Post-Patch SP findings

[Hiroishime]

Too bad I failed trying to solo the same leve before today. I'll try it again tomorrow.

It seems the exp difference between each color is not that significant. For example in XI, the exp you gain from monsters goes up drastically the higher level it is. I think the growth is just more linear in this game. Or we aren't fighting high level enough mobs.

i dont think it does either, i think color is based on our rank vs mob's rank.
with current system, i think each mob now has their own SP to give out which keeps scaling as you level.

again this is hypotethical

say you are R20 Mar, a R20 Coblyn (shows yellow which is even match iirc?) gives 120SP,
how much would this R20 Coblyn gives if you are an R1? that would gives a figure of their original SP number given.


so i think we should figure out how to determine the original number of SP the mobs will gives before scaling,
which can only be done by R1 jobs or if we somehow managed to get the scaling formula.. this would help us finding weakest mob that gives the most efficient SP



edit : also SP i gained so far has always been 0.4x (0.38-0.41 to be exact) of physical exp i gained, i dont really recall for parties but this always has been the case for solo grind and crafting.

[Bozmo]

SE has 2 meanings for the word 'Bonus'. In the game when you are fatigue you are awarded bonus which is actually giving you less sp or exp. Maybe what they really meant by bonus in partying is a cut in SP. haha

[Karinastar]

Did a little testing today in a duo, and while it is by no means conclusive, it does show there is a "bonus" at least for a duo in the level range, and also that the +5/-10 is a factor.

Basis was a R24 Lancer, 1 star Necrologos: Lightsome Verdue. The abysmal droprate of Necrologos pages ensured that we'd have plenty of mobs to test on. XD

Solo: 109 SP
Party with my also R24 Lancer: 96 SP
Party with my R32 Marauder: 55 SP (I got 67, which shows I was getting a bonus, and his SP was straight being cut in half because he did not fall within the level range for a bonus since I was more than +5. I however, got a bonus since he was less than 10 levels below me).

We also tested some Fat Dodos to see if it worked differently on non-leve mobs, and it showed similar results, with some variance due to their varying pop levels. We did not, however test the effect of adding more party members.... but it seems as if it's as hypothesized, SP is divided up and then the bonus is applied. Without the bonus, the SP just gets mathematically divided amongst members. But like I said, this was a on the fly, limited test... so there might be something wonky happening with larger parties. The other night, my friend and I were duoing Bloodshore Bells on our R17 jobs, and we were getting about 110 per mob. Adding a third person into the party reduced that to around 80. So I don't know, needs more testing for sure to see how it behaves in groups of different sizes. ><

[SayomiSassaki]

I'm just wondering something... What i understand with all the testing ppl do, is that they add Party member but kill the same monsters... If its that, then just put more members and change de mob your killing, no? more members = able to fight mob harder with better SP? Or you stay on the same monsters who will give less SP by kill but you can kill more at a laps of time. At the end its the Exp/hours that count and not exp/monsters

I'm just saying that, I'm not in the party mode yet, I always Solo-Duo with a friend, but I'm still trying to figure how the party system work...

[Karinastar]

I'm just wondering something... What i understand with all the testing ppl do, is that they add Party member but kill the same monsters... If its that, then just put more members and change de mob your killing, no? more members = able to fight mob harder with better SP? Or you stay on the same monsters who will give less SP by kill but you can kill more at a laps of time. At the end its the Exp/hours that count and not exp/monsters

I'm just saying that, I'm not in the party mode yet, I always Solo-Duo with a friend, but I'm still trying to figure how the party system work...

As it is right now, it's not as efficient to exp in a large group because the SP you get for higher level mobs just doesn't seem to scale like it did in XI. We were doing stuff near Broken Water (Red to us) in a 5 person group clearing for faction leves and were only netting like 120 SP per mob and it took a bit to kill each. For now, it seems like the way to go is to solo/small group your leves, do Behest, and then if you want to grind more make a duo or possibly trio and find weaker mobs that you can kill very quickly so the SP adds up. Hopefully they fix it so that hunting more powerful enemies in a coordinated group will be more rewarding. :/

[Hyan]

Solo: 109 SP
Party with my also R24 Lancer: 96 SP

So uhh, looks like adding one member to the party (duo) would bring the normal share from 1.00 to 0.90 or so.

And total share from 1.00 to 1.80

Compare to XI, solo = 1.00, duo = 0.60, total share 1.00 > 1.20

However, it almost looks like adding a third member would cut the normal share more drastically, from 0.9 to around 0.65-0.70

Total share would still be around 1.95-2.1 however. Although this is irrelevant if the 3rd guy was different rank.

[Biggie]

Necro: Lords of Sky Realm R30

Rank 30 GLA solo 3 stars with aspect.
Elemental 301 sp each x4
Hippo 312 sp each x2

An Imp in Sheep's Clothes R20

Rank 30 GLA solo 5 stars with aspect.
Ram 195 sp each x4
Imp 293 sp each X4

Escape From Cell R20

Rank 30 GLA solo 5 stars with aspect.
Imp 293 sp each x4
Dodo 293 sp each x4
Fly 293 sp each x6

I can only handle 1 or 2 r30 leves on 3 stars, most I can only do 1 or 2. The rank 30 leves also take a little longer for me. The rank 20s are very fast and easy for me, and complete all of them with 20+min to spare.

[goodr]

Thanks for the good data Biggie. I've been doing r20 leves (at 1-2 star) and I'll test some r10 leves at 5 star tonight.

[Celeras]

Party boost is confirmed working, and the fact that people earlier in the thread gave very contradictory 'data' pisses me off a bit. Test correctly or not at all please.

21 Conj versus Yellow(while solo) Aldgoat Nannies
-Solo, 110SP/275XP
-Grouped w/ 21ARC, 99SP/248XP
-Grouped w/ 21ARC+21MRD, 88SP/218XP
-Grouped w/ 2LNC, 53SP/133XP (LNC got 352SP/880XP) *nanny changed con to Red when the Rank2 joined as the average party level dropped, insignificant but just noting

When grouped with someone outside boost range, SP dropped to 48% of the original value. When grouped with someone in boost range, SP was exactly 90% of the original value. When grouped with two people within boost range, exactly 80% of the original value. EXP also scaled to the same percentages, but were not exact and needed to be rounded... so the formula may be very slightly different if at all(just because SP were clean numbers and exact and EXP came out to 90.repeatingdecimal etc). I made sure to grab people who were exactly the same rank as to not mess with the average party level should that be a factor.

[bruiser]

Party boost is confirmed working, and the fact that people earlier in the thread gave very contradictory 'data' pisses me off a bit. Test correctly or not at all please.

21 Conj versus Yellow(while solo) Aldgoat Nannies
-Solo, 110SP/275XP
-Grouped w/ 21ARC, 99SP/248XP
-Grouped w/ 21ARC+21MRD, 88SP/218XP
-Grouped w/ 2LNC, 53SP/133XP (LNC got 352SP/880XP) *nanny changed con to Red when the Rank2 joined as the average party level dropped, insignificant but just noting

When grouped with someone outside boost range, SP dropped to 48% of the original value. When grouped with someone in boost range, SP was exactly 90% of the original value. When grouped with two people within boost range, exactly 80% of the original value. EXP also scaled to the same percentages, but were not exact and needed to be rounded... so the formula may be very slightly different if at all(just because SP were clean numbers and exact and EXP came out to 90.repeatingdecimal etc). I made sure to grab people who were exactly the same rank as to not mess with the average party level should that be a factor.

This does not confirm that party bonus is working. The 3 tests {21 CNJ}, {21 CNJ, 21ARC}, {21 CNJ, 21 ARC, 21 MRD} is however quite interesting. The {21 CNJ, 2 LNC} test however, could be interpreted a multitude of ways, most notably that the base SP per mob is determined by something other than the highest ranking member in the party.

If you repeat the 2 and 3 person tests with people who are not rank 21 but who are within boost range, I suspect you will see that with 2 people it is not 99SP, and with 3 people it is not 88SP. If so, then the test with the 2 LNC unfortunately confirms nothing about party bonus. If you do still get 99 and 88 SP, respectively, then I might be closer to being convinced.

[goodr]

Speculation based on my own anecdotal memory

I believe it's misleading to say the SP is "split". When in it may be more accurate to say the formula is more like this:

Solo: Your SP = Your Base Value based on your rank
Duo/3/4/5 Party: Your SP = [(Your Base Value based on your rank) / (Number of people in party)] * (Bonus Percentage based on Number of people in party *within range*)

A friend and I tried this during a leve with a r20 and a r1. We killed r10 leve mobs at 5 stars.

20 ARC was getting 62 sp.
01 THM was getting 470 sp.

Solo, 20 ARC was getting 124 sp.

Splitting wouldn't make sense. But thinking about the formula computing independently for each player makes more sense.

This is why powerleveling works now. In wow, they mitigated powerleveling by determining a base value for the whole group (highest party member if I remember) and split it and added bonuses from there.

Another example of SE not learning very old lessons from other games.

[Kurokikaze]

This does not confirm that party bonus is working. The 3 tests {21 CNJ}, {21 CNJ, 21ARC}, {21 CNJ, 21 ARC, 21 MRD} is however quite interesting. The {21 CNJ, 2 LNC} test however, could be interpreted a multitude of ways, most notably that the base SP per mob is determined by something other than the highest ranking member in the party.

If you repeat the 2 and 3 person tests with people who are not rank 21 but who are within boost range, I suspect you will see that with 2 people it is not 99SP, and with 3 people it is not 88SP. If so, then the test with the 2 LNC unfortunately confirms nothing about party bonus. If you do still get 99 and 88 SP, respectively, then I might be closer to being convinced.

It confirms that either it works but the bonus is not enough to make the SP higher than base or it doesn't. What you gain by adding more people is a higher sp/hr. We're assuming that adding another player splits the SP and the bonus tries to bring it back closer to base.

I still don't like it and think the bonus should be improved.

Will have party grinding video later tonight.

[Celeras]

It's perfectly acceptable as is for me, you should get more EXP than you would solo with more members. The boost already makes it completely worthwhile to take on another person to kill faster/better targets. 90% is quite generous.

Quick Leve-Link test:

3 person party, no aspect no link = 87. 1 person linked, 130. Probable that its double SP, and I was just seeing the reduction with 2 people in the party?

[Kurokikaze]

I'm talking about grinding not leveing. In leves I find the sp fairly decent but I think theres something completely wrong with killing mobs mindlessly for 80 a pop when my tnl is upwards of 50k.

I will say this about leves... Its totally backwards to be getting 900 a kill as rank 1 for rank 1 leves and getting 250 a kill at 30+.

[Karinastar]

I think the bonus is working fine (besides obvious issues with PLing), the problem is in how base SP values scale. Overall, it's faster to make a group and kill quickly... but thing is, there's an optimal group size that you need to find where kill speed/SP is good but doesn't exceed the number of available mobs. With how poorly SP from higher level targets scales now, I'm thinking (and peoples' experience is showing) that the best SP will be found in small groups. Anything more and you'll kill everything too fast or be forced to fight higher level targets that overall will give less SP/hr. What they need to do is just increase the base SP for killing targets above your level, and possibly add some sort of FFXI-esque bonus for killing quickly and the system will be more or less functional, rewarding different group sizes and styles of exp.

Also, yeah, you shouldn't be getting 500+ SP when your tnl is 10k, and then getting 200 if you're lucky when your tnl is 50k+. They need to either keep the SP reward consistent or reduce the tnls, as it is it's kind of depressing. ><

[bruiser]

It confirms that either it works but the bonus is not enough to make the SP higher than base or it doesn't. What you gain by adding more people is a higher sp/hr. We're assuming that adding another player splits the SP and the bonus tries to bring it back closer to base.

I still don't like it and think the bonus should be improved.

Will have party grinding video later tonight.

Right, but all I'm saying is that without evidence of what SP gain looks like in a multi-person party with no bonus applied, according to whatever definition they're using, the above experiment does not prove that a bonus is being applied. As proof, it's trivial to construct an SP table and member split formula that matches the above data precisely and does not include a bonus. All you have to do is have the Base SP gain be a function of both Average Party Level (or Party Range, or any number of other things).

I'm not refuting the idea that there's a bonus, just saying that it's not proven. And quite frankly, unless the number is actually higher than the solo number, it's a broken system. I don't care if the practical implications are that you can kill stuff faster and effectively get more SP / hour, if this is the intention then SE really does not understand what it takes to make this game succeed, because psychology is the most important factor of all.

All people want in order to like this game is to understand how it works and what is expected of them in order to progress in the game. Shit like this just shows how out of touch with reality they are. And I'm not just being an SE hater, because I've defended them pretty hardcore with the exception of this (and the idiotic use of the word 'bonus' in relation to surplus).

Maybe one of their translators is playing a joke on them like when you ask your friend to tell the waitress you'd like a beef burrito and he tells her in spanish that you think she has a nice ass. But they really don't get the meaning of this word.

http://www.motifake.com/image/demoti...1260739585.jpg

[Carraway]

It confirms that either it works but the bonus is not enough to make the SP higher than base or it doesn't. What you gain by adding more people is a higher sp/hr. We're assuming that adding another player splits the SP and the bonus tries to bring it back closer to base.

I still don't like it and think the bonus should be improved.

Will have party grinding video later tonight.

I completely agree with you. I believe that the bonus system is working the way they wanted it to, but I don't want party grinding to simply be a secondary option or alternative to rolling leves/behests -- I want it to be as good, or better.

[goodr]

And quite frankly, unless the number is actually higher than the solo number, it's a broken system. I don't care if the practical implications are that you can kill stuff faster and effectively get more SP / hour, if this is the intention then SE really does not understand what it takes to make this game succeed, because psychology is the most important factor of all.

All people want in order to like this game is to understand how it works and what is expected of them in order to progress in the game. Shit like this just shows how out of touch with reality they are.

Do you know of another game which allows you to group up (and double or nearly double your rate of killing things) while maintaining or giving more xp/sp per kill? I do not, which is why we quoted the FFXI and WoW group XP tables earlier in the discussion. Granted we're off kilt because they gave such gigantic bonuses previously, which is what's confusing people.

Right now, the reward for duo'ing is about a 90% increase in sp/hr given enough mobs. What you're expecting is more than double SP rate simply by duo'ing. That's simply too much reward is the problem. That would completely gimp solo'ing in comparison. IMO a 90% bonus is pretty generous.

[Kurokikaze]

I'm not refuting the idea that there's a bonus, just saying that it's not proven. And quite frankly, unless the number is actually higher than the solo number, it's a broken system. I don't care if the practical implications are that you can kill stuff faster and effectively get more SP / hour, if this is the intention then SE really does not understand what it takes to make this game succeed, because psychology is the most important factor of all.

I agree 100%. The SP per kill should be higher than solo not lower to make up for the increase in kill speed. If I was getting 200-300 per Black Eft I would be quite contempt, but I'm not. I'm getting 130-150 in a group of 6.

And yeah Lancaster. I want it to be more like XI except with soloing as an option.

Goodr you have a point and I wasn't looking at it like that.. but since thats the case... Base exp should be raised to make up for it. As it stands its rather low.

[goodr]

I forgot to mention that prior to this update, your SP rate never really changed. The size of procs changed based on the size of the group.

Now, we still get increased SP gain amounts (via party bonus) in addition to the rate increase (via killing mobs faster).

It's a much better system as it gives players a sense of progress and agency that was missing before. The numbers only feel off in comparison to the numbers we were seeing before, but remember, they were maddeningly unreliable and couldn't be influenced by the player - and that's just bad game design.