Party bonus superstitions

[bruiser]

Last night I was in a great party with about 13 people doing crabs in Cassieopia Hollow. The level range was 19-22. At one point, a 24 joined and then all of a sudden the rank 19 people kept freaking out saying the bonus was no longer active. The reason, they said, is that it's only active if everyone is within +/- 2 of the party leader.

Despite the fact that this makes absolutely no sense, and Square Enix has neither said nor hinted about any such silly restriction, when asked about their skill gain for the couple of fights where the 24 was in the party, they said it was about the same, but they were leaving anyway since the bonus was not active.

I mean.. really?

Is this superstition widely held? How did it start? Is there any evidence to suggest it, or is it just completely out of the blue?

[Yoli]

Never heard of the +/- 2 level thing. SE said there was a five level limit, and people under that wouldn't get the bonus though, I'm fairly sure. So whether that got the 19's kicked out depends on if it counts 19-20-21-22-23-24 (for six levels, them at the lowest), or 19-20 as one, followed by 20-21, 21-22, 22-23, and 23-24, ending up with five (in which case they'd be ok until the 24 guy leveled. I'm not sure exactly how the game counts that, would be marginally interested in finding out if anyone knows.

Here's the quote from one of their old ask the dev things.

Q. Is it possible that the class rank range for party bonuses will be adjusted in the future?
A. We initially set the rank range difference to ±5 in order to avoid the “power leveling” issue mentioned above. We will, however, be continuing to monitor community feedback and examine party formation trends, and the current value may be adjusted should the need arise.

It sounds like it's just the general gap between all players, regardless of who the leader is, as well.

[qpoiuwer]

My experience has been the bonus is calculated on an individual basis, and you get a bonus for everyone that's within 5 levels of you. I was in a party yesterday (lv36) with ~10 people yesterday and a lv42 joined at some point and I didn't notice any change in SP gain (170-220sp from a raging strike light shot).

Also, it's +/- 5 levels like Yoli posted, so it definitely wasn't that. That said your sp will be lower than others if you're the only lv19 guy in a party with a bunch of 22-24s, because your accuracy/damage will be much lower in comparison.

[Ratatapa]

People in LS also remarked the +/- 2 lv

They did a party of 23-25 and was getting mad XP

Then a 26 joined and the XP went DOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and they even tried to switch party leader.

When the 26 left the XP came back on (that was in CH crabs)

[bruiser]

People in LS also remarked the +/- 2 lv

They did a party of 23-25 and was getting mad XP

Then a 26 joined and the XP went DOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and they even tried to switch party leader.

When the 26 left the XP came back on (that was in CH crabs)

In that case it doesn't even fit with any theory, much less the +/- 2 theory. Not saying it didn't happen, just that it neither confirms nor denies the +/- 2 theory because it's unrelated.

[Ratatapa]

2h XP Without and 1h30 with is enough imo to confirm

They didn't do like 10 fights

[bruiser]

2h XP Without and 1h30 with is enough imo to confirm

They didn't do like 10 fights

Like I said I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it has nothing to do with +/- 2 from party leader theory, nor does it have anything to do with the "entire party level range within 5" theory. Because it doesn't fit either one of those.

- 23-26 is still a 5 level difference
- They tried to switch party leader and it didn't make a difference.

So ultimately, even with the 26 in the party, they still had an overall level range of <= 5, and they still had everyone within 2 of the leader.

[Ratatapa]

Not true when the leader was the 23, the 26 wasn't in 2lv difference

2) My goal was not to talk about the 5 lv like SE says

All i'm saying is that as soon as they had someone who was outside the 2 lv range (the 26) everyone lost the XP

[bruiser]

Not true when the leader was the 23, the 26 wasn't in 2lv difference

2) My goal was not to talk about the 5 lv like SE says

All i'm saying is that as soon as they had someone who was outside the 2 lv range (the 26) everyone lost the XP

You said they changed party leader and it didn't make a difference. So I don't see how it could possibly have been related to the 2 level difference thing.

[Zounder]

Maybe the alleged "2 level difference" (or whatever difference it actually is) is in fact not related to party leader. I don't think SE ever stated the difference was in relation to PT leader.

Since we're on the topic of supersitions, another popular debate is wether or not having somebody outside the party level range kills the bonus for everyone, regardless of who is in the range. For example, assuming 5 level range, a party of 25-25-25-25-25-31 would receive no SP bonus, or would the 25s still receive the bonus (in other words, the bonus being awarded individually)?

I was partying in a large group that was 26-31 that refused to allow a 25 for this exact reason. However, a rank 50 in my linkshell claims that the bonus works on an individual basis, and I'm inclined to believe somebody who's ranked all the way up to 50 and has much experience with the SP bonus.

[Zayne]

People in LS also remarked the +/- 2 lv

They did a party of 23-25 and was getting mad XP

Then a 26 joined and the XP went DOWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and they even tried to switch party leader.

When the 26 left the XP came back on (that was in CH crabs)

Maybe the mobs became to easy with the 26 in the party - they dropped from IT to VT so to speak. It seems like the difficulty of the mob is based of what it cons to the highest rank in the party.

[Drako]

Maybe the mobs became to easy with the 26 in the party - they dropped from IT to VT so to speak. It seems like the difficulty of the mob is based of what it cons to the highest rank in the party.

this is the truth..

i have been watching this very closely on every party i do, im pretty sure bonus party is calculated on a individual basis, also, the highest rank on party sets the base SP and if you are too low for the mob you have lower SP rate, even if your ACC is good (a friend yesterday suffered from this, rank27 lancer trying to kill bark efts will net crap SP, but on blind and black will be good).

[Elona]

In my experience it works on individual basis. The people that are in your range will grant you the sp bonus, the people outside your range doesnt affect your sp at all. We had a R19 just for kicks for 15min in our R45ish party and it didnt affect anyone of the R45ish people. Also when i was sping R48 and had R42 con in pt, after she rank up my sp went up a bit.

In our parties we rarely had a perfect setup that everyone would get bonus from everyone. No idea if the leader swapping affects, we didnt care too much about leaders rank.

tldr: I have no idea how this works for real lol

[Ratatapa]

Maybe the mobs became to easy with the 26 in the party - they dropped from IT to VT so to speak. It seems like the difficulty of the mob is based of what it cons to the highest rank in the party.

Possible but alot of people told me they XP till 27-28 in CH crabs and still get 500 per fight

[Zounder]

In my experience it works on individual basis. The people that are in your range will grant you the sp bonus, the people outside your range doesnt affect your sp at all. We had a R19 just for kicks for 15min in our R45ish party and it didnt affect anyone of the R45ish people. Also when i was sping R48 and had R42 con in pt, after she rank up my sp went up a bit.

In our parties we rarely had a perfect setup that everyone would get bonus from everyone. No idea if the leader swapping affects, we didnt care too much about leaders rank.

tldr: I have no idea how this works for real lol

^For the record, Elona was the Rank 50 I mentioned in my post. :D

[Celeras]

In my experience it works on individual basis. The people that are in your range will grant you the sp bonus, the people outside your range doesnt affect your sp at all. We had a R19 just for kicks for 15min in our R45ish party and it didnt affect anyone of the R45ish people. Also when i was sping R48 and had R42 con in pt, after she rank up my sp went up a bit.

In our parties we rarely had a perfect setup that everyone would get bonus from everyone. No idea if the leader swapping affects, we didnt care too much about leaders rank.

tldr: I have no idea how this works for real lol

This is correct. Nothing matters towards your SP gain except the number of people in the party within 5 ranks of you. It won't go down if you invite people too high/low, except for the fact that they are now doing damage/healing and not contributing to boosting your own personal procs.

[Enygma55]

The con of the mob is based on the party strength. Nothing is static in this game its very dynamic. The lv 24 probably pushed the con of the mob down thus lowering the base gain per action because you're fighting something too easy for the entire alliance.

[Psion]

Ah, I see. So basically what you guys are thinking, is that the base rate is set by the con of the mob, relative to the party members, and bonus is given individually to the number of members within 5 levels of yourself?

[euph]

in my experience it is based off of the individual. I'm rank 40 now and have been playing based off of that knowledge for a while now and it has been working like that as far as i can tell.