Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

[Karinya]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

It's hard to believe now that SE actually rearranged mobs in Ro'Maeve because there were too many people at moongate to be supported by the existing mobs. Now I bet a lot of people don't even know what the moongate *is*, or how to get a key.

Before TAU, there was Uleguerand and Lufaise and Bibiki. Before CoP there was Moongate and Ru'Avitau and Kuftal Tunnel. Before RoZ... there wasn't any need for exp camps over 65. :D Any of those camps will still work, and be uncrowded - if you don't mind not getting a permanent +15% exp and 1 MP/tick and beating up mobs that are very weak for their nominal level.


Personally, I think a possible solution would be to make Besieged harder. If the Empire didn't consistently keep the AC for weeks or months at a time, then lose it only for 6 hours, TAU areas would be far less attractive - no staging point warping except for Assault, no Sanction bonuses or +exp while beastmen have the AC; and even once the Empire gets it back, it would take the +exp a while to build back up again. Who wants to take the boat to Nashmau so they can go beat up imps in mire? Even though the imps are very weak it isn't an attractive prospect. Walking to Zhayolm or the camp near Mamool Ja Staging Point would be even worse.

In order for PCs to actually lose besieged (other than doubleheaders or maintenance), there probably has to be some change to the rule that a dead monster is dead forever but a dead PC will be right back in 5 minutes. (Otherwise you'd have to introduce more AOE instakills, which are just annoying and unfun.) Progressively longer weakness times the more times you have died during that besieged, maybe?

Unfortunately, repeated increases to Besieged level have so far still failed to defeat most servers more than once every couple weeks, if that. But if beastmen had the AC even 1/4 of the time, I think you'd see a lot more variety in exp camps.

[Amele]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

I don't think reducing the ability to maintain the candescence would really do it.

before AU, 10k/hr was a good benchmark for a 'great' exp pt (KRT monks, Ru'Av water, Uleg etc.) and 6-8k/hr was standard. (most other camps) the best parties could sometimes hit 15k with some consistency and mostly only in uleg where there's enough mobs to go infy on the chain count. Moon and Bay were ok but nothing stellar most of the time (bibiki was mostly just convenient)

today, a -standard- AU camp is 10k-12k/hr (even with overcrowding) and if you actually get enough of the mobs to yourself and have good members, it's reasonable to expect 20k+/hr depending on camp and how heavily merited everyone is. even if we take out the 15% bonus you're still looking at 8.5k-10.4k for a random pickup in AU zones. (with the top end at 17+k/hr) it's not a big jump, but if I can guarantee that any 4 x/nin melee, a bard or cor, and a whm or rdm can hit 8k rather than ~6k, I'll go do the overcrowded 8k camp.

all losing sanction will do today is stick that many more people in thickets (since it's not hard to walk through mamook esp. compared to the trip to say, uleg range) rather than spreading them between mire and thickets and nyzul.

the situation is even more ridiculous in the 50's and 60's where you're lucky to get 4k/hr on crabs, but can pull 8-10k/hr in AU by throwing together what is basically the *same* pt but with an extra melee instead of a blm.

[Karinya]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

I think you're neglecting the role sanction plays in hitting that exp rate in the first place. Sanction refresh is big; sanction's own direct exp bonus is big too. The two in combination are huge. Losing the candy kills both. It's not *all* about the difficulty of reaching camp, although for some camps the pain-in-the-ass factor would be easily bigger than Uleg's.

Furthermore, the comparison to pre-TAU exp rates isn't entirely fair; those were parties with pre-TAU gear, food and merit limits (and most people were nowhere near merit caps before TAU, because it took so much longer to rack up 150 merit points). Going there now would produce at least somewhat more exp (although it's hard to be sure exactly *how much* more without trying it, which nobody is willing to do as long as the candy is in Imperial hands).

It would also have a big impact on exp (non-merit) camps; 10-12/hr may be standard for a merit party, but an *exp* party even on lesser colibri (those supremely pathetic mobs) is still lucky to see 6-8. Bibiki isn't that hot for merit but it had some pretty impressive exp, by pre-TAU standards.

[Feba]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

Amele, you're right about convineant, which is why that could work. You're forgetting that, without staging point warps, those camps turn from a couple minutes outside town to a 15-25 minute hike.

[Amele]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

didn't forget it, but it's still less than the difficulty of many of the preferred non au camps even if you take the 25 minute walk (or 30 minute boat ride) losing the candescence causes several camps to be invalidated, but it's still easier to get to mamook, bhaflau thickets, (maybe not nyzul, although the run isn't too bad), and Zhaylom (with escape), than it is to do sky or uleg or sea if someone doesn't have the Tav OP/Tavnazian ring charge available.

sky, uleg, tavnazia, and sea all take at least 25 minutes (whether you want to shortcut or not, someone in the party won't) and can easily take twice that. (especially uleg.) newton is about 20 minutes and takes some work to get to the 'good' camp(s). bibiki is the only convenient one really and is the worst exp/hr of all the traditional endgame camps. KRT is about 20 minutes unless you get lucky on airships.

extra auto-refresh is nice but even without it you'll still pull better numbers in AU (I've done enough meriting on whm under both conditions.)

Karinya is right that it's not entirely fair since the merit caps rose and some new gear (most notably the walahra turban) were introduced, contributing alot to the perception that the older camps aren't as good. But the numbers I quoted were all post merit cap rise, another issue too is that IS is actually used somewhat, whereas CP is basically unused these days.

[Malacite]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

then lose it only for 6 hours

What the hell kind of crack team(s) do you have on your server? Whenever Seraph loses it's always gone for at least 2-3 days, if not a week or more. You talk about losing the AC more often being a huge hinderance, but usually when it IS actually gone the majority of people in town don't give a damn.

But then again, most of them likely take it for granted too. They like having it, but won't do the legwork needed to get it back.


Regardless, gimping ToAU EXP isn't the answer. Making traditional parties and camps more attractive is, as well as possibly adding 2-3 new camps in ToAU. I agree that TP burns do get monotonous and dreadfully boring after a while, but then I was always meriting on WAR (a job I now hate for my own reasons) so I didn't even enjoy meriting in the first place.


Making COP camps more attractive would be nice too. Making it possible to merit for great exp in say, Promyvion-Dem would not only free up existing camps, but it would be just plain cool!

[DR2D2]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

A solution to this problem may be to only allow teleports to the staging areas for assults only. The reason why everyone chooses the Aht U. zones is because it is too convinent to get to them(compared to getting to some of the original zones if setting up the party in Aht U). Besides, why is it you can warp to "hell", but not to Sandy or Windy or Bastok from Aht U. To me SE did this on purpose to get everyone into these zones(don't ask me why they would do that), or else they would have made a direct passage to some of the other zones(like they didi with the warping to the staging areas). The only other thing I could see SE doing is changing the merit and skill caps so it requires partying in different locations(maybe you could only get 1 merit per zone or region).

[Malacite]

Re: Is SE considering any additional changes to Conquest area exp?

I really don't think any kind of nerf is a good idea nor especially welcome.


They just need to be creative about making EXP in other areas more attractive. One idea could be to increase the EXP bonus against IT's with signet when in a full PT. I know they just did something similar to this for smaller parties, but if a traditional SC + MB party could waste an IT mob for say 400+ EXP a kill, then they'd be getting EXP on more or less the same level as TP burn but without resorting to the same methods and issues that arise.

EDIT: Sorry about the run-on sentence, can't think of a better way to word it at the moment.