Suggestion to Encourage Levelling Across Norrath

[jadier]

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

This new rule set of TLP is super crowded, so I'm seeing activity in the Karanas, Crushbone, CT, Najena. Its nice that people are out exploring snd grouping in under utilized zones. Of course, Unrest also has 7 instances going, lol.

Yeah, the new rule set does the opposite of what’s proposed here. Instead of making everywhere equal xp, they’ve made everything equal loot.

If you equalized both xp and loot, then sure, that will expand the player base. But even then, given how tricky it is the move around the world, most folks will just plop in one “good” zone and all semi-afk until they get a group invite. As you point out, that’s why there’re still 7 unrest instances!

[rajax]

My idealized terribly unclassic suggestions to hopefully encourage people to spread out to underutilized zones:

1) Boost group xp bonuses so that adding a 3rd member's division in total xp is halved, 4th is quartered and the 5th and 6th members would be essentially free with no further reduction in group xp rewards. Encouraging large groups and going to less crowded/more dangerous zones.

2) Give all Kunark & Velious zones a modest base ZEM boost to reflect the increased hp/damage tables & difficulty those areas have over old world content. 5%-10%.

3) Indoor dungeon zones gain a base ZEM bonus over outdoor zones of 10%. Additionally up to a small 5% base ZEM bonus based on length of respawn times, 5% max at 25+ minute respawn times. Additional small base ZEM bonuses subject to barriers to entry, ie. key, quest item or port requirement etc.

4) Indoor dungeon zones gain a dynamic ZEM modifier that reflects usage:

For every total in game day (72 minutes) that 13+ players have been active (killing/receiving XP from any significant amount of monsters, ie. 5+ kills) The ZEM decreases 1% or if no or <7 players active ZEM increases 1%. Never going lower than outdoor zones base modifier with the bonuses from #3 and never going higher than a 200% total or double bonus over base outdoor XP. So up to 12 players could hunt in a dungeon zone with no - change in ZEM, Single group or abandoned areas accumulate a bonus and popular areas slowly decline down to base value. I'd favor not publishing the current ZEM anywhere but maybe showing a small "green" or "+" for zones with a strong bonus maybe on a /who report at least initially to encourage exploration.

5) Most controversial suggestion- Severely reduce XP base value of city guards/NPCs. Guard killing/camping should never have become the most profitable and safe source of XP & cash at mid to high level game. New characters in the yards and doing quests retain the big ZEM but guards spawning statically and alone shouldn't be notably better XP than clearing rooms of harder, patrolling spawns in remote zones.

[hightension]

1. Will certainly be abused, you will just have bots/alts filling those spots afk

2. If you boost outdoor kunark zones it will just mean bards, druids, wizards level faster and you'll see even more PL groups. I do agree that end game dungeons could use a little tweaking.. . but outside of those, ultimately I think you'd just see the majority of them being used to level up alts faster via PL ala runnyeye.

3/4. How much faster do you want levelling to be than it is now ? Your solution of making it easier to level overall with further incentives or using complicated mechanics to artificially control xp seems counter to the point of classic EQ and what makes it interesting. This type of over thinking is what lead mmo's into a death spiral in my opinion

5. There are only so many zones with guards to kill. By eliminating this, you're robbing people of a relaxing solo playstyle enjoyed by many. Some don't like grouping or being funneled into what you deem is the only way to play the game. This would also just result in more stress and people fighting over a now a reduced amount of solo spots.

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

My idealized terribly unclassic suggestions to hopefully encourage people to spread out to underutilized zones:

1) Boost group xp bonuses so that adding a 3rd member's division in total xp is halved, 4th is quartered and the 5th and 6th members would be essentially free with no further reduction in group xp rewards. Encouraging large groups and going to less crowded/more dangerous zones.

2) Give all Kunark & Velious zones a modest base ZEM boost to reflect the increased hp/damage tables & difficulty those areas have over old world content. 5%-10%.

3) Indoor dungeon zones gain a base ZEM bonus over outdoor zones of 10%. Additionally up to a small 5% base ZEM bonus based on length of respawn times, 5% max at 25+ minute respawn times. Additional small base ZEM bonuses subject to barriers to entry, ie. key, quest item or port requirement etc.

4) Indoor dungeon zones gain a dynamic ZEM modifier that reflects usage:

For every total in game day (72 minutes) that 13+ players have been active (killing/receiving XP from any significant amount of monsters, ie. 5+ kills) The ZEM decreases 1% or if no or <7 players active ZEM increases 1%. Never going lower than outdoor zones base modifier with the bonuses from #3 and never going higher than a 200% total or double bonus over base outdoor XP. So up to 12 players could hunt in a dungeon zone with no - change in ZEM, Single group or abandoned areas accumulate a bonus and popular areas slowly decline down to base value. I'd favor not publishing the current ZEM anywhere but maybe showing a small "green" or "+" for zones with a strong bonus maybe on a /who report at least initially to encourage exploration.

5) Most controversial suggestion- Severely reduce XP base value of city guards/NPCs. Guard killing/camping should never have become the most profitable and safe source of XP & cash at mid to high level game. New characters in the yards and doing quests retain the big ZEM but guards spawning statically and alone shouldn't be notably better XP than clearing rooms of harder, patrolling spawns in remote zones.

[cd288]

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

1. Will certainly be abused, you will just have bots/alts filling those spots afk

2. If you boost outdoor kunark zones it will just mean bards, druids, wizards level faster and you'll see even more PL groups. I do agree that end game dungeons could use a little tweaking.. . but outside of those, ultimately I think you'd just see the majority of them being used to level up alts faster via PL ala runnyeye.

3/4. How much faster do you want levelling to be than it is now ? Your solution of making it easier to level overall with further incentives or using complicated mechanics to artificially control xp seems counter to the point of classic EQ and what makes it interesting. This type of over thinking is what lead mmo's into a death spiral in my opinion

5. There are only so many zones with guards to kill. By eliminating this, you're robbing people of a relaxing solo playstyle enjoyed by many. Some don't like grouping or being funneled into what you deem is the only way to play the game. This would also just result in more stress and people fighting over a now a reduced amount of solo spots.

You wouldn’t see that in Kunark zones. It’s not like some of those Kunark zones aren’t already to most popular locations for bards and Druids, it literally changes nothing. There’s so many good exp spots in the Kunark outdoor zones for both groups and soloers that simply go unused because it doesn’t make sense from an efficiency perspective.

If I’m soloing in the old world on a caster I can probably kill two mobs for the same amount of mana it takes me to kill one in Kunark (or if not the same amount of mana, the point is after killing the Kunark mob I need to med...my mana bar can’t kill two mobs one after the other like it can in the old world). That’s such a huge discrepancy, especially at higher levels when you’re already spending hours and hours on each level. Boosting those ZEMs a bit would make it make more sense to explore the Kunark zones sometimes.

[cd288]

Rajax I agree with a lot of your comments besides the dynamic ZEM. That’s way too much work to expect volunteers to do.

Idk if you need to make the exp bonus for groups that high but certainly it would be nice because it would mean you have fewer groups of three or four sitting there exping while multiple people sit LFG. Kunark outdoor zone boost would also be nice because it just makes no sense to EXP there unless you have to. So much easier and more efficient to EXP in the old world.

[rajax]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rajax I agree with a lot of your comments besides the dynamic ZEM. That’s way too much work to expect volunteers to do.

Idk if you need to make the exp bonus for groups that high but certainly it would be nice because it would mean you have fewer groups of three or four sitting there exping while multiple people sit LFG. Kunark outdoor zone boost would also be nice because it just makes no sense to EXP there unless you have to. So much easier and more efficient to EXP in the old world.

Ideally, the dynamic dungeon ZEM I was imagining would have been just automated without requiring staff involvement. More or less bug free- like Mob pathing... With no idea how P1999 logs data this may be trivial or impossible to implement.

If that proposed max cap of 200% or double base XP sounds too generous, to put it in perspective- as I understand it, that is the same as the current permanent ZEM for The Hole that is causing everyone to swarm there. As I worded it, this would take 5 continuous real time days of no or 1 group only activity to reach that cap and would lower if the area became very active with 13 or more players.

The group bonus also could be too generous, but concerns about PL or BoT groups seem irrelevant as people who only care about min-max XP rates are going to do whatever it takes to get to 60 as quickly as possible- fun be damned. No matter what bonus or nerf is applied. Just report and enforce the server rules or ignore them whichever you choose. If large groups just sit around hogging trivial outdoor content, perhaps those “free” 5th and 6th group spots should only be in effect in those specific dangerous dungeon/raid zones the staff flags as “group encouraged”

Maybe the best solution would be to simply change the ZEM periodically as the original poster suggested but never publish any changes. Not knowing the ZEM is as classic as it gets. The things I suggested would be more in-line with a far future “blue” that focused on original new content and new server ruleset.

[Toxigen]

Just boycott the Hole if you're a competent player.

Leave all the dead weight mouthbreathers to trip over themselves in there.

There is more fun (and $$$) to be had in other zones.

[Man0warr]

That's all the incentive you need then. Have fun exploring.

[jolanar]

ZEM should be based purely on zone difficulty and nothing else.

[cd288]

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

ZEM should be based purely on zone difficulty and nothing else.

I mean it generally is. but the term difficulty in a game like EQ also includes things like travel/how far melees are from a bind point etc.