Group XP Bonus?

[Zheta]

Is there a group XP bonus on Blue (i.e. bonus XP added for each additional member)? I thought that system was only active on Red. Multiple guild members seem to think a bonus exists on Blue, but I've heard and read conflicting things. I've only ever seen XP slow down with additional members (barring missing a a crucial group role) with safety, community, and such going up as the benefit.

[borgy93]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Game_Mechanics#How_Experience_Works

2% per person according to wiki but i have heard for the final person that its more so a full group gets 20%. But i could be wrong here.

[Swish]

The bonus you're thinking of is definitely only on red, and I agree it can be slower with 6 on blue than 3-4.

Maybe one of the reasons you see fungi monks doing their own thing all the time. There is a "thing" people go on about where adding a 6th member "for the XP bonus" is apparently a good idea but I never noticed a difference.

Best way to get quicker XP is not to look at the XP bar all the time :)

[Troxx]

It would be nice if the xp bonus were a bit larger, but loaded almost entirely towards the back end. The bonus is small enough that xp for most folks is best obtained solo/duo/trio. The only reason (other than the social aspect) to add members 4/5/6 is if the camp is challenging enough that you can't safely do it with less. There are very few of these camps in game.

It would be nicer if there was no bonus until the 4th member, 5% total bonus for 4, 15% total bonus for 5 and 30-40% bonus for a full 6. That would be back-end loaded enough to encourage efficient trios and quads to add more members to their groups in a camp that otherwise doesn't need it.

As it stands, unless grouping with friends or doing a camp that's less safe or incompletely held down, there's no real benefit to adding more people.

[Sodors Finest Poster]

How it stands now on blue (and yes this is classic, but it's terrible - especially now that a majority of players are twinked to the gills) is that if you can solo effectively you are better off soloing.

Otherwise you are best duoing.

There is a 'bonus' but it is very marginal. SOE did not increase this to promote grouping until 2003-ish which is unfortunately outside p99's scope.

Under no circumstances is a full group favorable for grinding exp efficiently.

Now, if you want to talk about exploring a tough dungeon with your best buddies, well thats different - but we're not talking exp gains at that point.

http://i.imgur.com/KiA9Dqx.jpg

[Tecmos Deception]

especially now that a majority of players are twinked to the gills

Eh. The less geared the whole server is, the more relatively powerful casters are. It'd be all the more reason for basically any caster to solo or duo on a young server, really.

[Zheta]

Nah I mean, I don't really care about how much XP is coming in, more interested in the mechanics.

[Tecmos Deception]

Nah I mean, I don't really care about how much XP is coming in, more interested in the mechanics.

There is a group xp bonus. But it is too small to offset the fact that few groups of 6 are as efficient as good duos/trios.

Xp seems to slow as groups grow because either a bigger group has a bad class mix, a lazy/bad player or three, too few mobs to support its kill speed, or too weak of mobs so that too much time is spent waiting on pulls instead of killing. Stuff like that.

[Dinbin]

It's a personal preference thing, but if there is someone LFG in the zone and we've got a group of 3, I'm not gonna let the guy/girl rot in LFG purgatory just so I can level 2% faster. If the mob density permits faster pulls, that usually offsets a lot of the penalty.

Plus I'm not gonna deny a millennial a chance to develop some social skills. :P

[Jimjam]

Agreed, the xp bonus does not offset the effects of social loafing, mob scarcity nor bloat in group. Also agreed that I'd rather fill empty slots and make new friends than leave someone alone (and possibly fostering resentment to the group/players/game).