Patrol XP for Explore Badges is a Useless Bonus

[Shae3per]

On 2/28/2024 at 10:53 AM, arcane said:

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

most people, like myself and others, are altaholics and have many characters, so 1 and 2 do make sense if you don't play the same characters every day.

[arcane]

2 minutes ago, Shae3per said:

most people, like myself and others, are altaholics and have many characters, so 1 and 2 do make sense if you don't play the same characters every ten days.

Fixed a little but sure.

[Shae3per]

On 2/28/2024 at 10:53 AM, arcane said:

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

I simply don't like that they have moved some of the badges and added more to hunt down. I don't find this fun at all. Im heading back to Champions. Have fun all.

[Haijinx]

You wonder why human technology was relatively stagnant for hundreds of thousands of years. 

 

Then you realize why. 

[Ukase]

So, I was one of the folks that gave specific feedback about this change - I do not like it. I played a character every day this week. My main objective, aside from doing specific story arcs, was to make leveling as efficient as I could without farming. So, I teamed a lot more than I normally do. 

At the end of each day's gaming session, I would go and get the exploration badges, and the next day begin with what I hoped would be a full 10 bars of patrol XP. But - because the amount of patrol xp tapers off as you level, if I was, for example 8 bars into a level, I could see the next two bars were covered as far as patrol xp goes. But beyond that, I've no visual clue as to how much I have beyond the 2 bars. 

Now, I can right click on the xp bar and see how much patrol XP I have in numbers, but to my mind, the number is a bit meaningless, unless I go to the wiki and determine specifically how much XP I need for the specific level, then compare to how much patrol XP I have. 

Yeah. Like we all want to do that in the midst of our gaming. I did adapt, and kind of figure out that when you hit your 30's, you need to hit a couple of zones. In your 40's you need to cover 3 zones. 

I would have liked to wait and use the patrol xp for when I'm trying to get vet levels, but the amount of patrol xp offered at that level is so meaningless, it's not worth it, so I get them in the early levels when you can see the bar fill with each badge. 

I do like the exploration tips, and the dialogue that comes with most of them. (I just did Dark Astoria on a new 50 for fun). I just wish they dropped in a more rational order, instead of sending me from the west wall to the east wall, and then back again. I'll just use my vidiotmaps in the future to avoid this, but I thought I'd try it out. 

The OP certainly makes it clear that if you alt a lot and play different characters on a rotation - he's right. His patrol XP never runs out the way he does it. Seems like a smart way to level if you can remember the distinctions between each character - like which one did the weekly and which ones didn't. 

So, yeah, I'm in his corner on this. There was nothing wrong with the way it worked before. 

[lemming]

33 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Now, I can right click on the xp bar and see how much patrol XP I have in numbers, but to my mind, the number is a bit meaningless, unless I go to the wiki and determine specifically how much XP I need for the specific level, then compare to how much patrol XP I have. 

Yeah. Like we all want to do that in the midst of our gaming. I did adapt, and kind of figure out that when you hit your 30's, you need to hit a couple of zones. In your 40's you need to cover 3 zones. 

I would have liked to wait and use the patrol xp for when I'm trying to get vet levels, but the amount of patrol xp offered at that level is so meaningless, it's not worth it, so I get them in the early levels when you can see the bar fill with each badge.

Yep, we need Patrol XP to be added to combat attributes to make it easier to track (perhaps with a percentage?)

 

At 50 it still adds up fairly quickly.  (25% of a bar, so 40 badges to fill patrol)  I had a widow parked forever and with the recent changes, respec'd and noted no accolades.  And since I tend to do an entire zone, I've been hitting the cap a lot.  Then I go do some missions, etc...

 

The old version was certainly easier to work with.

 

More bits of math just to check:

So, at level 50, one badge is 140200 patrol XP, before the change it was 1,000xp (well, at base levels, server xp bonus worked)

Gets reduced by XP gain and you're getting a 50% bonus iirc.  So I think that one badge is equal to getting 46733 xp, just a little more drawn out.

 

Anyone remember when badges giving direct XP was added?

[PeregrineFalcon]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:56 AM, Jimmy said:

The main intent of this change was to make exploration more rewarding - specifically exploration in the course of your normal gameplay rather than just a standalone dedicated activity (for those players, the badges are the main draw, so it didn't need much more of an incentive).

I understand what you're saying, and I agree that the math shows it's an actual improvement in all but a few edge cases. However, you've also removed the only source of non-combat XP in the game and replaced it with something that gives no reward. Sure, it means I'll level faster, unless I'm already running an XP booster.

 

Also, what's normal gameplay? I'm not trying to argue semantics here, it's a serious question. If I log in one day and decide to get a bunch of exploration badges for the teleporter, or because I'm a badge hunter, or because I just like exploring the zones, then how is that not normal gameplay?

 

Essentially the developers have said that "combat is the only normal gameplay" and this change enforces that by removing the only source of non-combat XP.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Sure, it means I'll level faster, unless I'm already running an XP booster.

A XP Booster and Patrol XP are additive.  So running 2x XP, plus Patrol would give you +150%  (ie, 2.5x)

 

If you're on a server with double XP, then 3.5.  

[RikOz]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:53 AM, arcane said:

You do realize how long it takes to fill up on patrol xp from logging out, don’t you? Points 1 and 2 don’t make sense.

The make sense if you have as many alts as I do :D

[Sunsette]

I do think there's something to the idea that it feels more rewarding when straight XP is received, though I got the impression from the dev commentary that it was not reasonably feasible for whatever reason to have the XP reward scale even though Patrol XP does. I might be inferring erroneously.

 

(Inference drawn from below quote; if it was easy to scale, I don't see why that would be a problem.)

  

On 2/29/2024 at 12:56 PM, Jimmy said:

Boosting the amount of XP from exploration badges wasn't really an option, as it would need to be a massive amount to have any real impact.

 

 

Edited March 6 by Sunsette

[cohRock]

I'm another who likes this change.  Although I do like it generally, I didn't see anyone mention the main thing I like -- its affect on the day job badge, Patroller (Criminal for villains and rogues).   Previously, depending on play-style and frequency of play of a given character, this could take a very long time to earn, because it depended on both gaining and using patrol xp.  I.e., being logged out was insufficient; the character had to actually use up the patrol xp to gain credit for the badge.  Being logged out for a long period of time simply advanced the counter to a limit, and you had to log in and use up some to gain any more.

 

Let Her RRP

Why does this matter?  The day job power Rapid Response Portal (RRP)  depends on it.  One can easily earn its inferior version, Monitor Duty Teleporter. (MDT). To get charges for either, one first has to earn the day job badge, Monitor Duty by being logged out near a  permanent base portal for 100 hours.  After that, logging out near a portal earns charges for MDT.  However, if you also have the Patroller/Criminal badge, you also earn charges for RRP.  (Yes, you can earn charges for both powers simultaneously, but only by obtaining the patrol xp badge first.  This is now much easier, and a character need not stand near the portal 8 days twice to fully charge both powers.  This would frequently happen to me because of the long time it took to get Patroller or Criminal.

 

IMO the RRP is an undervalued power.  While MDT lets your character go to a base, RRP is like the Ouroboros Portal.  It drops a base portal anywhere which anyone can use.  Its degree of usefulness approaches the Team Teleporter (TT).  It even exceeds it in the cases where a team task is to go to another zone to hunt, but with no door mission for the TT to lock onto.

[TheZag]

So they gave 1000 xp before no matter what your level was?  That sounds useful at low levels and useless at high levels.  Patrol xp is kinda pointless at low levels because of how fast you burn through it and more useful at high levels.  It seems to me like the fix would have been to leave the xp gain for usefulness to low level characters and just add the patrol xp to make exploration badge rewards useful across the entire level range.  As the usefulness of direct xp becomes lessened,  the patrol xp will pick up the slack as you approach the maximum level.

 

Edited March 7 by TheZag

[lemming]

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

So they gave 1000 xp before no matter what your level was?  That sounds useful at low levels and useless at high levels.  Patrol xp is kinda pointless at low levels because of how fast you burn through it and more useful at high levels.  It seems to me like the fix would have been to leave the xp gain for usefulness to low level characters and just add the patrol xp to make exploration badge rewards useful across the entire level range.  As the usefulness of direct xp becomes lessened,  the patrol xp will pick up the slack as you approach the maximum level.

It varied based on level.   1000 or so at 50, much less at lower levels.  (50 at base level 2?)

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, lemming said:

It varied based on level.   1000 or so at 50, much less at lower levels.  (50 at base level 2?)

It was 5 at level 1. I believe it was 10 at level 2.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

It was 5 at level 1. I believe it was 10 at level 2.

Zero at level 1.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, lemming said:

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

It was 5 at level 1. I believe it was 10 at level 2.

Zero at level 1.

No, it was 5 at level 1. I typically grabbed all my early explores at level 1 and they always awarded 5 xp unless I had xp turned off.

[gabrilend]

It seems to me that there are two groups of people in this thread. One that like the change, and one that don't.

 

I always believe that true justice is when everyone gets what they want.

 

Would it be a bother to make the patrol badges do both functions? For example, let's say that a patrol badge used to get you 1000 exp, and now it gets you 10,000 patrol exp. Would it not satisfy everyone if it was changed such that it provided 1000exp and 9000 patrol exp?

[lemming]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

No, it was 5 at level 1. I typically grabbed all my early explores at level 1 and they always awarded 5 xp unless I had xp turned off.

Huh.  Cause I remember being annoyed at my self for not getting any XP because I forgot to get to level 2 first.  In any case, not important.   It scaled from OK XP at low levels, to insignificant.  I did put together a chart with the Patrol XP from last night.

 

Level	Incremental	Cumaltive	Patrol	Bubble %	B 2 M
1	n/a	0	15	142	8
2	106	106	38	113	9
3	337	443	81	139	8
4	582	1,025	107	134	8
5	800	1,825	160	129	8
6	1,237	3,062	196	124	9
7	1,575	4,637	234	120	9
8	1,950	6,587	311	116	9
9	2,680	9,267	350	112	9
10	3,125	12,392	388	108	10
11	3,600	15,992	519	104	10
12	4,995	20,987	642	100	10
13	6,405	27,392	715	97	11
14	7,400	34,792	848	93	11
15	9,093	43,885	1,005	90	12
16	11,184	55,069	1,127	87	12
17	13,000	68,069	1,333	84	12
18	15,950	84,019	1,547	81	13
19	19,200	103,219	1,818	78	13
20	23,400	126,619	2,097	75	14
21	28,000	154,619	2,599	72	14
22	36,000	190,619	3,132	70	15
23	45,000	235,619	3,757	67	15
24	56,000	291,619	4,483	65	16
25	69,300	360,919	5,316	62	17
26	85,200	446,119	6,490	60	17
27	108,000	554,119	7,830	58	18
28	135,000	689,119	9,315	56	18
29	166,650	855,769	10,963	54	19
30	203,400	1,059,169	13,183	52	20
31	254,000	1,313,169	15,760	50	20
32	314,600	1,627,769	18,663	48	21
33	386,400	2,014,169	21,882	46	22
34	470,600	2,484,769	25,646	45	23
35	571,200	3,055,969	30,374	43	24
36	701,500	3,757,469	35,640	42	24
37	854,700	4,612,169	41,671	40	25
38	1,036,600	5,648,769	48,507	39	26
39	1,250,200	6,898,969	56,195	37	27
40	1,502,550	8,401,519	60,944	36	28
41	1,692,900	10,094,419	66,191	35	29
42	1,907,550	12,001,969	72,043	33	30
43	2,150,550	14,152,519	78,227	32	31
44	2,421,900	16,574,419	84,893	31	33
45	2,729,700	19,304,119	92,340	30	34
46	3,078,000	22,382,119	100,307	29	35
47	3,470,850	25,852,969	109,153	28	36
48	3,912,300	29,765,269	118,641	27	38
49	4,410,450	34,175,719	128,811	26	39
50	4,973,400	39,149,119	140,200	25	40
50+	5,608,000	n/a	140,200	25