Would you (admins) ever consider maybe just making the amount of experience earned per kill solo equal to that of a group of three? That way, grouping is still "better" because things die quicker - more xp per hr. however those of us forced to solo grind due to things like...complete lack of anything close to an ally don't find it so difficult?

The last time I made some tweaks to the experience code I also pow-wowed about this with some of the staff. Ultimately, we didn't come up with anything that sounded good, but I'm still thinking about it off and on.

In addition to not having the side effects Isildur mentioned, any such change would need to meet other criteria as well, one of which would be that it be a change we could see living with if our numbers went back up significantly.

If a way could be found to identify characters for whom it is "hard" to solo rank, and then make them more "valuable" to ranking groups (possibly by having their presence boost group exp), then that might help out those characters.

One caveat: the player base would have to know (or at least "suspect") that the hard-to-solo-rank guy is actually in the hard-to-solo-rank category in order to be motivated by any bonus tied to a group member being hard-to-solo-rank. Might be hard to publicize that designation in a way that's acceptable.

dwarf killing duergar and vice versa
dark-elf killing elf

thanks for all you guys are doing, I'm solo'ing right now and have been and it is kind of brutal

What about progressively decreasing the bonus from 1-51 or something similar?

Meaning in the early mid levels (often the hardest to find a group in my exp) soloing would be more viable, but this bonus would decrease progressively as you level up, making grouping more appealing at these points.

Something like:

1-25 = Full Group Bonus Soloing
26-35 = 75% of group bonus
35-40 = 50% of group bonus
41+ = No bonus

etc.

I figure it would make a great difference sometimes for people who can't find a group, and instead of logging off go kill some weaker mobs for respectable XP.

Also doesn't really deter grouping in my opinion, since the classes that are going to solo low ranks are going to solo in any case. This makes things more viable for things like shifters, invokers, etc. who really can't tank mobs well, but could make ends meet killing weaker mobs with a group bonus solo.

Just a thought! Also i would like to echo as a player for 5ish years, I think the admin and changes being done now are the best since i've been playing. Kudos!

While I would love to see numbers go back up - I also think that a hurdle to that happening is the difficulty inherent of solo ranking with certain classes. Normally, it doesn't affect me much because I play a lot of melee heavy classes. But recently there have been a few not so tanky classes that I've solo ranked with. It's absolutely painful sometimes, not all the time..but sometimes.

Making a change to solo XP would in essence maybe up the # of players -but at the same time might not contribute to more grouping.

I understand it is quite the hurdle, and that there is likely no clear answer.

At this point I don't think that is happening, but I don't see numbers dropping much more either. At some point, as many people have mentioned for years, I think accepting this and altering the environment to force those who do still play into closer quarters (area and rank consolidations) should be looked at. I am sure there are one or two people still playing who really enjoy being a level 7 conjuror or whatever and might be put off by changes that do not prolong that experience, but I think more are just blowing by the early ranks to get to the part of the game that is "interesting."

As others have pointed out, sometimes solo work is important to improve skills, and playing a dumb schmuck fighting smart schmucks in the low and and mid levels is a nightmare with skill failure.

If you were to improve solo experience rates, I'd really appreciate a list of the new super-secret skill learning mobs that replaced those exploited by a select few back in the old days.

You can send me a private message here or on QHCF. Thanks!

Sometimes asking the right questions can be the most important informer of a decision. I think this is one of these cases.

1) Why do people want faster (XP) learning rates when solo?

2) Why do people solo rank more than they have in the past?

I think ranking just isn't as fun as it used to be. One of the reasons grouping used to be so prevalent wasn't *just* for the XP bonus (although that helped), but also to be safer from PK (which also set you back XP wise). By making it so that PK doesn't incur XP loss, and the areas growth + population decline, I feel that ranking has become a pure time sink (I'm exchanging hours for levels) where it used to be basically as engaging as any other part of CF.

With only a handful of ranking areas for your level you would invariably end up competing for a ranking area. You had to stay alive in order to reach Hero. People with XP holes so large they just didn't even try anymore were a thing. Leveling wasn't a thing you went through to get to the fun part of CF, it was part of the fun part. It was part of the challenge. It forced you to group/interact. Hell my current has only spoken to 3 PCs and probably won't hit a dozen in their lifetime. I have no reason to (build, etc.).

I think skill practice changes also added to this dynamic. Sure, that idiot going to the mists for 10 hours and spamming up weapons at level 25 wasn't really adding anything, but that same idiot now solo ranks to 30 for the same reason, so now it is 30+ hours of not adding anything to the game *and* depriving others of a ranking partner.

So given the realities of today's CF, what could you change to both address the people who are legitimately having a hard time finding *any* groupmates (off-hours, etc.) while also bringing back the fun to ranking?

I'm not sure, but I'll throw out some ideas:

Hire-able merc's or auto-prog for the solo person. If there aren't 3 people in your range, you can go to a spot and hire out some merc's (with basic AI) to form a ranking group. Maybe this would include align restrictions or something of that nature. Basically you can get a group if there really isn't any PC's to rank with.

Boost group skill learning to the point that it is obviously advantageous to travel with others for skill learning. Even though a group of 3 will kill stuff faster, and XP faster and have fewer opportunities (fewer rounds of combat total) you'll still learn faster (and obviously faster) than if you solo. You could nerf solo rates to achieve this, or boost group rates (3x minimum. Probably beyond 5x), or some combination of both.

Shrink CF. Make competition for ranking areas a thing again. If no one is actively visiting an area, have it shut off for some time period or until NCR or something.

Make ranking *hard*. Like making it to 51 with only 3 mob deaths is a serious miracle hard. Like if you aren't paying attention to your ranking party you are definitely going to die hard. Honestly this probably requires a massive rework of basically all NPC's into semi-intelligent assholes. It also makes solo ranking a thing of the past. That way lies death and XP loss.... This one is probably my favorite (and the most work) in that you could easily justify giving out massive XP in minimal time, but good luck keeping it as the entire area comes swarming down on you once you've made a breach. Think of it like you are permanently accompanied by Leeroy Jenkins and you are probably in the ballpark of what I'm imagining. Every kill gets you a level, but if you get 3 of them before TPK, it was a good day. Also you gear is probably gone and ghosts aren't protected from NPCs.

Just some thoughts, take from them what you will.

This would probably have unintended consequences. As it is, many people already solo rank so they can kill two birds with one stone: perfect skills and gain ranks. This would probably just increase the percentage of folks who do that and screw builds that aren't able to easily solo rank, who would now find it even harder to find a group.

If anything, I might prefer a change where group xp is boosted when someone is in the group for whom solo ranking is "hard". Just to make that person more attractive as a group mate and thereby make it easier for him to find groups.

But...that's hard to quantify. Some classes are viable with certain specializations but not others. Some classes are viable at certain ranks but not others. Etc. Some classes that can't solo rank nevertheless have a lot of utility as a non-tanking group mate, so they're already attractive.

My only concern is that there seem to now exists some characters that can't easily solo rank but, because of their play times, find it next to impossible to gain ranks. That's not a good situation.

That's probably the biggest reason people turn down a (apperently) competent group.

.