Thoughts on Epic levels and its effects on raiding

[Crayu]

Hey fellow Orien players, just coming to the forums to make a quick post on something that's been bothering me with the new Epic levels and how it affects raiding.

Raids such as Shroud, VoD, HoX, MA, LoB, Abbot, VoN, etc. are pugged often.
Before the expansion, people would run these with L20s, no problem, and sometimes that would come with a -10% penalty to XP, but that didn't matter.

After the expansion, there's now a certain level range that comes with these raids.
Last night, I joined a Master Artificer heroic norm group, because the leader asked me to join. I came in as a L25 Favored soul, and once we entered the quest, the total XP in the XP log stated 2~3k.
One of the members in my group, flat out left.
He stated : "What- Only 3k? I'm out."
That left the rest of us bewildered, seeing as most of us had come to run the raid for the loot, not for leveling up!

Perhaps there should be some sort of different mechanic of earning XP when raiding? This XP penalty discourages high-leveled players to join pugs, and prevents them from getting loot. They could obviously still start their own LFM, but still, I don't think that being declined for your leveling is something that should be happening.

This is my personal opinion, that raids are mostly for loot and not XP, but perhaps those who don't own many packs beg to differ, and need every bit of XP they can get (and that's OK too).

Thoughts?

[LordMond63]

I'm guessing you ran into a MiniMaxer- one who carefully monitors the xp/min rating of a given quest on a given difficulty so as to most efficiently level. Maybe they were a multiple TR; I've only recently TRed the first time and I can tell you that I find even the one time presenting a real grind for which I was not really prepared, even though I'd read about it often enough here.

I think it will come down to how badly someone wants a quest done, be it for a chance at loot, earning favor or getting flagged. I've done quests for zero xp if it meant getting one out of the way (Pit, I'm talking about you here...and Coal Chamber too). If having your skill set in the quest means that my chances of a success increases, well I'll trade that for xp any time.

[DrDetroit]

I think everyone will adjust to running raids for no XP and run with L25s.

[Carpone]

Raiding = loot. Quests = XP.

[sirgog]

I think everyone will adjust to running raids for no XP and run with L25s.

This, except for Epic Normal (which is a sickening amount of fast XP for some raids).

[SonilasFx]

farm xp in raid is a epic bad idea xD, just von5 work because it is 88k first time on hard.
but if u prefer remove lvls 25 for won 20k in 20min... then you have problems xD

[Crazyfruit]

I'd have probably left too - though been a bit more PC about it haha / noticed before going into the quest. Where's the fun in doing stuff with groups that are so overpowered in terms of the content's difficulty? Powerleveling penalties = no thanks.

...

*shrug*

I'm weird. Couldn't care less about loot, it's just numbers on a computer somewhere. I put up level restricted raid groups to keep them fun & get a nice chunk of xp from them. I get a lot of stupid tells saying I have to be higher level to do them too for some reason.

[Crayu]

Raiding = loot. Quests = XP.

That's my opinion as well, and also my guild's opinion.

I think everyone will adjust to running raids for no XP and run with L25s.

Hopefully.

[spectroum]

Hey fellow Orien players, just coming to the forums to make a quick post on something that's been bothering me with the new Epic levels and how it affects raiding.

Raids such as Shroud, VoD, HoX, MA, LoB, Abbot, VoN, etc. are pugged often.
Before the expansion, people would run these with L20s, no problem, and sometimes that would come with a -10% penalty to XP, but that didn't matter.

After the expansion, there's now a certain level range that comes with these raids.
Last night, I joined a Master Artificer heroic norm group, because the leader asked me to join. I came in as a L25 Favored soul, and once we entered the quest, the total XP in the XP log stated 2~3k.
One of the members in my group, flat out left.
He stated : "What- Only 3k? I'm out."
That left the rest of us bewildered, seeing as most of us had come to run the raid for the loot, not for leveling up!

Perhaps there should be some sort of different mechanic of earning XP when raiding? This XP penalty discourages high-leveled players to join pugs, and prevents them from getting loot. They could obviously still start their own LFM, but still, I don't think that being declined for your leveling is something that should be happening.

This is my personal opinion, that raids are mostly for loot and not XP, but perhaps those who don't own many packs beg to differ, and need every bit of XP they can get (and that's OK too).

Thoughts?

I think i was in that MA group too I was shocked when i saw that sentence because he is in a serious guild and i wasn't expecting that kind of noobiness Anyway let's face it MA is the raid with the least XP atm (at cap), even a piker's fate with lvl 20s in the party gives more xp

That's why we love pugs though,no matter what they do they always make us laugh at the end

[deahamlet]

MA for xp sounds like a bad idea anyway.

Someone I know left a raid because they were running heroic instead of epic. Shocked me.
Xp from raids, definitely not a great idea.

[mystafyi]

MA for xp sounds like a bad idea anyway.

Sadly, running MA for loot is a bad idea.

[Shinjiteru]

I liked doing shroud for some extra XP while leveling up.
But doing a house c raid for xp sounds weird with the time walking/fighting there.

Would guess there will be some rare shroud at level lfms but most shrouds will not care about xp anymore (like reavers fate pre-u14).
Think the other raids of your list will be run without caring about xp.

[Keybreaker]

I'm guessing you ran into a MiniMaxer- one who carefully monitors the xp/min rating of a given quest on a given difficulty so as to most efficiently level.

No. No one who considers xp/time efficiency would run MA for xp. That make no sense because it's inefficient any way you dice it, especially in a pug.

More like a time-inefficient casual player that wants to maximize all the "free" xp he can from raids.

[Tobril]

Flagging for the Cannith raids is horrid xp, let alone the raids.

Sounds like someone is math challenged.

[eden2760]

I'm thinking that Turbine probably wouldn't touch this anyway.

With one less source of xp, there's the possiblity that people would be more apt to turn towards buying more packs or becoming VIP to supplement.

I can't say for sure, as I've been VIP from pretty much the start, but I suspect between the bravery bonuses and learning tomes that this shouldn't be too big of a hit for even TR2s that put a little thought into the quests they run and when, especially if they've bought a few key packs.

I can see what you're saying though. I probably wouldn't bother joining a PUG raid if I was the least worried about xp.

[dirtphillips]

Sort of on topic, the addition of epic normal means noobs like me can actually try to shortman epic raids and learn them properly on my own. If it weren't for 5 separate 30 second lag spikes, I would have gotten my first echrono completion last night (4 man). I guess where this addresses your original question is, once I learn these epic raids, I plan on hosting some pug versions.

The huge frag and token drop rate reductions are a bummer, but Turbine doesn't really seem to be concerned with customer input on that issue. This seems to be Turbine's attitude to customer relations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ (we the customers are kevin bacon)

[Sarzor]

I'd likely have left as well. (Edit: Though seeing a 25, I'd likely have also not joined in the first place)

Not because of anything more than that levels 18-19 are a dead-xp zone now, particularly for me as a time-limited player. It used to be for example that you could run a normal shroud with 20s, and get easily 15k xp. Sure, it wasn't time efficient, but you were making progress. Now I ran an elite shroud at level 18, with 25s in there, and got 0 xp. Between the high-level and powerleveling penalties, there's no xp to be had there. And it's not like anyone who is level 20 will be running anything heroic for xp. The epic xp is just so much incredibly better, for quests which may be even easier than the level 19s.

That being said, I will grab a first-time-this-life raid with someone >2 levels over quest level, to avoid breaking BB.

Also, I'm kinda not looking forward to the late-levels of my current life, as at least last life I'd done a sizable portion of the late-levels before the update hit. That level 18-19 is going to be brutal.

[Thrudh]

Shroud was always a nice source of xp for my level 17-19 TRs...

I'm sad to see it go.

[Chai]

Another case in many where people need to put the intention in the LFM. If the LFM has heroic normal and 18-25 in it, Id assume that at any moment after I joined that a 25 could be invited thus hosing the XP, and base my decision to join or not on that.

People still do run at level raids to get the XP. Its something that requires patience to fill the group in most cases.

[RangerOne]

I can understand it. My guild runs shroud a couple times a week. I'm working on a TR and got flagged and ready to go last week...and they ran it as level 18 and up. Got to 18, looked forward to some XP since capped at 20 was still raking in 10k but the level 24 member dropped it to zero. I didn't drop, but I probably won't jump in again with Epic level folks until I'm there too since I already have the GS items I need. So I can understand the person, although 3k xp is better than 0.