Kill History vs Bonus Experience

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Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Gorka » Fri Oct 21, 2016 5:34 am

No kill history is on today, and the only reason I noticed was the xp I am getting from my coliseum runs is almost doubled. Which lead me to question why Bonus Experience was implemented, when it would appear that perhaps the real problem was that kill history was just a bit too effective?

Which led me to wonder if kill history really had the desired effect on players that immortals felt we needed... as I notice that once an area's been hit, it's rarely re-hit and group ends after 1 run through a list of area's.

Looking back now that we have hind sight, was it a good move? Should the effect of kill history be reined in a bit... do we need bonus xp? Was bonus xp only implemented because of some whiners a few years ago... where are those whiners now? Do remorts get bonus xp on there bonus xp? How does it all fit together?

I'm interested to hear what people think about this.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Teron » Fri Oct 21, 2016 11:44 am

1. We don't hit other areas, because of aged exp, not kill history.
Basically, mobs have base exp, and when they are left alone for 4 hrs, they get +50% exp bonus.
Naturally, if the group is doing one continent, it won't come back for low exp.

If the group is doing all the areas on all continents, then it can come back to the bonus continent for almost full aged exp without kill history penalties.

2. Kill history penalties aren't that bad for big groups, because it takes 1-2 kills to make the exp suck. Doesn't matter for big mobs, because there are few of them. The only exception are probably the energy drakes in the positive plane.

For stab/blast groups, it does matter, though, because even if you do the cloud giant residents run for the first time, you end up getting hit with kill history by the time you are done. So you can't camp an area and get the same exp. This is why kill history was added: to make ppl switch areas.

3. Bonus exp was added, because people were getting levels much slower past 6x40, as shown by statistics. This led to people leaving at around 5-6x40.

Now, before bonus exp was added, we had immorts (JB) add 5-15% exp bonus to select areas (I don't remember/know, which).


If kill history did slow solo people down a lot, and that's why they left, I wouldn't know, but maybe immorts can pull stats on that?

4. Another problem with exp is the cap, in my opinion.

Mob exp is derived from mob hp/damage/hitroll/procs and gold/eq (negatively).
However, if a player kills a mob over his cap, he doesn't get full exp. Why is this a good idea?
If a small group kills a large mob, shouldn't they deserve all the exp for the mob? Why not?
I know nocap is placed to curb experienced people from morting 50mil mobs to 20levs, but why should others suffer, especially that 20s are already filtered from the nocap bonus?

Could Splork or JB explain, why must we have the exp cap, when immorts had to add bonus exp?

Thanks.

P.S. Apparently, of all active imms, only Splork knows the answers to these questions, and he isn't as active as he once was. So good luck to us hearing back from him.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *juggleblood* » Fri Oct 21, 2016 4:51 pm

I hesitate to discuss this topic too much with mortals...because it's such a fundamentally hot topic, at the core of player behavior and we could argue for months and never come to consensus. That's one of the reasons why there are so few us with the ability to manipulate xp values on a wide scale and why we touch it so infrequently.

So that being said, I think the existing system is quite effective and there are good reasons for each piece. Bonus xp was added to tweaked to make the xp chart numbers closer to game reality. It worked.

Zone xp bonuses are added to account for such things as, qwerks in the mob xp algorithm, and inherent danger of the area. The qwerks that I'm talking about is mostly in the lowbie range because the mobs are thick relative to the level of players that they are intended for and so the xp isn't enuff. Danger is for areas like formics, where at any time you can be killed mercilessily.

The xp cap among other things, helps us keep the large group format. If you notice, when nocap is on, a lot of the high level players prefer 2-3 man big stuff instead of joining groups.

Killhistory xp stuff does encourage people to explore more areas, instead of getting hyper-focused on power- gaming 1 or 2 zones. Another big advantage to this is discouraging players fighting over areas. By discouraging camping, we cut down on fights, and that's huge.

I'm not real keen on revamping areas at the moment. I'm still proud of how the newbie areas on Thordfalan play after my tweaks, but I don't plan expanding that approach. Also I'm not real keen on discussing zone xp bonuses.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *Splork* » Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:18 pm

I may not be as active but I check the website and the server daily...

Plenty of the older Immortals know the reasons behind the features mentioned here, not just me, as they were all heavily discussed, debated, and ultimately agreed upon.

Juggleblood nailed the reason behind bonus experience, I almost wonder if he checked his emails :lol:

We have been quite open about why these changes were made and the answers are most likely somewhere on these forums...

Many of the bonuses I pushed to have added to the game have been an attempt to move players to older areas such as zone/mob bonuses. Its much easier to add these bonuses and encourage movement than to try to rewrite hundreds or thousands of mob stats...

If I remember right, I don't believe bonus experience is capped?

I also think the time it takes for mobs to fully age should be much longer, that would encourage more movement of players...
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Teron » Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:21 am

Hey, Splork, nice to see you participating in this discussion :)
Pardon my pessimism, I've learned that response to my suggestions isn't as quick as from Teker, so I assume you ignore them .)

I understand that other exp changes actually work and agree with them.

I kind of see how caps make people group instead of solo, but is it really that beneficial to solo huge mobs for exp in nocap a lot? There's a handful of such mobs across the game, and it's not that fun to keep killing them over and over. Isn't a factor of killing bigger mobs faster with more people one of the main reasons ppl group?

What's more, when we have a monthly nocap bonus (with occasional astrology bonus), we can go solo or 2-3man to use it. However, my opinion is that once we get rid of caps, people will group all the same, rather than rely on solo or 2-3man efforts, because while soloing huge mobs may be fun once in a while to add variety, it also takes lots of effort and may not be that efficient in the long run.

At least I know not much will change in my killing patterns, because I don't really like soloing a lot, because it's almost as exhausting as leading, and mostly not that rewarding.

Maybe 9x40s would chime on why they prefer to solo nocap exp.

Also, you said that making mobs age much slower would help people move more. Could you please clarify your logic, because I have already said that it is the other way around: groups stop in their tracks, if they can't hit aged mobs. In fact, i recall a day, when we did all offlyme areas, and went chopping, because those were the areas with most aged mobs that we could hit.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *juggleblood* » Sat Oct 22, 2016 10:46 am

A few things here. One, I don't get the passive aggressive attitude toward Splork. Can we please try to be pleasant?

Second, xp bonuses were added, but you talk as tho xp was nerfed. Aged xp was an increase in xp, not a decrease. If it was removed, overall xp would go down, not up.

Next, I have been playing heavily for more than a year and I have not observed this phenomenon of the group grinding to a halt when the aged xp runs out. If anything, we run until we burn the leader out.

Regarding kill history xp, it seems Gorka is asking for it to be removed basically so he can double the xp he pulls out of the coliseum. Non-starter.

Regarding XP caps, I'll reiterate here that it helps maintain our group format of Open Xp where players are welcomed into groups. Small nocap groups tend to be greedy with their xp. But when the optimal strategy is to kill a lot of mobs in a steady fashion, we get these nice groups where everyone is welcome to join. The group xp bonus and group gem bonus help this as well. This format is the primary reason this game still exists.

Taron is at 8x39 and has banked more xp than any player in the history of the game. Gorka is at 5x40 and growing steadily, despite spending most of his time in coliseum. Some groups are achieving amazing xp. I believe something like 200-400 mil per hour sometimes? Personally I'm stoked with 100M per hour.

So before we pick apart the xp system, tell me what your objective here is? You want to be able to do 400 mil an hour all day, every day? And 6 months from then, will that be enough?
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Teron » Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:32 pm

1. First of all, I only stated how I feel about Splork's responses to my suggestions. I don't expect him to respond to all my posts, but in my/his case, 'monitoring site daily' and 'responding to suggestions' are different things.

While you, Teker and Breeze respond to them, I haven't seen Splork participate to my suggestion posts recently.

So I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive here. There, I added smilies to my intro, should look better :)

2. My goal as with other suggestions is to remove gameplay that causes dissatisfaction, because as it accumulates, the desire to play dwindles. I am not saying that I am quitting if robe sizes aren't doubled, but it means that I'll have to tolerate this stuff, and so will others.

I agree that other exp improvements have increased the exp a lot. Without them, it'd be a drag to get to 9x40.

As for nocap, the reasons to discuss this are the following:
- exp is a major component of the game, so anything that improves it will improve the game for players noticeably
- the inability to get all the exp you deserve for the mob is unfair and reduces the enjoyment of the game. By opening the cap, we allow people to get the exp they worked on.

So I simply try to provide constructive feedback on the parts of the game that could be improved, if within certain limits,

3. Well, I do remember making choices between hitting other continents or calling it a day, and it's usually whether we have enough damage/heal mana to kill areas non-bonus continent fast enough. When I say, 'it's over', it could be for any reasons, not because I'm burned out.

For example, on an Island day with a small group, I usually do dinos+ud2+ss mobs+moria, and that's it. More melees/blasters would mean orc mines + ettins, and maybe even positive planes. Even more people - then we do dweb/hades/negative planes/mordi/draconian lair. With small groups, though, it's not worth venturing outside the bonus continent, because it already goes slow and hard and hitting areas w/o continent bonus exp would make the exp/hr average at best.

Increasing age time significantly wouldn't help us move anywhere. In a situation, when we've done all the good exp areas, it'd just reduce the exp in the areas we've already done - but we rarely even get this far, and if we do, we'd just stop there or go chopping, as we do when we run out of areas on bonus continents for small groups.

Now, whether we do bigger areas also depends on whether we'll cap harder on those, even if we practically *can* kill them with a few 9x40s. Nocap would allow leaders to pick areas by group ability, not by whether ppl cap a lot, even though it's a good measure on its own.

4. Well, I think that people would still run groups with enough people to kill mobs continuously, rather than having to regen. They still need gems, so it'd open the door to newbies, especially that there are at least two leaders, who actively recruit new players to groups.

Perhaps we could test this for a month or two and see what happens. (Ironically, 2 months is about what it'd take for me to finish my non-leading stuff.)

The key here is that people would realize that it's a long change and they can get more exp together, as usual, rather than alone or 2man.

5. In my case, while I do have lots of exp, I still lead/tank for the game experience of it, not just for exp. However, I still try to run ok exp groups, because being suboptimal exp annoys me - you know that :)

It's precisely the thought that as tight groups we can do dimetrodons, cap, and not receive full exp on them, is what prompted me to bring up the nocap issue.

Right now, I'm in an eq phase to beat the 9x40 score and to get gold for the avatar shop, but once I'm done with that and with the remort, I should be back to actively leading exp.

However, it's not about me per ce. I want groups to be freeer in picking mobs they want to hit, rather than fretting, whether they capped or not, and by how much overcap exp they haven't received. Maybe I'm the only leader, who frets about these things, because I've been led to mobs, where we capped wildly and got drained, but it's something I'd want to improve.

But just as with anything,it's more about making the game more enjoyable, really.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *juggleblood* » Sat Oct 22, 2016 3:41 pm

Teron wrote:- the inability to get all the exp you deserve for the mob is unfair and reduces the enjoyment of the game. By opening the cap, we allow people to get the exp they worked on.


Oh come on. Are you serious? What exactly determines the "xp deserved for mob"? The xp algorithm is a rough guide at best, there is no objective measurement of how much xp is deserved for any given mob. This is another reason why a cap is needed. If there were no cap, then the entire game would change. People would switch to only killing outlier mobs with high xp values and then would proceed to complain about why all mobs aren't the same.

If we made 1 mob with super XP that was easy to kill, players would kill only that mob and complain about all the rest. If you don't believe me, remember back to when players could simply group up to kill Xerxes over and over again. There were plenty of groups, but they were killing only 1 mob. I am not exaggerating.

Ending the xp caps is a non-starter in my opinion. They are fundamental to the game.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *juggleblood* » Sat Oct 22, 2016 3:58 pm

Double posting here, cuz I forgot to mention that xp caps help in mob design, in that we can give the builders a freer hand to design the mobs however they want, knowing that they can't game the xp algorithm too much because there's an xp cap. If caps were removed someone would suddenly need to start nerfing outlier mobs, and we know how the players love those kind of changes. Won't be a lot of imms volunteering for that job.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Gorka » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:04 pm

Interesting discussion... it's a difficult and emotional topic.

The reason for my post was because I was amused by the paradox. We have systems in the game that are nerfing xp (kill history and aging, nerf xp from repeating area runs), and we have other systems in the game that are adding xp (bonus xp). It just struck me as being conflicted.

Things are often done in the mud to "encourage" players or "force" players to behave in certain manners. I think that point has been clearly suggested here as a reason for why immortals change things. Speaking for myself though, I tend to ignore pressures people put me under to behave in a controlled way, like if the coliseum got changed and I couldn't get my trickle xp during my working week, I would probably quit sloth within a few weeks. It would be interesting to know how many players actually feel that game changes have forced them into new areas. I figured players do things once, work out whats best and just do that over and over... Players will do whats best for them, and I don't think they show interest in anything that is second best, unless first best is taken. I think when the system was new, players probably had a look around at other areas for what worked in the first week, but since that first week, I bet they have been rinsing and repeating there runs ever since. Like how effective do you really think that change has been? Maybe I am just more resistant than others.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *juggleblood* » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:41 pm

Yeah, we're guilty of trying to force a certain vision for the game on you. Our vision is that the optimal strategy in the game is to maximize cooperation with other players. Part of that vision is the large, open XP group, so we reward leaders and tanks with extra xp to incentivize/acknowledge that need. We shouldn't need to force anyone into our vision. They either find something they like about the game as we've structured it and stay, or they don't.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *Splork* » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:58 pm

1. First of all, I only stated how I feel about Splork's responses to my suggestions. I don't expect him to respond to all my posts, but in my/his case, 'monitoring site daily' and 'responding to suggestions' are different things.

While you, Teker and Breeze respond to them, I haven't seen Splork participate to my suggestion posts recently.

So I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive here. There, I added smilies to my intro, should look better


I normally stay out of any posts regarding Jezer or Taron and all of their alts, even when baited...

I am quite sure everyone already knows we do not see eye to eye and that's quite obvious by their posts and continued in-game comments.

Time to bow out, two posts in this thread is too many from me:)
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Teron » Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:15 am

JB,

1. I'm almost sure algorithm works okay for melee attacks, unless attempted to get tricked with high damage/low hitroll, but with the new AC engine it almost doesn't happen, really.

With mobhp and melee attacks, the progression is linear: mob hp/damage/hit are to be dealt with players' mana/damage. The thicker the mob, the harder it is to kill it - it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

Let me give you a few other examples.

a) You want to kill Aalkrost for the ring.

You make corpses, animate undeads, buff them, spend all your mana to kill him, and he gives you 13mil exp. Except your cap is 8mil, so that's what you get.

Aalkrost isn't an easy mob that anyone would farm for exp, it's an eq mob. It is also above your cap, but you only get your cap. It could be any eq mob you can solo: gildervine in arboretum, the chaos elemental, the balor demon or any other large mob you can solo with mare.

How is this fair?

b) A group of 5 comes to kill ankylosauruses.

They blast them to pieces, and since it's an Island day, they go to kill dimetrodons.
But dimetrodons are thick, and they spend time chopping the dinos.

Thanks to the age and bonuses, dimetrodon gives you 11mil, but your cap is 8mil.

So, while you spend so much time and mana on a thick mob, you don't get the full exp for it.

c) A group of 10 comes to Mount Mordin for exp.
They clean the area, cap slightly on wolves, and go to the avatar of Ithaqua.
It's a thick mob, so it takes more time and mana to kill it.
They kill him, and you get 15mil exp, but really, you only get 8mil.

An avatar of Ithaqua and a white wolf are different mobs, yet you get the same exp for them.

These mobs are not what you'd cycle for nocap exp - they take effort to kill, but you don't get full exp for them.

Why is it acceptable?

2. I understand that nocap would make people switch to lower effort/high exp mobs, but they already do kill similar mobs within their caps.
Even if there are some outliers, I'm sure removing caps would yield more exp, than we'd lose if you fix the outliers.

But the net result would still be more exp, obviously. Isn't more exp what the aged exp, bonus exp, continental/extra bonuses are made for?

Xerxes was definitely an outlier, because it provided astronomical exp for the effort. It was 400-600mil, irrc, so everyone got lots of exp from chopping for 2 minutes.

This is very different from a standard group of 7 killing 30-50mil mobs offlyme.

What if you add 1mil to the cap for every group member? Practically, that'd remove caps in groups with 5-10 people. Clearly that'd encourage people to group for nocap exp.

3. As I said earlier, group cap is a good estimate, whether the group can handle the area well and not spend the mana quickly.

Without nocap, we'd get maybe 5-15% more exp from the same mobs, rather than start doing 50-60mil mobs 2-3man - I assume Lyme will still have nocap because of chop mobs.

4. You say that no one wants to nerf outlier mobs, but what about being an immort that'd remove exp caps? Surely that'd be awesome.

However, nothing is just joy, so the same immort would have to nerf the outlier mobs to make experience even. Such is life, really, anyone who wouldn't expect that would be naive.

5. Can you give me examples of mobs, which were made above cap to accomodate an immortal's idea?

Gorka,

From what I remember, aged exp was *added*, it wasn't a nerf.

Splork,

No one is trying to bait you. I try to get a discussion going about my suggestions, so we can find a solution that solves a problem. Especially that you make major decisions, no agreement or even a discussion with you means nothing will change.

You said:
Splork wrote:I also think the time it takes for mobs to fully age should be much longer, that would encourage more movement of players...

but then you don't explain this logic that contradicts what I'm seeing in the game: groups already don't kill the same areas in the same day, unless it's Lyme.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby Gorka » Sun Oct 23, 2016 4:54 am

*juggleblood* wrote:Yeah, we're guilty of trying to force a certain vision for the game on you. Our vision is that the optimal strategy in the game is to maximize cooperation with other players. Part of that vision is the large, open XP group, so we reward leaders and tanks with extra xp to incentivize/acknowledge that need.


I think that's a noble vision JB... How do you achieve that? Has it been achieved?

I still don't understand why sloth has all these great systems in game that fight against each other... We have astrology, daily bonuses, bonus xp fighting against caps and kill history and age xp for people who sit in areas. Has the implementation of the vision become a bit confused? If I wanted to encourage group xp, I have to agree with Taron that changes to caps would be the way to do it. It's pretty clear that for grouping the idea of caps and bonus xp are kind of in direct conflict... It strikes me a bit like building a fast car, but leaving the hand break a little bit on. It's just an observation, sorry if that annoys you.

I didn't mean to get anyone's back up... It's a bit disappointing it always ends in some stupid war, but sometimes the questions need to be asked.
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Re: Kill History vs Bonus Experience

Postby *Splork* » Sun Oct 23, 2016 10:54 am

Splork,

No one is trying to bait you. I try to get a discussion going about my suggestions, so we can find a solution that solves a problem. Especially that you make major decisions, no agreement or even a discussion with you means nothing will change.


Yeah, whatever...

I will say this one last time, I do not make (nor did Jake)all of the major decisions for Sloth and never actually did, contrary to your beliefs. I know it's fun to blame and bitch about me but that is a fact. I am part of a team which discusses major changes and comes up with a goal and then a plan to implement it. There was a time where I would fight like hell for my point of view to be heard but if others ultimately did not agree, it did not go in-game.

Immortals run things past all of us because we have 25 years of experience to draw from. I don't even think I've vetoed anything in years, I now simply tell people what I think will happen and say go for it and good luck :mrgreen:

If an Immortal wants to bring any of the ideas they see here to our admin team, they are free to do so and it would be discussed.

Enjoy your thread,
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