Ranger Archive
Thread: This new XP thingus
I don't really have an opinion one way or the other on this xp change. I'll just sit back and let the jedi handle it-- I'm pretty sure I could hear the whining before I even turned on my computer this morning. I've got a feeling this situation won't last long before another xp change is pushed live.
I do have one minor gripe. I liked having my xp recorded in spatial. Other than that, I really don't care. I got too many other gripes about swg to worry about.
al-djinn'i
JB I know your getting close to unlocking so I just gotta advise. Unless your more determined to have that alt I would stop now. Leveling Jedi is near impossible solo. Only real way to do it before Pub22 was to group. Now, I can kill 2 mobs at my level of force/level and then I literally have to wait 15 minutes to get my force to regen. In a group now the xp will sooo much slower. Thats why I have given up my jedi skills. Going back to Master Rifleman/4240 Ranger. Sure I'm gimped but I can at least enjoy myself instead of the crap that Jedi have to go through. You seem to be a guy who can adapt and have the backing of a good guild. Just be sure you want it. I sincerely regret it.
I don't know, I'm not all that bothered by the XP changes. I was reading the discussion thread, it IS total chaos, and I had to walk away before my poor head exploded. I think I need to go hit the treadmill for an hour to work out some stress and frustration and blow off steam, I was getting seriously frustrated at the ignorance and stupidity there, and the total "me me me me me" greedy attitudes. I can understand being upset about changes to the game, lack of attention and all that.. .but it's a GAME.Seriously - I know it's just my playstyle, but I tend to do one of two things when hunting anways...
1) solo with my probot, generally if I'm working on pulling harvest for a buyer. As JB has noted, a nice CL30 probot is as good (and sometimes better) than many players for just laying down a pretty steady stream of damage. At worst, it helps keep the beastie's health regen from mattering; at best, it can cut the time to take something down a LOT. As an example, I was able to solo the timed hunting missions for Sordaan using nothing more than my LD1 rifle, my brain and grouping with my probot, and I'm a rifleman / ranger so I've got no AoEs and no real crowd control other than the PDart. I rarely grouped solely to get the group harvest bonus, I have some 32 or 33% veghash that does quite well for me, and I find I don't have stupid novice scout types getting me killed when hunting and they decide to AoE agro a lair of CL82s or something when I'm hunting solo... lucky me. 
2) group up with a couple of friends (mostly newer players) and help them out hunting, show them some tips and tricks on how to pull stuff, how to kite, how to survive. In those cases, I generally don't give a bantha's backside about XP, it's more about the social and RP aspects of it. The XP and any harvest is a bonus, and I could care less if the XP per kill is cut in half or third or quarters or whatever. It's all bonus, and I don't have a grind mentality, never have, never will. That would make this too much like work, and I just want to play to have fun.
So, for my gameplay, nothing changes. In fact, I'm actually better off than most - I already know how to hunt solo, I already have pretty solid tactics for taking down just about every creature I can possibly run into in the game without any assistance, and with minimal food and just a handful of traps. And If a creature is worth 6000 xp... that's what I got before, that's what I'll get now. Yahooooooo for me. Just imagine how good it'll be when we get a revamp and actually gets skills that are, ya know, USEFUL for hunting creatures and all. Yowzers!
If this somehow makes jeedai run away crying, or stops the flood of "uber l33ts" who want nothing other than an IWin alpha profession against us "mundanes" (God, that term just makes my fingers twitchy) from getting to jedi... good. For those few Jedi who really WANT Jedi, they'll find a way to do it just like they always have. For those of you who started on the path and got screwed by this, I'm sorry, I really am - 'cause I know that, like Ranger and ranger or Pilot and pilot, there are Jedi, and there are jedi. Kai and others are most certainly in the Jedi camp, unfortunately about 90% of "those people" I've run into in the game are firmly in the jedi camp. It's truly unfortunate that the way to slow the growth of that 90% population has an equally unfortunate affect on the 10% Jedi out there. 
For the most part, I agree. However, I fully understand the frustration from a consistancy point of view. If every time I logged on, they changed the schematic requirements for my architect or my artisan etc, I'd be slavering foam from the mouth. I can see how double XP, no XP, group XP, no Group XP, everyone's a glowy, no one can get jedi could possibly be a tad confusing.
Sure, it's me me me me - but I suspect the real frustration being poorly articulated by our teenage complainers has more to do with a constantly changing game system and mixed messages from the devs - they are just (in a sweeping generalization) not really able to articulate it in any way other than how it is affecting them
Beladan wrote:
For the most part, I agree. However, I fully understand the frustration from a consistancy point of view. If every time I logged on, they changed the schematic requirements for my architect or my artisan etc, I'd be slavering foam from the mouth. I can see how double XP, no XP, group XP, no Group XP, everyone's a glowy, no one can get jedi could possibly be a tad confusing.
Sure, it's me me me me - but I suspect the real frustration being poorly articulated by our teenage complainers has more to do with a constantly changing game system and mixed messages from the devs - they are just (in a sweeping generalization) not really able to articulate it in any way other than how it is affecting them
Well said.
I think it's a ludicrous solution to what was apparently a problem, at least as it is implemented now. The main problem I have with it is it will make it a good deal easier to level new toons up, if they can get friends to group with them. I disagree with twinking (which is what I feel this amounts to) on general, vehement principle.
The other problem I personally have with it is simply that it will discourage grouping (notice there's no % on that group bonus number given) and encourage people to only form the 'uber' fellows. A situation destined to annoy vets and frustrate newbs.
Other than those two, somewhat philosophical points of view, I doubt it'll even affect me, directly. I only group with close friends, or my family and my ranger doesn't normally group. The one thing it might do is make me even less likely to group with my ranger now /me shrugs.
Same problem with any full 8 hunting group, the critters and lair are gone so fast that many couldn't get xp even without this change, especially the ones working on melee when the ranged fighters would have every critter dead before the meleer got a hit in.
Getting full XP, I always thought was a bug with positive consequences, that they weren't able to get working as intended and so din't bother trying much (working on some, but with other higher priorities), especially after coming from pre-cu with the XP divided by damage dealt. Either that or it was a marketing ploy to keep people from dismissing the combat upgrade all-together and decided to finally slip in.
This nerf is finally putting things where they should have been in the first place, and it's just a painful kneejerk reaction happening now.
Doesn't bother me either way, I haven't cared about how fast XP comes... um... ever. When I go weeks with capped xp before heading to the village again. It actually burned me how fast anyone could go from noob to master rifles when I "worked on" rifles for something like 4 months after release before I finally started dropping some for other things (Never made it to master with that toon).
Thank the maker!
I've pretty much been surfing all of the boards, in Chat, etc., and this is the ONLY combat-related forum I've foundthat isn't losing their mind and whining about the xp nerf. (highly intelligent and well-debated discussion does not count as whining)
Guess we're already well-versed in doing the soloing thing. 
/salute fellow rangers
Message Edited by Carason on 08-17-2005 09:52 PM
Beladan wrote:
For the most part, I agree. However, I fully understand the frustration from a consistancy point of view. If every time I logged on, they changed the schematic requirements for my architect or my artisan etc, I'd be slavering foam from the mouth. I can see how double XP, no XP, group XP, no Group XP, everyone's a glowy, no one can get jedi could possibly be a tad confusing.
Sure, it's me me me me - but I suspect the real frustration being poorly articulated by our teenage complainers has more to do with a constantly changing game system and mixed messages from the devs - they are just (in a sweeping generalization) not really able to articulate it in any way other than how it is affecting them
Yes, I agree with what you're saying here - I do believe that at least in some cases, some of the people don't know how to express what they're feeling. And yes, as a long time Ranger (like many of us), I'm quite familiar with the frustration of, say... no communication from the devs, promises of revamps that never materialize, being shoved even farther back on that back burner for things like multiple jedi publishes, etc. Confusing, yes. Frustrating, yes.
But, it IS just a game. And I don't see what the huge *rush rush rush* mentality is anyways. When I started just over a year ago (yeah, I'm a "noob" around these parts I guess 
), I took something like 5 or 6 months to get up to Master Ranger and Master Rifles. Got there by just, you know... playing the game. Never joined a solo group, never tried to "grind", just ran around with my guild, hunted and explored a lot, and generally had FUN. Somehow got glowy along the way without even trying. That's what games are for, after all, isn't it?
My FS "grind" has been similar, where I cap XP and then promptely forget to cash it in at the village for weeks at a time. I've missed entire phases because I was busy off having fun playing the game, oh well. I'll eventually unlock as many branches as I can, just to say I did. I've even considered going for a full unlock of every branch there - not sure anyone else in the game has ever done that, so it might be fun to be able to say I was capable of being fully and utterly FS, but didn't have a single point INVESTED in FS skills. Heh. But I don't feel any overwhelming sense of "gotta do it NOW NOW NOW" or anything, and I'd certainly HOPE that there are other people out there playing who are of a similar mindset. I realize that this is a horrible blow to those going for jedi or trying to power level a profession in one or two gaming sessions over a weekend, but... is that really necessarily a bad thing? The fact that you COULD grind out enough XP to master an elite combat profession in just a couple days ofdedicated and admitedly hardcore power gaming was absurd. This seems like a MUCH more balanced and "sane" XP rate. There's still no reason a group of 2-3 mid-level toons can group together, take on large lairs of level-appropriate MOBs, and level up fairly quickly. They just won't be able to train a single box off one lair, or an entire tree of a single run of missions for a big group. And that's probably a good thing for the long term health of the game, and for players who want to play SW:G vs "power gamer" mentality types who just want to run around "pwning" everyone.
I do feel somewhat bad for the confusion this is causing folks, and the frustration they are feeling. But I think there's a lot more "wrong" with being able to grind out jedi in just a couple weeks or an elite profession in a few days than there is with getting less XP per kill when you're grouped. It might mean you actually have to, well... talk to the people in your group, and actually coordinate and "play nice" to make sure everyone at least gets a hit in so that they get XP for the kill, but again... that's not really a bad thing in my view. I don't see this as a huge nerf to grouping necessarily, and I still plan to play as I have all along, grouping with friends when we want to have fun doing something in a group or hunting or whatever, and hunting solo when nobody I play with is on and I want to do something in the ground game. I'll still have my HELPER tag up, I'll still gladly take out newbies for hunting trips to help them get their first few boxes of <whatever>, I'll still help my friend who's working on leveling up BH, I'll still do all the same things I've been doing. If it means we have to kill a few more lairs, cool. If nothing else, more hides I can harvest and recycle to give away to new tailors. I just can't get worked up over them that really amounts to a fix to something that WAS broken with the CU. Perhaps they erred a bit much on the "fix" side of things and I think we'll probably see an adjustment swing it back the other way (either a larger bonus for larger groups, or just an increase to the bonus for each group size either way) based on the sheer volume of the outcry over this. I think it does need to be adjusted, but I hope they do NOT put it back the way it was, since that was, at least in my opinion, a "bug" that did need to be fixed. I'm pretty sure Pre-CU, if I was grouped and did less damage than someone else, I got less XP. The more damage I did, the more XP I got. This just means that some professions may find it easier to level in a small group vs a large "grind group", or may find it easier to level solo. I'll gladly take folks out and show them how to do that if they want, I already do a lot of that kind of stuff anyways.
Very well stated. I can say that I tend to agree with everything you have written. I'm tickled pink that once again I see rational, calm discussion coming from the posters here. Well thought out and respectful disagreement is far to be prefered over some of the drivel being splashed about in the discussion thread.
But really, I do agree with your points. I'm Australian and have a deep seated need to defend the underdog!!!
Bel
Yea, I have mixed feelings about it too. I agree with SOE that levelling had become too easy, particularly levelling the "regular" professions. Also the "Bols... north" thing was outta hand. But I agree with people here about the mixed message. Ok, so they remove ANY xp from killing things other than your level, they tell us that they want to promote socialization, group xp bonuses, group harvesting bonuses etc. Then they make it fairly difficult to kill things that are our own level solo. Now all of a sudden there is a HUGE penalty for grouping? I don't get it. The question I have is: it's pretty clear the types of behavior they are trying to *discourage*, but what behavior are they trying to *encourage*?
As a guy who is just over half way through my FS grind, and who had just calculated that at my current (pre xp nerf) rate of xp gain I could expect to become J3di in a little over 3 months, this change is somewhat discouraging, but I am certainly not freaking out or panicking. I suspect that there are other ways to gain xp just as fast as before, only different techniques will be required. And in fact, the new techniques may be funner to do then the old. Right now I'm thinking that instead of weapon xp, perhaps bounty hunter xp, scouting xp, or even entertainer xp may now be the ticket. We'll see now that works out. I kind of half expect nerfs to the xp conversion of those three soon.
Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 08-18-2005 10:16 AM
Everyone complains that there is very little content left to an old time player who has done the theme parks, been a crafter, got every badge imaginable has engaged fulltime in the GCW, fought all the uber mobs and now are faced with just becoming a jedi like many others do.
I say give people a choice! I have seen some people play the game and always be the same profession. People very dedicated to their professions deserve something. Like Rangers. =)
I propose that after you have become a Master profession you would get the opportunity to begin a quest to prove your dedication. In order to start the quest you cant be active in the village. If you are FS you have to drop all FS skills and speak to an npc there to say your sick of their jedilike whining. Your gonna devote your time elsewhere. This is to prevent people from unlocking the xp caps and starting to gring up 50 million combat xp and trading it all in at once. Also, the FS bonuses could be stacked with whatever bonuses might come with Profession Dedication.
I'm thinking that once you finish your final box of Profession Dedication you cant go Jedi. Just as a Jedi cant drop an FS skills to get back to regular skills after they open their alt. Til you train that final box you can drop skills and and relock your xp caps and begin grinding FS if you want.
So, now we start a quest. Some nice npc Ranger dropped in the remotes of Yavin 4 could let you begin your quest. To start you have to do things specific to your profession quest wise to begin the path towards dedication. Add in your frilly rp to the quests n all that.
You go through a few quests and unlock your Dedication tree. Very similar to the Jedi Progression tree. Five boxes and each one you have to grind whatever xp your quest allows you to unlock the cap on. In our case it would be Scout xp/trapping xp. Both would count as this new dedication xp.
Now it becomes the usual go kill/grind til your sick in the face til you get your first box done. I'm thinking boxes should be high. 100 million xp added per box til the last box is 500 million xp.
Now, what you get in each box would be determined by the devs of course. I'm thinking of things specific to each profession. Rangers could get more bonuses to harvesting, maskscent/camo, whilst walking/running terrain negotiation bonuses, specific clothing with mods(hats!), new titles, the ability to train the novice box of your profession and for weapon oriented professions new rare weapons that cant be traded. No decay(maybe). I'm thinking Rangers should get a blue rug kit kinda camo machine that will hold 1k of each resource needed to make a camo kit for all the planets. Then you just hit apply on each planet with it. So no more carrying around tons of kits or resources for that sudden need. And for filling your final box you get another character on the same server just like Jedi do.
This would add some content, remove the endgame of being a jedi and reward the people who dont want to be a jedi or are just really in love with their professions.
I would flat love something like this to be added into the game.