Reward Rebalance for level 8 questers
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Before the XP nerf, certain quests had good loot, others had good gold, others had good XP.
Generally, players were happy spending gold on certain quests because of the XP reward. But with the XP nerf, some quests are just plain bad for level 8s. Some quests are Gold sinks, with little XP, and no loot. This is very specific to level 8 questers.
If you've identified a quest which may be unrewarding to level 8s, please post them here!
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Please do!
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Saving the Hanse Tree | Thrar, the Gardener | Grassy Patch next to Gnome druid near Marchants Guild | 3-8 | 2-6 | Arabel, Citadel rowboat by Thrar (ZQA: Town of Hanse: Forest; ZQA: Town of Hanse: Sewers)
Status: Major gold sink, with a low gold reward and multiple instances where potions must be chugged.
AC potions at least 3-6 times,
1-3 Lesser Restorations when encountering spiders/traps/centipedes.
GP reward is about 150+ GP.
Barkskin of Hanse now spawns about once per trip.
Good loot is random and regularly doesn't spawn, such as the Hanse Barkskin Helm.
Hanse Weapons have been nerfed to the point where you will only grab it if you have a mundane weapon.
XP at level 8 is low, about 7xp Stag Beetles and Centipedes mostly, and 143?xp ending quest XP. -
To be fair, you still get more xp on those xp quests than you do on the gold quests. Xp got nerfed for both the gold and xp quests but if the xp quest gave double what the gold quest did, it still does. (until you factor end quest xp that is).
So you can still make the xp quests worth it for the xp, just by tweaking the end quest xp.
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Saving the Hanse Tree | Thrar, the Gardener | Grassy Patch next to Gnome druid near Marchants Guild | 3-8 | 2-6 | Arabel, Citadel rowboat by Thrar (ZQA: Town of Hanse: Forest; ZQA: Town of Hanse: Sewers)
Status: Major gold sink, with a low gold reward and multiple instances where potions must be chugged.
AC potions at least 3-6 times,
1-3 Lesser Restorations when encountering spiders/traps/centipedes.
GP reward is about 150+ GP.
Barkskin of Hanse now spawns about once per trip.
Good loot is random and regularly doesn't spawn, such as the Hanse Barkskin Helm.
Hanse Weapons have been nerfed to the point where you will only grab it if you have a mundane weapon.
XP at level 8 is low, about 7xp Stag Beetles and Centipedes mostly, and 143?xp ending quest XP.I will look at the end gold XP. However, it the level range is 3 to 8, then it's not really a level 8 quest. Gaining the most here are the levels 3 to 5 and the quest is probably geared to be a challenge for levels 5 and 6. The level ranges were opened up and made to let more varied groups do things together for fun. If you are at the very end range of the quest bracket, you can't expect much from doing it.
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These quests don't need to be changed. The quests that gave more xp but less gold than other quests still do exactly that.
For example, if a gold giving quest gave 1000 xp and a lot of gold before the xp nerfs, while the other quest gave 2000 xp and less gold.
After the nerf, the first quest would give 200 xp and the second one would give 400.Point being, you're still level twice as fast by doing a high xp yielding quest over a high gold yielding quest.
Leveling up taking more time overall doesn't change the the fact that these quests will help you do it twice as fast as the others.The quest xp rewards don't need to be tweaked much (if at all), in-fact changing them might affect levels 1-6 in an undesired way even.
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Except that isn't the case. You're not earning double from the quests that USED to be xp heavy.
The quests that were good xp were, in pretty much every case, that way because of the xp you got from mobs.
Since you don't get that xp anymore (or get a very small fraction of that original amount) all the quests average to about the same xp no matter which one you do. At higher levels there is no such thing as a 'good xp' quest with the new system preventing you from gaining xp from mobs, unless the end xp is increased, and certainly aren't worth the risk when dying means literal weeks of grinding again.
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From what I understand, it's not preventing you from getting xp, it's reducing the amount you get by a percentage.
So at level 7 where you're getting 25% as much xp, a mob that would give 20 xp on a high xp quest would give 5 xp.
and the mobs on a low xp quest which would give 10 xp, would give 2 instead.
Meaning you'd still get more xp on a high xp gain quest from killing monsters, the xp penalties haven't removed xp gains altogether, they only do at level 10+As for quests that a level 10 would typically do, there aren't that many that could be classified as "high xp vs high gold gain" Kanthea is the only quest I can think of that gave low treasure/monetary rewards but good xp for people at that level range, and the original appeal of that quest wasn't meant to be the xp gains but rather her store. So updating her store would probably fix that issue. Every other quest level 10's typically did to gain xp gave similar gold and treasure rewards vs difficulty.
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If I did Kobold with 1 other, I would earn about 6-700 exp. If I did it with a team of 3+, the mobs increased dramatically, exp gain did not.
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Most x-8 quests, I did SOLELY because I had a cash reserve of consumables, and could survive them. I gained ZERO loot that I could even sell, and I wasted more than I spend, by far. Most quests, with a group of 4-5, yielded the same exp as Kobolds, but with 10 times the risk, and very little reward. I did Painting, Hag, Mystran shrine, Toy shop, Chess and Immersea quests, but only the triumviate quests gave any noteworthy loot / exp beyond what I got from Kobolds.
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All in all, getting from 7-8, in a euro time zone, became a grind, of using my saved consumables, relying on decent gear, and trying to ignore the fact that for every 1 person I brought on a quest, I would lose 100-200 ish exp, and have one more player to share rewards with. That didnt matter when the exp was 1000-1500. It matters when its 400-600.
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Yes, I realised yesterday that bringing more the the absolute minimum of people on quest seemed to kill XP gains. Especially at level 8.
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That could probably do with looking at then so people are encouraged to include others rather than just take the minimum
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@verkosh:
That could probably do with looking at then so people are encouraged to include others rather than just take the minimum
Perhaps the more people are on the quest (well, in the party at turn in), the better the end XP?
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Please give full reports on what you gain on quests, as well as party levels. That way we can easily tweak things :) Just saying a quest name and that it cost more than it gave, makes it very hard for us to fix this as fast as we would like to.
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Saving the Hanse Tree:
6 PCs, levels 8, 8, 7, 7, 6, 4,
141 Combat XP
127 Ending XP
Total XP: 268 XP
GP Reward: 175 GP
GP Use: Shield, Shield, Imp Barkskin, 4 Cure Serious, Raznor Bulls. (35+35+132+240+30) = 472 GP
Loss or gain: -297 GP -
Saving the Hanse Tree:
6 PCs, levels 8, 8, 7, 7, 6, 4,
141 Combat XP
127 Ending XP
Total XP: 268 XP
GP Reward: 175 GP
GP Use: Shield, Shield, Imp Barkskin, 4 Cure Serious, Raznor Bulls. (35+35+132+240+30) = 472 GP
Loss or gain: -297 GPDid you loot potions? If so, and you got them, I would net those against your usage. For example, if you got the CL12 barkskin add +240 to a "GP Gain". Or the helmet with X shots of barkskin, is worth a lot of money in potions. 100-150 for lesser restores, etc.
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No helmet, no barkskin hanse. Some lesser potions.
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Hrm, most of you were high levels when doing the quest. I am not that surprised it cost you more, considering the difficulty is raised dramatically. But 178gp for a quest is a bit low, I could consider raising it to 250gp
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If you increase the number of Barkskin of Hanse Drops in the quest, to match number of questers, so maybe everyone get 1, you would compensate for most of the expenses.
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That quest often drops Gemstones that are quite valuable and can be resold to come out earning 1200gp extra from the quest.
Seems like you were unlucky, which happens. -
@Strife:
That quest often drops Gemstones that are quite valuable and can be resold to come out earning 1200gp extra from the quest. Seems like you were unlucky, which happens.
The sunstones are worth 100+ each, but even if you split then (normally no more tan 10) that you may get, between 5 people, he still netted a loss. Maybe ending with a positive 50-200 with the "lesser potions" accounted for.
Tis quest sometimes spawns as many as 3 dispel caster at once, 4-5 times through the quest and can be a SERIOUS cash drain. Thune actually didn't really spend much, that was an optimum run. I've seen it get way worse even on "good" runs with well prepared players. That was always okay because the XP made up for it. Now it's out of whack.
Hrm, most of you were high levels when doing the quest. I am not that surprised it cost you more, considering the difficulty is raised dramatically. But 178gp for a quest is a bit low, I could consider raising it to 250gp
Except that's a bit unbalanced. The REASON the XP reward goes down in a quest as you level is because the things your fighting should be getting easier as you gain power.
Good = The creatures and by proxy risk/expenditure scale in power with the players in the quest. Quality/quantity of reward also scales up appropriately. Accounting for spending more on more difficult spawns.
Good = The creatures don't scale in power, and things get easier. As a result, risk goes down and you get less reward, normally represented by a much lower XP payout.
Bad = The creatures scale up in power to match the players power consistently, but the reward stays the same/and or goes down. This is imbalanced, as Risk should equate to reward, and if the creatures/encounters are scalaing to raise the risk or keep it the same, the reward should keep pace.
But 178gp for a quest is a bit low, I could consider raising it to 250gp
I would say make the payout a flat 350-450 per player at the end, and scale back the chances of seeing 15-20 dispel casters on a single run.