Gain XP Via Successful Trains

[coltdorsey]

Experience is rewarded to ranked/teachers in leading a party (although not enough, imo). I wondered what everyone thought about rewarding experience on successful trains? A percentage of the character's experience level, could be a good start. If you're max fifth shpere, 4,159,999 then a successful train could be 4,159. And if you're all feeling fancy, maybe the plateau trained in could be a multiplier. A maxed fifth sphere dreamer trains a fifth plateau art. 4,159 * 5, etc. If the formula needs work, so be it but at the very least what do you all think on the topic of gaining xp based on training?

[Arnaya]

After seeing what some of the MT's go through, I'd support the idea

[Noidea]

Sounds like a plan; you successfully did something challenging, you get points for it. It always seems odd to me that the only thing the game automatically rewards XP for is killing monsters. Nobody would say that killing monsters was meant to be the sole "aim of the game" in UL, and yet if XP is meant to be a general measure of your "success" in the game, then that seems to be what the game thinks the aim of the game is! (Of course there are mission boards, but I'm talking about what the game does automatically.) And it would mean that teachers don't sacrifice XP if they break off from hunting to give somebody a task.

Formula seems like a good start. My character's 2nd sphere with 142,331 XP (just checked) and can reliably tackle a bogrom if I'm careful and put some effort into it, which rewards 250 XP - so if she were a teacher, training a 2nd plateau task would reward roughly as much experience as defeating the monster that for her is fairly easy but not a total walkover - which seems in about the right proportion.

One thing though, shouldn't you start counting at Learn, not First Plateau, move everything up one step from what you said? Otherwise for Learn the multiplier would be 0 and you'd get 0 XP. Or of course you could just make an exception and have it count 1, 1, 2, 3... that would probably be fairer since in practice, when I do tasks anyway, 1st plateau tasks commonly aren't obviously more complicated than Learn tasks.

[coltdorsey]

One thing though, shouldn't you start counting at Learn, not First Plateau, move everything up one step from what you said? Otherwise for Learn the multiplier would be 0 and you'd get 0 XP. Or of course you could just make an exception and have it count 1, 1, 2, 3... that would probably be fairer since in practice, when I do tasks anyway, 1st plateau tasks commonly aren't obviously more complicated than Learn tasks.

Yeah, may need some tweaking. In hindsight, any multiplier of 1 isn't going to do much good :p

[Koi-Wish]

This isn't an official statement, as the team decides all this stuff really.

However,

My opinion differs dramatically regarding XP at all. I don't even like it. I personally wish we didn't use XP at all. I love UnderLight for its roleplaying environment and not the one thing that makes it a lot like every single other MMORPG out there, and that's experience for levels. I know that's a fundamental piece of any MMO, but its one piece I don't particularly care for. That being said, for me as a Teacher, my reward is the enjoyment, "thank-you's" and the contribution to the RP environment that I have done by having a student go out and do something.

UnderLight was never really built for an end-game, and Lyra didn't have true plans beyond 6/7th spheres.... so the XP values up at that level were/are extreme and it takes a lot longer to gain an orbit. We offset that a bit by really adding some value dramatically to the nightmares, granted we also made them tougher - but technically your character should be tougher too. That's our best adjustment at this point, and I know it doesn't help the high-spheres "that'' much, but it obviously has had some affect - we've had 4 dreamers hit 89. What will you do when your character reaches 99? Stop playing? I hope not. I want us to all be here for as long as possible, and that might mean we have to expand 99 to 199 - with a lot more arts, and obviously a lot more ways to gain XP to accommodate that Orbit growth - in the meantime however, giving additional avenues to gain XP to get to that TOP-end quicker isn't exactly attractive to me. But that's just my 2 cents and by no means do I speak for the entire team, or the entire community for that matter.

[Arnaya]

I'm not a fan of the experience based progression either Wishy, at least not like every RPG/MMO does it. UL is one of those games that would do amazing with a skill based system instead of an experience/level based one. But, with what we've got... getting a little bit of XP for successful trains isn't a bad idea

[Sidas]

8th Sphere is definitely a grind and difficult but it should be, IMO. The biggest problem is the weight of a collapse once you get into the upper 80s and eventually 90s. You become a target just because you can orbit someone at 6th Sphere in one hit. It took me 57 days of constant, nonstop hunting (plus general rewards) for the most part to max 8th. I don't know if it should be too possible to go much faster than that. Gerroz had the advantage of abusing the Horron XP nonstop every day and should have been able to max it much faster just because of that.

I think the bigger thing would be to tweak the Auto Visioning of Horrons and Shamblixes to only happen when more than 1 person are in a room so a skillful Dreamseer could hunt them again -- which is how I was personally hunting through 7th.

[Clarity]

Eh, I'm with Wish on this one. We already have to much of the Get Big Fast mentality. So much so that it starts becoming all that's important, and if UL is anything, it shouldn't be a race to 99. I LIKE the soft caps for everything above 6th when it comes to sphering. It might seem like a punishment? But in honesty it just brings us back to a place where people are rping for rp's sake, for enjoyment of the game and our fellow players. Speeding up the pace people get to 4th, even rewarding those beneath 3rd with plats for excellent participation, is all fine in my book, because it gets people wanting to get involved, but anything beyond that SHOULD be a slog. It SHOULD be work and effort, only if because they higher tiered dreamers are the ones expected to be driving the events that make up the game. Teachers especially, since we're the ones handing out the rewards, so to speak.

[Noidea]

That's rather the point (of the original suggestion), though. Teachers currently get rewarded for the "hard work" of heavy-duty hunting, which does nobody else in the game any good, but not for the "hard work" of actually keeping the game going by giving tasks. Wrong kind of incentives, there.
Given that we do have a "Get Big Fast" mentality among some dreamers, I wouldn't have thought that that would be improved by making it so that the way to do that was to ignore everyone else and only hunt.
I think I agree with WishBringer that the game might be just as well off without any level system - but given that we do have one and some people have set their hearts on reaching a higher sphere, introducing ways that they can do that while still participating in everyone else's game would surely help to take the edge off the situation, not worsen it.

[coltdorsey]

This team is already accommodating a secondary focus, as most of you know. I'd rather gain xp by helping other people, than tedious grinding of npc's. Unless we're proposing of revamping the entire system, the reward system is in place. The game was designed to encourage people to join houses, not be freespirit, so the goodies are where the house is. The game's reward system is based on task/reward system to promote role-plays, so the goodies are through doing tasks. As its been mentioned, if anyone does do some sort of event we all know there is most likely a plateau behind it. If we're not going to revamp the entire system that is in place, why wouldn't we want to put more rewards in the 'help people' boat, instead of tedious grinding and isolation of hunting?

[Cherokee]

I absolutely hate hunting, unless I have a partner or a group of people to keep me company. Otherwise I find it to be a complete waste of time - hunting as a high sphere, anyway. If you ever catch me hunting, I'm watching Netflix on my iPad at the same time, haha. Don't get me wrong, I like that we have that option. But I think hunting helps lower spheres more, and those that play at odd times when no one is around.

Teachers do spend a lot of time thinking on new and creative tasks, pushing roleplays, and then take the time to hear the play-by-play. I don't think it would be terrible to have a small reward for successful Trains, so that teachers spend more time stirring up RPs, and less hunting.

Though I agree with the others that it should be more difficult to gain XP with the higher spheres. So something like this should only be minor rewards, like a little bonus of say 10k per train - which isn't much, as it's the equivalent of 10 Agoknights or one Shamblix. I'd rather it be a set amount of something, than a multiplier that could eventually become a little too much.

[Sidas]

I just don't really see the point in expending the effort when we already have the ability to do it for House Members through the Mission Boards. This doesn't help non-House Members but that is just another incentive to join one. OSM, for instance, has MB rewards for any teaching-related activity that has to do with the house members. Every House could do similar and not rely on changes from the dev team.

Given that we do have a "Get Big Fast" mentality among some dreamers, I wouldn't have thought that that would be improved by making it so that the way to do that was to ignore everyone else and only hunt.

That's a bit insulting to insinuate that the people who have put in the time and effort to advance more than others "ignore everyone else and only hunt." Even when I was in my full 8th Sphere grind, I participated more than the majority of the playerbase within my playtime.

[Noidea]

Fair point, giving rewards for teaching on mission boards is a reasonable second best (and, if other houses don't do so, good suggestion and I hope they take to it). Still, having an automatic reward for it would still be first best. Whether it would still be important enough to do just depends how much time and effort this would take to code, I suppose, and I have no idea of the answer to that.

(Also, does that reward only apply to teachers teaching fellow House members? Believe me, if you play in the off hours, the available teachers not being picky about exactly who they teach becomes very, very important to you.)

Given that we do have a "Get Big Fast" mentality among some dreamers, I wouldn't have thought that that would be improved by making it so that the way to do that was to ignore everyone else and only hunt.

That's a bit insulting to insinuate that the people who have put in the time and effort to advance more than others "ignore everyone else and only hunt." Even when I was in my full 8th Sphere grind, I participated more than the majority of the playerbase within my playtime.

I'm sure you did. I was only saying that the current system makes hunting to the exclusion of teaching the most efficient way for a teacher to advance in sphere. Whether or not individual dreamers do resist the temptation, the point is that if it's a matter of resisting temptation, there could be said to be something wrong with the incentives.

[Shoury]

So many things...

Where to even begin with this...

There is a compensation for being a Teacher, you gain XP for having people in your party. The same is true of Guardians and Rulers. This was put in place with the thought of the time these people spend doing things which takes time away from hunting.

This was a Lyra-era function. Before you say this is only 1 XP per second per person in party, you need to think about what the Koi team did with mares. Shamblix are worth 10,000 and Horron are worth 25,000. In Lyra these were 2,500 and 5,000. Koi modified the amount of XP granted from Shamblix and Horron takedowns in response to people being higher sphered (also to encourage people to hunt in groups, so as to lessen the boredom).

Back in the heyday of Lyra, being 5th sphere was an accomplishment... Now we have 8th sphere dreamers and people who have been through the spheres twice. Let's take BladeSlayer for instance, maxed 8th sphere is 44,159,999 XP. Blade is again 8th sphere, so add another 20,000,000 million to that total. Meaning that character has gained over 64,000,000 XP (88,000,000 at max). The amount needed at a high sphere such as 8th (2,500,000 XP per orbit) is very much disproportionate to that which is needed at say... 5th sphere (250,000 XP).

So, the question you must ask yourself is who are you trying to help... lower, midrange, or high spheres? If you were to make the reward worth it for a high sphere, it would be too much for a lower sphere. This is if you were to reward a flat fixed amount. If you were to add in a modifier based on sphere you could correct the imbalance I suppose. But then would you want to? Teaching is a major driving force of the game, can you go around in WoW offering hunters an increase in aimed shot? Assist a priest in raising their heals? Nope... this is a unique system.

I challenge someone to tell me they spend ALL of their time writing tasks and listening to reports. Hunting sucks, I know it does... I have done a lot of it. But no one spends all of their time with quest evoked or waiting to evoke train. There are means of gaining XP in place, utilize them...

I personally can gain 600k an hour from hunting mares (no, I am not going to tell you how). This is two orbits at 5th sphere, an hour... I do not see the validity of the complaint that the current methods of XP gain within the game are not enough and more should be added.

Agreed on all points.