Request: Change the XP system for gray mobs

[Dyna18]

Request: Change the XP system for gray mobs

An orange mob gives more xp then a green one.
No argument there from probably anyone.
And a green one should give more xp then a gray one.
But why is no XP and cash given for a gray mob at all?

For instance, I took an easy level by just setting the slider a little bit to the left.
The enemies were green to me, and during the mission I Leveled to the next level. I didn't spend any IP point, but suddenly all enemies were gray to me and no reward (cash, xp) was given.

The strenght of the enemies was still the same, and if I got 2 together they would still be a major thread to me.

So why is no reward given for gray enemies while in a large number of situations they are still a threat?

My suggestion is that xp is given for all enemies and just calculate how big the difference is to how much xp someone should get.

Getting little xp for a gray enemy is logical, but getting 1 xp for an enemy that is still a threat is something I don't understand.

And as a side note. I just put the mission slider a little to the left.... there are about 4 nods I could set it even more leftward. But each of them will get me only gray enemies... So why is it even possible to select low missions where no reward can be won even?

So change the system to give xp also for gray mobs!

[_________Rayfield...]

grey mobs give cash. just no xp. kill a leet in backyard sometime, they still give u a tiny bit of cash.

[Dyna18]

Originally posted by Rayfield...
grey mobs give cash. just no xp. kill a leet in backyard sometime, they still give u a tiny bit of cash.

Normal monsters also give cash.
If you run a risk, you should be rewarded for it with xp as well.

[___________Stercoral]

I agree.

[Dhurdahl]

Good point...

An expanded difficulity bar wouldn't be that bad....
aka, one or more steps below green... that gives crappy xp but still more the 1xp that they give today.

One problem with this though is balance... aka where to draw that line when you shouldn't get any xp for the mob....

Example.... lvl150 NT AE nuking lvl80 mobs... they arn't a threat to him while they are fewer then 12-15 or so
Should he get xp or not? And if so, how much?


But yeah... if we are talking about something on the order of lvl * 5 in xp per mobs, sure np, can't see any problems with that


PS. this really belongs in Suggestions

[Swing]

Personally, I feel the whole mission difficulty slider is out of whack. At 50% (untouched), a mission can vary wildy between weak greens that you plow through, to yellows that hit like deep orange if not red. But move that slider just a hair to the left, and what happens? More often then not you get a mission thats 30-50% grays. This was supposed to have been fixed some time ago, yet we still have this problem. Theres only 3 real difficulty settings, full easy (a waste of time), full hard (OMFG! Sorry, all you uber folks out there, but I just dont wanna work that hard), and dead even. And for some classes (NTs come to mind), even dead even can be a lethal challange.

Another thing I'd like to address is mission locations. Listen up, I dont bloody well WANT to trek out to the middle of Andromeda or TLR for a mission. Thats dandy if you have a yalm, but the bulk of my alts dont. I want LOCAL missions. I dont want to spend half an hour heading out to the middle of nowhere, nor do I want to spend an equal amound of time rolling missions endlessly till I find a locale I like. Lets add another slider to the mission term. Near/Far. The closer a mission is, the less the reward. Simple as that. Rewards already work in this fashion, give us the ability to choose if we want to maybe make a little less cash at the cost of a shorter trip.

/whine off

[_________Rayfield...]

lv154 here. i've been able to do 50%-60% missions for the past 20-30lvs. other than lag pockets and bugs, i've had barely any incident where i've died. the main bug that caued me death a few times is rather doing 50% or below where i meet a green who just counters/fumbles all my nukes. otherwise, my only main 'enemy' that i will not fight is a solitus female enforcer with a mace. even for computer mobs, solitus and atrox hp do not seem much different, but solitus definitely hits a LOT faster and with about the same dmg. even MAs are easy to beat. NTs only problem comes with slowness. every mob u kill u have to sit down and recharge your nano afterwards.

speaking of which, i think crats bot, since it's sorta half way between engi(tank) and mp(dmg), it should get a few weaker heals and dmg adding buffs. (bot only) or a few GOOD bot taunts. the ones they have currently will not hold if the crat casts RoO + shoots with a decent gun.

[_____________Fraenid]

I love it when a thread magically goes from tweaking exp to nerfing Crats. :P

[Xaielao]

..and thats why you should join the clan. Many Many of our mission locations are easily accessable by Wompas. Many areas that we used to have to treck to, we no longer have to. Oh and, clanners rock

Also let me say, trust me you do NOT want missions distances to be decreased. Why do you ask? Well.. back in the early days of AO, mission location distances were much longer then they are now. Where as right now in the 60-80 range you tend to role Wailing Wastes and Bliss, back in the old days, roling a bliss mission ment you were around 20th level.

You see do to massive outcries from the community, funcom lowered the distances on all missions. However, in doing so the game was nerfed. Not only did you get closer missions (now usually no further then Aegean or Athen Shire or Greater Tir County, the money these mission reward is a LOT smaller.

I can remember rolling missions to Bliss that payed 35k a pop at lvl30. Now I don't even get that in Bliss missions at level 70. I'm sure you can see what I'm saying.

So nerfing mission distances once again would mean another decrease in mission payout.

All I can say is if you don't have a yalm, spend 50k on a Kodiak or find a friendly fixer to runbuff you. They generally do it for free (I do, just because back in the day NOBODY asked for them) and there are so many n00b fixers around I think we outpopulate the Leets.

[___________SUPERSLAG]

If a grey can almost kill my uber gimptoness I should get more than 1 exp.

[Dyna18]

^^^^

[speardancer2]

How about instead of making the greys give xp, take a look at the formulas that decide if the mob is grey/green/yellow etc and simply extend that lower end a little....


I mean, if my NT goes in , cast 1 AOE nuke and drops everything in the mission, I don't expect any xp. But If that mob is still standing a good chance of kicking my rear, it shouldn't be grey, it should be green and give me xp.

Risk = reward should be the way things work. And right now, it don't work that way. For some classes, there's just too much risk for too little reward. And for other classes, it goes the other way.

[____________religion]

I still shake my head I see things like this.

A lot of people worry about "the balance" of xp.

For most of these games, you need more and more xp for each level.

I think XP should be pretty static. Remember killing leets in the back yard for 80ish xp?
If you still got 80ish xp for them at level 100, would you still hunt them? Probably not...because they are effectively worth nothing when you need a ton of xp to level.

Keeping xp static (depending on mob rather than its 'con' to you) would make it so that you always get xp for combat, but there comes a point where it really is not worth your time to hunt way lower mobs (for 80xp a pop) when you could hunt much higher mobs that give proportionately more xp.

See? No need to give 1 xp for greys. People will naturally gravitate towards higher level mobs because of a few things:
1) More xp
2) More cash
3) Better drops

I guess I just wish whoever introduced this idea into muds/mmorpgs could be given a big slap to the side of the head.

Anywise, this has my vote.

-Religion

[Blackwing]

Originally posted by speardancer
How about instead of making the greys give xp, take a look at the formulas that decide if the mob is grey/green/yellow etc and simply extend that lower end a little....


I mean, if my NT goes in , cast 1 AOE nuke and drops everything in the mission, I don't expect any xp. But If that mob is still standing a good chance of kicking my rear, it shouldn't be grey, it should be green and give me xp.

Risk = reward should be the way things work. And right now, it don't work that way. For some classes, there's just too much risk for too little reward. And for other classes, it goes the other way.

while i agree to your point, you basically suggest a class specific experience system which might be hard to implement.

if a game ever manages to pull it off, it would own for sure.

a little extension into the below 50% zone would be nice though so the "weaker" classes have a chance to solo for tokens to overcome their disadvantages and gain a level or two.

my biggest beef with ao is the uselessness of solo play (except for cash or token farming) past say lvl 60 anyway :/

[_____________Brandon]

Good idea!

[____________Harammer]

I think FC's fear (imaginary or not) may be that someone would come up with a script/macro program that would allow you to hunt non-stop grays for XP while you are AFK for long periods of time. Go to an unused backyard, and let the thing rip overnight. Sure, 80 a pop isn't great, but overnight that'll add up.

This is of course theoretical BS and should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Dyna18]

hmmm sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me.

I mostly don't like that there are a lot of gray ones who are still dangerous, but I don't get a reward from killing them.

[__________JohnMclain]

It's not far fetched, there have already been exploits with making implants etc using 3rd party software to buy/produce implants quickly and power lvl to like 50 in an hour.

It's the same kind of user mimic'ing motion that clicksaver uses, and there would easily be one for NT's (aka, turn ur comp on in backyard, go to bed, script as follows, hit tab, area nuke, wait xxxx ms, hit tab, area nuke, repeat).

You could even get fancy, make it refresh buffs, etc and all it would take is for a user to download his file, place his fast bar in the upper left, and place his nanos in the order specified by the scripter.

Huge macro, but it would work

John

[Dyna18]

Since backyards are frequently visited by Greeting ARK's, it would get noticed pretty soon, leaving the exploiter with a banned account.

This is however not a reason to don't give exp for dangerous mobs you kill.

I say again, if I take the trouble to risk myself in killing something, I want to be rewarded for it.

This is especially the case with the gray bosses, that should have been red instead of gray

[____________Harammer]

I only used the backyards as an example. It's theoretically possible to park yourself somewhere remote in a lesser used lowbie zone and go kill everything in sight without fear of death and without running into another person, thus allowing them to use some macro-like exploit program to auto hunt for them with a small chance of being discovered.

As was said, does 80 XP really help someone who needs 1 mil to go up a level? Not really. The only reason I can think of for gray mobs to not give any XP is the exploit which I mentioned.

I do think that the green to red scale needs to be extended, especially on the green conning side of things. Even though the mobs don't pose a major threat, they still pose some threat and should give some XP.

Though on the other hand, the gray conning mobs were nice when I was collecting concrete cushions and I didn't have to worry about dinging when I did the mission. lol