Here's what's fucked about Exp in PS

[Airlift]

Ok, I definately love planetside, but they borked experience badly by making it divide kill experience instead of sharing it. I'm not complaining that it takes too long to level now, because that isn't true. What is totally fucked is that you can jump on a zerg and get thousands of points for doing nothing more than being present while someone is capping, but if you are in a full squad, and you singlehandedly killk a MAX, you end up with maybe 20 points. WTF? Killing the enemy is doing all the work, yeah?

Why is it that for killing very difficult opponents you get almost nothing, but for marching in parade and sucking up (virtual) air in a zerg, you get the big haul?

Furthermore, why is it that you get squat for killing a MAX who has just spawned? They are full armor and full ammo, and at least as dangerous as a MAX who has been running around for an hour.

[Hijinks]

Stop whining, its not about exp. Its about stroking the fluffy bunny with a suppressor for 3 weeks while trying to build cert points to play how you want.

[IDgaf]

I'm nervous about this game now.

I'm tempted to delay delivery from Amazon.

The worrying thing is that the Sony monkeys are locking threads and essentially saying 'we're bored of talking about this now. let's talk about something else. [hopefully you'll forget about xp] and come back to the topic later.'

[Chanfan]

Originally posted by Airlift

Furthermore, why is it that you get squat for killing a MAX who has just spawned? They are full armor and full ammo, and at least as dangerous as a MAX who has been running around for an hour.

Well, while I agree with some of your complaints, this part seems clear to me. The idea is to have some way to calculate some skill/threat level to players. If a MAX can't make it up the stairs from the spawn tubes, it's not that big of a threat to your empire. If it's been hopping around for an hour, it's probably been out causing havoc, and being a threat.

I'll agree that a timer based system is far from perfect, but at least it does put some weight on an "intelligent enough to survive" player vs. a "zergfest I can only live for the two minutes it takes me to get to combat" player. But some additional weight for the base difficulty fo the opponents load out would be nice, I'll admit.

And (opens can-o-worms) since a MAX is 3 cert points at best, and a Prowler is 3, and a Medic is 3, they should all be worth the same, right..? ;)

[kerosene31]

There are 2 major issues with the XP thing:

1) the amount of total XP is down from the beta
- well to me this is fine and makes sense to me. it isn't like other games where you need to be high level before you can have fun. br5 is all I need to be effective and that is easy ehough to get.

2) the way to get XP is all wrong now
- this to me is the issue. There is no reward for doing things like defending a base or repairing something.

I think that Sony will address #2. I honestly don't know why they changed it from the beta. They could have reduced the overall XP without changing how it is distributed.

[Airlift]

Time alive is a bad metric of skill. Maybe it should be a modifier based on the number of people you have killed today, or since last respawn, or something else, but the current way of measuring experience value is wrong.

My issue still comes down to the fact that the reward for doing all of the work is less than the reward for doing none of the work.

[Airlift]

And (opens can-o-worms) since a MAX is 3 cert points at best, and a Prowler is 3, and a Medic is 3, they should all be worth the same, right..?

Nope, because cert cost is an abstract measure of not only offensive/defensive capabilities, but also general usefulness, which has nothing to do with how hard someone is to kill. I don't think someone with a MAX cert should be worth more for having the cert, he should be worth more (when driving his MAX) because he is comparitively a very challenging kill.

[Pilgrim]

I agree with Airlift about the Zerg thing

Why penalize the Deffenders against a ZERG rush because they are deffending well. That's all the timer does, I'd rather like a set number for all units, that increases based on the number of kills sense last spawn.

ie. Max runs up gets killed, worth 200 xp.
MAX hold CC for 12 minutes kills 20 of your best and closest friends, worth 500 xp...

To me the worst part of the new system is the xp split. I joined a squad of all noobs to show them the ropes, and help out... but after I got 10-15 kills, and they got NONE... well I started to feel a little cheated. I had gotten 100 xp where I shoulda gotten 1000 or more under the old system.

So here's my idea on this one.
Still split the xp but change the math. 50% of xp goes to killer. the remander is divided among the squad. This would dick support classes a bit, but rewarding the people who actually produce is important, besides support classes get their xp primarily from caps now anyway.

So that's my 2 cents..

PAX

[IDgaf]

Oh, great. So the supports would get it in the neck again.

Supports help a team function and can turn the tide of a battle. They should be helped, not hindered.

[Airlift]

Share between squads, don't divide. Reduce cap experience and increase kill experience, because the squads killing are doing the work. The squads who hang around for caps are only benefitting from the work.

[Pilgrim]

So a support guy who kills no one will get 10 xp for a MAX he didn't kill, instead of 15... If your trying to level off kills it ain't gonna happen anyway. Suppor twon't be right untill they give XP for support doing their THANG like fixxing the armor, or healing the wounded guy.

The thing is that pre-release in a squad I went from br3-br6 in 4 hours of intense open field battle, real metal and meat kinda stuff. Now there is no way (and thus no incentive) to get xp in the field, it's only at bases.

Mind you I hit BR6 last night after a reaming and really good fight at Marduk on Ishunder (Emerald, props to the TR who fought there!) So I'll be returning to my primary role of pissing off others LONG before they reach a base. But I'll be doing this knowing the BR7 is a LONG way off.

Let people who can shoot be rewarded for it!

[Elethomiel]

Originally posted by kerosene31
2) the way to get XP is all wrong now
- this to me is the issue. There is no reward for doing things like defending a base or repairing something.


The capture or successful defense of a base should be reward enough. It should provide status to you and your empire. It should have a real reason to defend it and a reason for the enemy to want to capture it. People should want to keep them fully stocked with NTUs etc because they really don't want to lose them. XP should be something that just comes along with it. As it stands, bases are strategically worthless (never mind the fact that they were designed to be captured, not defended). They don't really mean anything beyond something to give people something to fight over and a way to gain xp. It's currently slow, but there is light at the end of the xp tunnel and that's the end of the game. There is no more depth than that. I have seen nothing to indicate that this is actually being worked on though and that is what worries me. The nerfing of the XP rates is just a symptom of the underlieing disease.

[Airlift]

It's currently slow, but there is light at the end of the xp tunnel and that's the end of the game. There is no more depth than that. I have seen nothing to indicate that this is actually being worked on though and that is what worries me. The nerfing of the XP rates is just a symptom of the underlieing disease.

Red Herring? I think so.

You attribute the XP problems to the underlying lack of motivation to play. This is a fallacy because the game is its own reward, whether it will keep you interested or not. What I'm talking about here is how experience is calculated and it has nothing to do with the good old missing carrot theory.

Nerfing the XP rates is not a symptom of anything, it is a calculated design decision. I argued already that it was a bad thing to do because reducing advancement rate serves only to draw additional focus to the levelling game. This only highlights the flaws inherent in the reward system.

Now then, on many threads, people are arguing that you shouldn't play for experience, and that is something I have said too. It's true, but as long as experience is given, people will play for experience. as long as experience is slow, people will focus on experience. As long as people focus on experience, people will gravitate to the high yield activities. Now we are back to my original point: Under the current system, Planetside is rewarding the wrong activities.

[Hamma]

I agree - splitting XP rather than sharing is bad news. Hopefully the dev's are reading all this.

[Jarlo]

??

You disagreed with me yesterday but agree with Airlift today?

You must like Airlift more :(

[Hamma]

I finally had a bit of time to play, and read up on the matter.

Been a little sidetracked with this damn server :p

[Destroyeron]

Originally posted by Hunter-R
So here's my idea on this one.
Still split the xp but change the math. 50% of xp goes to killer. the remander is divided among the squad. This would dick support classes a bit, but rewarding the people who actually produce is important, besides support classes get their xp primarily from caps now anyway.


So your saying that medics, engineers, ect. don't produce? That's bullshit. It shhould go back to how it was in beta, but with lower amounts of xp.

[Pyro212]

What I did today shows the root of the current XP problems.

I was in a squad of about 6.

I was a VS MAX.

I was doing great I was getting kill after kill and holding the base by myself.

I looked back at my window and saw that I was getting awful XP and my teamates were not contributing near as much as me.

So I left the squad and foght solo.

I got a whole bunch of experiance, but we lost the base.

The new system encourages good players to ignore support players and support players to level at extremely low rates.

It puts way too much attension on gaining XP as fat as possible and takes it away from helping your empire.

[MilitantB0B]

Me and my squad just tooks lots of bases, still get good xp for that. :D It almost reminded me of the pre-lattice days when you would see the inside of about 10 bases within an hour.

[Airlift]

Tonight I tested which brand of cereal I got the most experience from eating while AFK waiting for the zergs to cap. It seems that Life cereal has a better experience yield than fighting to keep a continent from falling.

Another bad thing about the current experience system is that you are penalized for fighting a losing battle. WTF is that all about? Shouldn't the reward system encourage people to leave the huge zergs where there is only lag and a few kills for the lucky few? However, a cap-centric, kill-deficient reward scheme does exactly the opposite. It punishes people who get a lot of kills (and subsequently die alot) and rewards those who do nothing.

As long as this system remains, I will grind experience to reach my goal of BR 12. After that, I will play the game again.

[1024]

Originally posted by Airlift
Time alive is a bad metric of skill. Maybe it should be a modifier based on the number of people you have killed today, or since last respawn, or something else, but the current way of measuring experience value is wrong.

My issue still comes down to the fact that the reward for doing all of the work is less than the reward for doing none of the work.

They should make it so that you get more exp for killing someone whos killed 10 people rather than 1 person. So im saying thaey should base it on the amount of kills your victim has had since their last respawn. This would sort of balance out the zerging, as when you're in a zerged situation not everyone gets a lot of kills cuz they get swarmed, and when its less people they have a better hcance of surviving which means more kills for them, which means mroe exp for you. I dunno though, i can think of a buncha flaws right off te top of my head....:rolleyes:


Originally posted by MilitantB0B
Me and my squad just tooks lots of bases, still get good xp for that. :D It almost reminded me of the pre-lattice days when you would see the inside of about 10 bases within an hour.


Its impossible to cap 10 bases within an hour, even pre-lattice. 1 base takes 15 mins to cap, not to mention travel time, plus assault time.... you'd be EXTREMELY lucky to cap 3 bases within an hour, even pre-llattice.

[Banditman]

Originally posted by IDgaf
I'm nervous about this game now.

I'm tempted to delay delivery from Amazon.

The worrying thing is that the Sony monkeys are locking threads and essentially saying 'we're bored of talking about this now. let's talk about something else. [hopefully you'll forget about xp] and come back to the topic later.'

That's the least of it. They suspended my account because I had the nerve to point out that they deceived everyone with regards to sharing experience.

Whip out the manual, turn to page 20, top of the page. Yep. Says right there that experience is given to all squad members in full.

Im sure that there are a number of instances in IRC discussions before the game was beta where Dev members specifically stated that experience was not divided or split but instead shared in full.

/me sets mode: +fullofcrap PSDevTeam

[SpacemanSpiff]

Originally posted by Airlift
Time alive is a bad metric of skill. Maybe it should be a modifier based on the number of people you have killed today, or since last respawn, or something else, but the current way of measuring experience value is wrong.

My issue still comes down to the fact that the reward for doing all of the work is less than the reward for doing none of the work.

Can someone go into greater detail about the "Time alive" BEP method of giving experience? Or if someone can even copy and paste from the main board (it's filtered out for me at the moment).

[Banditman]

Basically, the longer your target has been alive since his last spawn the more BEP you receive for killing him.

This was put in to cut down on spawn camping. Spawn campers get like one or two experience per spawner killed. It really isn't worth it. So if you see a spawn camper, most likely he is there to cover a friendly hacker, not for the experience he receives for killing the spawners.

Additionally, some think that it is also *somewhat* dependant on the BR of your target. Higher BEP for killing higher ranked opponents.

There is a definite difference between killing a MAX and killing standard infantry.

[LesserShade]

Originally posted by Airlift

Another bad thing about the current experience system is that you are penalized for fighting a losing battle. WTF is that all about? Shouldn't the reward system encourage people to leave the huge zergs where there is only lag and a few kills for the lucky few? However, a cap-centric, kill-deficient reward scheme does exactly the opposite. It punishes people who get a lot of kills (and subsequently die alot) and rewards those who do nothing.

Arg, I was defending the new XP system until last night after a whole evening of getting my ass kicked off 2 continent and I now understand why I was wrong.

I must have played for a few hours yesterday and in that time on amerish and searhus the group of TR I was following around managed to cap two bases and resecure two. Great, nice XP for success, fine. However 95% of the time spent last night was holding choke points or capping towers, or defending a base that inevitably gets overrun. Sure it was fun, but damn, I might have raked in like 1 or 2 bubbles of XP the whole night. What took me hours to do could have been accomplished in minutes if I would have up and left for a continent that TR was zerging. (which isn't always an option necessarily being that they switched all the sanctuary warpgates around)

Now on Tuesday it was the opposite story, TR was rampaging around and XP came in without anymore effort than "hey squad, hop in the sunderer and lets drive up to cash in on that hack at kyoi"
At least before if you were going to lose you still got a healthy reward for standing your ground and fighting until the last tower got taken from you.

[Zartax]

I think you are all focusing on the wrong thing. If you play to get exp, play DAoC or EverQuest. I don't play PS to get exp, I play for the teamplay and fun. The exp isn't the main reason poeple are playing PS and isn't the main reward for doing something, like capping a base or killing. The reason for doing this is helping the squad, platoon, outfit, empire to get more ground, owning a larger portion of the world.

The whole exp problem would be solved if they just gave everyone 23 certpoint from the start. The people would play for the real reasons instead of exp. I do think the exp system is good since it is fun to get exp and see your character grow, but that is not the main reason for playing.

All your problems about being able to eat cereals while getting exp and vice versa is because you are not playing in a serious group. If you are the only one contributing, then leave the squad and find another. Join an outfit. There you will find serious players.

As for the experience system as it is now I don't have a problem with it. What is does is that it divedes the exp gained to all teammembers, thus making the supportrole playable in the area of gaining exp. Otherwise, they would never get exp since you dont get exp for healing or repairing, just for killing and capping. This is good. If you are too cheap to share your experience with others, who contribute as much as you, but in a nonexp gaining way, they go off somewhere and kill by yourself or join the "allkillingmachines-squad".

But I think the easiest way to solve your problem is to join a seroius outfit.

As for the "bases are meaningless and nonstrategical and not worth defending" I totally agree. It's too easy to cap a base and therefor not worth defending one because if you loose it you can just retake it later on.

But if we but timers on a base prevents one from hacking it if you just lost it, then it would be more valuable to defend it. Say, if you loose a base the you have to wait for 2 h before you can hack it again. That would create a new motivation to defend a base. The empire that just capped the base would be assaulting in a new way and the empire that lost one would be defending. The defending empire must stand ground for 2h before they can start assaulting again and gaining groud. It would create presure on defending: "If we don't defend this base we will loose all and they will call in sancstrikes sometime in the future!"
I don't know if 2h is a good time, it can be modified, but a timer, that shows on the map, would be good. Also, the timer is resetted if the base runs out of NTU. This makes ANT-runs more important.

[Airlift]

Hrm, lost track of this thread when the PSU went down. T-minus 2.4 levels of grinding until I don't care anymore whether SOE takes their heads out of their collective ass and takes the focus away from experience and puts it back on the game. After that it will just be tough shit for the newbs, and they can go jump in a zerg if they want to advance quickly like I had to "back in the old days".

On the other hand, that gives me 2.4 levels to keep bitching to you guys about how dumb it is to draw everyone's attention to the very worst aspect of an otherwise very good game.

Zartax, you say we're focusing on the wrong thing, and I agree. However, we are playing the way they reward us to play. It is true that I can spend most of my time AFK and outgain your serious group. It's also true that I get better experience from playing in a 5 man group than a 10 man group because we need less kills to get more exp.

The +50 base for kills that went in today isn't going to change anything, it is only going to make the disparity between small group exp and large group exp more pronounced, because the +50 comes out to be +10 exp per person instead of +5 per. If you are a Galaxy pilot, I don't want you unless I need someone to tote an ANT in a hurry, and after that you are again useless to me. The story is the same for any dedicated support guy, Infiltrator, or anyone else who can't keep up with the rest of the group in kills. You are dead weight, thanks to the exp split.

If a continent starts to turn against my empire, I will not stay and fight because there is exp somewhere else, and all I'm doing by fighting tooth and nail in a losing battle is giving more exp to my enemies.

[tmartinez72]

If a continent starts to turn against my empire, I will not stay and fight because there is exp somewhere else, and all I'm doing by fighting tooth and nail in a losing battle is giving more exp to my enemies.

Yes. This what it boils down to. Yet, there ARE those willing to fight the good fight, but I'm finding it far and few between.

No one wants to be on a losing side, and it's just salt in the wound when you are only making your opponents stronger by staying to die.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

Well, Pytagoras, a member of my clan New Dawn, came up with an excellent idea for EXP:
The EXP system has been changed. After some reconsidering and heavy brain usage at the �Developers Think Tank�, we�ve decided to redesign the EXP system a bit.
This means that all types of vehicles and infantry armor now have a minimum of EXP when killed while equipped, driving or flying. Also, there has been added a timer for when the EXP for killing a player of time increases. This is shown more thouroughly in the table below.

Name Period in Minutes Spawn ( 0-3 ) (4-10 )
2.5x XP (11-25 )
2.0x XP ( 26-60 )
1.5x XP ( 61 - )
1.2x XP
Infantry:
Standard 2 XP 5 XP 10 XP 15 XP 18 XP
Infiltration 4 XP 10 XP 20 XP 30 XP 36 XP
Agile 6 XP 15 XP 30 XP 45 XP 54 XP
Reinforced 8 XP 20 XP 40 XP 60 XP 72 XP
MAX 12 XP 30 XP 60 XP 90 XP 108 XP

As you can see, the XP advancedment is based on the previous time block.

For example; 2 xp x 2.5 = 5 xp. The player has now been alive for a minium of 4 minutes and a maximum of 10 minutes and 59 seconds. The player lives on a couple of minutes more, bringing he or she in the next time block. 5 xp x 2.0 = 10 XP.

Vehicle kills are added to the EXP accumulated from the kill of the players inside the specific vehicle (or in the blast radius).

Name of Vehicle XP added to players in the vehicle
AMS 20 XP
ANT 40 XP
Basilisk 15 XP
Deliverer 25 XP
Enforcer 30 XP
Galaxy 30 XP
Harasser 25 XP
Lightning 35 XP
Magrider 50 XP
Marauder 30 XP
Mosquito 40 XP
Prowler 55 XP
Reaver 50 XP
Sunderer 40 XP
Thresher 30 XP
Vanguard 60 XP
Wraith 10 XP

For example, a TR Agile have been alive for 30 minutes and is driving a Marauder and are blown to bits by a NC soldier. For this brave act, the NC player gets 45 XP for the player kill and a bonus of 30 XP for the Marauder kill.

If the TR driver had a passenger with the same lifespane as he or she, the NC player would get 45 XP (TR player) + 45 XP (TR player) + 30 XP (Maurauder) for the kill.


Woo. That's a lot. Thanks to Pytagoras for this idea, all credit goes to him!

[RUEN]

I like that exp system, what they should also do is let medics get exp for healing players damaged by enemy fire... they should also let you lose grief points if you heal someone you injured. the only thing i can see people doing is grouping up with opposite enemy factions and killing each other, and having their friends revive them... which really sux... but something needs to be done about medics... i hate playing them... nobody wants you... or me anyways :(

EDIT: oh, you could put revive on a timer, so you don't get exp for someone who was revived recently similar to above ^^

[Nitsch]

I think the devs are looking at exp mathematically not psychologically.

My roommate in college was a grad student in psychology and he did an experiment where people played this simple video game like space invaders, but instead of points they got money for their kills. There were different targets, some were easy but gave less money than the harder targets.

Rationally people could make more money if they went after the smaller money targets because they could kill faster. But people didn't... most people went for the big kills even though they would make less money in the long run.

Rationally the current exp system isn't that bad... by getting more people in the group you can collectively kill more for smaller amounts and make more exp in the long run than going solo and getting big numbers with fewer kills. But it feels wrong.

I think they should increase the amount of exp it takes to level while turning the system back to shared exp. People like to see the bigger numbers... even though it doesn't mean they are leveling quicker.

Many of the devs are mathematicians... not psychologist... maybe they should hire a few more people who know how people really think.

[Streamline]

WTF is that all about?

I totally agree with Airlift here. I say this at least hundred times a night.

So now you'r squad is all about diplomacy now. Just send one or two represtantatives to each base your empire may potentially cap. So really all you need to get easy xp is a infil suit and a skeeter. Just fly from hacked base to hacked base. As long as you're in the soi you get xp. You dont even have to fire a shot.

Furthermore, killing you will be worth alot cuz you never die. It is so rediculous that you can get more xp from running over a sniper with an ANT than you can thumpin a max at the zerg tubes.

[Airlift]

Rationally the current exp system isn't that bad... by getting more people in the group you can collectively kill more for smaller amounts and make more exp in the long run than going solo and getting big numbers with fewer kills.

I do not agree with your analysis because the number of targets does not scale to the size of your group. Your example was a controlled experiment where the best potential gains were in the more numerous smaller values than in the more rare and difficult larger values.

While 10 people can theoretically kill twice as many enemies as 5, this does not imply that they will encounter twice as many enemies. More logically, they will encounter the same number of enemies. So I can either get a small group, where only the leader is getting screwed out of CEP but everyone gets better BEP, or I can get a large group where kills become individually worthless even if you can make those kills easier. In the smaller group, I make more on each kill, which becomes more important as you get into situations that make kills more rare (such as the zerg, which brings back my complaint that people who simply take up space in a zerg [I am doing this] don't deserve greater rewards than people who strike out in a full squad of people to fight other squads.

Simply put, there should be no more rewarding activity in the system than joining a well-balanced squad and fighting over objectives. I would like to see someone argue against that. You certainly can't argue that this is the way the system works, because it doesn't take squad composition into account other than to penalize squads whose support members aren't producing kills. Further, the experience at the front end of a zerg beats what a squad can produce by capping bases from other squads (and with no required effort).

[edit: quoted for clarity]

[Nitsch]

You may be right... but I am leveling not much behind the rate i did in beta... so exp couldn't be THAT bad.

I suspect most the uproar about exp has more to do with how the exp system feels, rather than how it looks on paper.

I bet the devs were took by suprise how big a reaction they got from the exp changes... because when they run the numbers it doesn't look as bad as it feels.