Bonus XP for small parties

[Ineth]

So in the 1.03 patch notes it says:

 

Raised the bonus for having fewer than six party members from 5% per character under the limit to 10% per character under the limit.

 

Even with that "buff", that's still pitifully low compared to the Infinity Engine games, assuming I interpret that number correctly.

Here's a comparison of the amount of "bonus XP" each character gets in a small party, compared to what a character in a full 6 person party would get, as far as I understand it:

party size | Infinity Engine | PoE   |
-----------+-----------------+-------+
         5 |           + 20% | + 10% |
         4 |           + 50% | + 20% |
         3 |          + 100% | + 30% |
         2 |          + 200% | + 40% |
         1 |          + 500% | + 50% |

(In the Infinity Engine, this was not actually called "bonus XP" - instead, it was simply the natural result from fairly splitting incoming XP among the party members. Also, I know that in BG2 not all XP rewards were split this way, although most were. And in IWD1, all of them were. Not sure about the other IE games.)

 

Are those numbers right? I guess small parties are really disfavoured by this game then.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Ineth

[Ink Blot]

Not really disfavored in this game, since if you do side quests you'll hit the level cap even with a 6 member party.

[Tigranes]

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones. 

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

[Valsuelm]

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones. 

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

 

IE games just gave you a set amount of XP for whatever and it was divided amongst your party, however many you had in it. There was no bonus programmed into the game, like there is with PoE.

 

In general, XP is all sorts of messed up in PoE.

[Luckmann]

I see no reason why you'd get more experience at all, just because it's a smaller party. I'm still somewhat stunned at the change, considering that it is still laughably easy to hit the experience cap. If you are soloing, you'll probably hit the experience cap 1/3 through the game, maybe a little bit later, due to the change.

 

I think the bonus should be removed completely. I should have to bullrush to Gilded Vale and plow through the main questline as fast as possible, and then travel by road on as low of a level as possible, blaze into Act 2, just to avoid getting extra experience. Right now, I'm pretty much going to have to cheat money in and fill up my party as quick as possible in order for my level rate to not outpace the game content completely; it's already doing that anyway.

 

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones.

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

Afaik, other way around. For big quests, everyone was given a flat value, no matter how many were in the group, but for everything else, it was equally distributed amongst the party members. At least in BG2.

 

PoE reminds me of Fallout 3, with it's nonsense "Higher Difficulty -> More Experience!" mechanic that lead to you rapidly outpacing everything and then you were fighting auto-leveled super-enemies everywhere and treated them like mole rats.

 

The point of smaller parties is that it's harder. If you're soloing, it's because it's a challenge. Much like turning up the difficulty, I have no idea why you'd be rewarded for that. It's completely counter to common sense and good taste.

Edited April 8, 2015 by Luckmann

[vril]

The OP graph is confusing, as far as I remember there was no bonus in BG1 or BG2.  If something was an enemy was worth 1000xp if you were solo you received 1000xp, if you had a 4 person party, each member got 250xp and so on.

[Ineth]

The point of smaller parties is that it's harder. If you're soloing, it's because it's a challenge.

 

Speak for yourself.

People choose to use smaller parties in these kind of cRPGs for all kind of reasons.

 

Me, I do sometimes complete a dungeon with fewer party members as a challenge, but I also enjoy seeing some kind of reward for that at the and.

 

Other times I play a whole game with fewer characters for role-playing reasons or simply because I don't want to do so much equipment micromanagement.

 

I have no idea why you'd be rewarded for that. It's completely counter to common sense and good taste.

 

Are you looking for some kind of "realism/verisimilitude" explanation here? That's easy: Winning the same battle with fewer people pushes each of them much more to their limit. They will have to be much more resourceful and flexible, i.e. each of them will be using every last ability they've got, and all of them will e.g. have to tank sometimes. Whereas in a big party each char can just follow their specialized routine (without being forced to try new things) and weaker members can even be left standing on the side-lines sometimes - which I'm sure you'll agree is not a realistic way to gain a lot of life/combat experience.

 

The OP graph is confusing, as far as I remember there was no bonus in BG1 or BG2.  If something was an enemy was worth 1000xp if you were solo you received 1000xp, if you had a 4 person party, each member got 250xp and so on.

 

That's what my table shows, I merely expressed it in the "bonus percentage" form that matches the way PoE handles it, to make it easier to compare.

 

e.g. if you were soloing in IWD1, you'd get six times as much XP ("600%") as each character in a full party ("100%") - which corresponds to a 500% bonus.

 

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

 

In IWD1, all XP was divided among party members, no matter where it came from.

In BG2, combat XP and normal quest XP was divided too, but there were a bunch of special quest XP rewards that were a fixed amount for each character no matter the party size. But those were far and in between. When playing with only 4 chars, you would easily hit the level cap in the original BG2:SoA quite a while before the end of the game.

 

Edited April 8, 2015 by Ineth

[Tigranes]

 

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones. 

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

 

IE games just gave you a set amount of XP for whatever and it was divided amongst your party, however many you had in it. There was no bonus programmed into the game, like there is with PoE.

 

In general, XP is all sorts of messed up in PoE.

 

 

I know. The point is how much 'bonus' XP you end up getting when you have less party members, not how it's calculated. I'm not sure how much faster level gain is with IE though, having played with mods for so long. I don't think it was exactly a linear "x6" though, was it? I don't seem to remember solo characters leveling that fast.

 

The real solution here is an easy way to mod xp, since no matter which way you do it somebody will be left dissatisfied.

[gkathellar]

... maybe it's only 50% because it doesn't need to be any higher?

 

(It's that.)

 

I mean, hell, XP per level doesn't even scale in the same way between the two games. A direct comparison makes no sense. Give me a breakdown of (Encounters)/(Level increases), and then we'll talk.

[deama]

I see no reason why you'd get more experience at all, just because it's a smaller party. I'm still somewhat stunned at the change, considering that it is still laughably easy to hit the experience cap. If you are soloing, you'll probably hit the experience cap 1/3 through the game, maybe a little bit later, due to the change.

 

I think the bonus should be removed completely. I should have to bullrush to Gilded Vale and plow through the main questline as fast as possible, and then travel by road on as low of a level as possible, blaze into Act 2, just to avoid getting extra experience. Right now, I'm pretty much going to have to cheat money in and fill up my party as quick as possible in order for my level rate to not outpace the game content completely; it's already doing that anyway.

 

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones.

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

Afaik, other way around. For big quests, everyone was given a flat value, no matter how many were in the group, but for everything else, it was equally distributed amongst the party members. At least in BG2.

 

PoE reminds me of Fallout 3, with it's nonsense "Higher Difficulty -> More Experience!" mechanic that lead to you rapidly outpacing everything and then you were fighting auto-leveled super-enemies everywhere and treated them like mole rats.

 

The point of smaller parties is that it's harder. If you're soloing, it's because it's a challenge. Much like turning up the difficulty, I have no idea why you'd be rewarded for that. It's completely counter to common sense and good taste.

 

I personally prefer how wizardry 8 did it. Really hard at the beginning but it slowly became easier and easier and eventually you became a demi-god.

 

Let's say there's a school with a class of 100 pupils and 1 teacher. Then there's another class of 10 pupils with 1 teacher. Let's say the pupils are your party members, and the teacher feeds them "exp" everyweek.

 

In the 100 pupil class, the "exp" won't really be divided by "100", it's more dependent on the pupil's ability to learn; some may find the "exp" easy to absorb, while others will need more time; although, the teacher can speed this process up by helping them.

 

In the 10 pupil class, the "exp", again, isn't divided by "10"...

So, since there are less pupils, the teacher can help "all" of them in much less time then it would take for the teacher with 100 pupils. In some cases, if all the pupils don't need help and understand the "exp" well enough, the teacher may decide to give them more "exp" because they are "ready".

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

(Nevermind. Ineth already mentioned this. Delete please.)

Edited April 8, 2015 by Iguana-on-a-stick

[anameforobsidian]

 

 

It's great. I play small parties to have a challenge, not to become super-powerful and be over-levelled for everything. 3 or 4 overlevelled characters are far more powerful than 6 normal ones. 

 

Didn't IE games only do the bonus with quest XP, though, and not kill XP?

 

IE games just gave you a set amount of XP for whatever and it was divided amongst your party, however many you had in it. There was no bonus programmed into the game, like there is with PoE.

 

In general, XP is all sorts of messed up in PoE.

 

 

I know. The point is how much 'bonus' XP you end up getting when you have less party members, not how it's calculated. I'm not sure how much faster level gain is with IE though, having played with mods for so long. I don't think it was exactly a linear "x6" though, was it? I don't seem to remember solo characters leveling that fast.

 

The real solution here is an easy way to mod xp, since no matter which way you do it somebody will be left dissatisfied.

 

 

You have it the other way around.  IE games shared kill exp, but gave full quest xp to each character.  Even in BG2, I'm pretty sure quest xp was less than half the xp.

Edited April 8, 2015 by anameforobsidian

[Atheosis]

Seems to generous if anything, and I'm not one of the "make it masochistically hard!" people on these forums.