PC The problem with shared XP in MP

[F6Knight]

I recently (yesterday or 2 days ago) saw Madmole react to a post about B238 or B240 and mention the reason for gating the forge, vehicles and workbench/weapons behind player levels again after they were briefly ungated (for like 2 days).

He mentioned that it was needed because people in multiplayer were getting to the "end game" by day 5.

But at the same time, the shared XP system in multiplayer creates 80% bonus xp out of thin air (for a 2 player group).

Imho this is the root of the problem.

If a regular zombie gives 550xp to 1 player, it should NOT give 494 xp each to 2 players sharing the xp.

You will never be able to balance SP and MP progression as long as shared xp works like this and you'll only punish the SP experience.

Why not properly share the XP between all players in the group (and in range) instead of giving bonus xp?

If a 2 player group kills 1 regular zombie they should get 275xp each instead of 494.

A small example from my own experience:

My friend and I did night 7 yesterday on the default 8 zombies per horde setting. We set up a zig zag maze filled with barbed wire so we could shoot the zombies from behind our wooden bars for the xp and we each got 5 levels. I went from 13 to 18 and he went from 15 to 20. That's just ridiculous.

2 small POI's later (solo, no shared xp and I only went in those to get the zombie kills) I hit 20 and started making iron tools for the both of us. On day 8 around noon.

Yes, we already had iron tools that we looted but they were all level 1. Now we suddenly upgraded to level 4's filled with mods which I had bought on the trader on days 1-5 after running 1-2 quests/day.

 

[EzRemade]

There are servers right now which just wiped for the stable release, and there are already people level 30+. It almost makes the level gating a cherry on top for the solo.

 

[LordoftheMoo]

A grouping bonus should be small. I've played other games that have it and they've always been on the order of 5% or 10% per player, and those games have all capped at 5 or 6 players in a group (though not for balancing the exp bonus). A bonus of 90% seems absurdly high, and game breaking. That needs to be a low number if there is any hope of balancing it against a single player.

 

[myrkana]

If you think its too fast, turn it off you can set the share exp so a tiny range and I think you can turn it off completely.

 

[skullpoker]

Say there are 12 zombies in a given POI. Say 8x550, 3x800, 1x900. In a solo game, you will get all of that if you complete the POI.

If the same number spawn in a multiplayer POI, you will only get that amount of XP if you kill all of them. Anybody else who is present will get 80% of that. And if different players kill some of the zombies, each of them will get between 80-100%.

Meaning that if you are playing as a tight group on MP server, each of you will level nearly as fast as Solo. Yes, it's OP. But at the same time, nobody gets left behind, which makes it fun for newer players and promotes SPEC for each player.

 

[EzRemade]

Say there are 12 zombies in a given POI. Say 8x550, 3x800, 1x900. In a solo game, you will get all of that if you complete the POI.
If the same number spawn in a multiplayer POI, you will only get that amount of XP if you kill all of them. Anybody else who is present will get 80% of that. And if different players kill some of the zombies, each of them will get between 80-100%.

Meaning that if you are playing as a tight group on MP server, each of you will level nearly as fast as Solo. Yes, it's OP. But at the same time, nobody gets left behind, which makes it fun for newer players and promotes SPEC for each player.

In a perfect world, yes. But in reality people are grouping up, using mass campfires, spawning in screamers, and sitting there farming non stop hordes which creates this crazy steam of exp.

 

[manni44]

In a perfect world, yes. But in reality people are grouping up, using mass campfires, spawning in screamers, and sitting there farming non stop hordes which creates this crazy steam of exp.

We had this before they moved to learning by doing xp. What ever way u get xp, ppl will always choose easyest way to get xp.

U get most xp per hour killing zombies, they go and farm zombies.

If u get most xp per hour by crafting stoneaxes, they will spam stoneaxes.

Once u get most xp per hour punching stone with bare hands they will go for that......

 

[Narsiph]

Heyho.

Experience Points are a hard topic for every single game. In most games they work just fine and there will always be the one specific player group abusing everything within a given system.

If done correctly, the abuse can be reduced to a minimum, especially when you have a relative fair system. '7dtd' has currently nothing worthwile and i think they probably try out different stuff. An interesting idea i came up with would be like something like this:

Combat-Experience

- You get Combat Experience Poitns for, exactly, combat. You can spent CXP only for Combat-Skills. Rewards Player that want to do Combat.

Labor-Experience

- You get Labor Experience for building and destroying materials. Building a house, destroying blocks and so on. Again, the same as CXP but this time only for labor-stuff. Rewards players for exactly that.

Science-Experience

- When you craft tools, gadgets and stuff, you get science experience to discover new things. Recipes and stuff can be unlocked like "Heureka! I actually remember how i cuild build a very basic saw" You get the point.

Every playstile is rewarding and equally (in this case a rather good thing) fair in progression, skills, perks and so on.

How about something like this. And nah, i would not give any bonus just because you're in a group. Its a survival game. You survive probably at a higher chance with a group of people. Thats the reward: Survival.

May the seventh day be in your favor.

 

[Ghostlight]

We had this before they moved to learning by doing xp. What ever way u get xp, ppl will always choose easyest way to get xp.

Pre-A17 people didn't feel the need to do that.

Power-levelling in A17 is mandatory to reduce the tedium of the early game not the challenge. So NOW, people feel impelled to doing it.

Plus in A16 since you could only raise many skills by actually doing them. People no longer need to do skills to improve them. Just gain XP the fastest way you can. A17, specifically, created this problem.

- - - Updated - - -

Say there are 12 zombies in a given POI. Say 8x550, 3x800, 1x900. In a solo game, you will get all of that if you complete the POI.
If the same number spawn in a multiplayer POI, you will only get that amount of XP if you kill all of them. Anybody else who is present will get 80% of that. And if different players kill some of the zombies, each of them will get between 80-100%.

Meaning that if you are playing as a tight group on MP server, each of you will level nearly as fast as Solo. Yes, it's OP. But at the same time, nobody gets left behind, which makes it fun for newer players and promotes SPEC for each player.

You will level faster in MP. Much faster. Because that tight group will also clear POIs much faster (and safer).

 

[beHypE]

My biggest gripe with experience is that after numerous builds, it's still only about killing zombies. Every time I play with my friends we're like "so we got enough food and are ready for the night, what do we wanna unlock next ?" and the plan is always the same : run around trying to find zombies, wake up sleepers in cities, etc etc.

I can't fathom why TFP thinks gating everything behind zombie kills is a good concept (and this comes from a guy who almost ONLY plays FPS games, so killing stuff is my thing). Of course zombies are an important part of the game, but how is it fun when the only reasonable thing to do to progress at a decent pace is farming zeds endlessly ? This would be less of a problem if all the knowledge in the game wasn't gated behind perks, since then, killing zombies would only make you tougher and a better farmer/zombie killer, but right now all the content is virtually locked behind zombie kills. It truly bugs me how anyone can think of this as good game design, especially given how lackluster PvE combat is compared to other games.

The most frustrating thing is we were told several times "it's experimental, wait for it", and the only thing that actually happened was nerfing zombie experience a bit. That isn't called balancing, it's called cutting off the part that's sticking out. And now it's "stable"...

Regarding shared experience bonus, while it may be over the top, I don't think nerfing it will make a difference. People who want to power level with screamers will still do it, it will just piss them off more. And it would ruin it for others who play "normally", just like some people spamcrafting pushed TFP to disable "improving by doing". Don't just ♥♥♥♥ up the game for those who play normally because some abuse it...

 

[Slingblade2040]

Say there are 12 zombies in a given POI. Say 8x550, 3x800, 1x900. In a solo game, you will get all of that if you complete the POI.
If the same number spawn in a multiplayer POI, you will only get that amount of XP if you kill all of them. Anybody else who is present will get 80% of that. And if different players kill some of the zombies, each of them will get between 80-100%.

Meaning that if you are playing as a tight group on MP server, each of you will level nearly as fast as Solo. Yes, it's OP. But at the same time, nobody gets left behind, which makes it fun for newer players and promotes SPEC for each player.

You seem to not realize at the speed at which a group of players can clear a PoI of that size compared to a solo player. By the time a solo player clears that single PoI a group of 3 can clear 4 of those. The group share exp needs to be reduced alot. Maybe down to 15% at the most. This would encourage questing to level up on MP.

 

[beHypE]

You seem to not realize at the speed at which a group of players can clear a PoI of that size compared to a solo player. By the time a solo player clears that single PoI a group of 3 can clear 4 of those. The group share exp needs to be reduced alot. Maybe down to 15% at the most. This would encourage questing to level up on MP.

You also don't seem to take into the equation the fact that the POIs are limited. Yes, you clear them faster as a group, but once the town is cleared, you need to find another one. Finding one and getting there takes a huge amount of time that you need to take into consideration when you compare experience gaining speeds. So while the experience WHILE clearing the POIs is faster as a group, you also need to travel more often and it takes time.

It's just like comparing two weapons only for their single bullet damage and stating the one with the biggest is better, without taking into account magazine size, attack speed and reload time.

 

[Slingblade2040]

You also don't seem to take into the equation the fact that the POIs are limited. Yes, you clear them faster as a group, but once the town is cleared, you need to find another one. Finding one and getting there takes a huge amount of time that you need to take into consideration when you compare experience gaining speeds. So while the experience WHILE clearing the POIs is faster as a group, you also need to travel more often and it takes time.
It's just like comparing two weapons only for their single bullet damage and stating the one with the biggest is better, without taking into account magazine size, attack speed and reload time.

No its not like comparing two weapons. Clearing out the PoIs faster would lead to quicker leveling and getting loot faster which would lead to items that help players travel like the bicycle so the travel time is cut down considerably.

Like I said the solution to this problem of folks on MP leveling very fast is to nerf the share exp to a 15% cap and have them do trader quests to level faster.

 

[madmole]

My biggest gripe with experience is that after numerous builds, it's still only about killing zombies. Every time I play with my friends we're like "so we got enough food and are ready for the night, what do we wanna unlock next ?" and the plan is always the same : run around trying to find zombies, wake up sleepers in cities, etc etc.
I can't fathom why TFP thinks gating everything behind zombie kills is a good concept (and this comes from a guy who almost ONLY plays FPS games, so killing stuff is my thing). Of course zombies are an important part of the game, but how is it fun when the only reasonable thing to do to progress at a decent pace is farming zeds endlessly ? This would be less of a problem if all the knowledge in the game wasn't gated behind perks, since then, killing zombies would only make you tougher and a better farmer/zombie killer, but right now all the content is virtually locked behind zombie kills. It truly bugs me how anyone can think of this as good game design, especially given how lackluster PvE combat is compared to other games.

The most frustrating thing is we were told several times "it's experimental, wait for it", and the only thing that actually happened was nerfing zombie experience a bit. That isn't called balancing, it's called cutting off the part that's sticking out. And now it's "stable"...

Regarding shared experience bonus, while it may be over the top, I don't think nerfing it will make a difference. People who want to power level with screamers will still do it, it will just piss them off more. And it would ruin it for others who play "normally", just like some people spamcrafting pushed TFP to disable "improving by doing". Don't just ♥♥♥♥ up the game for those who play normally because some abuse it...

Should I fire gazz? I've told him to increase passive XP about 10 times. When you guys see massive changes, its me. When you minor changes, its probably Gazz. Just saying we have a different style, I double it, then half it back, then half it back again if needed to land quickly in the right spot. He might move things up 5% at a time. Each way works, but my method will get people screaming about nerfs where his gradually gets there.

We'll get it there, it takes time. He did raise harvest XP substantially. You can get 300 for killing a rock, that can't hit you back. I'm not sure what kind of xp you expect from killing a defenseless rock but I think its getting close to where it should be. I wouldn't ever expect it to keep up though.

 

[beHypE]

Should I fire gazz? I've told him to increase passive XP about 10 times. When you guys see massive changes, its me. When you minor changes, its probably Gazz. Just saying we have a different style, I double it, then half it back, then half it back again if needed to land quickly in the right spot. He might move things up 5% at a time. Each way works, but my method will get people screaming about nerfs where his gradually gets there.
We'll get it there, it takes time. He did raise harvest XP substantially. You can get 300 for killing a rock, that can't hit you back. I'm not sure what kind of xp you expect from killing a defenseless rock but I think its getting close to where it should be. I wouldn't ever expect it to keep up though.

Could you hire me instead ?

Jokes aside, the biggest difference in our point of view comes from the fact that I don't take into account if what I'm hitting is going to hit me back or not, because let's face it, daytime zombies aren't that huge of a threat anyways, especially those out in the wild (and I play on daytime run). I analyze things by focusing on the one thing that 7DTD has/had above all other games : it's an amazing time sink through a lot of different gamestyle possibilities. Hitting a rock IS one of those activities you can invest time in (mining), I'd even argue that it actually takes a way longer time harvesting a full rock than what killing a zombie takes. On that topic though, increasing the experience for tougher zombies and/or reducing experience from lower tiers that get dismissed in one shot after some days should be a thing Gazz should take into account. I don't have the numbers, but when a Zoe that I one-tap gives me roughly half the experience a feral does, I feel like it's a numbers game over anything else.

Harvesting/Mining, Cooking, Crafting and Upgrading blocks ARE tasks that take time and when you used to get decent experience from all that time spent (improving by doing), you had a feeling you could play however you wanted because you WOULD progress no matter what.

You could play a sneaky assassin that kills only the necessary on his run, and tries to get lucky by finding all the recipes he needs quickly. You could play a miner who gets the minimum he needs off the land but focuses on mining and building because that's what he enjoys. But right now, avoiding a zombie is a fallacy, and while you don't need to look for every zombie possible, you definitely have to kill a high enough number before you can really be good at any other activity.

Madmole, honest question and i'll stop bothering with this stuff because I have been for way too long, are there any plans to bring back randomness to recipes/knowledge (via books or any other mechanic) or will all the recipes keep being locked behind experience for good (no matter which sources provides most) ?

 

[FranticDan]

Heyho.
Experience Points are a hard topic for every single game. In most games they work just fine and there will always be the one specific player group abusing everything within a given system.

If done correctly, the abuse can be reduced to a minimum, especially when you have a relative fair system. '7dtd' has currently nothing worthwile and i think they probably try out different stuff. An interesting idea i came up with would be like something like this:

Combat-Experience

- You get Combat Experience Poitns for, exactly, combat. You can spent CXP only for Combat-Skills. Rewards Player that want to do Combat.

Labor-Experience

- You get Labor Experience for building and destroying materials. Building a house, destroying blocks and so on. Again, the same as CXP but this time only for labor-stuff. Rewards players for exactly that.

Science-Experience

- When you craft tools, gadgets and stuff, you get science experience to discover new things. Recipes and stuff can be unlocked like "Heureka! I actually remember how i cuild build a very basic saw" You get the point.

Every playstile is rewarding and equally (in this case a rather good thing) fair in progression, skills, perks and so on.

How about something like this. And nah, i would not give any bonus just because you're in a group. Its a survival game. You survive probably at a higher chance with a group of people. Thats the reward: Survival.

May the seventh day be in your favor.

Yes, the 'learn by doing' mixed with the current implementation is what I feel would help solve this.

Right now I feel the zombies give too much exp, lowering it by another 25% or so will make other sources of exp look desirable again like they were in A16. As it stands currently, I'm reaching level 100 by day 30.

 

[Cadamier]

Should I fire gazz? I've told him to increase passive XP about 10 times. When you guys see massive changes, its me. When you minor changes, its probably Gazz. Just saying we have a different style, I double it, then half it back, then half it back again if needed to land quickly in the right spot. He might move things up 5% at a time. Each way works, but my method will get people screaming about nerfs where his gradually gets there.
We'll get it there, it takes time. He did raise harvest XP substantially. You can get 300 for killing a rock, that can't hit you back. I'm not sure what kind of xp you expect from killing a defenseless rock but I think its getting close to where it should be. I wouldn't ever expect it to keep up though.

No! "We" all need Gazz!

I personally don't care for the shared exp. I play in a group of 9 of us and sure its fine and all that but I can see where it can be abused.... There are some whom will farm exp from others work, thereby not having to do much. Just wondering if there is any issue with two people killing different zed's at near the same time... Anyway - I do feel the pain of not getting that shared exp while playing SP.

One thing everyone seems to forget is that this was a total re-write! So... If you pause a moment and think about that then you should come to the conclusion that basically this is like a different game or starting over... Sure "Their" changes will get people all riled up but still - more than likely - they've got to tweak things!

 

[Ghostlight]

You seem to not realize at the speed at which a group of players can clear a PoI of that size compared to a solo player. By the time a solo player clears that single PoI a group of 3 can clear 4 of those. The group share exp needs to be reduced alot. Maybe down to 15% at the most. This would encourage questing to level up on MP.

How so? The trader quests are just about the most inefficient use of your time possible whether or not it's SP or MP.

 

[Slingblade2040]

How so? The trader quests are just about the most inefficient use of your time possible whether or not it's SP or MP.

It's the only solution. Obviously they will have to increase the rewards for exp and dukes from those quests which supposedly madmole is working on. But yes putting a cap on the amount of shared exp and making the quests reward for exp and dukes better will fix the issue.

 

[JCrook1028]

Totally agree with OP. A Zombie should not magically give orders of magnitude more total xp just because it is killed by a group rather than by a single player. Want to share xp? Then share the same xp pool. 1 = 550. 2 = 275 each etc. IMO 2 = 494 each is just nonsense. It's already easier to kill just by virtue of being grouped. No reason to generate magic bonus xp also. Makes me ill to watch people cheese xp for a weaker member by having them sit out of harms way and get free xp by others killing. Pathetic.