A serious suggestion for xp

[Carkolda]

I posted this in the challenges thread, but I want to post it here as it really belongs in the suggestions thread. It applies to not just challenges, but an entire revamp of the xp.

Here's my suggested layout with a couple assumptions first.
- First, I would have the dev team go back and review (or start tracking) average completions given the number of players in a party per quest. Yes, this is a BIG task and requires a lot of data points. But once you establish these data points, the law of large numbers applies and you will see the average completion time given any quest, given whatever number of players there are in the quest.

Given that data, here's how I would place an example (and I stress just an example) benchmark:
- Base XP per heroic quests/challenges is 500 xp per minute, and 1,000 for epics. Hard-baseline. So if you are running Durk's got a Secret, and the average completion time is 10 minutes, the base XP given is 5,000 xp. If you're running Epic Partycrashers and the average completion time is 25 minutes, you just got yourself 25,000 xp base.
- For every additional player, you add 75 xp per minute to the baseline. The argument would be "well, that's too much xp." But you're also missing out the fact that larger parties complete quests faster, thus the average completion time would drop to maybe 7 minutes? So a group of 6 players would net 500 (base) + 375 (extra players) = 875 per minute x 7 minutes = 6,125 xp base.
- Hard would give +10% xp, and Elite would give 20% (additively, like it's already done for all your other boosts).
- If you are running premium, paid content that you own or are VIP, you get an additional 25 xp per minute to the baseline. On a guest-pass, that'd be 15 xp per minute to the baseline. So if you were running Come Out and Slay with a group of 6 and assume the average completion time is 10 minutes for that group of 6, you'd be looking at 500 (base) + 375 (extra players) + 25 (for those VIP's or owners of the content) = 900 per minute x 10 minutes = 9,000 xp base. Those on GP would receive 8900 xp.
- This formula would apply to timed events like Challenges, as well. Stars would add maybe a 10% boost to the base XP per star, and if you get 6 stars you get an additional 15% (for total of 75%). So the math would be: 500 (base) + 25 (VIP/Owner) = 525 per minute x 5 minutes (For TIM) = 2,625 xp x 1.4 (40% boost for 4 stars) = 3,675. It's not as good as it was, and it's not as bad as it is. And if you want to add in a group of 5 other PC's, then it changes to 500 (base) + 375 (extra PC's) + 25 (VIP/Owner) = 900 per minute x 5 minutes = 4,500 xp x 1.4 (40% boost for 4 stars) = 6,300. This boost would encourage people to bring friends along.
- If you don't take any meaningful action towards the completion of the quest or challenge, you don't add to the "friend boost." This would prevent pikers from just zoning in and doing nothing. In addition, if you are idle for more than half the time that the quest takes to complete, everyone takes a 75 xp penalty per minute per player idle 1/2 the time.

I'm not saying this is perfect, but it's a way to possibly start. Thoughts?

[Meetch1972]

I think a lot of it has been given the forum thumbs up, shot down or bickered over before, but one thing you raise certainly got me thinking...

Adding a little extra XP per additional player in the party might well help encourage grouping over soloing, to some extent at least. It would probably have to base it on the number of players in the group at completion, subtracting a proportion of the extra if a player is suffering late entry penalties at the time. If the dungeon difficulty can scale, then perhaps so can the XP reward.

[shadereaper33]

Here is my problem with your suggestion. It would take an average of 1100 minutes of quest time to go from level 19 to 20 on a 2+ TR using your system. I really don't want to spend 18+ hours inside quests just to get 1 level. Your system would need to be modified to account for the exponential increase in xp requirements as your level increases, especially when taking TR's into account. On a more personal note, I really dislike the idea of quest xp based solely upon an average completion time. XP should be awarded based upon the approximate length of a quest (short, medium, or long for the level) along with the difficulty of the quest and the level of the quest, not how long it takes a group to actually run through it. Besides that, if you set up quests on a mystic 500 xp/min number and base the xp awarded on an "average" completion time, then anyone who runs slower than the average completion time is effectively getting penalized for not being good enough.

[Xezrak]

Here is my problem with your suggestion. It would take an average of 1100 minutes of quest time to go from level 19 to 20 on a 2+ TR using your system. I really don't want to spend 18+ hours inside quests just to get 1 level. Your system would need to be modified to account for the exponential increase in xp requirements as your level increases, especially when taking TR's into account. On a more personal note, I really dislike the idea of quest xp based solely upon an average completion time. XP should be awarded based upon the approximate length of a quest (short, medium, or long for the level) along with the difficulty of the quest and the level of the quest, not how long it takes a group to actually run through it. Besides that, if you set up quests on a mystic 500 xp/min number and base the xp awarded on an "average" completion time, then anyone who runs slower than the average completion time is effectively getting penalized for not being good enough.

I think this is a good point, a more effective way to rebalance xp I think would be to look at quests that are not being run enough and slowly start to bump up their xp, using just data to balance DDO seems to cause more problems, although looking at each quest on a case by case scenario might be more time intensive, it would definately lead to better results.

For instance the way spell power on items was adjusted and the way poison immunity items were adjust they are really messed up, alot of epic items have very low sp and the bonus to poison immunity etc. on greensteel items are far too low. If xp is re adjusted in this way there is a very big and real chance that things will get messed up.

At least on the whole atm quest xp is reasonable enough to get through TRing, if they fix the less popular quests great but I don't want to risk breaking alot of good quests just in the hope of fixing the broken ones.

[Carkolda]

Well, you are assuming that the slower player is getting penalized. The xp is awarded based on the average number, and is a static xp amount. This would actually help a slower player. I'm effectively applying a bell curve to the xp tables.

And again, this is just a cursory idea. Keep in mind that the overall quest xp also takes into consideration of duration of quest. Overall, I think you'd see an uptick in XP gain per quest, especially at higher levels where most quests take a long time to complete. This would only help high-level xp grinding, since the xp per quest is based on the completion time, which we all know takes a while to do at high levels.

[dng242]

This would simply create the same issues we now have, but change which quests are good and which suck.

You have an inherent flaw in your data. You said "average". The average simply will not work. Granted it would be fine on times quests

A couple of points before I expound on that.

1. Players that can run quests fast will always have an XP/min advantage
2. Naturally slow players will have a dis-advantage
3. No need to address the above revolation for it is simply what it is

The problem with average is the outliers will kill you (this is why you never here economists say "average house price" rather they say "Medium House Price", and there are a lot of home sales). The spread is the problem.

Now let's assume you use medium instead (which probably gives you the number you really wanted in the first place) then you still have an issue with the general spread. If the spread for a quest is 4 min to 20 min while the medium is say 10 minutes. Then the xp/min spread is still rather large. Not certain what you have fixed.

While I don't see that an issue with basing xp on that, the real question is then how would that be better than what we have now? Is it a good use of resources to fix? Would simply addressing a few "bad" quests be more efficient use of resources to fix?

Until we get the data, we won't really know. But I'm going to guess we would have the same problems, but the names of the quests would change.

My though would be look at all the times from fast to slow and base the xp at around the 20% (from fast side) mark

[shadereaper33]

Well, you are assuming that the slower player is getting penalized. The xp is awarded based on the average number, and is a static xp amount. This would actually help a slower player. I'm effectively applying a bell curve to the xp tables.

And again, this is just a cursory idea. Keep in mind that the overall quest xp also takes into consideration of duration of quest. Overall, I think you'd see an uptick in XP gain per quest, especially at higher levels where most quests take a long time to complete. This would only help high-level xp grinding, since the xp per quest is based on the completion time, which we all know takes a while to do at high levels.

This would in no way help the slower the player. If you set the quest xp at 500 xp/min and assume the quest will take 10 minutes to complete, then the quest will award 5000 xp regardless of actual completion time. Therefore, someone who speed runs and gets it done in 5 minutes will get 1k xp/min, 2x your "target", while a person who goes slowly and takes 20 minutes will get 250 xp/min, or half of your "target" value. All that your suggestion will really accomplish is to nerf the xp awarded for just about every quest in the game.

[Therrias]

A level 1 quest should not give the same xp/minute as a level 19 quest.

Not taking the quest CR into equation = fail.

The XP requirement to level increases linearly, so should XP rewards.

[SiliconScout]

Indeed if they were going to use something like the median completion time to build a base XP around then it should be more of a 50 XP/level/minute approach (this is hitting the mythical 1000XP a minute on the 20th level quests). Though this will have much of the same problems.

Let's look at a quest like Maraud the Mines. It's a base 11th level quest and probably takes most 15 minutes or so to complete when they encounter it for the first time.

It's XP profile would then look something like:

Casual (10th level) (50*10) * 15 = 7,500 XP
Normal (11th level) (50*11) * 15 = 8,250 XP
Hard (12th level) (50*12) * 15 = 9,000 XP
Elite (13th level) (50*13) * 15 = 9,750 XP

so 650 XP / Minute

Here's the problem though if you don't bother with optionals, have the ability to invis yourself and know the layout you can solo this quest easily in 5 minutes. I would say that a group of 3 or more who could invis might just be able to get this done in a minute.

Suddenly that XP profile is potentially 9750 XP a minute ... well holy **** is that gonna get farmed a lot more.

So assuming they keep it up suddenly this quests time goes from a median of 15 minutes to say a Median of 4 mintues. It's XP is going to be adjusted down HUGE and the zergers will move on to the next.

Those poor souls who don't know about the quest or don't farm or can't invis will stop running it all together unless they want favor because spending 15 minutes on Elite to get 2600 XP just doesn't make it worth it at all.

As this happens the zergers will still run it occasionally because they are pulling 2600 XP a minute (not bad) and the median will continue to drop.

Eventually there is no point to anyone running any quest.

It's a no win senario to look at it this way.

It would be far more rewarding to make optionals "worth it". Look at the Wiz King tomb. Each Optional is worth nearly as much as the base amount so people spend the time in the quest and run them all because it's very much worth it. Sure the power level crowd splits it up and runs all the towers at once but they still run it all.

When you are running a 6000 XP quest and the optionals are 200 or 400 xp and take say 3 minutes to divert to and complete, then those who are mining XP will skip by them. If those same optionals were worth say 3000 XP they will run down there and grab that XP because the 3 minutes it adds is "worth" it.

This will slow down, in particular, the solo zergers but they won't mind because the XP / minute will still work for them. This also brings their time in closer to the median because they are running the content as extensively.

Honestly most quest XP is fine, what needs to be adjusted is the optional XP. In wiz king they have it just about perfect. each optional is roughly equal (in effort) to the primary goal and have a boost that reflects it. If all quests had a mechanic like this they would be run more often as a whole.

Why? Well because whilst base XP gets reduced for repeat runs Optional does not. This means that wiz king is sill worth it even on the 9th run because whilst the base XP might be taking a beating the optional makes it a "good XP" quest.

If we want to improve XP out there, and get more people playing more content then I think that this is the direction that needs to be taken. Some quests might need their base XP adjusted down, some would need it up as well. Most would see the optionals go up.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Adding a little extra XP per additional player in the party might well help encourage grouping over soloing...

I completely endorese the quoted suggestion.

[shadereaper33]

Why? Well because whilst base XP gets reduced for repeat runs Optional does not. This means that wiz king is sill worth it even on the 9th run because whilst the base XP might be taking a beating the optional makes it a "good XP" quest.

This is incorrect. Optional XP also decays, but it is based upon the number of times you complete the optional, not the quest.

[SardaofChaos]

A level 1 quest should not give the same xp/minute as a level 19 quest.

Not taking the quest CR into equation = fail.

The XP requirement to level increases linearly, so should XP rewards.

But the entire point of requiring more xp for higher levels is the idea that it gets harder and harder to improve yourself. If it takes equal time to go up a level no matter what the level, then what's the point?

[Gawna]

No thank you. /not signed

[dng242]

But the entire point of requiring more xp for higher levels is the idea that it gets harder and harder to improve yourself. If it takes equal time to go up a level no matter what the level, then what's the point?

Sarda is correct. The XP / min should be about the same no matter the level. To word his statement a little different. If it wasn't suppose to take more time then there was no point in requiring more xp per level as you progress. You would simply state each level requires n amout of xp and go with that. You would have the case where it should take you as much time to go from lvl 1 to 2 as fast as you go from 19 to 20.

[Carkolda]

This would in no way help the slower the player. If you set the quest xp at 500 xp/min and assume the quest will take 10 minutes to complete, then the quest will award 5000 xp regardless of actual completion time. Therefore, someone who speed runs and gets it done in 5 minutes will get 1k xp/min, 2x your "target", while a person who goes slowly and takes 20 minutes will get 250 xp/min, or half of your "target" value. All that your suggestion will really accomplish is to nerf the xp awarded for just about every quest in the game.

Thanks for the input. I would say that on its face, you would be right. But keep in mind that the average completion time is just that: an average. It's based on completions. And if zergers run a quest more often and faster than flower sniffers (thanks for the term Laura), they will push the average down. So, for example:

If you had 100 completions a quest (all solo, mind you) and had a data distribution of:
70 completions in 5 minutes
20 completions in 10 minutes
7 completions in 20 minutes
3 completions in 30 minutes

Your average would turn out to be:
70 x 5 = 350
20 x 10 = 200
7 x 20 = 140
3 x 30 = 90
Total minutes: 780 / 100 = 7.8 minutes average run time.

But, keep in mind that my solution is not the end-all, is-all of a solution. My idea is simply to spur conversation and thought about what I see as the fundamental problem with DDO's xp dispersal: it's too random, and without any sort of logical structure. That's why you see quests being solo'd all over the place, and that's why you see players running some quests (like the Pit) and not others (like TBC). And that's why you saw such upheaval about the Cannith challenge xp nerf.

Thank you, all, for expressing your opinions sans the flame throwers. I appreciate it.

[Therrias]

But the entire point of requiring more xp for higher levels is the idea that it gets harder and harder to improve yourself. If it takes equal time to go up a level no matter what the level, then what's the point?

Did I say equal? No I did not. I said linear. As in a fixed rate. Such as would draw a straight line on a graph.
Not the same line, mind you, because that would be equal, and if I had meant equal, I would have said equal.

[Carkolda]

Did I say equal? No I did not. I said linear. As in a fixed rate. Such as would draw a straight line on a graph.
Not the same line, mind you, because that would be equal, and if I had meant equal, I would have said equal.

Now now, no need to be snarky. Traditional XP earned in PNP was never linear; it was always a logarithmic curve. DDO tried to mimic that, and rightfully so.

[sandypaws]

Sarda is correct. The XP / min should be about the same no matter the level. To word his statement a little different. If it wasn't suppose to take more time then there was no point in requiring more xp per level as you progress. You would simply state each level requires n amout of xp and go with that. You would have the case where it should take you as much time to go from lvl 1 to 2 as fast as you go from 19 to 20.

Problem is, you'd run out of XP at 19-20. There really just aren't that many quests, let alone f2p quests, and you cannot keep running the same quest over and over due to repetition penalties. Even if you could,it'd be like capping at 25 currently is, followed by a bajillion runs of Dunrohbar and Deal and the Demon ad nauseum. Furthermore, the majority of the non-epic server would be locked in at 18-20. Imagine the poor newbie who logs in to find out there are two people in his level range.

Lower level packs would be devalued because you'd be whizzing right past them.

Unless I am missing something (possible, as always), I absolutely cannot agree with this proposition.

That being said, I do like the OP's original idea of trying to tie in XP with the time required to complete a quest. Some of the ratios are just awful.