EXP Lock alternative?

luciferblack

luciferblack

Dalayan Elder
I swore there was a thread regarding this, but maybe it was just part of another thread... if it's out there and someone has a link, I'd appreciate it.

Anyway, I was thinking about the reasons for EXP locking and how at 51 you can do it without just mindlessly grinding with no reward (turn on 100% AA's). Could it be changed so that using EXP lock below 51 allows you to still gain experience on your expable items? The person is still putting in the work to play their character and better them, but they get a return on locking in order to play with friends or experience content (exp locked zones or adepts).

I know it's been suggested to allow someone to "pool" their frozen experience, but i don't really agree with this. However, if that's an easy enough option, I'd say make it an option for people who want it. You could always put in a cap of X amount of experience you can accumulate (or levels? maybe 2 levels at a time?) and then if their pool is full, as the player kills something, they get a message telling them they can't accumulate any more until they level up.

I feel like this would make it less terrible for those people who want to slowly progress through the game and enjoy all the content that's been made available at the lower levels.

As an aside - I am not currently doing this, but would consider starting from scratch if it was possible to lock experience, but still get some benefit from it. The game has a lot of grinding as it is and making no noticeable progress because you don't want to out-level friends or content sorta stinks. With all the expable items at lower levels, I feel this would be a great incentive.

Thanks for considering. :)
 
luciferblack said:
Anyway, I was thinking about the reasons for EXP locking and how at 51 you can do it without just mindlessly grinding with no reward (turn on 100% AA's). Could it be changed so that using EXP lock below 51 allows you to still gain experience on your expable items? The person is still putting in the work to play their character and better them, but they get a return on locking in order to play with friends or experience content (exp locked zones or adepts).
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I think I've made this argument before and it's not necessarily a deal-breaker but here it is: expable items are balanced in part by the minimum level you could possibly be by the time you could max the item out. What is a average weapon at level 50 might be a super weapon at level 10, for example. You might say that someone who explocks at level 10 for the amount of exp it would have taken them to reach level 50 deserves an overpowered item that will let them coast for 35 levels or so, but I don't know.
 
Could it become viable to allow you to exp lock in an adventure band and send all the exp you earned to the others in the band? Or would that become problematic? If nothing else allows you to send exp to someone you want to level up while your just mindlessly farming.
 
Zaela said:
I think I've made this argument before and it's not necessarily a deal-breaker but here it is: expable items are balanced in part by the minimum level you could possibly be by the time you could max the item out. What is a average weapon at level 50 might be a super weapon at level 10, for example. You might say that someone who explocks at level 10 for the amount of exp it would have taken them to reach level 50 deserves an overpowered item that will let them coast for 35 levels or so, but I don't know.
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I understand that, but honestly, anything they do at lower levels is going to be mitigated by the fact that eventually they'll be 65 and all that stuff they had that gave them an edge at lower levels isn't really that spectacular any more. I think it would just encourage more people to lock for adepts and experience content they might not otherwise do.

I mean, someone can buy a Mithril Halberd at level 1 and it's like "OMG KILLER WEAPON" but that weapon doesn't last forever (though it's pretty damn good for 20+ levels). As far as expable items go, they'd have to stay locked a long time to unbalance things I would imagine. If they've locked for that long, I don't see the harm in them being able to spank some mobs a little easier. They probably did their time already in low level content. Sort of like when you beat a game and get some unlocks. Maybe it makes the game easier, but maybe it extends your replay experience because you can do it differently next time.

Having more veteran players with a reason to play low level content gives more new players playing low level content people to group with.

As I said, it isn't something I do, so it's not as though I'm looking for a leg up for myself. I would consider playing a new toon at some point if it were like that, but honestly after 7 and a half years, I have too many toons to play as it is. :)

That's all I have really. Thanks for the reply Zaela.
 
I think exp items are more for characters leveling up than twinking. If you want to throw skewing stuff on a character there are always droppables.
 
Rorne said:
I think exp items are more for characters leveling up than twinking. If you want to throw skewing stuff on a character there are always droppables.
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I'm not sure which point you're advocating, but I'll assume you're anti-explock change for the sake of spewing huge amounts of text. :D

The point is there's no incentive to play while exp locked if you're just locked to do adepts (unless you're trying to farm something from a level-restricted zone). Of course people can just buy/farm gear to throw on their low level toons... that's always been an option (and gives them a higher level advantage like exp'd weapons would).

It doesn't change the fact that when they're exp locked, they have no reason to actually play unless they are doing an adept or trying to farm something in Runnyeye (if that's still level capped). I would think that it would be beneficial to keep those toons logged in and playing even when their adept target is not up.

The game, at its core, revolves around grinding out xp to make your character better or getting items to make your character better. When you're exp locked, none of this happens...and that's fine if you just want to camp adepts for whatever item, but they don't spawn that often and so what are you going to do in between those times? Probably not play your lowbie toon.

Haruto's idea of allowing band exp to still work while someone is exp locked is good also. That gives people incentive to play if they're trying to help their friend (or other box) to catch up.

Would it really be that terrible to have someone have an expable weapon that might make killing Traek slightly easier (instead of level 57 toons with 100+ aa's and 30k plat worth of BOE gear on them)? By the time people get into their 50's all that lower expable gear really isn't that amazing anyway. If a level 12 paladin spent several months explocked just so they could build up enough expable gear and droppables to maybe solo the Beetle Queen... who does this hurt? It's not like adept loot is irreplaceable or anything.

I dunno... it just seems to me there's not a big influx of low level characters and something should be done to encourage people to go back and play the low level game (because new players that find no players to play with don't come back).

After BOE, I don't think as many people made alts because you couldn't recoup your gear (unless you paid) if you decided to stop playing that toon. I personally don't see as many lower level characters in my travels and I'm sure that's part of the reason. I know I stopped making alts when BOE went into effect. I remember being GLAD there were low-mid level twinks I could group with when I was low level. It made things a little easier here and there, but more importantly than "balance" it allowed me to have FUN because I actually had people to group with.

Sure you can start from scratch without giving your new toon any droppables, but once you played through the 1-65 game a few (or twelve) times, you sort of want to have a bit of fun. Deep down the game is about fun and I'm hoping this would add some and wouldn't wreck game balance. I don't think brand new players would be doing this for the most part. It would mostly be incentive for existing players to get back to the low-mid level content (and experience newer low-mid content they might not have played before).

As a side note (off topic), the MoP should merely be a run with no mobs, no traps, etc. When the population gets back up over 500 at peak times, sure... change it back and let druids and wizards shine. Right now it's just a turn off. I primarily play a druid. I have a wizard box also. MoP doesn't affect me. Don't care if nobody wants to donate for my ports. I'd rather see people not being killed and frustrated while trying to run to a group.

TL;DR - Does this idea actually negatively impact the game for people? I don't believe it does. If anyone else has a good idea about ways to generate interest in replaying the low-mid level game, that would be great too. With this small a population, if nobody is replaying that content, we're not keeping as many new players as we should because they don't have many people to group with.
 
Zaela said:
I think I've made this argument before and it's not necessarily a deal-breaker but here it is: expable items are balanced in part by the minimum level you could possibly be by the time you could max the item out. What is a average weapon at level 50 might be a super weapon at level 10, for example. You might say that someone who explocks at level 10 for the amount of exp it would have taken them to reach level 50 deserves an overpowered item that will let them coast for 35 levels or so, but I don't know.
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And my argument is:

Why does the dev staff and high end playerbase as well care if low level players are smashing crushbone, kaladim, entry level paw, and all of the other zones that no one ever touches? Shards could be so much more successful and popular if not for the narrowed minded scope of "everyone must have the most painful gaming experience possible". That last statement is very broad and applies to about a thousand other issues, but it also happens to apply here.
 
JarL said:
And my argument is:

Why does the dev staff and high end playerbase as well care if low level players are smashing crushbone, kaladim, entry level paw, and all of the other zones that no one ever touches? Shards could be so much more successful and popular if not for the narrowed minded scope of "everyone must have the most painful gaming experience possible". That last statement is very broad and applies to about a thousand other issues, but it also happens to apply here.
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But you can buy items that are overpowered it's not being prevented and is an option just not specifically with this mechanic. Also isn't exp-locking to level up an item while not leveling yourself a painful gaming experience?
 
Like the philosophy behind expable items is that they grow with you WHILE you level, it's a mechanic meant to give you something that stays viable while progressing. If your argument is that they lag behind and are not progressing as fast as they should be relative to player level that is one thing but to suggest that you should be able to grind them up at whatever level you lock at undermines that intent and yes, I know, it gives you more freedom as a player to Do What You Want but you need to also respect that maybe these are not in the game for you to grind out.
 
Is it possible for xp-able items to gain lvl recs as they level? Granted it sounds like a bit of work for a small portion of the population, but if the items were allowed to gain xp while the character is locked, but gained a lvl rec as it leveled commensurate with the lowest level possible to have that item at that level, it should balance itself out shouldn't it?
 
Also for a trifecta post I'd like to say it comes off as very disingenuous to sell this change as something that would draw people back to the low levels. People don't go back to the low levels because they are fucking boring and the content is simplistic and lacks development.
 
1-65 is a Tutorial, because you don't get that many neat/unique/cool/useful abilities before 65.
 
without reading any arguments in favor of expable items gaining exp im going to say no, fuck that

exp items have been and always will be meant for leveling up with, not spanking mobs with at the same level which you got the items at

it's already gross how big some items get by 55 (4k hp 57 paladin with no purchased gear?)
 
Rorne said:
Also for a trifecta post I'd like to say it comes off as very disingenuous to sell this change as something that would draw people back to the low levels. People don't go back to the low levels because they are fucking boring and the content is simplistic and lacks development.
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yeah i am one of the minority that enjoys the low levels and let me tell you i would hate them more if items could be exp'd while exp is locked
 
JarL said:
And my argument is:

Why does the dev staff and high end playerbase as well care if low level players are smashing crushbone, kaladim, entry level paw, and all of the other zones that no one ever touches? Shards could be so much more successful and popular if not for the narrowed minded scope of "everyone must have the most painful gaming experience possible". That last statement is very broad and applies to about a thousand other issues, but it also happens to apply here.
Click to expand...

most painful gaming experience? really? when the fuck did having expable items become painful? remember when they weren't even expable?

the items themselves are awesome for new players WITHOUT the expable stats, and the only people who know how to exp lock are veteran players, anyone who tries to pass this off as "for the new players" stuff is lol
 
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