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March 29, 2005
My uninformed opinion
Long, long, long, loooooong thread on the CoH forums about this announcement from Statesman:
We changed the XP range from “Zone-wide, all the time” to the following:
200’ if you are simply on the team, and alive. You do not have to have inflicted any damage on the villain in order to receive XP at this range.
Zone-wide if you are on the team and dealt damage to the villain. You will always get your XP credit if you are in the zone and you did damage to the villain.
In other words, if you are on a team and in a zone, right now you get your XP share regardless of where you are and what you're doing. Under these rules, you may not. The idea is to try and beat some forms of PLing:
The reasoning behind this change was that the typical “power-leveling” tactic was to park the low-level heroes in the Safe Areas of zones, while the rest of the group hunts in the most dangerous places brings a lot of XP to the safe low-level guy. Forcing the low-level guy to actually move WITH the group (staying within 200’) prevents the most common power-levelling tactic in the game. It's OK if the low level guy is in the zone and contributing - but that player needs to have some risk to go along with the reward. We give credit to 200’ for even those who did not contribute to combat to ensure that buffing/healing types, who don’t actually damage the enemy, but are active participants in the defeat of the enemy, get their credit. You need to be ALIVE for this credit to be given however (or very recently dead). This is to circumvent Recall Friend’ing a dead low-level player around (completely safe) and getting him XP credit when not participating in the battle. We chose 200 ft. because that's right around typical visual range of players, but we're going to keep our eye on this when it goes active in the Training Room.
If you did ANY damage to the enemy, you will receive your credit no matter where you are in the zone (but you still need to be in the same zone).
Objections being raised are:
- Why is PLing bad? I can see the point from both directions here, so I can't comment. PLing as a lifestyle seems wrong, but does it actually harm others?
- What about when our team splits up and defeats mobs separately? A good point, I think, particularly for "Arrest X Whatevers" sorts of missions, where teams splitting up is often most efficient, or when everyone splits up to find the mob or clue that was missed.
- Why damage as the qualifier? Another good point. Some ATs contribute to the team in non-damage ways -- buffs, debuffs, mezzes, heals, bubbles. By tying XP to Damage, it seems that only crunchies and blasters are valued (and might as well go into something unteamed). Granted, if you're within the 200' you still get credit even if you didn't do any damage, but, philosophically, if you bubble up some folks who wade into melee, did you help, and should you get XP, regardless of where you stand? Versus, say, someone who does a snipe for 2 HP then runs out of the room? I think so.
- Two hundred feet?That does seem to be a short distance, if you ask me. It's easy to get separated that much within an inside mish, let alone an outside one.
What I think this proposal does is actually devalues the team concept. There are still advantages to teaming, but fewer than before.
One comment, applicable even under the current rules, has to do with "in-zone" restrictions. Two places where I could see legitimately arguing that you should be anywhere, not just within the zone (aside from further potential for PL abuse (see #1 above)) would be
(a) Teams going from Point A to Point B on a TF or other teaming plan, and those who are teamed who fight someone before everyone gathers not sharing the XP for that. If you're a team, you should share the credit. (Thinking of comic books, for example, the Avengers remain a team, even if they split up against the bad guys.)
(b) Zones where there are no hospitals penalizing folks vs. zones that have hospitals. If I fight in a melee in Skyway, then die and rez in the hospital, I'm still in-zone and get XP credit. If I do the same in Perez or the Hollows, I'm SOL. The current rule doesn't change that, though, in some ways, it makes it worse; if you didn't do any damage before dying (alpha strike, anyone?) and you head to the hospital, you get no XP for the melee.
I understand where the devs are going with this, but for those who are not PLing, it's kind of neat to get XP dropped in your lap while on your way to a mish, or back from the hospital. The amount is not huge, but it makes you feel, well, like you're on a team, that what others do on the team affects you.
I guess, in part, it comes down to what XP is supposed to represent, and what the game experience goal is. If XP is truly experience, then, sure, I can see this, but I can also see further limiting XP awards based on some elaborate formula of what you actually did, rather than splitting things up amongst the team whether you contributed 5 pts of damage or 500.
If, on the other hand, you are assigning value to the team concept, then (at the risk of folks abusing the system to PL), teams should mean things, and should share credit, broadly, alike.
Thinking of my desktop RPGs, there's usually a standard award for everyone, modified slightly by respective level and by particularly exemplary actions. Of course, there are no PLers in those games, either.
My suggestions, along these lines, for other places to start with something like htis:
- Tweak XP rules for SKs (especially SKing with broad ranges of levels) further, or impose modifications of these rules on SKs only (if you're trying to stop PL abuses). Or just limit how many levels up (gauged by the highest level person in the team, not your SKer) you can SK.
- Give credit not just for damage done, but any sort of hit (e.g., a debuff) or for any buff placed on a character who in turn does damage.
- Bump it up to 200 yards. At least.
- Instead of eliminating all XP for outside of 200', drop it to 50% XP. You still get something for being on the team and contributing, but it's less valuable for PL abuse.
- Impose the limits if the team is not within 200' of each other every 10 minutes (or drop folks from teams who are not within 200' of each other every 15 minutes, or something like that). That would make PLing more annoying (having to run back to the low-level character), but interfere less with team splits and other reasonable tactics.
- Consider restrictions not on combat XP but on mission-complete XP.
- Reconsider the whole Fight to Stop PLers. Yeah, they're "cheating," but mostly themselves, and the devs are spending too much time tweaking things to prevent it when they could be tweaking things to improve the experience of all players.
Posted by Dave at March 29, 2005 9:43 AM
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Filed under: Resources & Rules
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Comments
Avocet said:
Fix the URL, please! It shows up as http:///
Posted on March 29, 2005 10:33 AM
*** Dave said:
Fixed.
Posted on March 29, 2005 11:06 AM
Avocet said:
I don't have a problem with the range requirement. If you and Margie clear one tunnel while Stan and I clear the other, I don't feel that I am entitled to xp for your work.
I do have a problem with tying it directly to damage. If Margie's bubbles are keeping me alive so I can dish out damage, she should be rewarded. If a Defender has to focus a significant part of her attention on dealing dribs of damage continually throughout the fight, there's an increased chance that she's not going to notice a teammate's health is critical. That could mean more xp debt for the fighters.
Maybe there's an algorithm that can calculate a person's contribution (of any sort) to the fight, but I imagine it wouldn't be simple.
Posted on March 29, 2005 8:41 PM
*** Dave said:
If you are on a team and within 200 ft., you will get full XP regardless of whether you did damage or not.
If you are outside of 200 ft, but did damage, you receive XP.
If you are outside of 200 ft. and did not damage, you receive nothing.
Which is an expansion of this:
If you do ANY damage to a target and you're on the same map (zone or mission), you'll receive full XP share.
As for 200 ft. - this is essentially visual range. If you can't see the mob that your teammates are fighting, then you aren't getting XP on it.
To those Controllers and Defenders out there: max distance of Buffs is 190 ft.
Buffs have a starting range of 80 ft. (some are less, but I don't think any are more). Slot it with six Range SO's three levels higher than you. Each SO boosts the range by 20%, and there's a 15% bonus for the level difference. That makes a total boost of 238%. Multiply that by 80 ft. - bingo - 190 ft.
Posted on March 30, 2005 3:24 PM