Curse

Rieselle · Sep 14, 2005, 02:31 PM // 14:31

I think the XP and loot system should be modified so that the highest reward goes to parties with half the maximum size, in HUMAN players.

(ie. 4 human players post ascension, 3 pre ascension, 2 pre yaks, 1 presearing.)

Rewards scale down progressivey as you go to max party size or solo.

Each additional henchman reduces the rewards in the current way of dividing it down, but not quite as drastically as they do now. (say, a henchman counts as half a person with respect to reducing the rewards.)

I think this arrangement will offer a reward for skillful teams which try to challenge themselves, as well as rewarding playing with others.

Also, if this was done, there would be less incentive to solo as a way of generating money, which means people who solo for the fun of it wont be the targets of jealousy by others, which means solo spots wont need to be modified in an anti-solo manner so much.

Loviatar · Sep 14, 2005, 02:40 PM // 14:40

NO

i get fun out of going through places BY MYSELF that i had to go very carefully through with a full group of henchies before.

i am doing the work of the full party so i get the drops.

and up to droks (1.5 only) armor i used collectors so i am not rich

Rieselle · Sep 15, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

You'd still get the same fun. And you'd be rewarded as much as a full party of 8 does. You'd just be getting rewarded less than a party of 4. I think that's plenty fair.

Rhunex · Sep 15, 2005, 03:29 AM // 03:29

Why do you need to reward teams which "challenge" themselves. The teams that do less than 8 are either doing it for self proclamation or they're doing it so they get more loot(like parties of 4 people going into sf for greens. Dieing more times, but getting more greens per person).

Also, you say soloing needs less of an incentive. Why? I solo because I want to have the chance to find the rare dwarven robe that always drops for someone else in thunderhead keep(of course, i dont solo the actual mission but the area around it) and I solo so I can get more gold for myself. I'm not rich. I don't have 100s of thousands of gold. I have 7k gold, and I'm trying to purchase 15k armor setS. I, for one, would hate it if they ruined the purpose of soloing. And soloing for fun? How long is someone going to go..."O wow...I just completely annihilated snake dance for the 95th time! All alone! YAY! I'm gonna do it again!" There's not much FUN in soloing other than the reward you get for your hard work.

And the devs aren't on a mission to destroy soloing like you seem to think when you say that solo spots won't need to be modified. Yes. They made the UW harder. It's suppose to be a team map. Which is why hench can't go there. You go to the map with a team, you play it, and have fun. Not solo it. Kryta is for soloing. Shiverpeaks is for soloing. Post/Pre Ascalon are for soloing. The devs aren't going to make all those areas harder because someone starts farming it for "uber 1337 white items"

Rieselle · Sep 15, 2005, 12:42 PM // 12:42

Well, unlike you guys, I dont particularly have a personal agenda here - I dont care about drops all that much.

I'm thinking about what makes a good game in an abstract sense. What sorts of things do we want to encourage? What sorts of things do we want to reward?

Now, we can probably all agree that we should reward success under Difficulty and Risk. So the fewer party members you have, the fewer henchmen you use, the greater the difficulty, the higher the risk, the greater the reward. We've got that now, so no problems.

I want to encourage risk-taking behaviour, because I believe games that require skill are more fun. (I've had friends disagree with me on this, so I accept that it's not a universal belief)

Now, the other thing I want to encourage is team play. Because playing with other people is inherently more risky and possibly more challenging (and requires more skills such as coordination and self-discipline to pull off.) So I think we should have some rewards to compensate people for making the effort to cooperate with others. So that goes the other way - the more party members you have, the better.

So those are my motivations. I guess the details can be played around with until everyone's satisfied. For example, would you be ok with it if there was an EQUAL reward in personal XP and loot chance, for party sizes 1-4, and then the rewards start dropping as the party gets larger?

Vangor · Sep 15, 2005, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Don't see how having more people is inherently more risky, less tends to be, since I do not believe there is not scalar difficulty depending on party size, in so far as I have seen, or else I would solo or run through with just a few friends every mission, as opposed to filling a few slots with henchmen.

Couldn't go with any enhancements to the reward based on party size because the game does not rely on equipment, experience, or groups in general. In DaoC, there are bonuses for grouping up, as well as the possibility of facing harder monsters, and doing so against groups, which adds additional camp and party experience, but this is because it is somewhat exp-centric, without these, it removes a lot of the want to group, since most classes are viable for soloing. In GW, all classes are, the missions stop enough people, and they at least need henchmen.

Rieselle · Sep 15, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Having more people is inherently more risky because playing with other people is less predictable than henchmen, or a special solo build vs. a well know group of monsters.

You often get remarks like "Henchmen are better than 50% of the humans out there." Which is pretty true - PUGs tend to be a very mixed bag. Even friends or guildmates can be a mixed bag... sometimes you have friends who are non gamers, beginners or generally just crap.

Therefore more people is more risky. Not "more difficult", just "more risky". As in there's greater unpredictability.