Grouping XP needs to be boosted!

Hey all, I recently began playing again with a group of friends and we typically roll around as a team. One of the things that we immediately saw was how much of a hit to XP you take when fighting and defeating enemies while in a group. It looks like it's near 30-50% reduction in XP generated. Even with the "team bonus" you get from defeating enemies, this is a rediculous penalty which seems to me to come out of nowhere. I always thought that grouping should be encouraged but at this rate we have all found it faster to just level solo as opposed to leveling together on a team, which is a complete shame. It's really not what we want to do, but when four of us are together we're getting trash XP for fighting groups of enemies two to four levels higher than us.

I propose getting rid of the XP penalty (whatever it is) and simply adding a bonus for being part of a group. Or, allow all group members to get full personal XP and a portion of the XP of their team-mates. Right now it feels like you get 50% or your XP and a quarter or less of your allies which adds up to less than you would have gotten going solo.

I thought that the point of grouping was to incentivize cooperative play right? At this rate, it merely drives people away, as it has pretty much done with us. Now we're thinking of just not being in a group and fighting in the area so that we'll still be together but also not loosing out on all the XP. That makes it tough on our healer, who no longer has access to our health bars in the group panel.


I know most of you leveled up solo and the majority of you play the game in a more or less solo way at max level, but I'm hoping maybe a few of you might have noticed this peculier XP penalty when grouping and would agree with me that it needs revisiting.

-Quiiliitiila

grouping exp is calculated as followes (according fandom http://istaria.wikia.com/wiki/Genera...ing_Guidelines)

"Group Hunting BonusEdit

As an additional bonus, if you join with other players in a group you receive additional experience when hunting together. Experience is calculated based on combined Adventurer ratings of the group, + x%. For example, a group of two with ratings of 40 and 45 are hunting and defeat a critter worth 1,000 experience. The rating 40 player would get the rating 40 divided by the total group rating of 85, plus their group bonus. The rating 45 player would get 45 divided by the group rating of 85. Note that this means it is more beneficial for a group of players with similar ratings to play together. A rating 1 player in a combined group rating of 100 would only get 1% of the experience!
"


you would get less exp per kill but it takes also half the time or less to kill. So you get more exp/time unit, but not per kill.

I generally understand how it is calculated and in theory, it looks like it would be beneficial for groups. However, what I am saying is that in practice it is not. All four of us are within one level (and adventure rating) of one another (all level 13-14 now). We routinely attempt to fight enemies which are two to four levels higher than us, aroun 15-16 if we can (anything higher and we get defeated). What I am saying is that I can get more XP faster by grinding mobs my level solo than I can by grouping and having to fight mobs four levels higher than me in order to get halfway decent XP. It's insane!

All I'm saying is maybe tweak the formulae to increase the XP gain for groups by like 10 or 20 percent. It really does feel very punishing for all of us and it's quite a drag. Or, perhaps instead of combining group adventure rating and dividing by personal adventure rating. Try simply taking the average group adventure rating and dividing accordingly.

Or just get rid of the formulae entirely and just give normal solo XP and a group bonus (like an extra 10% off the XP earned).

Or allow normal solo XP and up to a quarter of the XP your team generates as well.

There are a number of ways it can be done that feel less punishing than what it currently is.