Why are you penalized for leveling on NPCs that are higher level than you?

I'll need to think about actual alternatives a bit more, but concerning C:

I'm pretty sure most MMOs control the "low level leeching problem" via the group experience sharing ratio. E.g., if there is more than a 5 level difference between the lowest and highest party member, the highest member gets 100% of the experience (arbitrary numbers). And since you HAVE to be grouped to actually play together in Path of Exile (I think?) there would be no way to circumvent that mechanism.

edit: Changed the example slightly.

Let me see if I can tackle this one. I've taken the liberty of emboldening my responses within Chris' text to avoid confusion.

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Chris wrote:

Hi guys,

This is currently intentional and the reasoning is as follows:

a) The higher monsters are worth more experience (pre-penalty) anyway.

Shouldn't the reward fit the risk? I think the potential loss that may be incurred by players (particularly HC players) battling higher level creatures is enough to warrant receiving the normal amount of XP as compensation (at minimum).

b) To discourage rushing characters to areas beyond their abilities (I understand this doesn't feel good, and that may be a good reason to change it).

Might I propose the penalty pertaining to less XP only apply to those players allowing higher levels to do all the work?

c) To fix the abuse of a low level character leeching experience from higher level ones (which can be extreme).

See the above suggestion.

d) Other action RPGs have very similar (or exactly the same) system.

Well, with all due respect your company hasn't been one to follow precedence simply because it's worked for other games; I mean you'd be hard-pressed to find another company willing to go out on a limb with a F2P game, not ask for any funding from players upfront and still have the courage to settle for a modest ethical transaction system. I thought you guys were about pushing the envelope and doing it your way (the right way, not cutting corners).

I believe what's in currently is a bit like applying a band-aid to a gunshot wound, in that you're simply allowing the real issue to fester and punishing those that like to be challenged.

If you guys really are attempting to discourage people rushing one another beyond their means then do so to those partaking in the exploitable activity (for example, a character 10 levels higher should not be doing all the killing for your level); not those playing the legit way and looking for that next big challenge. Those entrepreneurs (if you will) ought to be able to seize that opportunity and be rewarded for it should they survive.

The way I believe that it ought to work is that players of equal level or lower to the monsters they're killing should reap full benefit. And if they're're daring enough, every 10 or so levels over the character add an extra 10% XP or so.

I dunno exactly what's balanced, but you guys should be able to figure this stuff out with the geniuses on your end behind formulating skill stats and the formula for randomly generated item variations.

The current system promotes grinding areas until you've hit the next level instead of advancing the game at your pace. It would be greatly improved by adding a buffer of a few level where no penalty would be applied allowing players to not fall behind where it would gain less and less experience making it more attractive to grind areas at your level.

To avoid low-leveled player getting massive amount of experience in a high leveled area, a penalty based on how much higher the killing player's level are than you could be used. If you want to allow high leveled players to do all the killing in the target area for the player that penalty could be reduced based on how close the player is to it's target area.

However, that method has the obvious exploit where a high-leveled player would do most the damage to a monster and let the low leveled player get the killing hit. That could be fixed by counting the player who did most the damage as the killer. Then there's Detonate Dead which scales with monsters allowing a high-leveled player to kill some monster in a group and letting the low-leveled player kill the rest.

To avoid that, some form of penalty based on far away the player is to it's target area would be used. Currently that penalty is way too steep. I like the idea of having to penalty in single-player, and it could be extended by basing the magnitude of that penalty on the difference between your level and the highest leveled character seen in the instance. The idea here is that once a high leveled character has visited your instance, the "damage" may be done.

I'd like to see what methods of leveling the winning players of the upcoming contest are using. I have a feeling they are going to grind their target areas, but we'll see.

Use the other system for this kind of problems.

No penalty for killing high level mobs. Would be great even if you gain extra xp for high level mobs.

Penalty for killing ANY mob, if you are below the mean of the party level, increasing exponentially for each level you are below the mean.

For example (with random numbers), if the party mean level is 20, and you are 19, you only gain 1% less xp, if you are 18 you gain 3% less xp, 17 -> -9%, 16 -> -27%, 15 -> -81%.

I think a easy solution, if you party with someone more than 10 levels higher than you, you get no exp. Stops power leveling in it's tracks.

I'm going to reveal my noobishness here, but: what happens when you leave a group if you're in the same instance? Do you get booted? Or do you both remain in the same instance but ungrouped?

If you remain in the same instance but ungrouped, you could copy another MMO design, namely ownership of mobs. So as soon as someone who is not in a group hits a mob, that mob gets tagged as theirs and they receive the experience regardless of who lands the last hit.

I definitely think that controlling it first and foremost via the group experience sharing is a much more reasonable solution than having a universal experience curve adjusted according to your level that essentially forces you to kill stuff within a level or two of yourself as long as you want to remain reasonably efficient (and especially since I think Chris' point B is a "problem" that doesn't need solving).

I wouldn't really be opposed to a "hard cap" after which the amount of experience received ceases to increase, though, but it definitely needs to allow you to kill much higher level stuff than now without being penalized for it.

I may not like the experience penalty either for tougher mobs, but currently I think that the system is fine the way it works, and here is another proof.

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Isobar wrote:

I think a easy solution, if you party with someone more than 10 levels higher than you, you get no exp. Stops power leveling in it's tracks.

This fellow here might be right. But!!! Suppose that a player with many high-level characters decides to make a new 1. I can bet that he will already have many low level rare items (yellow) in his stash to dress himself up. Consequently, his low level character (wearing imba low level gear) will be able to kill mobs 10 levels above him and take the hell out of xp, if xp penalties are not implemented, in contrast with a new player.

Having all that being said, xp penalties according to level differences should exist, as older players must not have any advantage over the new ones. Both must put the same effort imo in order to level up.

"First hit" systems, "last hit" systems, and anything else based on party damage can be gamed, especially with a high-level tank and a low-level caster. It's not a solution, it's an instruction manual on how to cheat the system.

However, if your underleveled party is genuinely killing stuff more powerful than itself, then the party should get extra exp, not less.

An L33 who is genuinely fighting alongside L37s in an L38 area should catch up faster. If this is boosting, then the game is simply too easy; the L38s should pose a serious threat to everyone in that party, and having an L33 along for the ride should weaken the party enough to matter, unless the L33 is genuinely pulling his own weight.

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Slicer wrote:

"First hit" systems, "last hit" systems, and anything else based on party damage can be gamed, especially with a high-level tank and a low-level caster. It's not a solution, it's an instruction manual on how to cheat the system.

However, if your underleveled party is genuinely killing stuff more powerful than itself, then the party should get extra exp, not less.

An L33 who is genuinely fighting alongside L37s in an L38 area should catch up faster. If this is boosting, then the game is simply too easy; the L38s should pose a serious threat to everyone in that party, and having an L33 along for the ride should weaken the party enough to matter, unless the L33 is genuinely pulling his own weight.

So do what most (all?) MMOs with first hit or similar systems do then: make it flat out impossible to land stuff on enemies that are, say, 10 levels higher than you by adding hidden dodge/resist/DR or whatever. Then it wouldn't matter if someone tanked for you, because you wouldn't be able to hit them anyway, and with a party mechanism in place you wouldn't be able to get experience just for tagging along (beyond the level limits dictated by the game, that is).

That's got to be one of the worst systems possible.

Player level should be a loose measure of strength, and monster level should be the same thing; an L40 monster should be a critical threat to an L30 player.

If an L30 player is killing L40 monsters, that means that the player has good gear and a wise build design. If this is happening regularly, then the L40s need to be more dangerous- not just with basic stat increases, but with different and unnerving attacks, killer AI, and swarm tactics.

But arbitrarily saying "oh you can't fight those yet, they're too strong" to force high-powered characters to grind on equal-leveled monsters is simply bad design. It means that the level system has utterly failed in its intent.

So, there should be no hidden boosts solely based on comparative level. A level 20 should be able to solo the end boss of Cruel without any differences other than the end boss's original high stats and his low ones, and if he overcomes the power mismatch to beat that thing anyway, you've either got a very good player or a very weak boss; give the player a massive exp bonus for the first case and give the boss new tricks for the second.