Party Experience Bonus

[Lunetsu]

So I was talking to some people on world chat about this, as well as some close friends, and wanted to bring it up as a suggestion, or at least as a topic of conversation, because I think it would make overworld play a little more enjoyable.

When a party plays WoW together, usually they're doing dungeons; questing or grinding together is often an afterthought because it means that gathering quests take longer depending on how many people you're partying with. To make matters worse, experience gained for mob kills are divvied up among party members, and often kill experience in large parties just doesn't feel rewarding.

What I propose is, to make overworld party play more enjoyable for everyone who enjoys grouping, why not add a small experience bonus per player who joins a party? You could start small and grow as you add more players! Maybe something like 5%/10%/20%/40%?

I understand that kill speed is a factor in these experience calculations, and I also realize that it *could* lead to people leveling much quicker in a group rather than solo'ing, but... isn't that what MMOs are about? I think we should do more to bring people together for content that isn't solely dungeons, pvp, or raids.

Now, I'm not wholly knowledgeable about how the experience split works in WoW, but I was under the impression that, if all players are the same level, fighting a similarly-leveled mob, they'd gain a base amount of experience that is then split among all players. So, in this instance, let's say that your team downs a mob that gives 300 experience, and you're in a party of five:

300 / 5 = 60. This would then be doubled to 120 with your rested bonus.

With my suggested changes, a party of five players would gain 40% additional experience, bringing that value up to 84, which would then be doubled to 168 when rested.

I don't see this as too striking of a change, but the numbers aren't set in stone, and could easily be modified until they're in a sweet spot that makes all players happy. My biggest concern is that it may drive more groups to run dungeons for experience rather than do overworld content together, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but wasn't my intention when writing this up.

I enjoy questing in groups with random players. I enjoy grinding mobs with them, too. It shouldn't feel like I'm penalized while doing so in a full party because I have to collect five times the number of zhevra hooves while getting a fraction of the experience per kill thanks to the split.

[Geojak]

I really don't like this. It would just encourage spell cleave meta. Or have you forgotten that from early classic?

[Lunetsu]

I really don't like this. It would just encourage spell cleave meta. Or have you forgotten that from early classic?

You make a good point, but if people are going to spell cleave, they'll do it whether this change is made or not. It's easily the most efficient way to level when you have a skilled group doing it, even if it's mind-numbingly boring. This suggestion was born from the fact that the game seems to penalize party play outside of dungeons and raids. Yes, five players on the overworld are going to kill much faster than a solo player, but unless you're burning dungeons, you have to worry about respawn rates, holding camps, quest drop rates, and other problems that dungeon runners don't have to concern themselves with. Just click reset and run the next one, right?

Maybe an experience boost among the party isn't the best way to handle it, but I'd love to hear ideas and suggestions about ways to improve the leveling experience for groups that opt to not run dungeons all day but still want to level from 1 to 60 together.

[Merikkinon]

I think it's important to note the goal: quickest route to endgame? Is that it?

Please recall that a party of two (much less MORE players) kills mobs much faster with incredibly less chance of impactful death to any player. Is that not already a benefit?

I see it as 'pick and choose' as to what a player wants to experience. If they were to also increase the XP gain from kills in group, they'd need to reasonablly increase the XP gain from solo kills. So is that beneficial to game play and the entire Turtle approach (even though players have options to increase their ongoing XP rate via Tents, and even Warmode if they so choose).

I mean, it's not like double or triple XP rates, but it is a heck of a lot more consistent and quicker than a simple x1 rate.

[Pistol]

I don't really think is needed. Being able to do quests faster despite the drop rate of items is incentive enough to group. I was certainly ready to group at every available opportunity while I was leveling.