Does Hybrid Penalty (still) apply to group?

[Virtuosos]

as i have stated, i group with whoever is needing exp and fits with the group...i wont have 3 clerics in a group...2 is questionable as well.

and having 3 tanks really isnt that bad...when i was leveling in sol b, we had a bitching group of a warrior sk paladin cleric monk chanter. it went extremely smoothly, loved it..


hm, now come to think of it...i honestly do not think i have grouped with a ranger more than 5 times from 1 to 50 (Excluding raids)....there just really isnt that many of them :/

[Estu]

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

That's why the Sony/Verant raised the group exp bonuses in Velious, then again for PoP.

Those who group shouldn't be punished.

They're not punished; they're rewarded. Yes, you do get less EXP per mob if you have 6 people instead of 5, but that extra person should be helping you kill mobs faster. If they actually contribute proportionally, then you are earning more exp. Of course, in practice, 6-person groups are unwieldy because they often do not have enough pulls available to them to kill efficiently, but there is an argument to be made for smaller groups, like maybe a tank, a healer, and one or two DPS. Even then, though, solo classes often EXP faster, especially necros and mages, but my point is that the numbers I calculated don't actually indicate that 'those who group are punished'.

[yaeger]

In order to get equivalent equivalent experience as a solo class, a normal group would have to kill about 5 mobs every minute. The group experience bonus helps with this a little bit, but for every hybrid you add to your group, you greatly slow down the rate of exp.

Here's some quotes from Verant from the Jan 2001 Producers Letter that explain it better than I ever could.

Originally Posted by Producers Letter

Experience Penalties - Description

I think that it would be appropriate to say that most players are aware that there are different experience requirements for advancement based upon the race and class you choose to play. Ogres, for instance, require more experience to level than Halflings, and Shadowknights require more experience to level than Warriors. As such, an Ogre Shadowknight requires FAR more experience to level than a Halfling Warrior does. What some people have discovered is that when in a group, everyone shares in this penalty. Before getting into our plan, I think that its important to talk about what our goals were regarding experience penalties and the group sharing in that penalty.

When EverQuest player characters were being designed, it was immediately apparent that some races and classes would be more powerful than others given versatility and other factors. Later, it came to light that the concept of being "more powerful" began to break down at the upper levels, given that everyone capped at the same level. We could not let any one race or class be immensely more powerful than another at that final point, as it would essentially put parts of the game off limits to those who chose the less powerful classes. While we did a good job of making races vary in power, but not so much as to be unbalancing, the same could not be said for classes. Still, though classes would be roughly equivalent in regard to the compelling reason to play them through versatility, the experience penalties were kept.

In regards to the sharing of the experience penalty, it was apparent in beta, before the penalty was shared, that those playing characters without an experience penalty leveled faster than those that did. It was obvious that this would occur, but it was to the extreme that a group of friends, all playing together, would become separated to the point that they could no longer group efficiently in the mid to upper-mid levels. So we chose to distribute experience in the group on the basis of the total experience of each member rather than the level, in order to keep groups together.

As such, a level 20 Troll SK, having more experience total than a Human Wizard of the same level, would get more experience from each kill, while the total experience for the kill was unchanged. Essentially, the SK would take part of the Wizard's share were everything distributed equally to begin with.

And this highlights the main points:

Originally Posted by Producers Letter

2. Class-based penalties are not appropriate. Classes are roughly equivalent in power throughout the level ranges, and the versatility does not make up for that penalty. In fact, the majority of changes made to classes in the name of balance in the last year were based on the assumption that, at the high end, each class should still be roughly as needed and balanced as any other.

3. Penalties, in any form, should not be shared with the group. Players know that no one class is immensely more powerful/valuable than another, and as such it is not fair to ask them to share a burden. If classes with penalties were really more powerful or valuable than the other classes, then it might be right, but that isn't the case here. Furthermore, sharing of penalties causes people to reject potential group members on the basis of them "sucking" too much experience.

Essentially class experience penalties were broken from the get-go. I don't see why P1999 would want to continue Verants obvious mistake.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Yeah, we've tried that Dev letter. :P

http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...ad.php?t=11384

[Sethius]

Point is, Class based penalties are probably unfair, sharing them with the group probably does more damage than good (to grouping), and the developers of P99 are trying to do the right thing by following the original timeline and probably won't remove the class based penalties until velious.

I do not blame them for this decision. It is this sort of mentality that allows P99 to be as awesome as it is (and otherwise would have likely become an abomination as far as classic EQ is concerned and be no fun at all).

I wish that the class based penalties were gone, I'd like that for sure. I also understand that if the developers remove them before the original timeline stipulates, what prevents people from demanding other changes? It could happen, it probably would happen. Would we end up with a server with a 5x exp bonus and no more corpse runs? Probably not, but you get the idea, it gives people the idea that the devs would bend given sufficient pressure.

Therefore I can understand their resistance to changing this before velious. If anything, I think it might be up to us as the players to develop a community that is not about powerleveling and banning others from our groups for their class choice.

We are here because we want to re-create that 1999 EQ feeling (right?), and there are a lot of players on this server now, enough for people to group with, why not put aside the solo classes and take a stand, and work towards developing the game we want by playing it the way that feels right, not the most efficient way.

Afterall, this isn't WoW, let's not try to make it WoW.

So many good points have been made on this argument, it's time to think of plan B. I am personally avoiding solo play as much as possible deliberatly. I do it once in awhile, but by no means do I do it all the time. It's less fun, and feels more like WoW, so I just boot up WoW and play my shammy when I want to solo. When I'm bored of that after 5 minutes I get back to EQ and go out in search of a good group, meet some new friends, and adventure old style. Just the way it should be.

[Malinrol]

... Epic ownage at the highest levels...

[Lagaidh]

It's odd that I've been touting the same "just fecking play" philosophy for years as Virtuosos trumpeted in this thread. It must be because we are the best race/class in the game: DWF PAL.

As I used to say in live after moments of particular lucidity: "Trust the dwarf. He knows things."

I was a bit put off over the weekend to begin hearing folks in my own guild of old friends from live that I've know for years begin the discussion over whether or not to include hybrids in pugs.

Very put off...

Know your class. Play the game. That's all. That really is all... Why do we keep this drama going on the boards (and in /gu chat apparently)?

It's a non issue unless you're dead set on measuring your veiny e-peen against the heap of pixels standing next to you.

Just.
Feckin'
PLAY!

[yaeger]

Because it's all fooked up and makes no sense, that's why it's always brought up over and over again by the community.

This..

Penalties, in any form, should not be shared with the group. Players know that no one class is immensely more powerful/valuable than another, and as such it is not fair to ask them to share a burden. If classes with penalties were really more powerful or valuable than the other classes, then it might be right, but that isn't the case. Furthermore, sharing of penalties causes people to reject potential group members on the basis of them "sucking" too much experience.

[Ploppy]

I don't have a level 50 and I'm fine with splitting the exp penalty with anyone that's fun to group with. No use crying about it. You said yourself they didn't change it till after Velious and this is a classic server

[Shannacore]

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

I don't have a level 50 and I'm fine with splitting the exp penalty with anyone that's fun to group with. No use crying about it. You said yourself they didn't change it till after Velious and this is a classic server

I AM FUN TO GROUP WITH, GROUP WITH ME.