A LITTLE LONG:
Here's a general rundown on pushers and horizontal chains. The short version is a horizontal chain is kind of like pushers on steroids.
Most people are familiar with the idea of a pusher since a pusher is really like a vassal who is specially tuned for "pushing" XP to you. We have been running a lowkey pusher program for the last few months (several months?). During that time we have usually kept one person at the VoD lifestone and have tried with less success at keeping pushers in a few other locations too. So... take the idea of a pusher that people fellow with specifically to "push" XP to the characters above the pusher. Hold on to that idea.
Keep in mind also that I said a horizontal chain is like pushers on steroids. That obviously isn't completely accurate, it's more like pushers in parallel. The idea is that if one pusher (who has loyalty spec'd and built up really high) can transfer a lot of XP, multiple pushers in the same fellow can do even more.
Here's an example.: I'll use 10 million XP an hour for the numbers, just because it makes for easy math.
-------------------------
PUSHER EXAMPLE
-------------------------
Joe hunts in VoD and makes 10 million an hour solo. Joe decides to fellow with the pusher and give back some XP to the lowers in the chain. In a two-person fellowship each player gets 75% of the kill's XP, but the pusher isn't killing anything so each player will get 75% of 10 million, or 7.5 million XP per hour.
With a high enough loyalty and enough sworn time, the pusher can pass up about 40% of what is made so the pusher will pass up about 3 million an hour to his patron. The patron will typically be the lowest character in the XP chain, so one pusher earning 7.5 million per hour will be putting 3 million XP per hour into the chain. After the XP enters the chain it passes up at a rate of 93.75% for each person.
-------------------------
PUSHER EXAMPLE
-------------------------
-------------------------
HORIZONTAL EXAMPLE
-------------------------
Instead of one pusher, you take maybe five pushers and keep them in a fellowship together all of the time, and all are sworn to the bottom person in the chain. Here is where the power of math is a good thing.
With five pushers and the same solo hunter still making 10 million XP an hour gross, the fellowship XP will be split six ways. Each player will get 45% of each kill's XP now. Grossing 10 million an hour will mean each player gets 4.5 million per hour. Not as much as the 7.5 million in a two-person fellow, but FIVE OF THE FELLOW MEMBERS ARE PUSHERS. Again assuming that each person passes up roughly 40% of what they earn means each of the five pushers will pass up 1.8 million per hour. Since there are five members of the horizontal chain (each horizontal member is really nothing more than a pusher) 9 million XP an hour will be put into the bottom of the chain. Another way of saying that is that for every 4.5 million XP the hunter earns (his part of the fellow's XP), the bottom of the chain will get 9 million XP (added up from the five pushers).
-------------------------
HORIZONTAL EXAMPLE
-------------------------
A really nice thing would be if the bottom chain member were also in the fellowshiop because then the chain would get the 9 million an hour from the pushers, plus the bottom chain member would also still be earning the 4.5 million XP per hour everyone else in the fellowship was earning.
(The chain member would actually make a seventh person, sharing the XP at 40% now instead of 45%. That means each fellow member would be earning 4 million per hour instead of 4.5, and the bottom chain member would be receiving 8 million XP per hour instead of 9 million, BUT he would also be getting his own 4 million XP per hour share of the fellow as hunted XP and passing up part of that. The bottom chain member would be seeing 12 million XP per hour coming in and would be passing up 93.75% of the XP per hour to the person above, who would also pass up 93.75%,...)
Keep in mind that 10 million XP per hour is very easy to make in VoD by a single player. Also, think about what could happen if more than one person hunted at the same time. It is pretty easy to get a five person fellowship to make 20 million XP per hour EACH in VoD. With even 3 pusher/horizontal chain members in the fellow, and with each one earning 20 million XP per hour, each horizontal member, aka pusher, would be putting roughly 8 million XP per hour into the chain.
Back ASAP.
