Assist Experience Penalty

Posted on 05. Nov, 2009 by Goldenstar in New Player Advice

I would guess that most have assisted others they aren’t in a fellowship with before. Assistance can be given in helping kill a monster or in buffing or healing a character engaged in combat. For instance, if I heal someone who’s in combat with a enemy, I will placed in combat as well even if not in a fellowship or not attacking the monster at all.

A lot of the time this assistance is appreciated. I personally can think of the time I clicked on a glowy item simply because I couldn’t resist and spawned a signature monster when I was unprepared for combat. I would have certainly perished if it hadn’t been for the helpful burglar who had popped out of no where and made quick work of that monster for me.

There is a downside to this assistance and it affects the amount of experience the person being helped will receive. This assistance experience penalty happens when any assistance is given. Any amount of damage given to the monster, a debuff applied to the monster or buffs and healing applied to the fighter all will enact this penalty.

Basically when an assist is given, the experience awarded is configured as if in a fellowship even though the person assisting isn’t going to be awarded any experience. The person who started the fight will receive less than full experience due to the assistance. The experience divide can be calculated past 6 people (like if a solo person is assisted by a full fellowship the experience is divided amongst the 7). The person(s) assisting of course gets none of this divided experience because the monster was tagged for the person who initiated the fight. The result is the assisted person’s experience is lessened.

This is most apparent for solo players who are assisted. When in a fellowship, there is an experience bonus applied based on how many people you are in a group with. When solo this bonus is not applied but when assisted the experience is divided up as if in a fellowship. The Lorebook has some examples (with numbers for those of you who enjoy that) on how experience is affected by assistance.

I believe this mechanic is in place to detour the typical MMO practice of power leveling that is prevalent in other games. Typically to be power leveled a high level character follows and assists a leveling character ungrouped. The lower level tags a monster and the higher level kills it granting the lower level character full experience for the kill.

It’s also a good reason to join up with folks fighting in the same area instead of fighting over monster spawns. You’ll both benefit if you are in a group instead of both attempting to tag the monster first.

On the whole, I think most will not be annoyed by random assistance but being aware of this mechanic may cause you think before jumping in to help someone who is not in serious distress.

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9 Responses to “Assist Experience Penalty”

  1. harperella

    05. Nov, 2009

    There was a discussion a few months back in the forums on the etiquette of assistance. My takeaway was that it annoyed a small minority, but was a good thing in general. Id rather play on a game where strangers help than one wherer everyone is a soloer.

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  2. Goldenstar

    05. Nov, 2009

    I agree. I don’t mind at all if someone helps me.

    I was upset with myself the other day when I saw a dwarf being eaten by a bear and I rushed to “save” him and pushed my heal button… Then I realized I was on my burglar, nor my minstrel. Instead it looked like I ran to him and then hid. I of course apologized to the dwarf telling him my intention was to help him, not get a closer view of his death. How embarassing!

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  3. Lonnath Arda - Blog Archive - Experience good and bad

    05. Nov, 2009

    [...] November 5th, 2009Posted By: banhornPosted in: UncategorizedGoldenstar has a great post about the Assist Experience Penalty over on A Casual Stroll to Mordor.  Go check it out. It touches on some things that fascinated [...]

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  4. camenecium

    05. Nov, 2009

    I don’t mind it when it’s help, and I can forgive it when it’s an accident, but I doubly hate is obvious kill-stealing–because it’s rude and ineffective. I wish more people understood the mechanics so they could make informed choices about assisting and fellowing. Hmm, maybe a blog post …

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  5. Camenecium - Experience good and bad

    05. Nov, 2009

    [...] good and bad Goldenstar has a great post about the Assist Experience Penalty over on A Casual Stroll to Mordor.  Go check it out. It touches on some things that fascinated [...]

    Reply to this comment

    • camenecium

      08. Nov, 2009

      Oops. Apologies, I did not know that pingback would come from both my.lotro and camenecium.com in addition to my superfluous original post!

      Reply to this comment

  6. Pete S

    07. Nov, 2009

    I really dislike this kind of system, even though many MMOs use it. Yes, it prevents power-leveling, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing. If a customer feels like he’s leveling too slowly and not having any fun, and he gets a friend to power-level him so he can ‘catch up’ and then ends up enjoying the game, is that really so bad? The alternative might be him canceling his sub in frustration.

    Second, LOTRO doesn’t seem like a game where advancing through killing is very efficient. And the experience penalty doesn’t do anything to prevent ‘power leveling’ by helping a lower level player complete quests, so why put it in?

    So what you end up with is a system that can cause friction between players, makes players think twice about helping someone (it only takes getting cursed at a couple times before you think “f-this, I’m not helping anyone anymore”) and really doesn’t prevent power leveling anyway.

    If they’re going to penalize the helped player, they should at least do it fairly. If a fellowship of 2 helps a solo player, then the solo player should get the same experience as he would’ve gotten had he been in a 3-player fellowship. If I’m understanding correctly, he gets 1/3 the exp, without the fellowship bonus. I say at least factor in the fellowship bonus.

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  7. Merric

    09. Nov, 2009

    Pete:

    A lot of people agree with you, and although I don’t see gaming companies switching this around, a lot of players would be happy to see some kind of “mentor/sidekick” solution as a compromise or something along the lines of Blizzard’s “Recruit a friend” program (which is my personal favorite solution).

    No, grinding out mobs is not an efficient way to level at all, sticking to quests will supply the most exp, but I think companies want some way to deter something I saw in EverQuest which was high level characters like druids powerleveling alts.

    It’s a tough line to balance, but I agree there needs to be some way to help players level through some kind of system without making it so powerful that we have max-level characters in a week (unless you just played 15 hours a day, I guess).

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