Hybrid XP penalties

[t0lkien]

Isn't timescale irrelevant though? Velious isn't ready, and the penalty changes were not released till Velious, so doing so beforehand is not logical. If Velious takes longer to arrive, then so should all the bits that went along with it, surely.

Not that it matters to me. The penalties don't bother me at all. I'm here for the fun and nostalgia, not to powerlevel my way to 60 ASAP and then poopsock all the spawns.

[Splorf22]

Kaev, at L50 an Ogre Shadowknight with a Bladestopper is going to have more HP, more AC, more aggro, and way more utility than a L50 Ogre warrior with two Yaks (especially if said SK has Lustrous Russet). Even Rangers are pretty solid at 50 with that 5/14 whip (remember that 6/13 monk fist that drops off of Vulak?). What fucks the hybrids over in Kunark is getting a bunch of moderately useful spells with huge casting times instead of evasive/defensive discipline and better skillcaps. If Shadowknights had 250 defense and 250 offense and even a mediocre version of defensive there would be no reason to play a warrior.

Classic: Verant designed hybrids to be a bit better and they deserved their penalty
Kunark: Verant decided to balance the classes a bit and suddenly the hybrids were equal or slightly worse
Velious: Verant belatedly remembered to remove the XP penalty

[kaev]

:shrug:

XP penalty is terrible terrible game design. Players who want to will all reach the level cap. Pre-Kunark Warrior at level cap is just inferior to SK/Paladin/Ranger at level cap, no amount of punishing the hybrid player and his/her groupmates changes that even slightly. It's just shit. The same is quite obviously true for the Warrior's XP bonus, it doesn't help, the classic 50 Warrior is an inferior class and getting to cap quicker (along with your groupmates) in no way repairs or mitigates that fault.

There is no deserving or not deserving, it's just terrible. Making the game unfun, that is to say, arranging that large numbers of other players refusing to group with you regardless of all else because your class is inferior or you will penalize the group's xp gain is shit design. Hard to think of anything worse in game design than making the game unfun to play.

Also, it's fun to note that the shit design decisions continued unabated. In mid-Velious, by the time the XP penalty was removed, ALL of the tanks had become undesirable for XP grouping due to how ridiculously OP monks were.

What makes this game fun is playing with friends and making new friends. What makes it unfun are the various shitty design choices left in place for years at a time that interfere with opportunities for making new friends in-game.

[xCry0x]

Originally Posted by kaev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

XP penalty is terrible terrible game design.

Having the exp penalty + a group experience calculation where % of kill exp is distributed based on the % of total exp your character represents to the sum of accumlated exp across all other members is a terrible game design.

Making a hybrid level slower isn't a bad design if they are deemed to be stronger than non hybrids... but making non hybrids suffer for grouping with them is.

I mean, a 40% penalty on bards is irrelevant when they swarm kite to 60 anyways.. imagine if bards DIDN'T have a penalty? lol.

[fadetree]

Originally Posted by xCry0x [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Having the exp penalty + a group experience calculation where % of kill exp is distributed based on the % of total exp your character represents to the sum of accumlated exp across all other members is a terrible game design.

Making a hybrid level slower isn't a bad design if they are deemed to be stronger than non hybrids... but making non hybrids suffer for grouping with them is.

I mean, a 40% penalty on bards is irrelevant when they swarm kite to 60 anyways.. imagine if bards DIDN'T have a penalty? lol.

Yes, this is the real problem. The exp penalty may sort of make sense on the hybrid player, but applying it to the whole group is just retarded, or evil, or possibly both. I suspect they thought the math would be too hard or something if they had to calc for each player separately.

[Ele]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes, this is the real problem. The exp penalty may sort of make sense on the hybrid player, but applying it to the whole group is just retarded, or evil, or possibly both. I suspect they thought the math would be too hard or something if they had to calc for each player separately.

One of the reasons I've heard for the group sharing the penalty is that they didn't want friends playing non-penalty classes outpacing their penalty class playing friends.

[Rooj]

The funny thing is there are so many more things that affect your EXP way more. Adding party members for example. Just because you CAN have a full group of 6 players, doesn't mean you should. Many times I've gotten my best EXP when duo/trio/quatro. I hate when I am in a low man group and we're doing fine, and the leader invites more people. Ya know what kills your EXP more than anything else possibly can? Not having enough mobs to kill.. having to wait on repops. Group composition, (I hate seeing a bard+enc in a group, or even worse the dreaded CLR+SHM+ENC that everyone loves so dearly... If you have a SHM+ENC and you need a cleric too, yer doin somethin wrong) bad players, AFK players (looking at you Fahndango!), and finally, gear. All of these things destroy your EXP more than any non-existent EXP "penalty" (rofl).

[Atmas]

Well the problem is it would be kind of silly if two people played together and leveled every day and ended up after a while being level 40 and level 34 or something (numbers made up but you get the point about leveling discrepancy).

The real problem with the hybrid penalty is that if you are using it to balance power it is kind of meaningless when you get to max level. However, this methodology is reminiscent of the old pen and paper games that made it more difficult for players with greater potential to reach it.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by fadetree [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes, this is the real problem. The exp penalty may sort of make sense on the hybrid player, but applying it to the whole group is just retarded, or evil, or possibly both. I suspect they thought the math would be too hard or something if they had to calc for each player separately.

When P1999 opened the hybrid penalties were broken and self-only. It sucked immensely. Duoing with the wife meant she leveled much more quickly than me and she either had to suicide down to keep even, or I had to spend a lot more time online than she did. The sharing is much preferable over that rubbish. Of course, the class penalties are stupid to begin with so not having them would be better still. They'll go away some months after Velious opens so the best we can do is hope for Velious.

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A slight correction: All else being equal, a level 50 Ogre Shadow Knight with a Bladestopper will not have more health than a level 50 Ogre Warrior. The SK would be close, but the Warrior would still have a little more. Warriors have 3 hit points more per level 1-50 (plus a better modifier from stamina) than SK/PAL do and a Bladestopper isn't worth 150 worn hit points to a level 50. The rune click effect can be ignored since the Warrior has access to that as well via whatever means he prefers. The Warrior will also have marginally higher mitigation due to his innate mitigation bonus. Despite these minor corrections I agree that at 50 a Paladin or SK is generally superior to a Warrior. I also agree that Kunark reverses that and the pure classes are stronger for the remainder of the classic era.

Danth

[Swish]

Well I'm in no rush for Velious as we all know, but it will cure this hybrid problem...and I'm sure there'll be 100s of little iksar SKs running around on launch night [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]