To all legit players

I want to start out by saying that the Dev's constantly exceed my expectations. It is obvious they really care about this game.

Just a quick fyi when I refer to "them" or "they" or "people" I'm refering to the community not the devs.

In my estimation the devs have a LOT to deal with before release, so, they need to set priorities. If we don't seem to care about this issue...they have very good reason to not put it at the top of the list of things to address soon.

So I'm all about this issue being brought to people's attention. This is why when I boosted lvl 1's in this last race to end game maps. The first thing I did was spam global chat joking and trolling and letting people know I did it.

Next, anyone who asked to play with me (if my group wasn't already full) was invited (except for Hilbert, I won't play with him). I wanted people to see first hand how much of an advantage boosting can give.

Advantages are most unfair when only a small select elite group knows about them. If I find an exploit I'm telling everyone I can.

I've never understood the philosophy of lets not talk about it and just hope that the small group of players that know about it WON'T take advantage of it...call me cynical, but I don't think that works.

I want everyone to see this. Then people can decide if they think its bad or not...hopefully enough people will see this isn't good.


I want to thank the OP for making this thread and presenting it to the public.

For anyone who doesn't think boosting is a problem I will explain what axebane said in another post.

--> Someone who was previously #10 shot up to #3 in one day after using the boosting method. (that was me)

I made some posts before about how boosting is a problem and I didn't feel like my wall of text was really getting people to take notice of the issue.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words. This is my best finish to date. I would have probably made top 10 even without the booster method, but I doubt I would have made top 3, and I did.

So here is the answer:

1. You can call it an exploit or not call it an exploit. It is going to cause problems, because once you create a character strong enough to kill in a 2-5 player game, you might as well do it.

High level maps are hard to find, and even if you kill slower, spending more time in a high level map and getting more exp off of it is totally worth it.

Some system needs to be added to the game to address this problem.

I think either DDT's or Zhak's solutions would be improvements over the current system which basically drives you towards boosting or group splitting...

I mean it just feels like a weird system when the most effecient way to play is to either group...with lvl 1 afk characters, or group with other players go to zones and NOT play together.

I can understand a game where solo play is a little more rewarded, or group play is a little more effecient....

But it just feels weird for the most effecient way to play the game to be, party but don't actually play with the people you are partied with...

That just doesn't 'feel' right to me.

my 2 cents.

"

TEBird wrote:

But it just feels weird for the most effecient way to play the game to be, party but don't actually play with the people you are partied with...

Totally agree with this. Once the fun wears off, it becomes more of a burden than a part of partying that you genuinely enjoy. The fun hasn't worn off yet however.

I do enjoy the aspect of boosting a party member during a short term race, it feels like an exciting mechanic to employ - and let me tell you that it is. I mentioned near the beginning of this thread that the team I was with would be instance boosting during the past 3 hour race. When I was being boosted on the ledge in cruel with a real nice weapon (necessary to boost), it was a sweet feeling to get 1 level per ledge run (still felt wrong though).

Example 1: I was boosted when we first reached the ledge, I reached level 10 before other prominent players had even made level 8 (we had also completed hailrake and dweller).

Example 2: Boosted again on the ledge, this time in cruel. If we continued boosting my char for the entire race, I think I would have easily reached level 35 (my weapon was pretty good).

Example 3: dime died to a horrible desync death at the terraces cruel but as you can see, he got an extreme boost going into cruel. If he stayed alive and we boosted him the entire time he was in cruel, do you think he could have made level 40?


Solution suggestions:

1) As mentioned, share xp across the whole instance. While this sounds really nice at the surface, cons are really quite bad and create problems just as big, if not bigger, than the one we are trying to solve.

For example: If you have 5 lvl 1 dummy toons in your lvl 60 instance, your lvl 63~ will still be getting all the xp (this is my understanding, possibly wrong). If this wasn't the case, then all your other toons would get the xp and be power levelled, which is just as bad a problem.

This does help solve the problem for short term races due to the nature of boosting low lvl toons.

2) Just as xp sharing has a distance cutoff, also cutoff the extra xp gained from being in a party to begin with, if you're not even near your team mates, why are you in a party? Don't make the monsters any easier though. If players are going to split the instance, that should be to their disadvantage.

This feels messy, what if we get a yellow boss down to 5% then for some reason a player has to escape the xp sphere, they don't get anything now. Likewise if you made monsters easier, you could just attack the rare to 10% hp then the rest of the team would run into the xp sphere and to finish it off (currently works this way if you sit in town then warp into the fight just before boss death).

3) I do like the natural feel that comes with higher xp reward for killing the harder mobs during instance split. I am just not in favor of the massive advantage which can be gained during races by abusing this mechanic. I think the solution to this problem is somewhere in the middle ground between a full xp boost and normal xp.

By this I mean some sort of diminishing xp which stops a player from getting more than ~2.5x the xp from instance boosting. This would still somewhat reward the ability to kill the stronger mobs in the split instance (takes longer) while not destroying game progression to the point where it's a country calender barhop from farm to farm. The diminishing xp would also be the punishment for playing in a party but splitting in the instance

Why party if you not gonna hunt together?

Solution 1: add a /players X command

Pros:
- Allows everyone to easily get the benefits of 'boosting'

- Provides additional difficulty settings for players who uncomfortable partying with others (this would be particularly useful in maps)

Cons:
- Discourages cooperative play

Solution 2: Share XP to everyone in the zone

Pros:
- Prevents the current form of 'boosting'

- Useful for parties who frequently spread out

Cons:
- Makes it easier to leach XP. You'll see players join parties and then just join an instance and idle. People doing the work won't like this, and it'll discourage public parties.

Solution 3: Dynamically scale monster HP/rewards based on the number of nearby players

Pros:
- Prevents boosting without discouraging partying

Cons:
- Perhaps it will be more difficult to implement

- It is possibly open to minor 'exploitation'. People could solo a boss to 1 HP and then have 5 friends hop in the instance for the final blow. Of course, this would still be less efficient than playing legitimately with 5 equally matched characters.


I prefer solution 3.

I think I saw a very elegant mathematical solution to this, which basically equates to NOT getting more xp for having however many players. You always get the same XP for single as you do as a group.

This could be done either through formulae, or make XP individual based, rather than instance/party based. (Idon't know how hard coded /easy/hard the XP reward system is, so I don't know which way wuold be easier)

the example below is if formulae is used with the current group XP reward system (incl 2 screen limit, if you our outside you get 0).

eg: XP from kill = 100 (base)
player 1 lvl = 10
player 2 lvl = 1
XPPartyBoost%% = sumOfLow / high = 1 / 10 = 10%
Player 1 XP share = player 1 lvl / sumOfPlayerLevels
Player 2 XP share = player 2 lvl / sumOfPlayerLevels
XP from Kill Adjusted = 110 (XP from kill*XPPartyBoost%%)

Player 1 would receive 100XP (rounded 99.9999999999)
Player 2 would receive 10XP then have their penalties for being under leveled applied (4 level below grace, then XP penalty after that. Look up the mechanics thread for it).
So player 2's adjusted XP would be 10*(XP penalty for being underlevelled to area level).

I'll quickly do the same for 3 party to see that it comes out correct:
P1 = 10 lvl
P2 = 1
P3 = 1
XPPartyBoost = 20% ((1+1)/10)
P1 share = 10 / 12
P2 share = 1 / 12
P3 share = 1 / 12
Adj Xp from kill = 120
P1 gets 100 (99.999999999 rounded)
P2 gets 10 adjusted for penalties for low level
P3 gets 10 adjusted for penalties for low level

solved? :)

"

StillSingle wrote:

I think I saw a very elegant mathematical solution to this, which basically equates to NOT getting more xp for having however many players. You always get the same XP for single as you do as a group.

This could be done either through formulae, or make XP individual based, rather than instance/party based. (Idon't know how hard coded /easy/hard the XP reward system is, so I don't know which way wuold be easier)

the example below is if formulae is used with the current group XP reward system (incl 2 screen limit, if you our outside you get 0).

eg: XP from kill = 100 (base)
player 1 lvl = 10
player 2 lvl = 1
XPPartyBoost%% = sumOfLow / high = 1 / 10 = 10%
Player 1 XP share = player 1 lvl / sumOfPlayerLevels
Player 2 XP share = player 2 lvl / sumOfPlayerLevels
XP from Kill Adjusted = 110 (XP from kill*XPPartyBoost%%)

Player 1 would receive 100XP (rounded 99.9999999999)
Player 2 would receive 10XP then have their penalties for being under leveled applied (4 level below grace, then XP penalty after that. Look up the mechanics thread for it).
So player 2's adjusted XP would be 10*(XP penalty for being underlevelled to area level).

I'll quickly do the same for 3 party to see that it comes out correct:
P1 = 10 lvl
P2 = 1
P3 = 1
XPPartyBoost = 20% ((1+1)/10)
P1 share = 10 / 12
P2 share = 1 / 12
P3 share = 1 / 12
Adj Xp from kill = 120
P1 gets 100 (99.999999999 rounded)
P2 gets 10 adjusted for penalties for low level
P3 gets 10 adjusted for penalties for low level

solved? :)

In other words, individual players are given experience penalties based on their level relative to that of their party members. Monsters provide the same amount of base experience to each player regardless of the number of nearby players, but before applying the experience increase it is subject to the penalty.

I see two problem with your solution. The first problem I see with this is how it will function in an instance that has multiple parties. Multiple parties in a single instance might be uncommon in the default game mode, but it is common in leagues like cut-throat.

The second problem is that it allows for some exploitative behavior. A single player could run into an area and gather up a large group of monsters (or spawn a boss) and then bring in their 5 friends. The party of 6 will be able to dominate the monsters because they have the hp associated with a party of 1, but everyone still gets the rewards that they would have gotten if they participated in a legitimate fight.

Dynamically changing the monster difficulty and rewards based on the number of nearby players will offer the same result that your solution does, except it avoids the messiness associated with multiple party instances and the exploitative behavior.

I see what you are saying. I wrote the model assuming dynamic scaling (otherwise ANY XP redistribution system is flawed). I also ignored the difficulty side where HP needs to be increased based on number of players.

Please note, I have ignored IIQ as moderators have asked this not to be discussed here.

To beef up my proposal to hopefully satisfy any concerns:

I have two beleifs to do with difficulty of monsters when there are more than 1 person in an instance:

1. The Hp should almost be a multiple of the nummber of players in the instance (eg 3 players would result in 3x base HP). Afterall, you should be doing that much more damage (more if you synergise well).
2. The enemies damage should scale slightly to make up for the greater spread of damage around the players in the instance.

The fleshed out for completeness model to make people happy :P :)

1. Difficulty is dynamic and can scale with any number of players in an instance.

hp_base = 100
xp_base = 100
damage_base = 10 (probbaly not, but makes this easy for me to do without a calculator).
let n = number of players in instance

hp_adjusted = hp_base * n
damage_adjusted = damage_base * (1 + .05 * n)

Xp formulae as above.
Because it is dynamic, you cannot do as you suggested and just bring in toons after you start an instance (I'd love to know why you thought my model would be static?? pure curiosity, no jibe or badwill intended).
Also, multiple parties doesn't make any difference. everything scales on number of players (2 parties are going to find the environment VERY tough :) )
Also, you will actually be disinclined to party with people that are fillers because you will not end up getting XP as fast.

The current formulae from memory has XP increasing in line with HP, and then doing some form of split. The above solution basically says:

"each person in an instance is assumed to do a reasonable amount of damage for the area, therefore the HP that needs to be taken from the environment should be linearly scaled with the number of players. The XP that players earn should be no different whether they are grouped, in an instance with multiple parties, or by themselves".

I need to think on the whole party thing, as the multiple parties are usually fighting against each other??? But my solution should be fine (at least) for standard 1 party per instance scenarios.

hopefully I've fleshed it out enough to remove any concerns?? feedback and refinement, what greatness is made from :)

"

Neonspyder wrote:

"

pneuma wrote:

Supposedly GW2 has a system where any enemy hit by more than one player gives higher experience.

This sounds perfect for PoE. Just have each additional character that hits an enemy make the enemy give the +50%exp/+50%quant.

If someone goes through the trouble to make a bot that plays the game for them, then mission accomplished. That's the hardest possible bot to make and is indistinguishable from normal play.

Even if this was how it worked in GW2, this would create a whole new set of issues that would outweigh the first in my opinion.

You're going to have to explain this "whole new set of issues".

Not every mob is going to be hit by more than one character. That's fine. The bosses will be (and the occasional enemy) and that's benefit enough.

Of course this also gives no benefit to people who "group" and just go their separate ways, which seems like a bonus. It also gives no bonus to people who 1-hit everything in the game, which also seems like a bonus.

Given that the only way to game this system is by making bots that play the game, this seems legit.

I dunno man, you guys are coming up with pretty insane math equations to figure this shit out. I think the easiest solution is put a lvl cap of 15-25 lvls, if someone above or below that enters the instance it doesn't adjust to a party situation.

It still allows people to rush early levels, face merveil at lvl 8-9 if you can/want to. But in the middle difficulties it means the low lvls can't leech off higher lvl and on maps high lvl characters can't use lvl 1s as a exp bonus.

The thing is it only applies to party situations as if a lvl 30 was doing act 1 merci (48-52 right?) if they can handle the content, kill and whatever they will still get exp but if they get help from a lvl 70 they can't leech, only get rushed through the content. Even if a lvl 70 rushed a low lvl character through, that low lvl character would still have to grind out the lvls by himself or with someone of relatively the same lvl.

This also keeps high lvl groups intact so a lvl 60 and 80 can do a map together without being screwed on experience.

"

Moosifer wrote:

This also keeps high lvl groups intact so a lvl 60 and 80 can do a map together without being screwed on experience.

Level gap that widens with the level of the party leader sounds nice.

This doesn't really solve the problem of leveling up characters to load, though.

"

Wisdom wrote:

I see two problem with your solution. The first problem I see with this is how it will function in an instance that has multiple parties. Multiple parties in a single instance might be uncommon in the default game mode, but it is common in leagues like cut-throat.

The second problem is that it allows for some exploitative behavior. A single player could run into an area and gather up a large group of monsters (or spawn a boss) and then bring in their 5 friends. The party of 6 will be able to dominate the monsters because they have the hp associated with a party of 1, but everyone still gets the rewards that they would have gotten if they participated in a legitimate fight.

1. You can always treat all players in an instance as a party in terms of experience sharing on monsters, I don't think it would be a problem. So potentially in normal games you can leave a party while still in same instance, nothing will change except auras working. In cutthroat you can have "a party" of very many players, but it just creates more possibilities for fun play - try to get to merveil as party of 20 and swarm her :) They are not race leagues so I don't think it's a problem. If players later pay and create such leagues as long term I don't mind having some OP big parties be very strong and have fun there.

2. That's true, but this exploitative behaviour is better than current exploits. I can imagine a top team doing a few maps at once by luring monsters but it would really be not much more (if at all) efficient. You mostly kill monsters as you meet them even as tanky character and luring is dangerous. It's not easy to get group of monsters to low health too.

You can do this with bosses obviously, but you can do this to power characters through content currently too. Nothing would change here. Also for map bosses you don't get that much experience for them and map drops are not determined by number of players. All possible exploits are not really big, maybe even not worth using. Everything in such system is better than in current one.

"

Level gap that widens with the level of the party leader sounds nice.

This doesn't really solve the problem of leveling up characters to load, though.

So, someone would get/buy a friend to level with him, and then use it to only boost? Sounds really paranoid but I can imagine someone doing it :S. Anyway, it's much better than what is currently and I'd like to see such change implemented and some races run to test it.

Maybe the calculations of level differences should be in addition to level sharing and loot drops proportional to distance between players (with a decent 100% gain zone for normal partying and slight deterioration to not hurt players that just walk back a bit). Not sure how much of a technical issue this would be but I don't see downsides of it in gameplay. I don't think entering through 2 different sides to zone and soloing to get double experience should be viable strategy in 3h races anyway. It's pretty stupid that you party just to get more exp, instead of partying to actually play as party.

This brings us to other ideas, don't give players more experience at all (or very, very small bonus if this is needed for balancing party play overall), just give experience to parties and only when they deserve it. Having nice content and bonus scaling on character levels *in addition* prevents us from boosting drops too easily.