The other problem with the Bravery Bonus

This thread is NOT about the prem/vip issue involving the bravery bonus. Please keep discussion in thread about the topic of the thread and not this issue which has pleny of good threads to discuss it in already.

The bravery bonus is meant to encourage a wider variety of quests being run and more challenge being taken on by people leveling their toons and in particular TRs. However, the design of the bonus actually will discourage some quests from being run.

First lets explain how this bonus works (at least according to my understanding)...

• Everything about this bonus is about the first time you run a quest on a toon (per TR).
• The first time you run a quest on a toon if it is on elite you gain a +20% static bonus plus a variable bonus based upon your bravery counter of 10% per elite completion and 5% per hard completion. This variable bonus caps out at 50% and the bonus from hard and elite do not stack. This means if you have 5 hard and 3 elite runs on your counter (seen on the xp screen upon entering a quest that you would gain this bonus in) your variable bonus would be 30% from your elite completions and the hard completions would give you no more of a bonus (25% is less then 30%).
• Upon completing a quest for the first time (period) on elite your elite and hard counter goes up by one (five max).
• Upon completing a quest for the first time (period) on hard your hard counter goes up by one (five max) AND your elite counter is reset to zero.
• The first time you run a quest on a toon if it is on hard it works similar to elite, but I am unsure exactly what the static bonus is if any.
• You gain no bravery bonus for running a quest on c/n/solo for the first time (period).
• Upon completing a quest for the first time (period) on casual or normal (solo is unknown) your elite and hard bravery counters are reset to zero.
• There is also the detail that you only get the bravery bonus if you complete the quest within two levels of the normal quest difficulty (in other words you can not overlevel the elite difficulty and can overlevel the hard difficulty by one level). It is unknown if overleveling effects the status of your counters (increasing or decreasing them

What this means is that you only gain this bonus and increase (or decrease) your counters based upon the first run your toon does of any particular quest per TR. So farming runs of E/N/N/N...would gain you your first time counter, not adversly affect your counter in any way, and gain you the first time bravery xp bonus for that quest on that first elite run.

However, if you ever run a quest for the first time on c/n you not only do not get any bravery bonus for running that partiuclar quest, but you also reset your counters for future bravery bonuses.

Clearly this reseting of the counters would be very counter productive for xp purposes and those who wish to retain it at a high level will do everything they can to avoid c/n/(and in all likelyhood) hard first time runs of quests.

As most people know quests are NOT created equal for either normal->elite scaling or same level same difficulty challenge. This does mean that certain quests will be avoided while leveling even more then they are currently because c/n runs of them will actually hurt your future xp. Of course, some of these quests will still be run but overleveled (which is counter productive to the entire point of this change) to a point to largely make them trivial.

Quests that are likely to be avoided more then before due to this penalty while in a level appropriate range include.

• Von 6
• DQ
• Enter the Kobold
• Stealer of Souls
• Delerium 2
• The Dreaming Dark (final quest)
• Amarath (most of it)
• Gianthold Tor (and Reaver's Fate because of this)
• Twillight Forge
• Shroud
• VoD
• Hound

I am sure there are others that will make this list, but those ar ethe ones that stand out in my mind as real meat grinders for at level toons on elite. The high level ones probably will be run on normal some once people have knocked out their elite first time completions on their last farmable high level quests (DD/IQ/Vale/monastary), but the further delay in doing many of these will mean much less runs of them due to raid timers, time to cap, and possible TR upon hitting 20.

We had a long discussion about this in Guild last night and are leaning towards the fact the Bonus probably would be used in spurts.

Run the Four Depths Series Quest to build the bonus than Run Delera's, Run four/five random simple quests than run Cult of the Six. Run for Random Quests than Necropolis II.

interesting point you've raised. first up i believe this system was born from a desire to make TRing more of a challenge and less of a grind, the initial idea being to bar TR's from doing quests on normal full stop. naturally that idea is not practical in any way but it did get dev attention and the bravery bonus is the result of their brain storming.

now, lets assume for non-TR's the bravery bonus is a nice to have, but not that important. shrouds would still get run on normal but chains of easier quests may be done on hard/elite for an extra boost in levelling. as we can already hit cap at a decent rate those extra tough quests will be worth breaking your bonus for.

now, lets assume a TR planning to max out the new exp will be suitably geared for their run back to cap. we know well geared and well played toons can do those quests on elite. we know most of the time is spent acquiring rare/raid gear to be able to run those quests on elite. so in theory when the TR hits the right level and gets to pull the perfect gear out of their TR bank that should be ready to run shroud on elite and amrath elite just as they were able to in their last life.

so my gut feeling is the true power gamers are going to benefit a lot from this and will have a real reason to make their trip back to lvl20 a difficult trip, with the reward of it being a shorter trip. casual TR players will still be able to get there the long way and will probably put more effort into planning the right gear for their next TR. non-TR characters wont need to worry too much about loosing the bravery bonus as its quite an easy trip to lvl20 as it is.

its an interesting thought and i'm sure some quests will wind up on a "do not do until over level". i believe there is no penalty from attempting a quest and failing, just as your first time bonus isnt lost for a failed run. so those players trying to maintain their bravery bonus could keep trying those tough quests every level until they nail it. interesting thought but i dont think its going to be too detrimental to the game.

Cyr, so you are saying that those quests will be avoided because they are too difficult to complete the first time on Elite at or near level? I would disagree with that, as the bonus is not reset by attempting to complete the quest and failing. It is only reset by actually completing a quest on C/N. I would say this system would even encourage the running of less popular XP quests, as those quests can be used to "prep" your XP bonus for more rewarding quests.

yes, people will try to skip some quests in order to wait till they can do on elite (or at least hard) so they can keep the bonus going. However, that being said those type of things are done already. On a Tr there are many quests that people barely run, or only run once now. There is no way to make a tr want to run everything as often. In one way you may see people running these quests on higher difficulty where they normally would never run at those difficulties. You where a wf last life and now need a new dt armor. So you would not be able to get away with running kobold on casual or normal and would have to get a good group and run on at least hard. I think people will do quests on higher difficulties even the ones you mention.

Will be interesting to see how people play once this is done.

Lets see if I can put this 'other problem' into perspective. My understanding of it is that it encourages the further metagaming of grinding by making it more complicated. Now, instead of simply doing the best quests for xp at one particular difficulty repeatedly before grabbing the first-time difficulty bonuses when they're done, players now have to figure out how to juggle jumping between various quests, keeping track of the completion statuses of many quests at the same time, so on and so forth.

It's nice if you like to do things "FOR SCIENCE~~~!!!" But really this just detracts from the gameplay even more. Instead of doing the usual grinding, now you're encouraged to wreck your brains while grinding to gain even more benefits. A pointless new learning curve that is going to excerbate the divide between veterans and new players, making elite-opening requests more common, making it harder for pugs to occur ("oh no, can't join this normal LFM or I'll break my streak!"), amongst other unintended side effects.

Of course, players can just ignore it and utilize the bonus sparingly and treat it as something that comes incidentally . But what are the chances that that's going to happen? This Bravery Bonus feature is just a can of worms.

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Originally Posted by AZgreentea

Cyr, so you are saying that those quests will be avoided because they are too difficult to complete the first time on Elite at or near level? I would disagree with that, as the bonus is not reset by attempting to complete the quest and failing. It is only reset by actually completing a quest on C/N. I would say this system would even encourage the running of less popular XP quests, as those quests can be used to "prep" your XP bonus for more rewarding quests.

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I would say that most people need to gather a party for an elite run of these quests and their xp/time ratio is particularly bad unless you are really hitting on all cylinders.

People will gravitate towards the path of least resistance for the most rewards. This system will encourage players to knock out once and done elite on lots of quests they might not touch otherwise at level. It will probably not do much to dampen true quest farming as the xp ratios are just too high on those. These two factors make the xp needed less... A big part
of what makes what worth running for xp has to do with the xp left available and the decaying xp rewards of an individual quest making it's xp/min ratio worse and worse. More xp means that the initially poor xp/min quests stay uncompetitive longer.

Then add in the psuedo-penalty that emerges when you do something on normal/hard the first time and you have lots of reasons to pass by those quests that might require you to wait fifteen minutes for a solid pug to fill (for the better players) or much longer (for the less well known or less highly respspected players) AND that probably are much harder on elite then other quests you would be doing and have worse xp/min ratios.

If you actually fail quests trying to complete them on elite then your xp/min ratios are going to be really horrible for those quests.

There are two basic strategies that I see emerging from this incentive.

The first is as goldy and you say is the prepping the pump for a big payoff approach. This has the benefit of not being as big of a deal when you blow your bonus on first time completion on normal of some quest or another. However, it has an inherently worse xp/time ratio. You are going out of your way to knock out some quests to reset your bonus.

This might not be a big loss in some cases (lower levels where lots of decent xp would still be available from pump priming quests within level range), but it does become one at the higher levels particularly if you are often finding yourself needing to prime the pump.

The other strategy would be the keep the bonus going at all times. With this type of a strategy you never lose out on the highest xp bonuses and never have to waste time knocking out lets say the carnival pack at level 18 for the first time to prime the pump for IQ/DD runs.

It is definitely going to effect how people level, and in a big way. Right now, Vale tends to be run at 17 on normal, with hard and elite getting saved for 18/19 where you have 1 million experience still to earn to get to 20 on a 3rd life.

So if we look at Running with the Devils right now:

People tend to get about 75k experience if they blow through 9x normal at 17. Then 15k on hard at 18, and 19k on elite at 19. All without any sort of experience penalty for a total of ~130k. The problem with this, is that big 1 million experience block for 18->20, it's only 30k.

After the change, if a player were to hold off until 18 to do RWTD:

Yes, they would get a -10% penalty for being a level 18 in a level 16 quest, but is it worth it still? We also want the bravery bonus going here of course, so with that in mind it'll be Elite/Nx9/Hard. Running Elite for the first time w/ Bravery bonus will net 24k. Normal x9 will get 60k, and Hard will get 19k, for a grand total of ~122k when all is said and done.

So we end up losing 8k experience doing it at 18, but the big difference is that you are talking about knocking out 122k of that big one million chunk of 18->20. Now if you managed to hold off on all the vale quests until 18, you could knock off a pretty huge chunk of that 1 million when previously you basically had very few other options.

Keeping that bonus at 50% will be pretty big starting around 15 so where you just don't have that many quests left. There are some quests that people will avoid or break their chain for (Von 3 comes to mind) if they have to run elite first time at level. With that said, I hope they put level restrictions on it so we can't just go back and hit some random level 5 quests to get the bravery bonus before we run vale quests or something like that.

Note, there is a way to balance this IMHO.

Simply make it so that the 'loss' from doing a quest on a lower difficulty the first time out is lesser. Specifically change the mechanic from resetting the counters upon completing a quest first time out on c/n/h(elite counters) to decreasing the counter by one. A hard run then would only decrease your elite counter by one for example.'

You would still be losing out on 10% on the run after the one you are doing and of course the bravery bonus for the quest you are doing right then to knock your counter down.

Basically this would eliminate the need to 'prime' the pump and make it less of a penalty to run something first time out on normal/hard that you might avoid entirely otherwise. It also would lower the penalty that is implicite in this design that occurs due to you joining a farming run part way through (ie they did elite already and are onto the eight billion N runs).

Very shortly, I imagine, some one will post a guide to leveling "perfectly" using the new bonus system.... then, like the other leveling guides... people will just follow those.

The first time bonuses are being raised, so using the old guides will still get you there slightly faster.

Either way... I'm curious to see what the "improved" xp pots are... I'd love to see a 30% pot =)

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Originally Posted by Cyr

• Von 6
• DQ
• Enter the Kobold
• Stealer of Souls
• Delerium 2
• The Dreaming Dark (final quest)
• Amarath (most of it)
• Gianthold Tor (and Reaver's Fate because of this)
• Twillight Forge
• Shroud
• VoD
• Hound

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Of the ones you listed I generally tend to run half those at least hard first time.

All of amrath i run either hard/elite only as I rally only go there to get flagged and yugo favored so no sense running norm. Shroud, vod, hound I only run hard or elite on tr's just because it's much easier to fill with 20's and not take as big of hit to xp plus noone should run vod/hound lower than hard due to lack of +3 tomes.

Tor I often run at hard level, you can always go back and do norm dragons after doing a hard completion for your bravery bonus.

Reaver often is hard or elite too.

The only quest on your list that would probably affect me is kobold but its relatively easy still on hard at least the first time to keep your bravery bonus intact.

You don't have to use the bravery bonus btw you can still level just like you did before at no risk and still achieve xp at he same rate you do now.

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Originally Posted by LeLoric

Of the ones you listed I generally tend to run half those at least hard first time.

All of amrath i run either hard/elite only as I rally only go there to get flagged and yugo favored so no sense running norm. Shroud, vod, hound I only run hard or elite on tr's just because it's much easier to fill with 20's and not take as big of hit to xp plus noone should run vod/hound lower than hard due to lack of +3 tomes.

Tor I often run at hard level, you can always go back and do norm dragons after doing a hard completion for your bravery bonus.

Reaver often is hard or elite too.

The only quest on your list that would probably affect me is kobold but its relatively easy still on hard at least the first time to keep your bravery bonus intact.

You don't have to use the bravery bonus btw you can still level just like you did before at no risk and still achieve xp at he same rate you do now.

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Every time you listed you would run hard/elite and you run hard it would have reset your elite counters...so you would be at 25% instead of 50% and it would take you three elite runs to get your elite counters high enough to give you more then 25%.

People seem to miss that doing a quest on hard first time out is probably not as great of a thing as they think in this system for overall xp purposes.

I agree that players will set aside 'Streaking Quests', possibly of very low level, to prep for a 150% on Wizking, Shadow Crypt and the like, stuff that can be done on Elite with the right group at level.

For the toughies, your will simply run like before, grinding through N/N/N/etc.


One big problem to work around are Raids&Timers: with the Beefed-up bosses, you will probably not be able to run on Elite, and maybe not even on Hard. And maybe you only want Completions. But that will ruin your Streak.

So I foresee this:

1) run all your Raids on N for Completions until they are all on timer.

2) run a fresh Streak on Elite to reach 5x10%, probably repeating many times on N and once on H after having run on E.

3) repeat old Quests already run on Elite until Timers have run out.

rinse repeat.

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Originally Posted by Cyr

Note, there is a way to balance this IMHO.

Simply make it so that the 'loss' from doing a quest on a lower difficulty the first time out is lesser. Specifically change the mechanic from resetting the counters upon completing a quest first time out on c/n/h(elite counters) to decreasing the counter by one. A hard run then would only decrease your elite counter by one for example.'

You would still be losing out on 10% on the run after the one you are doing and of course the bravery bonus for the quest you are doing right then to knock your counter down.

Basically this would eliminate the need to 'prime' the pump and make it less of a penalty to run something first time out on normal/hard that you might avoid entirely otherwise. It also would lower the penalty that is implicite in this design that occurs due to you joining a farming run part way through (ie they did elite already and are onto the eight billion N runs).

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That's what I was just thinking actually. Let's just flesh the idea out a bit more.

Running a quest on elite will raise both your counters by 1.
Running a quest on hard will raise your hard counter by 1, but lower your elite counter by 1.
Running a quest on normal will lower your hard counter by 1, and lower your elite counter by 2.
Running a quest on casual will lower your hard counter by 2, and lower your elite counter by 3.

This way, taking a small break away from running first-time quests on elite wouldn't significantly hurt your Bravery bonuses. However multiple runs will quickly destroy it, especially if those runs on Normal or Casual.

Edit:

For example. A group starts off and runs a first time quest on elite. Counters are Hard: 1, Elite: 1.
The group then runs three more first-time quests on elite. Counters are Hard: 4, Elite: 4.
The group then has a bit of difficulty with one quest, so they decide to take it down to normal and just complete the quest. Counters are now Hard:3, Elite: 2
After that, the group gets brave again, and sets into the next quest on hard. Counters are now Hard:4, Elite:1.

Later on, the group has disbanded, so one of the members decides to complete a quest on Casual. His counters will be Hard:2, Elite: 0.

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Originally Posted by Coldin

That's what I was just thinking actually. Let's just flesh the idea out a bit more.

Running a quest on elite will raise both your counters by 1.
Running a quest on hard will raise your hard counter by 1, but lower your elite counter by 1.
Running a quest on normal will lower your hard counter by 1, and lower your elite counter by 2.
Running a quest on casual will lower your hard counter by 2, and lower your elite counter by 3.

This way, taking a small break away from running first-time quests on elite wouldn't significantly hurt your Bravery bonuses. However multiple runs will quickly destroy it, especially if those runs on Normal or Casual.

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That seems reasonable to me. It also provides increased incentives to still knock that quest out on as hard a difficulty as feasible if not elite.

about Tor -> you won't be running tor because of cruicible...
If you somehow do cuicible then You will probably farm tor avoiding dragons and flaging for RF.

Still this system favors too much cookie cutters builds, and static groups (to avoid slower peace due to lesser playing abilieties that can meake quest much slower).
Not to mention it is vip exclusive system.

Also still think most people gona avoid elite bravery (but will use hard bravery)

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Originally Posted by Cyr

I am sure there are others that will make this list, but those ar ethe ones that stand out in my mind as real meat grinders for at level toons on elite. The high level ones probably will be run on normal some once people have knocked out their elite first time completions on their last farmable high level quests (DD/IQ/Vale/monastary), but the further delay in doing many of these will mean much less runs of them due to raid timers, time to cap, and possible TR upon hitting 20.

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This has been my thought as well. Sure, Elite is awesome...but that Elite quest is my Level + 2/3, and the current system incentivizes you to run quests that are my Level - 1.

The place I do see using it, though, is going back and doing one-and-done Elite quests that I hate, and actually getting a reasonably good xp reward for it instead of just the favor. Or going back and doing something on Elite that I missed long ago and might be at -60% or more, and Bravery can bring it back up to a useful reward point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyr

Note, there is a way to balance this IMHO.
*SNIP*

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Thats not a bad idea, actually. I kinda like that. A H run decreases your E counter, and a N/C run would decrease one or both of them. An H run should still increase your H counter, though.

I see what you are saying now, about the running of quests over level. I cant imagine, not being that type of player, that so many people would choose to max XP like that. On the other hand, this was really intended (so I have gathered) to be a boon to multi TR's, so it would make sense for them to be running quests in the way you described.

/Rant On
The whole Bravery thing is Bogus from the start.

Basically is for those that TR so is catering to just one group Of players..

Unless the Game is going to reset Every ones Quest list to zero the Concept is Flawed.

I have many quests I have run on hard and elite so I can't get the bravery Bonus for them..
Why Because I have done the quest already at level for my level..

I hope the Idea gets Scraped.. Or just another way to Let TR's have there way.. And get X amount of XP per min.

/Rant Off


Sleeps :D :) :D

Sadly I have to agree with the above poster, the Bravery Bonus system as it is "Proposed" to be is frought with way too many issues, and may actually lower overall XP from some quests. Bear with me as I explain that last point.

Currently most "high" XP/Min quests are run 8+ Times on normal, and then finally on H and E, ensuring "FULL" XP on those runs since you will get the first time bonus. However if you run those same quests by doing E First, it will count as ONE of your total completions, meaning that a run routine of (E,Nx8,H) is mathmatically worse then (Nx8,H,E).

Just in case you think I'm talking crazy talk, here's a MATH Example 10k XP Quest, Assuming Full x5 Bravery Stack and the "New" First time run bonus's.

10k +80% Elite First Time + 50% Bravery = 23k
10k +25 Normal First Time = 12.5
10k = 10k
10k -10% = 9k
10k - 20% = 8k
10k - 30% = 7k
10k - 40% = 6k
10k - 50% = 5k
10k - 60% = 4k
10k +50% Hard First Time = 15k
Total for (E,Nx8,H) = 99.5k

10k +25% Normal First Time = 12.5
10k = 10k
10k = 10k
10k -10% = 9k
10k - 20% = 8k
10k - 30% = 7k
10k - 40% = 6k
10k - 50% = 5k
10k +50% Hard First Time = 15k
10k +80% Elite First Time = 18k
Total for (Nx8,H,E) = 100.5k

So you get MORE XP by NOT USING THE BRAVERY BONUS and just keep on doing **** the way we always have. :rolleyes:

So yeah, Bravery Bonus = FAIL

The fact that who knows how many hours of developement time was wasted to create a system that doesn't actually help the players at all, change how they run quests, or reduce the number of times required to run a quest... seriously.