Squad Leader Archive
Thread: Formula for Squad Leader XP?
I read about this formula:
group size * 2 * combat xp = squad leader xp
However, it doesn't seem to be correct.
I was leading a group of 19 (including pets), and I got 381 combat and only 1586 Squad Leadership xp.
If the forumla above were correct, I should have gotten 381 * 2 * 19 = 14478 Squad Leadership xp.
Could someone enlighten me?
Thank you,
A.
Combat XP, not Weapons XP, first of all. I assume your 381 XP was your Rifle XP, and you got 38 Combat XP (unless you were getting 3810 Rifle XP, which would be no small quantity, correct me if I'm wrong though...)
Combat XP = Weapons XP / 10.
But thats still off by a bit...
38 * 2 * 19 = 1444
Close to 1586, but not quite...
I don't know the exact XP formulas for anything else in the game, I guess being within 10% is as good we can get with SL XP?
No, I was getting 381 combat xp and 3810 rifle xp 
Later, when the group size went down to 15, I saw Squad xp jump to 3810, 4384 and 2944 (all while the group size did not change and I received the same combat xp).
I can't figure out how Squad XP is supposed to work...
Heh.
Who knows, then.
Few MMOs publish their XP formulas... guess SWG is no different...
If we got enough data points I could reverse engineer the equations, though.
group of 5 = weaponxp = SL xp
group of 10 = 2weaponxp = SL xp
group of 15 = 3weaponxp = SL xp
group of 20 = 4weaponxp = SL xp
so 1000 weapon xp in a group of 20 = 4000 SL xp, fairly easy to figure out once u've been a SL for a long time.
Hmm, is that a clean gradient? I.e. is a group of 4 80% of weapon xp?
And what happens if pets are involved?
I'll let you in on the secret.
If your group members are not within a certain radius, (120m or less I believe) you don't get the bonus multiplier for them. I.e. if you have member who've died or are off fighting another MOB then it's not counted as being close enough.
I had a little realization on SL xp recently while hunting jaxes both alone and in a group...
As far as I can tell, SL xp scales linearly with group size and my experience makes me believe the correct formula, at least for groups less than 10,is:
SL xp = 2 * Combat XP * group size
Now, that said, I have two comments:
1) The comment made by anyone who examines how SL xp works...it is silly that SL xp is based on how much damage the SL personally deals. There are lots of reasons this is silly and they have been discussed many times already.
2) A point that hasn't been said alot. Scaling the SL xp linearly with group size means that there is no real incentive to group unless you are grouping with people who don't deal as much damage as you or deal different kinds of damage as you.
For example...with just me and my pet in my group, I get something like 1200 SL xp per jax killed (OK, it's often more than that, but I'm just picking numbers to illustrate a point). Now, if I had someone in my group who uses the same weapon as I do and we do same amount of damage on average, I'll do half as much damage and get only 50% more SL xp from the groupsize bonus. So...in the end, I will get 900 SL xp per jax. Now, this would be OK if that meant I could kill twice as many jaxes per minute...if that were the case, I'd be getting 1800 SL xp in the time I solo would get 1200 SL xp. However, as we all know, good mobs to fight take some time to find. Often, your actual time in combat is less than the time it took you to run out to where the mobs are...so the time it takes to take down the target has to be added into this calculation.
So, let's say that you spend the same amount of time finding mobs as killing them (which is pretty good...I think most people and groupsspend more time looking than killing)and let's say that killing a jax takes 1 minute soloand it took you 1 minute to find it.
Solo + pet: 1200 SL xp in 2 minutes= 600 SL xp/minute
Solo + pet + one person:900 SL xp in 1.5 minutes = 600 SL xp/minute
Of course, in the case of jaxes, you'll usually bleed a whole herd of them at once and you can kill them all in the time it would have taken you to kill one...in that case, you just multiply the above numbers by the number of jaxes in your herd.
So obviously, the point is that there isn't any point to getting a group if all you are after is SL xp. You can continue the above arguement to any group size and you'll find the answer stays the same...in the above conditions, regardless of group size you'll get 600 SL xp/minute.
If you spend more time searching for mobs than killing mobs solo, you'll actually LOSE SL xp by having a larger group.
The only way you can benefit by having a larger group is if at least one of the following is true:
a) You deal more damage than the rest of the group or
b) You spend more time killing than looking for mobs
I think this seems unreasonable. Not only do you get penalized for using your SL special abilities (because the prevent you from dealing damage, you also will get penalized for having a larger group. How can this be solved? First, as has been argued elsewhere, SLs should get xp for executing specials. Secondly, group size must give a bonus that grows faster than linearly with group size. I think a reasonable scaling would be to have group size raised to the 1.5 power.
SL exp = combat XP * (group size)^1.5
In the above example wherelooking and fighting solotake the sameamount of timeyou would now get:
Solo + pet = 425 xp/min
Solo + pet + one person = 519 xp/min
Solo + pet + two people = 600 xp/min
Solo + pet + three people = 671 xp/min
Of course, one could add a simple factor to get the xp/min raised or lowered if the DEVs wanted to tune things so that solo+pet still gave 600 xp/min and things went up from there. With this forumula, you'd still benefit from having a larger group even if you spent more time looking for mobs than killing mobs.
And also, things might change considerably if they move away from an xp system where your xp is based on how much damage you do. But if they stay with this system, SLs have even less motivation to group. Some will argue that this means they should make it so you can't group with your pets...but then the above arguements just shift up one notch...then the best way to group would be with just one friend.
So, DEVs, if we have correctly identified how your XP system works, you need to change it because SLs have no motivation to group excpet RP reasons.
--Ze'ev
For a full, multi-factored development of a new formula for Squad Leader XP, check this thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=squad_leader&message.id=974
Guess I should have posted there. Sorry, I forgot about that thread.
Now that I've reread it, that thread is interesting, but I think it misses out on the way a size of group effects your xp/time. I guess I'll cross post over there.
--Ze'ev
Shadowleader3 said:
You cannot swing the Squad Leader to a pure support role though. It would just be the opposite of what Squad Leadership is now. i.e. combat characters would be punished while support only characters would be rewarded.
How are other combat characters punished if squad leader is a pure support role? They wouldn't be getting any combat or weapons exp if they don't use their weapons skills. And they would use their abilities (assuming that they get useable, valuable abilities long-term) to help keep the group alive through increased offense and defense. No combat character gets punished unless the squad leader is simply a bad squad leader. If the squad leader wishes to add additional value to the group, then they can use their extra skill points on brawler, marksman, scout, or medic skills. That's exactly what most do. But why does it have to be weapons? It's a bit like saying that a combat medic can only advance by shooting mobs with their rifle. Yes, you have to kill a lot of mobs to become a combat medic (same ranged weapons support req as squad leader), but once there, you never have to shoot another mob again to advance. Do combat medics punish other combat characters in any way?
Nochmal said:
It seems to me that playing a purely support SL should be possible. However, I would think that a reasonable xp system for SLs would make a purely support SL advance more slowly.
Why? The Squad Leader advances on Squad Leader experience. They will advance there weapon skills by dishing out damage, but why does squad leader exp in particular have to be tied in any way to personal damage contribution.
The ideal combat group should include a squad leader for leadership bonuses, a combat medic for healing, a commando for heavy weapons support, and a mix of hand-to-hand and ranged fighters to dish out large quantities of damage to individual opponents. Throw in a ranger forsome out-of-combat skills. The fact that a particular ranger, squad leader or combat medic is effective offensively is merely a bonus. In an ideal world, your combat medic stays busy with his special skills and doesn't have time to shoot much. A squad leader should have enough useful abilities to be able to stay busy in combat with his squad leader skills rather than just a couple of commands and then shoot it out.
To make squad leader a practical support role, they need to make th squad leader's abilitiesas useful asthe combat medics. Right now (even given what is broken with combat medics), the squad leader simply isn't as useful as the combat medic (though admittedly the squad leader does have 34 fewer skill points of pre-reqs).
A squad leader by definition is a combat character. Think of all the squad leaders of platoons back in WWII they were not medics. I'm not aguing against support abilites of the squad leader but to acheive squad leader you have to have weapon abilities plain and simple. I want an equal mix of support and combat not one or the other.
Happymob wrote:
How are other combat characters punished if squad leader is a pure support role? They wouldn't be getting any combat or weapons exp if they don't use their weapons skills. And they would use their abilities (assuming that they get useable, valuable abilities long-term) to help keep the group alive through increased offense and defense. No combat character gets punished unless the squad leader is simply a bad squad leader. If the squad leader wishes to add additional value to the group, then they can use their extra skill points on brawler, marksman, scout, or medic skills. That's exactly what most do. But why does it have to be weapons? It's a bit like saying that a combat medic can only advance by shooting mobs with their rifle. Yes, you have to kill a lot of mobs to become a combat medic (same ranged weapons support req as squad leader), but once there, you never have to shoot another mob again to advance. Do combat medics punish other combat characters in any way?