Is Powerleveling a Concern?

Hey everyone!

I have been peeking in every so often at AoC for a while now and am excited to start getting more involved (finally bit the bullet for a pack

).

In the July 31 Dev Update, Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members. This leads me to wonder: will this make powerleveling incredibly easy? Or will there be some level threshold a party member must meet to partake in the XP for kills?

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Warth

We don't have any further information on that.
It's a good question though. In other games, the highest level party member usually dictates the amount of exp that lands on the characters of the players in the end. This usually comes in one of top forms:

No exp at all the moment a player is X level above the monster.
Exp drop-offs depending on the Level difference between highest group member and the monster.

Scenario 2 usually looks somewhat along the lines of:

When X Level above the mob, the EXP gained is reduced by:
X = 3 -> -10%
X = 4 -> -25%
X = 5 -> -33%
X = 6 -> -50%
X = 7 -> -66%
X = 8 -> -75%
X = 9 -> - 90%
X=10 -> -100%

This would tie into ashes in the following way:
A level 50 (Player A) is boosting a Level 41 (Player B ) and a LvL 35 (Player C)
They are killing Level 45 Spider Matriarchs.

The group is awarded 1000 EXP per Matriach.
This is reduced by 33% due to the Level difference of Player A.
666 EXP left, which is distributed between all 3 Players
Each one receives 222 EXP.

Now this system has one big problem. It discourages players from Leveling with players, they'd like to play with, due to the fact that they are a different level than themselves. I personally believe this to be a very bad thing, especially considering that this is a game build around the principles of community.

Now in order to fix that, i'd stay away from the above mentioned example and go for an alternative that is also quiet common in these kind of games:

Don't Share the exp between the player equally, but give each players the amount of exp, that would equally contribute to each players Level up. Here an example:

A level 50 (Player A) is boosting a Level 41 (Player B ) and a LvL 35 (Player C)

Player A requires 50.000 EXP total for his next Level up (Level 50-51)
Player B requires 25.000 EXP total for his next Level up (Level 41->42)
Player C requires 15.000 EXP total for his next Level up. (Level 35->36)

Now divide the 1000 EXP from the Spider Matriarch through the EXP total they'd need to reach the next Level.

1000 EXP / 90000 EXP * 50.000 EXP would mean that player A receives 555 EXP
1000 EXP / 90000 EXP * 25.000 EXP would mean that player B receives 277 EXP
1000 EXP / 90000 EXP * 25.000 EXP would mean that player B receives 166 EXP

Which would be 1,1% to the next Level for each player.

Ravudha

Joonsberry wrote: »

Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members.

When Steven says the xp allocated to a group is 'divisible by the group members', I wonder if he meant equally divisible or divisible based on the damage done by each character, which negates the powerlevelling.

You'd think encounters track individual damage done to tally group damage anyway, so why not just use that damage distribution to work out xp allocated within a group.

Caeryl

Ravudha wrote: »

Joonsberry wrote: »

Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members.

When Steven says the xp allocated to a group is 'divisible by the group members', I wonder if he meant equally divisible or divisible based on the damage done by each character, which negates the powerlevelling.

You'd think encounters track individual damage done to tally group damage anyway, so why not just use that damage distribution to work out xp allocated within a group.

He meant it’s split evenly among all in the party. If it was damage based, then tanks and healers would never get decent exp.

ServNiQ

Caeryl wrote: »

Ravudha wrote: »

Joonsberry wrote: »

Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members.

When Steven says the xp allocated to a group is 'divisible by the group members', I wonder if he meant equally divisible or divisible based on the damage done by each character, which negates the powerlevelling.

You'd think encounters track individual damage done to tally group damage anyway, so why not just use that damage distribution to work out xp allocated within a group.

He meant it’s split evenly among all in the party. If it was damage based, then tanks and healers would never get decent exp.

Thats why he included the tagging system, where healers and tanks only have to do a certain percentage of the damage compared to the DPS people.

But yeah, he said that the exp and rewards (like looting rights) would be DPS dependent, which means that 1) power leveling isn't an issue because if you're doing 95% of the damage while your friend is doing 5%, you will receive 95% of the total experience gained from that monster, and 2) it means that as a healer, you will have some damage attacks, you're not just gonna stand there and look pretty. If you look at the wiki, you can see some of the skills for clerics

Hope this helps

Caeryl

ServNiQ wrote: »

Caeryl wrote: »

Ravudha wrote: »

Joonsberry wrote: »

Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members.

When Steven says the xp allocated to a group is 'divisible by the group members', I wonder if he meant equally divisible or divisible based on the damage done by each character, which negates the powerlevelling.

You'd think encounters track individual damage done to tally group damage anyway, so why not just use that damage distribution to work out xp allocated within a group.

He meant it’s split evenly among all in the party. If it was damage based, then tanks and healers would never get decent exp.

Thats why he included the tagging system, where healers and tanks only have to do a certain percentage of the damage compared to the DPS people.

But yeah, he said that the exp and rewards (like looting rights) would be DPS dependent, which means that 1) power leveling isn't an issue because if you're doing 95% of the damage while your friend is doing 5%, you will receive 95% of the total experience gained from that monster, and 2) it means that as a healer, you will have some damage attacks, you're not just gonna stand there and look pretty. If you look at the wiki, you can see some of the skills for clerics

Hope this helps

...No. No that isn't how he describe exp allocation at all, actually. It's in the most recent stream if you'd like to watch for yourself and get the most recent info.

Steven's comments were brought up in the context of competing groups, loot rights vs exp distribution.

Exp distribution is assigned to groups based on the group's damage proportional to any other competing groups. If a group of 10 players did 30% of the damage dealt to the boss, and that boss grants 10000 total exp, everyone in that group would receive 300 exp. All exp assigned to a group is split evenly among every player in that group.

The only way you and your friend split exp 95% to 5% is if you two stay ungrouped. Once you group it's 50%/50%.

Frosty_Tips

Right what Caeryl said, there's a misunderstanding that exp gained is based on the dmg you do, this isn't the case when speaking specifically to how exp is split amonst group members. And the OP's exact question is one I raised and ultimately the answer is "we need to get this question in the next Q&A". Like Caeryl's example if a group doesnt split the exp evenly and instead its based on how much dmg you do, then you just ruined 2 or people's lives 1) the low dmg, sword and board tank who barely does much dmg but his job is to be constantly moving, long rang pulling the next mob, and taunting/absorbing dmg, he may only do 5% of the actual dmg! and 2) healers, yes Cleric have many offensive spells but some spells are purely healing and your mana is limited so that cleric will probably do 1/3 as much dmg as a mage/mage.

Based on all the available information all signs are pointing towards "Pay for extremely fast powerleveling" is possible. A level 50 and a level 1 can group, and the lvl 50 can spend all day farming lvl 50 mobs and each kill gives for example 6000 exp, and both the lvl 50 and the lvl 1 will get a 50/50 split, so 3000 exp each, which 3k exp for a lvl 1 is a boat load!

Clearly this is not "as intended", I hope it isn't, I am not a dev obviously. The Lord of Sandals is wise and experienced, I have faith that the devs do have a solution to prevent this sort of powerleveling, they just have not been asked to give the specific mechanic so we need to get this Q&A to them next Q&A!

Daedrik45

I’m going to use DAoC again as in example bc it’s the only other game I know of that has 8 man groups and back in the day 1-50 too a very very long grind. Soloing in this game was very rare, tho the xp per kill was great If say u could farm yellows and toss in a orange every so often. People would either trio to grind oranges and reds Or form a complete group of 8 to pbaoe purples. XP/ hr would increase thus incentivizing grouping over soloing. Got Xp bonus from area and group. I imagine it being something like this in AoC as well.

Demonhunter1

The real question is ... will grinding mobs vs grinding quests give you more XP? Now this all depends on the availability of mobs and quests obviously so there is alot of unknowns. Maybe we will have a hint when A1 releases to get a peek on how much XP a quest grants.

Aeri

Due to XP from mobs being split to different groups based on damage done by each group, there would really only be two circumstances to powerlevel someone by directly assisting with killing.

The first would be if there is some sort of uneven division of XP within the group based on levels, like in the example @Warth gave. This would only really work if one assumes that the powerleveler could kill mobs at a significantly quicker rate than the lower level character(s) could. By killing higher level mobs quicker, a lower level character might be able to earn XP faster than killing mobs closer to their own level.

The other way would be if XP gained from killing monsters was not affected by levels at all, either higher or lower. For example, say a level 40 monster normally gives 1000 XP. If you killed that monster with a level 50 character, you get 1000 XP. If you kill that monster with a level 35 character, you also get 1000 XP. If they were grouped together, both characters would get 500 XP each.

Most games don't usually use the second system, unless the XP requirements at each successive level grow significantly. Also, both of these examples would also have to assume that there is no real XP scaling between the relative character and monster levels.

Beyond this, you could potentially powerlevel someone using methods from some older games, like EverQuest and Final Fantasy 11. Get a high level healer/buffing class that stays outside the group and just provides non-damage assistance to the player(s) getting powerleveled, such that they can kill higher level monsters than normal, easier.

This situation could be mitigated somewhat by having a "sweet spot" level of a monster higher than your character. If a monster's level is above this "sweet spot," the amount of XP you can by killing it starts to decrease relative to its "normal" value. For example, killing a mob the same level as your character gives 100% base XP. Killing a mob that is 1/2/3/4/5 levels above you gives 120/140/160/180/200% base XP. Killing a mob 6/7/8/9/10 levels above you gives 90/80/70/60/50% base XP.

Assuming a normal group could easily kill mobs 5 levels above them, hitting that "sweet spot" of 200% base XP, then having someone assist with healing/buffing outside the group might allow them to kill higher level mobs, but it might not be as efficient XP wise.

The other thing that would need to be taken into account is agro. If a high level healer could easily grab the agro of a mob without attacking at all (so that they don't steal any XP from damage), then this could allow a high level player to essentially act as a tank for the player(s) being powerleveled. Not having to bother with actively tanking mobs means more DPS could potentially be output, speeding things up.

novercalis

Ravudha wrote: »

Joonsberry wrote: »

Steven mentions that XP for a kill is divided equitably to groups and then split among the group members.

When Steven says the xp allocated to a group is 'divisible by the group members', I wonder if he meant equally divisible or divisible based on the damage done by each character, which negates the powerlevelling.

You'd think encounters track individual damage done to tally group damage anyway, so why not just use that damage distribution to work out xp allocated within a group.

so clerics gets nothing???

novercalis

valerian wrote: »

The real question is ... will grinding mobs vs grinding quests give you more XP? Now this all depends on the availability of mobs and quests obviously so there is alot of unknowns. Maybe we will have a hint when A1 releases to get a peek on how much XP a quest grants.

perhaps - quest also contributes a significant portion to the node vs solo grinding. While solo grinding you may perhaps level fast, but your node doesn't. Thus forces the individual to ask - what is more important or goal is? To level fast and be stuck in a village or hoping to unlock content and gear progression by leveling the node fast and not yourself.

darthaden

Easy way to fix this. If the highest level group member is 10 levels or more above the lowest level member xp is turned off for the entire group. This way you actually have to form proper groups for content instead of just getting a level 50 and cheesing a level 10 dungeon

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