at the very least, no penalty. That's nice too, because yeah... closer communities and safety and for the children!

    I have this beautiful cake in my hands and I'd like to eat it too.


    It's all marketing if you call it a "penalty" or a "bonus" - and the end of the day, it's all relative: it's the ratio of solo to group experience that determines whether you hunt in a group or not. The absolute levels come into your "should I even bother hunting" equation, but not into your "should I hunt as a group or alone" equation.

    Not calling for solo to be nerfed, simply that the rewards of group bashing should be at least on par, if not better :)

  • TohranTohran Everywhere you don't want to be. I'm the anti-Visa!
    Sarapis said:

    Here are some of my thoughts:

    1. While having group bashing be slightly more efficient than individual bashing in terms of xp gain is doable and probably desirable, the difference can't be too large or people will look at it as being penalized for solo bashing....and the reality is that we don't have thousands of players online to look for a group with. If you get 100 xp for bashing an orc on your own, you're certainly not going to get that some 100xp for bashing it with another person. Giving you and a friend 50xp would be the same as solo bashing except for the fact that you run through the supply of denizens more quickly in a group, and a group is usually less efficient in damage dealt per player level than a solo basher is. The right answer is probably somewhere between 60-70 (20% to 40% more total xp given out than when solo bashing). 

    2. Under the current system, we're very unlikely to want to scale non-xp rewards for bashing (gold, Talisman pieces, etc) up. Too much potential for inflation.

    3. One thing we want to avoid is creating a situation where people can essentially power-level other people by just dragging a much lower-level person around. We may end up moving to a system whereby in a group xp isn't split up by proportional level within the group, but by proportional damage done to the thing you've just killed. It's not perfect, but means you have to actually risk being hit by the mob to get xp, which goes a long ways to alleviating the power-leveling concern.

    4. Frankly, the real problems with bashing all stem from the fact that I made this a fundamentally PvP-focused game when initially developing it, since virtually all other MUDs (and now MMOs) are PvE focused.

    • The ability to heal damage so quickly.

    • The lack of relative positioning within a room (no ability for a mage to stand behind a knight, safe until the monster gets through the knight).

    • The affliction-focused combat system.

    • The fact that our classes are designed to be very self-sufficient in combat compared to the tank/healer/dps "holy trinity" of roles in most of the popular MMOs, are all no bueno for good denizen combat. 

      Substantially changing any of those four factors is not really practical. In fact, changing any of those four would require changes so sweeping it'd mean substantially altering or replacing all or almost all the skills in the game.  

    But, I think you guys knew that already. Pretty sure none of you are playing Achaea saying to yourself, "I'm an Achaean because I want the world's best PvE experience."

    What we can do is take small steps towards adding a little extra depth (though I hesitate to use that word around PvE combat) to this aspect of the game. Happily, it's such a basic system now that even small steps will be big differences at first. 

    Biggest issue with the whole thought is the bolded. Dragons and crazy crit rates go hand in hand. Dragons also tend to be the ones leading. Unless you are leaning on your bashing macro the whole time, you have a rather limited opportunity to hit the mob with a dragon (or more) in your group. Meaning the lesserform folk don't get a shot at the XP.


  • TohranTohran Everywhere you don't want to be. I'm the anti-Visa!

    Not what I meant. Let's use a practical example for clarity's sake.

    I'm with @Rangor‌, and @Valaria‌ in Annwyn, hunting Sidhe.  Rangor is leading and as such, is the first to see any mob in the room. Rangor gets the first hit on a knight, getting a Crushing Critical, killing the mob. Val and myself get 0 from it because we didn't hit, which seems fair enough. Next room, he hits the Lady in the room, gets Obliterating Critical (It's rangor, this is really what happens) and kills it. Again, 0 for Val and myself. Only way I can pre-empt this is to lean on a bashing macro and hope I get a hit before the dragon does.

    A dragon with any kind of crit pendant, can kill mobs with one hit very reliably. If what you have suggested, @Sarapis‌ is what happens, group hunters will intentionally exclude dragons so everyone else has a chance at XP. Which seems pretty much against what we're aiming for here.


  • DraekarDraekar
    Sarapis said:

    So....in other words the Dragon is doing the bashing and you're just there getting free xp? That sounds, unless I misunderstand, like exactly what we don't want to reward.

    This is my experience of group bashing. In their defense though, the little leeches getting a free ride to dragon are always the chatty ones so I guess that is the social side we should be rewarding?

This discussion has been closed.