What is a fair formula to calculate NPC combat exp rewards?

[Amberlee]

What Uther said.

[Strider]

Doesn't Genesis have bigger issues atm then to totally change the reward system for combat ?

Arguably.

It is also a difficult change to design in a way that would be perceived as fair, represents a significant investment of effort and is mostly an under-the-hood and therefore most likely an under-appreciated change.

However, it is a project designed to be a system change (as opposed to many individual recodes), scaled to be deliverable with the current team, that would far-reaching impact on playability and play style, and addresses portions of both major game issues and repeated player complaints.

[Padraig]

make the npcs scale according to the size/avg size/mortal title size/whatever size of the attacker(s).

Seriously. This would be amazing and open the rest of the game up to teams rather than a couple select areas. Please think about it.

[gorboth]

Another option is to instance some of the areas. We already did develop the technology for this and use it in the Tutorial.

G.

[Arcon]

Another option is to instance some of the areas. We already did develop the technology for this and use it in the Tutorial.

G.

Wouldn't that just make people meet eachother even less?

[Draugor]

I have to agree with Arcon, that would make for turning the game even more anti-social :/

[Rhaegar]

Another option is to instance some of the areas. We already did develop the technology for this and use it in the Tutorial.

G.

Wouldn't that just make people meet eachother even less?

Not if you make instances un-soloable perhaps. Sure, you would only meet your teammates there, but it's better than nothing and it's not like PvP is what keeps this game going right now.

I think that adding some epic instances (or turning some areas into them, like caves in Trollshaws which aren't visited so much anymore) where you would get to fight elite mobs based on your team composition, where you would get nice xp and awesome loot could be great. Especially if there would be instances customized for various levels, some that you could do in the adept-veteran range for example, providing challenge for those levels and good loot for it but being of no real interest and challenge for much higher levels. There could also be truly hardcore instances to form end-game content, which would require a cooperation of at least five myth-sized players to tackle for example.

This idea could actually bring the game closer to the current popular MMO's (especially those offering PvE servers, but that's a start) which could help bond the community by having to set up scheduled raids and what not.

Perhaps you could even make it so that some of the best eq is actually found in instances designed for people in lower size range, with bigger chars being unable to enter there. This would give some more purpose to smaller players and a way to contribute to their guild even without being able to participate in PvP against myths (if such things would happen).

Arguments for instances not necessarily killing social part of the game:
- if instances are made so that you can't enter them alone, ever, this would make people actively seek out others
- if the best gear could only be obtained in ultra-hard instances requiring literally 5+ myths to even have a shot at them it would force people to schedule meetings
- if you add great gear to instances that can only be accessed by smaller players, they would have to meet up too and they could provide for others

This way, you could even not participate in the grind wars to grow, you could stay small and happy, getting gear for the big guys as they would need it to do their end-game instances.

To me, it would open a whole new level of socializing and community bonding.

Imagine this situation:

Several myths meet up:
"Hey guys, let's raid this uber instance, we could really use the armour of allmightyness to then tackle the super-uber instance for sword of slaying everything!"
"Sure, but there's this really tough boss there along the way and having the spear of lightning would help a great deal, unfortunately it's in the veteran-rising hero instance."
"True, let's find some rising heroes and offer them gear and plats in exchange for the spear!"

[Laurel]

Several myths meet up:
"Hey guys, let's raid this uber instance, we could really use the armour of allmightyness to then tackle the super-uber instance for sword of slaying everything!"
"Sure, but there's this really tough boss there along the way and having the spear of lightning would help a great deal, unfortunately it's in the veteran-rising hero instance."
"True, let's find some rising heroes and offer them gear and plats in exchange for the spear!"

Transcription to current Gen:

2 friends meet up on MSN/Skype/other
"Hey - do we want to play some Gen today?"
"Oke, but rather lowbies than biggies."
"Ok, let's login our myths, get some gear from instance x first."
"That instance needs 4 myths, so let's double-log to make sure we make it."
"Why not, but later double-log our lowbies and let's repeatedly grind instance y for fun."

[Rhaegar]

Several myths meet up:
"Hey guys, let's raid this uber instance, we could really use the armour of allmightyness to then tackle the super-uber instance for sword of slaying everything!"
"Sure, but there's this really tough boss there along the way and having the spear of lightning would help a great deal, unfortunately it's in the veteran-rising hero instance."
"True, let's find some rising heroes and offer them gear and plats in exchange for the spear!"

Transcription to current Gen:

2 friends meet up on MSN/Skype/other
"Hey - do we want to play some Gen today?"
"Oke, but rather lowbies than biggies."
"Ok, let's login our myths, get some gear from instance x first."
"That instance needs 4 myths, so let's double-log to make sure we make it."
"Why not, but later double-log our lowbies and let's repeatedly grind instance y for fun."

Do you really think that people would go such lengths as setting up proxy connections and what not (since you can't double-log into Genesis from one IP any more) to do that? Also, having to level up new chars and use them for extended periods of time to obtain gear would put your myth chars out of the grind race.

Why always assume that everyone is going to cheat and lie all the time? Put some trust into people.

And I don't think that people contacting each other outside of the game to schedule things to happen in the game is bad. If our playerbase would be larger it would be nice to see guild forums and stuff pop up.

[Greneth]

I like the idea, but laurel isn't entirely wrong either. But this is never going to be a perfect world doesn't matter whether its a mud game, WoW, Call of Duty or Checkers. Your always going to have those who cant help but cheat.