Leveling & Partying

Currently I have a multitude of requests that are already underway to HQ regarding partying. I don't want to promise this, but it is something we are working towards. All that does happen will likely be implemented in stages, rather than an all at once.

1. Improved AI is on the dev platter for 2011. It will make all new areas much spicier. Once it works for new content retrofitting onto older content is easy.

Excellent. The monsters right now are boring, at all levels. This should allow them to make stuff both fun and challenging.

2. Improved party share exp. We are asking for a server side setting for it to tune it from 0-100% per extra person. 50% bonus per person past 2 would mean that a 12 person party would have each person still getting 50% of monster normal solo value. We would not have 50% as our "base" but instead have it as a reserve for a special event. 10% is way too low I think, likely 20-25% bonus would be appropriate, as that would surpass an 'everyone taps" party.

25% is likely fine, I'd agree - especially paired with the "elite" stuff you're mentioning.

3. Share only happens to characters that are within the distance range (think the range of the quest journals).

Good. Reward partying, penalize leeching. I would suggest making share range *slightly* longer than it is for the benefit of tanker types (a double pull can have one off screen of the other). Removing the full map share, however, is a very good move, as it allows you to reward real parties without also rewarding leechers.

4. Here is the big if, and it needs ALOT of thought before handing off to dev team. Each class (basic 6 classes + expanded classes) gets an aura buff that is learned via quest. That aura only works while in distance range of the character, but its buff is unique ahd actually powers up the party in addition to normal buffs. This is so a 12 person diverse party is more powerful than 3 priest and 9 killer party due to the stacking of those buffs. I don't know what the buffs are right now, but less desirable classes should have better buffs to give them their ticket into the parties more.

I love this idea. Not only is it a great way to get more people working together, but it can be something unique to RO that makes our partying system stand out.

5. party GUI/recruitment thing. We already put in to get it all prettified, and to have the 'person offering to join a party' other settings like what type of party is a good addition, I didn't think of that due to I know how MVPing is such a trust thing that usually you wouldn't recruit for it, but certainly it is a viable request.

I actually have both organized and joined pick-up MVP groups. It's risky, but for every one player that ninja loots, you meet 3 you can play with in the future, and it's not hard to keep a guild blacklist to avoid getting screwed by the same people.

Leveling dynamics are different in Renewal, it is very hard to express how it feels different, and to many more aggravating. But here it goes. The really old school people who leveled up fighting smokies and raydrics in the 2003-2004 era likely will feel this leveling type is crazy fast, because time spent is lower than it was before for those level ranges. But those that are used to having the biggest challenges open to them to tap into the levling super highway like Kasas and Biolabs are not happy as they can't do the crazy rewarding leveling. Trading their past time/equipment and knowledge to make their exp exponentially better. This is sort of intended, but I do believe there should be a greater reward for Risk, but not in the way of giving x monster more xp/drops when you fight it with a lowbie. (tank it and that char is leveling up 3 times faster or something).

Speaking as someone who's been playing since beta, I disagree with this assessment of old school players. The feeling I always had with early RO is that they simply hadn't finished the game yet. Most MMOs start with a level cap of 50 or 60, then raise it slowly towards their intended max as they get content for it. RO decided not to lock it, and allow 99 from day 1, even though the content stopped initially at 50, and was slowly climbing. At the time the useless company took over that stopped advancing the game in favor of pointless culture towns that no one uses, we were up to about level 70 content-wise. When real devs finally got the game again, they were forced to deal with a system where the most hardcore were miles ahead of everyone else. Bio was basically triage to keep normal players in the game.

What I think would scratch that challenge itch better would be making the "normal" monster version that is as it is now, then a new dungeon content that has an upgraded version of that monster that is "elite" better challenge and reward, higher drop % higher exp. Likely those dungeons would be premium content for dirt cheap, and incluced with Premium subscription. Longer term goal is to do quests in those instances that reward things like quantity goods like stems or something in a stack, or to earn the specified card for that monster rather than relying only on luck to get the rares. This last is a whole update plan, and wouldn't be here in 2010 but is a content update worthy of RO and our players.

This would definitely be a good way to handle this. The other problem with old RO is that past 90, solo exp sucked. With this system, every player can choose to solo or party whenever they'd like, and be assured that there's content for both, at all levels.

If any of you have ideas for what would be interesting aura buffs for base classes please let me know in the thread.

Swordsman - Aura of Endurance: Every 5th hit ignores hit recovery, as though Endure were active
Thief - Distortion Field: +3 p.dodge
Merchant - Supply Line: All monsters gain a significant chance to drop recovery items, and recovery items heal 20% more than normal
Archer - Windwall: Ranged attacks by the party get +1 range (including spells), ranged attacks against the party have a 5% chance to fail, and do 10% less damage when they do hit.
Acolyte - Aura of Regeneration: Every 10 seconds, everyone in the party recovers 2% of their max HP
Mage - Leyline Channeling: Everyone gains 10 SP every 10 seconds, and magic damage against the party is reduced by 10%.
TK - Wisdom of the Ancestors: +3% exp gain, and monsters get health bars, with a small symbol showing their element
Slinger - Desperate Reserve: +20% damage when your HP bar is red
Ninja - Chi Focus: +10% ATK, +10% MATK (This class needs some serious love. )
Snovie - Every 90 seconds, a buff is cast on the entire party, chosen at random from well... just about everything in the game. Sometimes you'll get something useless like Bless when your priest is already running that, but sometimes you'll get a buff the party can't cast, and very rarely (maybe 1% of the time), it'll roll a boss-only buff, like the triple flee one, or even Power Up.

Edited by Mwrip, 05 November 2010 - 10:44 AM.

I love this idea. Not only is it a great way to get more people working together, but it can be something unique to RO that makes our partying system stand out.

Actually, Dragon Saga parties work like this. It's still a great idea however and is quite nice.

Pretty good ideas Heim, though I would reconsider making +50% per member a permanent thing and +75-100% event.

Actually, Dragon Saga parties work like this. It's still a great idea however and is quite nice.

Oh yeah, forgot about their party buffs. They're really, really, tiny though, to the point you wouldn't even know they were there if they didn't have icons.

Edited by Mwrip, 05 November 2010 - 11:06 AM.

Swordsman - Aura of Endurance: Every 5th hit ignores hit recovery, as though Endure were active
Thief - Distortion Field: +3 p.dodge
Merchant - Supply Line: All monsters gain a significant chance to drop recovery items, and recovery items heal 20% more than normal
Archer - Windwall: Ranged attacks by the party get +1 range (including spells), ranged attacks against the party have a 5% chance to fail, and do 10% less damage when they do hit.
Acolyte - Aura of Regeneration: Every 10 seconds, everyone in the party recovers 2% of their max HP
Mage - Leyline Channeling: Everyone gains 10 SP every 10 seconds, and magic damage against the party is reduced by 10%.
TK - Wisdom of the Ancestors: +3% exp gain, and monsters get health bars, with a small symbol showing their element
Slinger - Desperate Reserve: +20% damage when your HP bar is red
Ninja - Chi Focus: +10% ATK, +10% MATK (This class needs some serious love. )
Snovie - Every 90 seconds, a buff is cast on the entire party, chosen at random from well... just about everything in the game. Sometimes you'll get something useless like Bless when your priest is already running that, but sometimes you'll get a buff the party can't cast, and very rarely (maybe 1% of the time), it'll roll a boss-only buff, like the triple flee one, or even Power Up.

A point I want to make is point of the aura system is to encourage partying and variance in parties.

You've got buffs for some under-partied classes that nobody would party to get and some buffs on over-partied classes that are too good to pass up. Its quite confusing.

+3 p.dodge from thief types? This is not much encouragement to party a thief. High powered SP and HP regen from mages and acolytes? These classes get tons of parties already, and their buffs benefit themselves. It really feels like the point of this system went way over your head until you got to the expanded jobs.

I can't even think of good aura. The whole system sounds like a bad idea to me, since any buff will either be abused on each take, or people will ignore them altogether.

Maybe if they were class specific auras to encourage certain classes to pair;

Acolyte Aura; Significantly increase attack speed of merchant class characters in party within 9 cells of you. (first adds +2 then +10% afterward)
Merchant Aura; Add 20% stun chance to ranged attacks and 25 flee to archer class characters in party within 9 cells of you.
Archer Aura; Increase natural HP regeneration of swordsman classes in party within 9 cells of you by 300% and receive 20% of all damage that the archer would take (reduces the damage taken by the archer by 20% and transfers it to the swordsman).
Swordsman Aura; All mage class characters within 9 cells gain 10% resistance to stun and +10 DEF.
Mage Aura; Acolyte characters partied and within 9 cells receive a 200 damage holy bonus on damage dealt with mace category weaponry.
Expanded Class Aura: All party members within 9 cells receive +20% EXP.

What is bothering me is that the share range is 15 levels, yet the exp penalty kicks in at 10 levels. This makes partying people with like 15 levels difference inconvenient for either the highest level or the lowest level and can not be efficient for everyone in the party.

What I think would scratch that challenge itch better would be making the "normal" monster version that is as it is now, then a new dungeon content that has an upgraded version of that monster that is "elite" better challenge and reward, higher drop % higher exp. Likely those dungeons would be premium content for dirt cheap, and incluced with Premium subscription. Longer term goal is to do quests in those instances that reward things like quantity goods like stems or something in a stack, or to earn the specified card for that monster rather than relying only on luck to get the rares. This last is a whole update plan, and wouldn't be here in 2010 but is a content update worthy of RO and our players.

This is a cop-out. Not fixing the EXP/Level ratios just means there's that much of the game that will sit useless and empty just like it did before renewal. I thought one of the major points of the update was fixing this so every map had monsters that were good at some point to level off. Leaving it so there are "the best" leveling spots while every other map is mediocre is a complete waste of resources and effort that went into creating those areas. Once again returning to this attitude of "oh well, we'll just implement new feature X because we can't be bothered to fix feature Y" is exactly what's gone so wrong with this game and why half of all the added update content is completely abandoned. You guys have a good game that could be great if you'd just take the time to make all of the parts of it worth the players' time to do.

Auction House, Cooking System, Battlegrounds, Aldebaran Turbo Track, most maps in the game with low EXP ratio monsters, various quests. All of these things are simply not worth the effort of participating in because they're either just boring or the amount of effort that must be put into them isn't worth the rewards.

Edited by Resplendent, 05 November 2010 - 01:11 PM.

Your idea doesn't reward diversity as much and doesn't benefit small parties of odd classes the way it needs to. Also it over-rewards the larger parties. It also rewards parties for stacking up on 'ideal' jobs as opposed to less than ideal ones only marginally less.

I do not feel your system benefits class variety only larger parties (and over-rewards them), and is very different than my suggestion.

Well with my system duos of different classes get more than yours on most cases, how's that not encouraging diversity? also the largest bonus being only achieveable with 12 different jobs, how's that not encouraging/benefiting diversity?

2 different chars = 144%
3 different chars = 173%
4 different chars = 207%
5 different chars = 249%
6 different chars = 298%
7 different chars = 358%
8 different chars = 430%
9 different chars = 516%
10 different chars = 619%
11 different chars = 743%
12 different chars = 891%

Also it's not unbalanced at all even with the largest bonus (~900%) each party members gets 75% of the original monster exp after its divided, which is needed otherwise a diverse setup would be inefficient exp/hr wise because the more different classes you add you are most likely loosing killing potential. Just to compare under my system a duo gets 72% of the original monster exp, tell me how that's not encouraging diversity and large parties.

Edited by Wanderer, 05 November 2010 - 02:12 PM.

Idea is to make partying fair or a little better not absurdly better than soloing. A party of 12 can kill a lot, lot, lot, lot faster than 1 person, so exp can't be higher than like 35%-45% per monster, really with 12 people. Current system gives 16.6667% per person which is too low. Your bonus needs to get toned down.

I also like encouraging small parties of mismatched characters. You and your friend have a Knight and a Hunter. Or a Blacksmith and a Dancer. Right now that party would suck seriously bad, and I think that's the kind of pickup party that really needs some love. So bigger bonuses earlier on that only taper out to "pretty good" as you flesh out a large party is the best bet in my book.

Also your system uses 2nd jobs, Heim wanted 1st job branches as the defining factor.

Edited by Jaye, 05 November 2010 - 02:38 PM.

Well that's easy to fix, I used 20% per person which was what heim had commented on but of course if you lower it to 10~15% for less maximum bonuses, as I said previously having more diversity leads to lower exp/hr due to having less helpful people so the huge bonus it's just to lessen the handicap, even then proper party setups will ALWAYS level faster.

With 10% bonuses a typical party of 1 Wiz, 1 Priest, 1 Bard, 1 Sader/Knight would get 36.6% of each monsters exp on this system, not bad =)

If you want to only base it on 1st jobs then you must use larger bonuses like 20~25% per person to reach decent 298~381% max exp bonuses

Edited by Wanderer, 05 November 2010 - 03:24 PM.

1. Improved AI is on the dev platter for 2011. It will make all new areas much spicier. Once it works for new content retrofitting onto older
content is easy.

This was originally planned like years ago, but what happened with that I don't know.

2. Improved party share exp. We are asking for a server side setting for it to tune it from 0-100% per extra person. 50% bonus per person past 2 would mean that a 12 person party would have each person still getting 50% of monster normal solo value. We would not have 50% as our "base" but instead have it as a reserve for a special event. 10% is way too low I think, likely 20-25% bonus would be appropriate, as that would surpass an 'everyone taps" party.

Be careful not to put the bonus too high, or that will reward the party composition of 1 killer + 1 support + 10 autofollowing leechers.

3. Share only happens to characters that are within the distance range (think the range of the quest journals).

Hell yes - similar to how Diablo 2 1.10 patch restricted exp sharing range. Back in Diablo 2 LOD 1.09, exp share range was unlimited (like current RO does), and +35% monster exp per additional player in party, low level characters simply pop up at hell difficulty cow level (level 90) and leech leech leech leech (with their exp bar flying super fast)

Leveling dynamics are different in Renewal, it is very hard to express how it feels different, and to many more aggravating. But here it goes. The really old school people who leveled up fighting smokies and raydrics in the 2003-2004 era likely will feel this leveling type is crazy fast, because time spent is lower than it was before for those level ranges. But those that are used to having the biggest challenges open to them to tap into the levling super highway like Kasas and Biolabs are not happy as they can't do the crazy rewarding leveling. Trading their past time/equipment and knowledge to make their exp exponentially better. This is sort of intended, but I do believe there should be a greater reward for Risk, but not in the way of giving x monster more xp/drops when you fight it with a lowbie. (tank it and that char is leveling up 3 times faster or something).

Many people didn't get to have the privilege of super fast leveling in abyss_03, thor_v01 and lhz_dun03.

What I think would scratch that challenge itch better would be making the "normal" monster version that is as it is now, then a new dungeon content that has an upgraded version of that monster that is "elite" better challenge and reward, higher drop % higher exp. Likely those dungeons would be premium content for dirt cheap, and incluced with Premium subscription. Longer term goal is to do quests in those instances that reward things like quantity goods like stems or something in a stack, or to earn the specified card for that monster rather than relying only on luck to get the rares. This last is a whole update plan, and wouldn't be here in 2010 but is a content update worthy of RO and our players.

How will access to them on F2P servers handled? A token for single access or a pass for permanent access for a character?

I think second class levelling should be sped up to streamline the process to third or trans. Second classes are just out of date and archaic now, so making levels 90-99 all require the same experience as opposed to slowly creeping up to 4 mil for 98 to 99 would be pretty cool.

I think second class levelling should be sped up to streamline the process to third or trans. Second classes are just out of date and archaic now, so making levels 90-99 all require the same experience as opposed to slowly creeping up to 4 mil for 98 to 99 would be pretty cool.

You should check the new exp table because 9x levels require a lot less exp than before

http://irowiki.org/wiki/Base_EXP_Chart

both non trans and trans 1-99 is significantly easier.
Just hitchhiking on the idea of making instance party required dungeons, Couldn't the devs quickly make some by just making instance versions of preexisting maps? It would greatly cut down the dev time needed since they would only have to make the scripts and copy a map instead of having to create a whole new map.

You should check the new exp table because 9x levels require a lot less exp than before

http://irowiki.org/wiki/Base_EXP_Chart

I know what the new chart looks like, but killing potential has really gone down, as well. 90-99 of second class just keeps building up, and I think they should just be 1 mil per level. The second class is weak and quite frankly, just in the way nowadays. Why lock people into being them for longer than they need?

I also think that drops should be 100% regardless of your level. Having 45% drop rates just because you're a higher level than something is lame.

Edited by Scott, 06 November 2010 - 05:54 PM.

Aura Proposal

http://img64.imagesh...i/auraprop.png/

-Bonus is decreased per extra party member of the same class, but is additive, not multiplicative.
-As an example, adding another Acolyte to a Non Trans party will not result in [(int + 10%) + 5%], rather [int + 15%].
-The party must be in even share on a non town map for bonuses to occur. Bonuses will not occur in PvP/WoE maps.
-This means an expanded class can only provide bonuses to Thirds until level 119, or could be disabled entirely.
-Extra class Bonus Effects are one off. Adding more of the same class will not increase this. Same share/map restrictions.

Probably forgot some notes, will add later.

Party System Proposal

http://img232.images.../partyprop.png/

Pretty simple,
-%Increase Per Member = The increase in exp awarded per monster killed for each additional party member.
-%Exp Per Member = The amount of exp reduced for having additional members in the party
-%Total Exp Earned Per Member = The actual amount of exp awarded to the player per monster kill in a party of the corresponding size. Each player earns this amount.


/derp

Oh, Edit: Area of effect: map wide. I'm not adverse to leeching, purely because I recognise that sometimes it's faster to do it yourself.

Edit 2: 2x Perma Exp please.

Edited by Frappuccino, 07 November 2010 - 03:14 AM.

Job exp: The suddenly dip down of monster job exp past level 95-ish don't make sense:

Edited by mooMOOmoo, 07 November 2010 - 06:50 AM.

I would like, when you even share exp in a party, say of two or more people, 10% bonus exp of the monster that dies goes to the person with the lowest level. That way that person can become more, useful, as the leveling continues. And would give a little bit of an incentive to pick up newer ones and party with em in game. Would also help lower ones in a guild if you were partying with em for the purpose of leveling em up some.
Therefore:
2k exp monster, when it dies
player 1 gets at lv 50: 1000xp
player 2 gets at lv 49: 1200xp

I think this would be a little change that would help parties at least a little. I would be onboard something for gain xp for each member of the party, but with valks problems, that would break the game even moreso than it already is.

(And, holy , like 3rd class didn't already have to get more exp per job level. O.o)

Edited by SamuelAdams, 07 November 2010 - 04:20 PM.

I honestly think a change to the current job exp values needs adjusting. I don't just mean monster side, but player side too. The current system sees to it that when we job change to thirds, the amount of exp we need to gain just 1 job level begins to get exponentially larger.

This is bad because whilst some classes can get their main killing skill in the first 10-15 job levels, it takes other classes far longer to get to their main skills. This means that we're essentially leveling as a third with second class skills in order to obtain third class skills.

While I don't think our jobs should be handed to us right off the bat after changing, I also think it's entirely unnecessary to make us grind for extended periods of time just to become effective at our new class. Especially when, by the time we reach 150, we may not even be job 50.

Most people want to use their skills for grinding, not grind so they can use their skills.

Job EXP needs to be lessened for 3rd job, really.

Lv. - Current - Should Be
- 2 - 112,000 - 10,000
- 3 - 355,000 - 20,000
- 4 - 615,000 - 30,000
- 5 - 917,000 - 40,000
- 6 - 1,253,000 - 50,000
- 7 - 1,595,000 - 60,000
- 8 - 2,007,000 - 70,000
- 9 - 2,430,000 - 80,000
- 10 - 2,868,000 - 90,000
- 11 - 3,420,000 - 100,000
- 12 - 3,863,000 - 112,000
- 13 - 4,504,000 - 355,000
- 14 - 4,998,000 - 615,000
- 15 - 5,769,000 - 917,000

etc.

Just so the first 10 jobs are quick.

Even so, you will still end up 150/47 /wah

Edited by Jaye, 08 November 2010 - 04:06 AM.

I think third job levels should follow the trend of second class; being max job level at around base 130-135.

If every job level had its exp requirement reduced by 10% you might be like 147/50 instead

@Jaye, not just job levels, but base levels as well. I think that getting to ~120/~20 should come in very quickly, and let the grind start from there. (But ultimately, have the total required base and job exp still be the same to balance it out). From what I can see, people are quickly turned off by how slow it is to get past that early 100/1 level, which is not a good thing.

yeah, its pretty harsh, though, if your jobs come quicker and you can pick up your 3rd job mob anihilation skills, those 10+ base lvls move faster.

I personally don't mind the current scale. It feels about right too me, they just need to implement some of the suggestions we've been mentioning to help take the edge off of 100+ grinding.