Doub^H^H^H^H What the XP should be weekend

[eldaec]

Double XP Weekend Returns June 15-17!
Thursday, May 31, 2007

School's out! Father’s Day! Positron’s birthday! So many reasons to celebrate! Yes, Heroes and Villains, the time has come again. Roughly twice a year we turn up the dial and invite players to rack up XP at double the normal rate. Coming soon, Hero and Villain characters will receive double the XP, Influence and Infamy for all of their accomplishments in the game.

Double XP Event Timing:
Start: Friday, June 15th at 8:59am PST / 11:59am EST
Finish: Sunday, June 17th, 8:59pm PST / 11:59pm EST

If you have a friend who wants to join in the fun but hasn’t played before, send them a free 10 day trial and earn free game time through the Referral Program!

The event begins Friday, June 15th! Take advantage of this opportunity to level up your favorite heroes and villains twice as quickly as normal. Good luck and have fun!

I think I will be in Egypt for the duration 

[CmdrSlack]

Nice!  Now I can finally unshelve my lv 41.  If I turn into a massive catass, I might could hit 50 by the end of it.

[Signe]

Yay!  Every weekend should be double exp weekend.  I'd play more then.

[Hutch]

Yay!  Every weekend should be double exp weekend.  I'd play more then.

My current "main", the level 30 controller, would be 50 by now if every weekend was double xp weekend :)

Mmmmm double xp can't wait.

[JWIV]

Yay!  Every weekend should be double exp weekend.  I'd play more then.

They need to just fix the XP curve period.  But people have been saying that since release.

[Lantyssa]

Nice!  Now I can finally unshelve my lv 41.  If I turn into a massive catass, I might could hit 50 by the end of it.

Doubtful.  You'll just be 42 2/3 instead of 42.

[CmdrSlack]

Nice!  Now I can finally unshelve my lv 41.  If I turn into a massive catass, I might could hit 50 by the end of it.

Doubtful.  You'll just be 42 2/3 instead of 42.

I went from 35 to 41 during the last one...so it SEEMS doable...

[Lantyssa]

Unfortunately it slows down even more in the 40s.

[stark]

Unfortunately it slows down even more in the 40s.

That is untrue, from 39 to 50 the leveling rate is steady.  The XP increase per reward goes up at the same rate as XP to next level.  If it takes 2000 even-con minions to get from 42 to 43, then it will take 2000 even-con minions to get from 43 to 44.

[Nebu]

That is untrue, from 39 to 50 the leveling rate is steady.  The XP increase per reward goes up at the same rate as XP to next level.  If it takes 2000 even-con minions to get from 42 to 43, then it will take 2000 even-con minions to get from 43 to 44.

Then the question becomes: Does it take the same amount of time to kill an even con minion at 42 as it does at 43. 

The statement you have above seems off to me as nearly every mmo has a logarithmic sliding xp scale.  What you've described it linear.  I'd be glad if you're correct, but it certainly seems like I have to kill more even con mobs each level I progress through the game. 

[stark]

Up until 39 the amount of even con kills increases (thus increasing time per level).  The 40-50 content was added after release and there were already grind complaints, perhaps explaining the flat time to level 40+.  Killing minions doesn't reallly take any longer as you level from 40 to 50, it also doesn't speed up either as most of the significant character development has already taken place.

Here is the even con mobs to kill per level as calculated from numbers here:

Code:

11  135 800  1701 3033
34  356 865  1831 3033
58  370 933  1961 3031
80  413 1004 2100 3030
112 466 1065 2285 3030
131 500 1174 2470 3029
150 550 1274 2658 3028
191 600 1366 2848 3027
208 650 1443 3073 3027
225 700 1568 3034	

[Hutch]

stuff

Preview is your friend.

[Nebu]

Preview is your friend.

Holy City of Excel Spreadsheets, Batman!

[eldaec]

This table from that link reminds me of one of my biggest irritations with PUGs in CoH.

Code:

Char Lvl Rel to Team avg    Weight    
   -5 and below              0 	
   -4                        0.45 	
   -3                        0.68 	
   -2                        0.85 	
   -1                        0.95 	
    0                        1 	
   +1                        1.05 	
   +2                        1.1 	
   +3                        1.15
   +4                        1.25

This what most people forget when joining groups and worrying about whether to allow themselves to be sk'd for xp reasons.

Based on the assumption that any team is running missions of the same relative level vs team average level, this chart, plus the fact that xp per mob increases at a little over 10% per level, means you should always seek to be in the between -2 and +1 of the average team level. And what that means, is that if anyone in your team can sidekick anyone else, they always should, as it will improve their xp in almost all cases.

Taking the normal worst case example of someone going from -3 to be sidekicked by a team average player, bringing them up to -1. The sidekick gains 31% per mob (from the xp weight chart above 0.85 xp / 0.68 xp = 131%), then loses around 25% (because the mob now cons two levels lower), plus you are now a stronger hero contributing more to a faster mission completion.

Moral of the story : always sidekick. No matter how hard it is to convince your PUG, xp will always be better.

[Hutch]

Preview is your friend.

Holy City of Excel Spreadsheets, Batman!

Now they have a title for Issue 10

[Glazius]

Moral of the story : always sidekick. No matter how hard it is to convince your PUG, xp will always be better.

Wow. Interesting how that works out. I'll have to keep that in mind.

...of course, given that people are running 8-man missions on Relentless/Invincible at LEVEL FREAKING 10 because "BEST XP W00T!" it may not go over well.

--GF

Hint: wiping every 3 spawns is not BEST XP W00T!

[Xanthippe]

If they doubled the xp rate in general, I'd play again.

[Ragnoros]

If they doubled the xp rate in general, I'd play again.

QFT CoX is by far the most fun MMO in existence. However Character progression slows down way to much way to quickly. And while I made it to 50 once I won't make it again with the grind being what it is. While yes you whould just be playing to have fun with your friends and yada yada yada.... The fact is when you know you have dozens of hours in front of you till your next shiny new move all of which is going to be fighting the same stuff in the same missions (Freakshow are freaking cool, but not the 15000th time) it gets old quick.

Edit: What does the ^H^H^H^H signify?

[Hutch]

RTF^H^H^HCheck out this link!

[rk47]

would it have a free weekend for inactive account owners as well?

[Trippy]

would it have a free weekend for inactive account owners as well?

Doesn't sound like it. I just an email a couple of minutes ago that said this:

If your account is not currently active, this is a great opportunity
to reactivate and join the fun! The Support Center articles below can
assist you with this.

[rk47]

o nvm then, I'll use my 10 day trial referral then to see how things are.
Doubt there's a lot of changes though.

[Trippy]

o nvm then, I'll use my 10 day trial referral then to see how things are.
Doubt there's a lot of changes though.

What was the last issue you played? You can view the major changes here (minus all the major nerfs, which oddly they don't mention):

http://www.cityofheroes.com/game_update9.html

[Phred]

Unfortunately it slows down even more in the 40s.

That is untrue, from 39 to 50 the leveling rate is steady.  The XP increase per reward goes up at the same rate as XP to next level.  If it takes 2000 even-con minions to get from 42 to 43, then it will take 2000 even-con minions to get from 43 to 44.

Yup, the reason it seems longer is probably because you're tired of the same name maps over and over again. Even the portal missions get old real fast as they have like one map per theme.

The offer was well timed to show up a week after anyone who resubscribed for a month was up for their account lapsing like mine was. Unfortunately they didnt redefine weekend to be 52 weeks long so I'm not coming back. I actually got my scrapper from 36-49 in the time I was back but couldn't even be bothered logging in to do the last 3 bubbles of 49 when I knew my account was coming up on expiry.

I like the gameplay in CoH. It's one game I found where your chances of finding a competant pickup group are quite high. Way better than WoW or LoTR in that regard. However, it just gets old too fast, and the one interest I would have, leveling alts, is crushed by the knowledge of the soul destroying grind it would take to accomplish it.

Make it double exp weekend every damn day and we'll talk.

[Xanthippe]

With the exp grind the way it is, a person should be able to have insta max alts once hitting max_level on one toon.

[Driakos]

I love double xp weekend.  I got my corrupter from 12 to 17 (almost 18) in around 3 hours.

I took Teleport as my travel power, I'd never taken it.  It's great fun. 

[Shrike]

After this last weekend, all I can say is holy shit.

I haven't seen server loads like that since...heck, since release. Virtue was a zoo and (aside from the lag) I rather liked it.

I mostly avoided playing my 46 brute and stuck to hero-side. My brute did gain 1 level in about two hours (which is saying something at that level). There were actually 2 instances of Grandville which I haven't seen since, umm, ever? The fun was hero-side, though. My ice/SS tank went from about 8 to 15 in about 8 hours over two days. Not bad, and I actually had fun in *gasp* pickup groups. I wish I'd have had time to work on my fire/dark corruptor, but whatever.

I'm not sure I'd want to see double xp all the time. It's already too easy to outlevel certain important contacts. On the other hand, it's nice to get out of the pre-20 doldrums--or move the post-40 game along, though there's that pesky outleveling the contacts thing again. I suppose it doesn't matter post-45.

I had a good time. It was nice to see new people in the game again. Lots of them.

[Hutch]

The server loads looked like this at the last Double XP event too 

I got my fire/rad theme team corruptor from 33 to 35 in a four hour continuous session, and my level 32 controller got most of the way through 34. I've never had a controller pet in this game before, and I have to say I like it :)

I agree that PUGs are a lot more tolerable (and even fun!) when everyone is focused on a goal, like getting the most out of double xp weekend :)

[Signe]

Freedom seemed to die with three red dots and only 3.5K users.  That's not very good, is it?

[UnSub]

Where did you get the 3.5k from Signe? I'm interested to know the concurrent player numbers from that weekend.

Also: several teams went from lvl 1 - lvl 50 (or close to it) thanks to double xp. And that was with Freedom going down. Just FYI, cause I found it interesting to know.

[Driakos]

I tried to play tonight, couldn't find a group for shit.  There were plenty of people on.  Just no replies to my broadcast, or the LFT system.  "You are looking for any."

Is there a trick?  Maybe a meeting spot on most servers?  Wasn't hard during the weekend XP frenzy, but I had this problem last weekend, and now tonight.  I don't like solo'ing in CoV.  I can even heal and res! 

One of the things I used to enjoy about CoV was I could log in, and within 5 minutes, be rolling around in a group.  It was easy.  Where's the easy!  It's weird, I don't really group up in WoW, and.. I don't think ever in EVE.  CoV just seems wrong without grouping though.

I just ended up doing what I usually do, make a new character.

[eldaec]

I tried to play tonight, couldn't find a group for shit.  There were plenty of people on.  Just no replies to my broadcast, or the LFT system.  "You are looking for any."

Is there a trick?

Open 'Find members' window.
Set search parameters to your level range, and everything else to 'all'.
Click the search button
Notice the greyed out people. They have a group.
Click on a greyed out person, 'send tell' then send them 'Do you have room in your team for a level <level> <class>?'.

Rinse and repeat untill you get an invite. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes assuming there are more than two or three people in groups at your level.

Alternatively form your own group by pming everyone who is in blue (ungrouped), asking if they want to join a group doing whatever you are doing.

Don't bother flagging unless maybe if you are a controller, defender, corruptor or tank.

[Shrike]

CoV populations are low. Some nights groups find you, others you end up soloing.

Another thing: if you're a corruptor and spamming "Healer looking for group", you've just turned off a significant number of people that might have grouped with you. There's serious backlash against the "healer" mentality in CoV (people that play corruptors--like me). It's even worse hero-side with defenders, but there's a far larger pool of potential groupees and a significant population of those don't care about defender/healer angst.

Lastly, it'll depend who you are. My 46 brute usually gets spammed with team invites when she logs on. Many are looking for "tanks". A brute isn't a tank, but resistance brutes--especially stone and electric armor--can fake it pretty well with proper support. Dark corruptors and/or MMs are usually in demand, too (the "healer" thing, though most have the decency not to mention it). If you're a stalker, forget it. Get used to soloing or find a dedicated group. Doms run hot and cold, depending how tuned in your group is (usually not very).

I haven't played hero-side in a LONG time and not enough recently to get a real feel for things. Tanks are always in demand, that I do know. DPS types like blasters and scrapper are a dime-a-dozen, but you usually need several in a full team, so there's work to be had. Controllers and defenders are good things, but, again, it depends on the group leader being tuned into how things work to get the proper ones for a group or make proper use of the ones you have. Many are stuck on the "healer" thing and don't get buffing/debuffing all that well.

Basically, it's like every other MMRPG when it comes to PuGs.

[Signe]

Where did you get the 3.5k from Signe? I'm interested to know the concurrent player numbers from that weekend.

Also: several teams went from lvl 1 - lvl 50 (or close to it) thanks to double xp. And that was with Freedom going down. Just FYI, cause I found it interesting to know.

Various people did checks, some around the time when Freedom started having problems.  I was reading posts in the official forums.  Sorry, don't remember the thread names.  I do know that ValkyrieRising did some checks but I don't know when she did hers. 

Did a check on Victory Friday night. Around 1200 heroside unhidden, 1000 unhidden on villainside. Server was yellow.

Freedom, while red, was sitting with around 1800 for each side.

Trust me hon, I was taking both sides into account with these numbers and did so the last 2 times.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8500306&page=0&fpart=6&vc=1

Sorry not to be more helpful.  Something shiny must have caught my eye.

[Driakos]

I have a Rad/Dark Corrupter that I've been playing.  I do use the search tool, thanks eldaec.  Send out a good amount of tells/invites.  Maybe it's just a run of bad luck.

I learned quick that Stalkers aren't in much demand, and the bad ones get you killed.  Brutes, Masterminds, Dominators, all make good teammates.  Well, so far at least.