Does Hybrid Penalty (still) apply to group?

[Darklake]

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

Or the guy that wants to add a 6th player to the group when the 5-man group is already clearing every spawn because "the 6th guy is free" and they promptly invite a ranger to come sit around waiting on pops, for ~7% less xp for everyone.

I used to play with a mate who would constantly invite others, just because there was room. It started with three of us on our mains (him a Paladin, me a Druid and the wife an Enchanter) and we would tear through stuff, but before we knew it we'd find another body in the group to share loot and xp with, so the wife and I would quit after a while and log on to alts. Problem was solved when someone handed him an account with a 60 Wizard on it in a raiding guild and we hardly saw him after that.

[Orov]

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

i wont have a problem with getting to 60 or finding groups...i have made a good impression on essentially everyone i have met. But i sure as hell wont rush to it. kunark offers alot more than a new level cap, and i plan on enjoying most every aspect of it.

you go ahead and rush to 60 if you want, but kunark will be around for a long time before another large update....might as well take your time and enjoy it

This is the best argument I have seen so far on these boards.

Game, set, match. Winner: Virtuosos.

[Virtuosos]

i leveld my paladin as my first character on live, did the same here...i dont have any alts to speak of aside from a 36 mage that i will rarely play due to being in love with my paladin so much :/

and yes, there are group issues when the leader is stupid lol. if you cant find a group that knows what they are doing (I.E 3 clerics 2 wizards and a tank group) then it makes it alot more difficult...when i was leveling up, it got so bad that i just said fuck it and start soloing. although i am a huge supporter of grouping with whoever you want, class wise should still be observed...it IS nice to have a sk and a paladin though, utility wise...but no reason to add that ranger and that other paladin lol

[Randiesel]

I just think 3 or more hybrids gets silly, I'm the most negative xp hybrid there is, and I'm calling us out, I can definitely feel the penalty. One or two is fine, you get a pretty significant advantage in terms of pulling/tanking/aggro control by having an SK over a warrior (or in addition to a warrior, if i aggro pull and he taunts, its basically a warrior with disease cloud) but a hybrid when you already have the 2 base classes covered is a waste of space and xp.

Interesting discussion though.

[Randiesel]

I disagree.

While I agree that its a good point, its also tangentially aligned to the content of the thread. I haven't had a problem getting groups at all, thats actually one of my favorite things about this server... it seems like you get in a "pod" of like-leveled people and then basically group with them all the way to 50, its pretty neat.

Also, its not like this is Live and we're skipping expansions. While fun and nostalgic (and admittedly, I've learned quite a bit more than I thought I'd need to about old world content) my reason for playing is not to xp, its to raid.

[Kassel]

One of the things i really like about this server right now is that even with Kunark around the corner, the majority of players are here to enjoy the leveling experiance and are not raicing to "end game".

[Estu]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the 6th member of your group is not in fact free, as some seem to think. The group EXP bonus is as follows:
2 - 2%
3 - 4%
4 - 6%
5 - 8%
6 - 10%

Consider going from having 5 people to having 6. When you have 5 people you get 1/5 of the EXP from each mob, and then get an extra 8% of that 1/5; this ends up being .2 * 1.08 = .216, i.e. 21.6% of the EXP from the mob. When you have 6 people you get 1/6 of the EXP from each mob and an extra 10% of that, so this gives you .1667 * 1.1 = .1833, i.e. 18.33% of the EXP of the mob. There's a clear decrease here; you end up getting 15% less exp per mob (this is (.1833-.216)/.216).

[yaeger]

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

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the 6th member of your group is not in fact free, as some seem to think. The group EXP bonus is as follows:
2 - 2%
3 - 4%
4 - 6%
5 - 8%
6 - 10%

Consider going from having 5 people to having 6. When you have 5 people you get 1/5 of the EXP from each mob, and then get an extra 8% of that 1/5; this ends up being .2 * 1.08 = .216, i.e. 21.6% of the EXP from the mob. When you have 6 people you get 1/6 of the EXP from each mob and an extra 10% of that, so this gives you .1667 * 1.1 = .1833, i.e. 18.33% of the EXP of the mob. There's a clear decrease here; you end up getting 15% less exp per mob (this is (.1833-.216)/.216).

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

Those who group shouldn't be punished.

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

although i am a huge supporter of grouping with whoever you want, class wise should still be observed...it IS nice to have a sk and a paladin though, utility wise...but no reason to add that ranger and that other paladin lol

What's wrong with adding a DPS? You might have the opinion that SK/Pallies are somewhat worth their 40% shared exp penalty, but not Rangers?

This is why it was abolished, you'll have a great group with a bard as puller, pally as tank, then be looking for some DPS to finish out your group. You see a Ranger and go "naw, he'd suck up too much exp, let's find someone else".

Really, hybrids aren't worth the 40% exp penalty. It just hurts everyone and shepherds more players to the 'easy' and overplayed solo classes.

[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.