Here's what's fucked about Exp in PS

[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.