This topic is locked
I have not voted.
My opinions on this topic are now spread over three threads.
This is my perspective on the current proposal based on my experience with my guild, thus it is highly subjective.
The proposal as it stands and as I understand it means that if I get to EOC and sublevel on the creature there, my personal XP haul shall decline as it currently does, but the GXP haul shall remain constant, and, as the creatures at EOC give more XP/hit than anyone else, there would be no reason for me now to delevel to gain GXP as simply hitting the EOC mob (or preferably champ if the champ is within a level of EOC) will gain the guild more XP and for much less effort than previously. No trips to BB, no spammed shout outs for free 100 stams, no need to interact with other players in the community, for good or ill.
This would really help my guild.
Why?
We have not delevelled, or rather one guy tried it, but the market was so swamped with people offering free hits and helping to pay for their own bounties that he only lost 20 levels before relevelling, and has not delevelled since.
And the only reason he did it is because we are in guild lock and are digging ourselves out.
Now - we were knocking on the door of top 25 recently, and were advancing like a rising tide.... with content we would rush forward and almost catch the guild ahead..... then a long gap happened and they would re-establish their lead as we would wait to get more XP as we had the great fortune to have 5 EOC players in our guild, a strength and a weakness in one, for when content arrived we could make huge amounts of GXP, but in times of drought, we stalled, as our lower level guildies, awesome as they are, do not generate near the GXP required to move the needle once you are in the top 50/40/30. Rival guilds with folk between 1200 and 1600 were better off in times of no content. We did not delevel, for many reasons, I don't know my fellow EOC guildies' - mine was laziness - it is work, and I would only do it to gain gold for the guild, rather than XP - ladder position is a long game and I figured we would find our equilibrium somewhere, some day, though 25 or 20 looked doable, and amazing, considering the long road we had taken. Where we are now is awesome! Guild gold balance dwindling in August/September is what almost pushed me to delevel, and obviously not too far as the gold return is poor if you drop too deep, I have been informed.
Now, as we did not delevel we were dependent on content. It has arrived, but we are in guild lock as one of our guys wanted to try new things, but with content we have already halved our lock. This proposal helps us, in our particular configuration, of being blessed with 4 EOC or near EOC players, and not having bothered with deleveling before, for in the past we would have to wait for new content to gain GXP and catch the next guild up the ladder, now, if content stalls, we have 4 players who can rack up huge amounts of GXP at will and will thus catch guilds above us who are not as blessed (and there are some), faster. If content continues to come out fast enough that we cannot catch it, well we simply have the advantage of 4 high level players hunting frequently, and that will rock, but if content stalls, our rival guilds will no longer get the chance to pull away, as we will be able to relentlessly pile up GXP if we get near max stam and no new content is in sight. Maybe to top 20, after then I am sure it gets much harder, and ladder domination is not our goal as we are clearly not built for top 10 etc., but I cannot deny it is fun to see the position rise.
So this proposed change hands a further advantage to guilds with many EOC or near EOC members in terms of maintaining GXP lead, as there will never be a time when EOC players cannot rack up more GXP earnings than anyone else in the game. That seemed to be a problem for some posters. If that is your primary problem I'd probably want a rethink on this proposed solution.
This proposed change, if it makes things more efficient for folk to gain GXP at the coalface of EOC, and it looks like it would, will remove the BB activity - I would imagine. In another post elsewhere I mentioned that efficiency is a God among levellers, make the GXP gaining process more efficient than the current use of the BB and it will be rapidly abandoned.
I never cared about this issue. I do not bother with GC and have the FS box switched off - I did not see the spams. This issue was in no way effecting my game play directly. Make this change and my guild, which has not delevelled in any significant sense or benefited from it hugely, will benefit as we will have a new way to gain GXP we did not before. Cool, I suppose. But definition of unintended consequence I feel.
Of course, and this has been said before, if content comes out fast enough so no-one can sit at EOC, this rules change will have little effect anyway. [Edit: yes it will for people losing and regaining levels lower down content - I meant in terms of rapidly gaining GXP at EOC, says acronym man!] But few people believe that level of consistent content creation is possible - BG is busting a gut as is - and you rock BG! Can content be maintained at this rate, or faster if required?
On the ban AM500 thing - if the content outstrips the number of ruby chests given during globals, AM 500 will not be the problem. If the chests go away as rewards, the globals may be less successful - consider consequences. Or, crazy talk, be prepared to fail to get to ruby on a global if the targets are set high enough - then the mega potions do not come into the game.
Also - I ran through the 1825 content first when it was released, and the champ creatures at EOC did not respawn for me under AM500 - I told Grim and he fixed it so they did. So switching off Champ respawn must be pretty easy, as it was a quick fix to switch it back on! Again - do I want to have champs not respawn? No - using them as I level to increase efficiency is a key strategy of mine and most other EOC players. Think about consequences to what you ask. Many of us caught EOC using champs for well over a thousand levels - you make them not respawn and those chasing EOC will literally have a harder job of doing so than the people who are already there - is that fair and is that what you want?
THINK about consequences.
And that is my personal/guild founder perspective.
P.S. the dark conspiracy theorists - "there must be something else these people are after, else why would they do it?" I had similar suspicions and wondered if gold harvesting was at the heart of it all, and asked hoof/BG to comment on gold flows within the game and if they have changed as a result of delevelling - the MP has remained stable, so I assume not - no comment was had by HCS staff. UrcK and leos both pointed out some of the mechanics of gold acquisition, and while some extra gold could be had by switching off SAC 500 as you get close to your VL once more, I can't be sure if anything untoward is happening. As Hoof and BG did not address the gold question, I assume (perhaps dangerously) that it is kosher. Again - I see no way in which this has effected me or the game negatively seeing that MP prices are stable. IF and it is a big IF anyone has profited, I am at the good for them stage - they worked for it!!
Sorry for the page long screed.
Edited by Belaric, 10 December 2013 - 19:13.
