GGG Please Figure out how to stop Boosting (screenshots included)

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MrDDT wrote:

The increased IIQ/IIR is not as big of an issue.

You can kill 3x the monsters to get more items. Just run more instances. So you kill monsters with 3x HP. I kill 3x instances full. Same item chance drop. Or at least very close.

Its the XP thats the issue.

This is incredibly naive. The IIQ is the big issue, because when I instantly kill a rare pack in a six player map I get so much loot that I have to move down a screen to see what landed at my feet (sometimes you have to go multiple screens away and approach at a different angle, because the loot will go literally off screen to the point you can't read it or get in a position to read it.)

The kill pace isn't three times longer, because travel time, trading for maps, etc, remains identical and actual fights end nearly as quick (barring bad mods, for me that is curse immune+high resist to my main element on certain types of monsters). Based on map scarcity alone this argument invalid nevermind everything else.

Increased exp is only an issue in prolonged races, and that effects a minority of players. The IIQ effects everyone. Once you start running in six player instances you won't stop, because you'll see just how pointless a one player is.

I don't really think boosting is an issue because there's no good solution. They already made it extremely tedious to boost solo. It takes a solid 3 hours or so, maybe even more, if you do it alone. It takes less than half that if you are using two people to boost 4 characters, but I boosted 5 alone and stumbling around to find exits/etc is annoying. You only have to do it once per league so throwing away a few hours to do it isn't bad at all. It more than pays itself off if you spend an equal amount of time doing end-game stuff, and hey who won't?

Possible solutions:

1. Leave it alone.

Pros:
-It's free to play, anyone can have six accounts
-If you don't want to do it you don't have to

Cons:
-People with old computers can't do this without a second computer
-Doesn't encourage partying at all beyond duoing

Other:
-There might be a better game design solution

2. Set player difficulty through the interface somehow.

Pros:
-No extra work, anyone can do it

Cons:
-Lazy design
-Doesn't encourage partying at all beyond duoing

Other:

It's viable. It's probably no worse than the current situation.

3. Revamp party system to force players to be close, scale monsters to be stronger, and provide larger benefits. Change how exp sharing works so that it is split evenly between all players in range but the exp received is then scaled down on an individual basis blablabla.

Pros:
-Would encourage actual partying
-Would probably be fun

Cons:
-Encourages use of bots/ISBoxer to keep characters near you for solo players
-Makes partying much more difficult for the average player
-Could potentially be way undertuned or overtuned depending on your gear and party makeup, again discouraging partying as well as build diversity
-Makes partying pointless if you wander too far off
-Could still be exploited fine by boosters with respect to IIQ

Other:
This would solve the issue if you think exp is the only problem. It solves nothing with the IIQ problem, and it seems like a revamp that GGG won't go for because it has some seriously bad implications as well.

4.Keep things as they are but add level requirements

Pros:
-Doesn't effect legitimate players
-Causes boosters to invest more time in to the characters

Cons:
-Benefits players who started early in the league far more than players who started later
-Solves nothing, because if it takes me 12 hours to boost 5 characters instead of 2-3 I am still going to get a huge payoff for the time investment
-Adds a larger upfront time investment for new players who want to play optimally/enjoy the game more


None of these sound very good. I'm curious to see if and how GGG will address it, but from my point of view there's no effective way. Every single solution has drawbacks. #4 legitimately hurts new players, because boosting borders standard right now in default. #3 sounds promising from a design perspective but has serious gameplay implications and issues. #1/#2 are viable, and I assume people who despise opening multiple clients would prefer #2.

Obviously I'd prefer to party with real people, and I do try to find someone to duo with, but there's no reason to. Ignoring any tangible exp or item benefits, it's less fun right now. Many builds are strong enough to bang out six player instances nearly as fast as one player instances.


To be blunt, it's likely that the ARPG genre as it stands is best played in two player groups anyway. There's no good way to solve that. In Diablo 2 you never really had more than two players doing something important. The rest were there for the ride, and while they could contribute equally run time hardly changed any.

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Watlok wrote:

This is incredibly naive. The IIQ is the big issue, because when I instantly kill a rare pack in a six player map I get so much loot that I have to move down a screen to see what landed at my feet (sometimes you have to go multiple screens away and approach at a different angle, because the loot will go literally off screen to the point you can't read it or get in a position to read it.)

First let me say I already do run with boosters, I know how it works perfectly.

Second is I'm calling BS on you insta killing a "rare pack" not even sure what you mean by "pack of rares" because rares doesnt spawn in packs EVER.

Pro tip, hit Z a few times to see all the loot correctly.

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The kill pace isn't three times longer, because travel time, trading for maps, etc, remains identical and actual fights end nearly as quick (barring bad mods, for me that is curse immune+high resist to my main element on certain types of monsters). Based on map scarcity alone this argument invalid nevermind everything else.

You are right its not 3x longer. However, its pretty close. Travel yes, however, you dont have to worry about the time to bring the boosters in. Sorta helps on travel time.
Trading maps? Why would I need to trade maps?
Not sure how you think fights are "nearly as quick" I would love to prove you wrong on this, because I know for a fact that 3.5x HP mobs are harder to kill, and do take longer. Again this can be fixed with some of the stuff I already said (more HP% per player). Also like you said some mobs you would have to skip or waste a ton of time.

Maps are not scarce. I have unlimited level 60 maps. Which is all I need to have to run what you are doing. There is the cost of rolling maps, however, thats not all that high if you just doing 60 maps for loot.

Right now, I dont run maps under level 64. I've already sold over 50 level 60 maps and over 25 level 61 maps, and I'm not even really trying to be a map vendor.

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Increased exp is only an issue in prolonged races, and that effects a minority of players. The IIQ effects everyone. Once you start running in six player instances you won't stop, because you'll see just how pointless a one player is.

This is an issue in every race (where you can party of course). Even 3 hour ones. We have already done it a few times in 3 hour races. Major issue.

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I don't really think boosting is an issue because there's no good solution. They already made it extremely tedious to boost solo. It takes a solid 3 hours or so, maybe even more, if you do it alone. It takes less than half that if you are using two people to boost 4 characters, but I boosted 5 alone and stumbling around to find exits/etc is annoying. You only have to do it once per league so throwing away a few hours to do it isn't bad at all. It more than pays itself off if you spend an equal amount of time doing end-game stuff, and hey who won't?

Do 4 toons in 1 hour 15mins (Did it a few times around 1 hour 20mins too) this is in hardcore where you have to worry about death of the toons also.

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Possible solutions: "snip"

All these you list here, and you didnt even list mine which does fix the problem.

Anyways your list here doesnt fix the problem you are correct.


I will say it once more.

Cap exp at even party share of the WHOLE party.
(Maybe even cap it at even+10%, so if someone kills solo they do get a slight bonus when the mobs are very hard +65%HP for a +10%EXP gain isnt much)

Increase bonus party exp to +85% per person (instead of only +65%EXP) AND increase monster HP by 65% (instead of only +50%HP)
This will also help with the issue of boosting for +IIQ50% per extra person, because the monsters will have +65%HP per person instead of only +50%

Edit:

nvm :)

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MrDDT wrote:

Actually, the current exp rate (level 1 with a level 70) would be .46% share for the level 1 (rounded to 0 in game) and 99.54% (rounded to 100% in game)

The mobs give 164.24% exp of a normal solo monster. Not 194%
This also ONLY happens when the level 70 and the level 1 are near each other. Which is likely not the cast most of the time.

Math is hard.

From the Mechanics thread:

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Effect on experience
For a description on how experience is shared between players, see the level scaling section above. Only party members actually in the instance count toward getting XP. If one member is in town he gets no XP.
Experience is only shared with other players who are near you (roughly two screens). Monsters are still made harder by players elsewhere on the level.
Being in an area with a party member grants you a 30% experience bonus.
Monsters give +50% base XP for every party member after the first.

I bolded some important bits. 1 extra party member, 50% more base XP, with a 30% bonus for being in the same area. 150% * (1 + 0.3) = 195%. That "same area" for the 30% bonus is an area like "Fellshrine". Don't believe me? Go in Fellshrine, bring in a booster, walk to the nearest mob, kill it, check the exp it gave you, then go across the entire map and kill the same mob. You'll get the same exp in both places.

I actually tested this with a level 1 in Merciless Fellshrine. I killed a few mobs within a screen, killed a few more another half screen over, kept doing this until I was confident I was well out of the "2 screens" distance. I then ran to the other side of Fellshrine, right by the other entrance, and killed the same kind of mob (zombie) and noticed the exp given didn't fluctuate at all no matter how close I was to the level 1. I even took the level 1 to the middle of the map after testing this and killed a zombie there after testing it the other ways, it still gave the same exp.

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In your system, the level 70 and the level 1 (now considered level 60) the level 70 as you said would get 58.9493% of the exp and I'm guessing the level 1 would still get 0%? (But if not 0% it would be 41.0507%, which would be major easy to boost lower level players so I know this isnt what you want).
However, the level 70 would now only get 97.27% of a normal solo monster while killing a monster that has 150% HP.
Again only applies while near each other.

The Level 70's experience is capped by counting the level 1 as a level 60, the level 1's exp is still the share that it would get from the level 1's perspective of experience sharing. The level 1's share is as it currently is with a 0.46% share (which you believe to be rounded down to zero, but I'm pretty sure is the area level distance penalty in place, could be tested in an area that the low level would get no area level penalty and enough mob exp that would make mob exp * 0.46% >= 1). This is a cap, not redistribution.

Also, there is area level punishing that makes that tiny share for the level 1 become virtually nothing, assuming the area is above level 4.

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Yours also has issues with lower levels. Think level 11 and level 1 (or now level 1 for your theory).

The level 11 will get ~141% of a normal monster solo. In a duo party (assuming they are close)
In a 6 man party (Him and 5 boosters) they would get ~227.66% of a normal solo monster.

More bad math, but it doesn't matter. What you are ignoring is that the level 11 had to do 250% MORE damage to get that 227.66% more exp. Note that this is less efficient than soloing. This way punishes party member's exp if they don't get help killing mobs or aren't close to others killing mobs. If they solo everything, it will be less efficient exp than if they are near enough to a group (2 screens) and that group is doing enough damage to overcome that. Period.

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If you use your scaling. Again you have a problem at higher levels

Duo, 80 with a level 1 (now considered level 60)
109.56% of solo exp (assuming they are close)
80 with 5x level 1s is 120.38% of solo exp. Again same issue.

Again not an issue, if the mob's life is 250% higher and his reward is 120% more exp, it's not efficient.

My math isnt wrong, the Mechanics thread is wrong on how exp is in a party. Ive already stated this before, and its very easy to prove.

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Effect on experience
For a description on how experience is shared between players, see the level scaling section above. Only party members actually in the instance count toward getting XP. If one member is in town he gets no XP.
Experience is only shared with other players who are near you (roughly two screens). Monsters are still made harder by players elsewhere on the level.
Being in an area with a party member grants you a 30% experience bonus.
Monsters give +50% base XP for every party member after the first.

The quote from the thread here is wrong.

Its +65% per person added.
So if 1 person in the map its, 100% base exp. 2 people it would be 165% of base exp. 3 people in an area = 230% base exp etc.

This base exp is then split based on the level of the players from each other.

Then the players are punished based on their level difference from the monsters.


About my math, of 227% for a 6 man party with level 11 and 5 level 1s. My math is correct. Your statement is also correct about its "less effective" however, the time saved running around looking for monsters, the bonus of exp per map (normally high level maps) helps this out so its not an issue and becomes MORE effective to boost. Which is where the problem lies.

Well, your math is wrong, but I think it's funny how you think the mechanics thread is wrong rather than use sound math to test it. I'll save you the trouble.

A level 10 walks into a ledge (level 8) and kills a white archer skeleton. He gains 113 exp. A level 1 walks into that same ledge just after the mob is killed. Let's pretend that now there's a 65% flat bonus to exp. That 113 exp becomes 186(.45) exp. Now let's share that exp out (Whoops! forget something when you did your math?). Level 10 gets ~83.5% of the exp. 155 exp.

Now let's pretend the same thing happened but the mob got a 50% bonus to base exp and a 30% bonus on top of that. 150 * 1.3 = 1.95. That 113 exp becomes ~220 exp. Again, level 10 gets an ~83.5% share. 184 exp.

Which one do you think is accurate? I'll give you a hint: The one that's in the mechanics thread.

What's really depressing is not only does the level 10 get ~83.5% of the exp when it's close to the level 1, but the level 1's share (~16.5%) gets completely removed from the mix when he's more than 2 screen widths away, so the level 10 got 100% of the exp after the bonus (113 * 1.95 = ~220 exp). I didn't catch this when I tested it in Merciless Fellshrine because a level 1 next to a level 70 gets no exp anyway so there's nothing to have "unshare" when at a distance.

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TehHammer wrote:

Well, your math is wrong, but I think it's funny how you think the mechanics thread is wrong rather than use sound math to test it. I'll save you the trouble.

A level 10 walks into a ledge (level 8) and kills a white archer skeleton. He gains 113 exp. A level 1 walks into that same ledge just after the mob is killed. Let's pretend that now there's a 65% flat bonus to exp. That 113 exp becomes 186(.45) exp. Now let's share that exp out (Whoops! forget something when you did your math?). Level 10 gets ~83.5% of the exp. 155 exp.

Now let's pretend the same thing happened but the mob got a 50% bonus to base exp and a 30% bonus on top of that. 150 * 1.3 = 1.95. That 113 exp becomes ~220 exp. Again, level 10 gets an ~83.5% share. 184 exp.

Which one do you think is accurate? I'll give you a hint: The one that's in the mechanics thread.

What's really depressing is not only does the level 10 get ~83.5% of the exp when it's close to the level 1, but the level 1's share (~16.5%) gets completely removed from the mix when he's more than 2 screen widths away, so the level 10 got 100% of the exp after the bonus (113 * 1.95 = ~220 exp). I didn't catch this when I tested it in Merciless Fellshrine because a level 1 next to a level 70 gets no exp anyway so there's nothing to have "unshare" when at a distance.

Wow, really? I can easy prove this to you if you want to log in game.

1)If a level 1 walks into the ledge AFTER the mob is kill the exp for the level 10 player would have still be using the solo player EXP which is 100% of the mob exp, or in this case 113xp.

If the level 1 was on the ledge BEFORE the kill (and not near the level 10) then the level 10 would have got 186(.45) exp.

You are wrong about the level 1's exp share getting removed from the mix. Ive tested this about 1000+ times a day, as I boost everyday for the last month.

FYI its also not 2 screens away, its a bit less.


I have tested this with levels ranging from 1 to 83. How about you?

I even have the numbers still in excel when Panda and I tested it with players all different levels. (some were 20ish, panda was 80+, I was level 56, and a few others were around 40 or 50) none were near me when I was killing monsters. We tested Merci fellshrine first, and then went and tested other areas of the game also.

We also tested how much each monster gives for exp and which types.

I will say again that that thread with the exp formula is WRONG.

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MrDDT wrote:

You are wrong about the level 1's exp share getting removed from the mix. Ive tested this about 1000+ times a day, as I boost everyday for the last month.

I'll start off by saying that I apparently killed a "Rattling Bones" non-archer the first part of my last "test", which is a ~115 exp mob, I then followed with the data from archers the rest of the way.... FAIL! My math was off due to this. It just so happened that it matched up almost perfectly (within 1.5 exp gained) following the mechanics from the Mechanics Thread. Your claimed 65% per additional party member is correct, the Mechanics Thread is wrong.

Now that I've admitted I was wrong, I'll point out one area that you've missed. Apparently 1000+ times a day. :p


Level shares do, in fact, drop off at a distance.

Test 1: Solo in ledge at level 10, killing one non-rare archer.

Exp gained: 135.

Pre-kill exp: 68,928
Post-kill exp: 69,063

Test 2: Level 10 in ledge with 1 level 1, killing one non-rare archer while close to the leecher.

Exp gained: 186

Pre-kill exp: 69,176
Post-kill exp: 69,362

Test 3: Level 10 in ledge with 1 level 1, killing one non-rare archer while far away from the leecher.

Exp gained: 222 (note that this is 165% of 135, our base exp, why isn't any being reserved for party members?! Because it isn't shared when far away from boosters. ALL of the party exp bonus is earned by the soloing party member.)

Pre-kill exp: 69,548
Post-kill exp: 69,770

Test 4: Level 10 in ledge with 2 level 1s, killing one non-rare archer while close to the leechers.

Exp gained: 224

Pre-kill exp: 70,339
Post-kill exp: 70,563

Test 5: Level 10 in ledge with 2 level 1s, killing one non-rare archer while far from the leechers.

Exp gained: 310 (again, note that this is our base exp * (1 + 0.65 + 0.65), there is no sharing once again)

Pre-kill exp: 70,029
Post-kill exp: 70,339


It's pretty obvious that the sharing is going away at distances.

Just a side note:

If GGG wrote the XP formulae in the program in the form:

XP = Base * (1 +(.5n)*1.3)

This is the same as giveing .65 extra experience per party member in the instance.

If the sharing happens all the time for all players in the instance, the boosting would not work. Assuming that players > 2 screens away from the kill get their XP set to 0.

ie:

Scenario 1:
player 1 kill enemy, player 2 is near.
XP shared, both players receive their share of XP based on current maths.

Scenario 2:
Player 1 kill enemy, player 2 is > 2 screens.
XP shared. player 1 receives the same share as in Scenario 1, player 2 XP set to 0 (ie doesn't matter what the maths came up with for player 2 share, it gets set to 0).

This would nerf boosting into the ground.

This would still benefit synergied parties.

This would still allow parties to go off and get some XP gains for killing harder enemies in the same instance as other party members. BUT, the XP boost would not be enough to overcome the time difference in killing vs finding mobs for a solo player.

Based on current XP mathematics, with the two changes being, XP always calculated as shared. XP of a kill for player > 2 screens is set to 0.

What do you guys think?

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TehHammer wrote:

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MrDDT wrote:

You are wrong about the level 1's exp share getting removed from the mix. Ive tested this about 1000+ times a day, as I boost everyday for the last month.

I'll start off by saying that I apparently killed a "Rattling Bones" non-archer the first part of my last "test", which is a ~115 exp mob, I then followed with the data from archers the rest of the way.... FAIL! My math was off due to this. It just so happened that it matched up almost perfectly (within 1.5 exp gained) following the mechanics from the Mechanics Thread. Your claimed 65% per additional party member is correct, the Mechanics Thread is wrong.

Now that I've admitted I was wrong, I'll point out one area that you've missed. Apparently 1000+ times a day. :p


Level shares do, in fact, drop off at a distance.

Test 1: Solo in ledge at level 10, killing one non-rare archer.

Exp gained: 135.

Pre-kill exp: 68,928
Post-kill exp: 69,063

Test 2: Level 10 in ledge with 1 level 1, killing one non-rare archer while close to the leecher.

Exp gained: 186

Pre-kill exp: 69,176
Post-kill exp: 69,362

Test 3: Level 10 in ledge with 1 level 1, killing one non-rare archer while far away from the leecher.

Exp gained: 222 (note that this is 165% of 135, our base exp, why isn't any being reserved for party members?! Because it isn't shared when far away from boosters. ALL of the party exp bonus is earned by the soloing party member.)

Pre-kill exp: 69,548
Post-kill exp: 69,770

Test 4: Level 10 in ledge with 2 level 1s, killing one non-rare archer while close to the leechers.

Exp gained: 224

Pre-kill exp: 70,339
Post-kill exp: 70,563

Test 5: Level 10 in ledge with 2 level 1s, killing one non-rare archer while far from the leechers.

Exp gained: 310 (again, note that this is our base exp * (1 + 0.65 + 0.65), there is no sharing once again)

Pre-kill exp: 70,029
Post-kill exp: 70,339


It's pretty obvious that the sharing is going away at distances.

You just confirmed what I said.

Close to leechers = sharing exp.
Far you get full exp of boosted exp 100%+65%per extra player.
What is the problem with my math again?

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What's really depressing is not only does the level 10 get ~83.5% of the exp when it's close to the level 1, but the level 1's share (~16.5%) gets completely removed from the mix when he's more than 2 screen widths away, so the level 10 got 100%

The only slightly confusing thing here is that you say that the "share" the level 1s get when they are far away is "completely removed from the mix" however, its not removed at all. Its just not shared (or you might call taken) from the person killing because the level 1s are too far away. So again, the person solo killing (or being boosted if you will) is getting 100%+65%per extra person's exp when he kills a mob away from the group.