Is partying detrimental for leveling?

[Yaffy]

I made this thread because I was curious about what other people think. How do people feel about the amount of exp you gain while in a party? That is, the amount of exp you gain when fighting monsters while playing with other players. Is it too low? Too high? Just right?

Just to lay it out, here's an older list which I think still applies today in regards to the amount of exp each player gains when a monster dies:

1 person: 100% of the monster's XP value
2 people: 62.5%
3 people: 43.3%
4 people: 37.5%
5 people: 33.2%
6 people: 29.17%

In my opinion, I find that the way exp is split among multiple people is too harsh, and that trying to level with even one additional party member heavily slows you down. I know that the idea is that by having a party member it can be easier to defeat enemies, but you need to be killing enemies 60% to 300% faster to make up for the reduction in exp, which you typically can't do because enemies don't respawn faster or come in larger packs just because you're in a party. Furthermore, party members can decrease the amount of exp you gain even if they aren't getting exp themselves, (Ex. When you kill a monster before a group member can use a skill) which can decrease the total amount of exp gained.

The way it is right now, I believe the game is actively discouraging players from joining a party when their goal is to get exp, because by playing in a party it slows down everyone's leveling heavily. Players are much better off simply all going solo so they get full exp from kills, as opposed to only getting a tiny portion of monster exp while in a group. As someone who enjoys playing with friends, it's a little frustrating because I know that if I play with them often, us being in a group slows down our progress in terms of exp, but of course we don't want to split up and play separately.

I would like to see the amount of exp players get in a party be increased from the current amount. With how people need to be close to an enemy when it dies AND actively using skills to gain exp, I don't see a reason why the exp gain couldn't be close to if not 100% of the normal exp for all party members. This would make playing with friends more fun (Or more like less unfun), and it means that bumping into someone trying to grind exp in the same area as you could be a potential party member who can help rather than a leech who'll steal all your exp. In all my years of playing Gorgon I have never ONCE seen someone advertising starting a party for the sake of gaining exp, but maybe this change will encourage players who bump into each other to actually party up to make leveling up smoother.

I know that some people would prefer grinding exp solo and wouldn't want to feel "Forced" into a party for the sake of grinding exp, but I think 100% to everyone is a fair amount that doesn't necessarily encourage partying but doesn't discourage it either. It could also mean group dungeons could be much better sources of exp, which could be good or bad depending on whether you think going through group dungeons should be a great way to level or if you'd rather keep dungeon grinds and leveling grinds separate. You could also argue that it would make leeching (One player power levels a significantly weaker player by killing everything for them) significantly more effective, which could be undesirable. Lastly, players would level up faster overall with a change like this, depending on how much they tend to join parties, which could be good or bad depending on your opinion of the current leveling rate in game.

Does anyone else have an opinion on this? Is there anyone else like me who thinks grouping is outright detrimental to progress when it comes to gaining exp? Or is the amount of exp you gain in a party just fine and we should keep it the way it is?

[alleryn]

I think this seems extremely difficult to balance until the difficulty of the content itself is balanced first. I haven't done any high-level content, but if you are saying that xp gain rate is more gated by enemy spawn rate than kill rate, then it's going to be difficult to balance xp rate until the difficulty is balanced first so that we aren't just zerging through top tier content, if that makes sense.

[Celerity]

Is there anyone else like me who thinks grouping is outright detrimental to progress when it comes to gaining exp?

Yes, 100% agree. Best exp has always been solo mass aoe farming, and usually weaker mobs so additional party members don't really help much with kill times. Of course you could potentially do harder mobs with 2 people, but requires more coordination in the fight itself, and you would have to set it up in advance, rather than just say a pickup group because you wouldn't just randomly decide to go to the harder spot hoping somebody else did the exact same thing.

I'm not sure what levels the xp should be at though, because I have gotten a lot of exp during some dailies where a high level carries you and it might just turn into everyone getting power leveled just from running daily dungeons and not even specifically trying to do it.

[Mikhaila]

It's difficult, with so many variables and situations, to even say what
we are balancing for, let alone do it. Lots of new players pick different skills, and those skills can gain exp quicker or slower. Many people just solo. If you make group exp better than solo we go back to the problem of "i can't find a group!!!". Solo better than group and we hear "why should we group?". Some people want to group, some want solo. Then add differences in levels, players using a high level skill to power level a lesser skill, differences in gear....it goes on an on.

[Mysfit]

AC had a good party way of sharing exp.Dont remember the numbers but it seemed more you added the better it got.

[Tinlaar]

It's difficult, with so many variables and situations, to even say what
we are balancing for, let alone do it. Lots of new players pick different skills, and those skills can gain exp quicker or slower. Many people just solo. If you make group exp better than solo we go back to the problem of "i can't find a group!!!". Solo better than group and we hear "why should we group?". Some people want to group, some want solo. Then add differences in levels, players using a high level skill to power level a lesser skill, differences in gear....it goes on an on.

I think this problem is even more pronounced when considering the low player numbers for this game, especially during offpeak hours. PG is relatively niche, and finding a group is usually pretty difficult. Coupled with the fact that there are so many skills in the game that could be leveled, the player drought is even worse for higher level content.

[Mikhaila]

I think this problem is even more pronounced when considering the low player numbers for this game, especially during offpeak hours. PG is relatively niche, and finding a group is usually pretty difficult. Coupled with the fact that there are so many skills in the game that could be leveled, the player drought is even worse for higher level content.

Numbers go up, numbers go down. Overall there is a pretty large number of players...but they don't play all the time. Right now is one of the off times. Waiting for level 90, waiting for updates, waiting for new content etc. We see bumps where we suddenly have 3-4 times as many players when new content comes in. Even the crafting caravan will bring back a bunch of folks for a couple of weeks.

I'm surprised you say there are less higher level players. I constantly see players level up to 80 and start doing higher level content. I always thought it was harder to get lower level groups just because people can level up pretty quickly, with progress post 50 being where a lot sit for a couple of months before maxing a couple of skills.

[Celler]

I think in theory the percentages are fine.
But I think every player in group should get a share of every killed enemies exp if they don't already.

I'm not sure how it currently works if there are 3 mobs in front of the grp and two are one shot by 2 different players do both players get the exp from both and what about the rest of the group?
If you have to actually hit each mob to get exp, it would be much poorer than on solo play and I'd change that.

It's not that often I'm worried about exp to be honest.
Like Celerity said, mass killing simple mobs is the way I'd raise most my lvls Currently.

[Daguin]

Grouping in PG serves a very niche purpose imo, that really has nothing to do with leveling or sharing XP.
In the majority of cases players need to group up only to complete harder content and will not really benefit from "friendly" hunting groups.
I think this came up already, but it is always more efficient to level solo due to the limited spawns.
The XP penalty for grouping isn't mitigated by the benefit of faster killing.

edit: Grouping for fun was more common and enjoyable before they limited it to 6 members.

[Ivini]

If the total amount can't be tweaked, then they need to add incentives to hit up locations. Currently I think it's only Serb and Elt that has these "Hunting" missions, we could see ALL zones with hunting quests and apply more "Do favours" to NPC's near or inside dungeons with 25/50/100 repeatable quests that grant NPC favour/some barter item/experience (1/2/3k)

As it stands, outside of very specific spots in 1 lower dungeon, I have practically no incentive outside of doubling up or killing an elite to actually ever party.

I tend to 'level up' off of Dailies once I hit 40's though, as I personally prefer the social experience; if it wasn't so meh ... I'd grind up with others more often, but outside of a few hunting spots (namely Elt near Percy) there's not many places that's worth the time spent.

The other big thing I'd like to point out, if someone is level capped in one or both of their skills, they should not drain experience from group members; be it partially due to 1 skill, or entirely because they aren't able to gain combat experience. Exceptions toward skills like first-aid (which they might be leveling off healing lower levels) armour patching and endurance.