>Heh. I was just thinking it might be neat to have a +/-
>rating for EQ characters, kinda like they have for hockey.
>For those that don't follow the sport, your +/- rating in
>hockey is the number of goals your team scored while you were
>on the ice, minus the number of goals the other team scored
>while you were on the ice.
>
>So you could inspect a player and see the number of
>experience-giving monsters killed while grouped, divided by
>number of group members who've died while grouped. i.e. avg
>number of monsters killed per death incurred. So if a cleric
>had a tendency to let group members die, you could avoid him
>without having to experience several deaths for yourself. :-)
>
>Nutty idea, doesn't fit into roleplaying, but fun to think
>about. Though a number like this would focus attention away
>from self-improvement (or self-preservation as the case may
>be), and more towards group cooperation.
Well, I think it fits into roleplaying as well as any stat does - how
conducive to roleplaying is it to know exactly how charismatic you are, or
how many hitpoints you have? For that matter, how exactly can I tell the
level of difficulty (con) of a monster I have never seen before, nor even
heard of? None of this information should be available to me in-character.
John, I think this efficiency rating is a wonderful idea, though it is also
sadly a pipe dream. I end up in a lot of pickup groups, and would dearly
love to know what I am getting into before putting my life in their hands.
I am getting to the point now where I give a brief description of the songs
I am going to play and what reaction to expect from the monsters (e.g.
"they're all going to pound on me preferentially - please please watch my
health"). I think after last night's wretched repeat of my Unrest woes
(another 3 deaths, the last one a doozy and really funny in a grim sort of
way) I will start asking clerics when I first am considering joining a
party, "If I am badly wounded, will you heal me?" If they can't or won't
answer in the affirmative, I will not join.
It seems to me that clerics can be a bard's best friend. I have some cleric
friends with whom I group whenever possible, and I never die when with one I
know and trust. However, places like (argh!) Unrest seem to appeal to the
kind of cleric that secretly wishes he were a wizard - the kind that will
spend all his mana blasting the undead. The cleric I was grouped with last
night refused to give anyone any buffs, and only healed himself as far as I
noticed.
How would efficiency ratings help? I'd love to see a number that says
"Group average experience gain", one for "Average experience gain (personal)
while grouped", and one for "Average experience gain solo". Thus I could,
by looking at the numbers, determine that such-and-such a druid (e.g.) has
far more experience soloing than grouping, based on the comparitive numbers,
and could see that such-and-such a cleric (e.g.) had a good record of
keeping group members alive while gaining experience, or that he seems to
get a lot more experience than his group members, indicating that he's not
to be trusted with your life.
You know, the more I think about it, the more I agree that this kind of data
would really aid in group dynamics... and would quite possibly function as
both a lifesaving selection criterion and a source of useful information on
self-rating (how well am I doing? well, I gain about 9 bubbles per death
while solo, versus about 5 bubbles per death grouped, though when grouped my
group members tend to get around 7 bubbles per death - hmmm I am dying too
often in groups, must look for better people). Considering the focus placed
on groups in EQ, this sort of data could transform pickup groups, and quite
possibly save bards like me from pointless and aggravating deaths.
Aloro Silvertongue (E'ci)