Post by eldur(retired) on Feb 6, 2009 15:53:59 GMT -5
I want to start by saying if this discussion turns into a flame war, or a bunch of finger pointing with comments about how much we're screwing up this PW during the beta phase, it will be deleted.
With that being said, I want to discuss some of the ways that encounters are being handled in terms of solo vs. parties.
First, the Challenge Rating of a monster is another way of describing the difficulty of the monster. Our normal monsters are tuned so that a solo player can defeat a few even challenge monsters prior to needing to recover in some way. Rest, healing potions, healing spells, etc.
I've heard some talk about a "group penalty".
I'd like to discuss why we as developers do not see our current system as having a "group penalty".
Let's say that a monster, which is tuned for one player, yields 100 xps. If two players fight this monster, in theory, they should be able to kill it twice as fast.
Not only does the monster die quicker, the monster will do half the damage of normal because it will typically only be able to attack one player at a time and it is only alive half of the time that it would've been against one player.
(eg, players do 2x damage, monster does .5 damage, thats a swing of 4:1 in terms of player damage vs. monster damage)
This means that what was once an even level challenge becomes much easier due to the synergy of two players working together.
Two players working together can actually battle longer than two players fighting individually, if they practice team work and focus on one enemy at a time.
With that being said, the challenge rating of the encounter drops quite a bit with 2 players.
Without any party multipliers in place, that monster will still give out its 100 xps, but it will be divided amongst the players. (So 50 xps each)
That to me is a fair distribution of xps for the encounter and it is what I would consider "no party penalty" for xps.
On this PW we are actually giving a significant boost to the monster xps. The number fluctuates as we tune, but there is no penalty in place, even though the encounter becomes much easier due to party synergies.
For example, in a party of two, that 100 xp monster will actually be worth more than 150 xps based on the forumlas used!
(The number is slightly higher than that, but it is subject to tuning, and no the forumla will not be made public as it is constantly being tuned)
So now you are fighting a monster that is much easier for a party of two, and that monster yields 50%+ more xps.
To take it one step further, in a party of 4, the monster is worth more than 250 xps which is then divided across the group.
Based on the way that things are set up now, fighting in a party will not incur "penalty" xps as the monsters total xp payout is increased by quite a large margin based on the party size.
I understand there is a school of thought that the monsters should give an additional 100% xp for each player in the party, but to me it seems way out of in terms of reward vs. challenge. (see above about how 2 players turn an encounter into almost 1/4th the challenge)
Just a reminder, the purpose of this thread is not to discuss ECL races and the challenges for those races. If you play an ECL race, your level is determined based off of your total xps and the encounters are tuned/being tuned to take that into effect in terms of difficulty.
The purpose is also not to discuss the soft xp caps in place that are constantly being tuned as well. We understand that they are causing some pain, and we are working to tune those as well, especially at the lower levels where the pain is greatest.
Thanks
With that being said, I want to discuss some of the ways that encounters are being handled in terms of solo vs. parties.
First, the Challenge Rating of a monster is another way of describing the difficulty of the monster. Our normal monsters are tuned so that a solo player can defeat a few even challenge monsters prior to needing to recover in some way. Rest, healing potions, healing spells, etc.
I've heard some talk about a "group penalty".
I'd like to discuss why we as developers do not see our current system as having a "group penalty".
Let's say that a monster, which is tuned for one player, yields 100 xps. If two players fight this monster, in theory, they should be able to kill it twice as fast.
Not only does the monster die quicker, the monster will do half the damage of normal because it will typically only be able to attack one player at a time and it is only alive half of the time that it would've been against one player.
(eg, players do 2x damage, monster does .5 damage, thats a swing of 4:1 in terms of player damage vs. monster damage)
This means that what was once an even level challenge becomes much easier due to the synergy of two players working together.
Two players working together can actually battle longer than two players fighting individually, if they practice team work and focus on one enemy at a time.
With that being said, the challenge rating of the encounter drops quite a bit with 2 players.
Without any party multipliers in place, that monster will still give out its 100 xps, but it will be divided amongst the players. (So 50 xps each)
That to me is a fair distribution of xps for the encounter and it is what I would consider "no party penalty" for xps.
On this PW we are actually giving a significant boost to the monster xps. The number fluctuates as we tune, but there is no penalty in place, even though the encounter becomes much easier due to party synergies.
For example, in a party of two, that 100 xp monster will actually be worth more than 150 xps based on the forumlas used!
(The number is slightly higher than that, but it is subject to tuning, and no the forumla will not be made public as it is constantly being tuned)
So now you are fighting a monster that is much easier for a party of two, and that monster yields 50%+ more xps.
To take it one step further, in a party of 4, the monster is worth more than 250 xps which is then divided across the group.
Based on the way that things are set up now, fighting in a party will not incur "penalty" xps as the monsters total xp payout is increased by quite a large margin based on the party size.
I understand there is a school of thought that the monsters should give an additional 100% xp for each player in the party, but to me it seems way out of in terms of reward vs. challenge. (see above about how 2 players turn an encounter into almost 1/4th the challenge)
Just a reminder, the purpose of this thread is not to discuss ECL races and the challenges for those races. If you play an ECL race, your level is determined based off of your total xps and the encounters are tuned/being tuned to take that into effect in terms of difficulty.
The purpose is also not to discuss the soft xp caps in place that are constantly being tuned as well. We understand that they are causing some pain, and we are working to tune those as well, especially at the lower levels where the pain is greatest.
Thanks