XP Zone Rewards

[Vipplin]

To address the problem of many cool zones not getting done, much content left underutilized due to lack of good incentive... For long-time players eq incentive may dwindle not just because certain zones don't have great eq, but because no matter how good it is, once you have it you have it... Also to address the problem (and it is a problem, it would seem) of xp loss in zones...

An idea from another thread (Lilira/Ifin discussed)... Experience tokens in some zones. Not easy to implement to avoid/curtail xp-passing, but here are some ideas for them...

1. !rent
2. Give a range of xp rewards based on level of the char using it
3. Place tokens as much as possible to require a large portion of the zone to be done to get them, maybe need to quest for them.
4. The range of xp rewards is also capped based on the 'level' of the zone (low, mid, high)
5. As a matter of policy, state that the tokens are to be used only by chars that participated substantially in the zone execution.
6. Only placed in zones that (a) aren't generally done at all or (b) usually produce negative xp without good enough eq to make up for it.

Reasons for the guidelines above:
1. Reduce twinkage.
2. Encourages chars to use on the char they bring and not xfer the item to a low-level char to plevel, negotiable rule since there may be benefits to leaving it a flat-rate of xp.
3. Intent is to get more zones done/explored each boot, not to put turbo on xp twinkage.
4. Remove incentive for level 46+ chars to steamroll lower zones just for tokens
5. Seems like a good idea to me... and there is a standing policy against xfer of xp
6. I think that's where they're needed. Would be nice if ppl could do zones and get xp close to what they'd get just, well, doing xp.

Thoughts?

Iyced/Vadian

[kiryan]

Its not a bad idea, but I think it would be a far better idea to simply make the mobs in the zone worth the exp reward you want to bestow for completing the zone... like for instance, if you wanted people to get 1,000 exp for finishing a zone like IC, make malice worth 300 exp, archie worth 300 exp, and the lone guardsman 400....

IMO, the reward for doing a zone should not be something individuals have to fight over like a token. You are trying to reward each and every person in the group for going regardless of whether they need certain eq or not....

Basically everyone who finishes a zone should get some sort of point for finishing the zone. Points should NOT be based on difficulty since the EQ rewards are.. maybe MAYBE based on time to complete the zone. They should simply be some sort of measure of how active a player has been in zoning.

The big question is what to do with points? Some ideas are

1. special skills you can only train with zone points
2. making requirements for points to obtain certain levels (like 20 for 47, 50 for 48, 100 for 49, 500 for 50)
3. restrings
4. titles
5. in game benefits like say a key to WD or access to a network of city teleporters
6. zone point only equipment

...

if you really think about it, what exactly is the difference between someone like pidibeple who has been to thousands of zones and a brand new 50 invoker who has been to the top 5 zones (of today) 20 times each? Virtually nothing, not even quality of eq. Now consider someone like lilithelle who has lead thousands of zones, what does she have over the person who has been to thousands of zones? nothing...

EQ is the only reward for doing zones and i think that should change.... but until there is a way to spend EXP, I don't really think that is the reward we are looking for.

[Lilira]

Yummy.. spending XP...

I hear tale of people spending LOTS of EXP for the delight of going and dying a bunch in Tiamat.

Mmmm...

/smartass off

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Ifin]

In response to Kiryan, I like the idea of making mobs in zones worth their wegith in xp (and of course if end mobs were worth a great deal more xp than the other mobs which they aren't), but we have the problem how as a warrior I can get so much more xp paying 1% attention just watching my rescue trigs go off b/c I'm always in the room when the mob dies, and whereas when I play my enchanter and have to be 100% concentrating at keys I miss out on a lot of xp.

How about a flag for zones that you get xp distributed to people either in group or in adjacent rooms, and adjust the amount of xp distributed based on class? Either class or change xp tables for people over lvl 50 over a certain amount of xp? I personally think, playing various mages, invoker should get less xp than illusionist should get less xp than enchanters, and can be adjusted for other classes as well, esp when you view how their xp is also conducted outside of zones (ie easier to do "raw xp" as invoker/illu, more tedious as enchanter).

[kiryan]

yea ifin very good point and that dynamic where classes like ench get totally gimped on exp would turn into any "exp" tokens getting handed to them at the end of the zone.

[Minofagal]

if you really think about it, what exactly is the difference between someone like pidibeple who has been to thousands of zones and a brand new 50 invoker who has been to the top 5 zones (of today) 20 times each? Virtually nothing, not even quality of eq. Now consider someone like lilithelle who has lead thousands of zones, what does she have over the person who has been to thousands of zones? nothing...

EQ is the only reward for doing zones and i think that should change.... but until there is a way to spend EXP, I don't really think that is the reward we are looking for.

PRESTIGE! ask lili, pava, etc there prestige sometime and thats what they have.. theres just no use for it atm. give prestige a use and apply those points to zones and we're in business

[Sarell]

If you put specific exp amount on zones you have another factor to balance. Just like equipment, between zones. What would work better is to just make zoning exp worth more, by lowering exp tables. To make the overall dificulty of leveling not change, increase the effects of trophy. You cannot get more than 3% exp for one zone for instance.

PS:::: Upgrade trophy downgrade tables!

EDIT:
Mobs that are very hard like dragons and devils should have the exp increased for the type of mob, not the specific instance of it. This makes way for more zones to be added / tweaked in the future without having to rebalance the exp of everything.

[kiryan]

The problem with using the current implementation of "prestige" is its used to "track" too many different things** already which means you have to "balance" all these activities against each other or risk making the prestige score pointless (like it is currently).

I'm looking for something very specific, something used to reward people who participate in zones other than the equipment so that when you have everything from a zone, there is still an incentive to get out an zone... Something easy to balance and something that helps you to differentiate from the brand new level 50 character and the level 50 character who has done 1000 zones.

----

**Prestige was used to reward people for questing, for killing mobs (mobs used to and may still give you prestige for killing them), having lots of exp, being a certain level and your charisma score...