Kazsam said,
Ok interested in how u think this will work once the new changes re; xp come into effect
Gruhen do said,
Right now, my thoughts on this is that with the announcement of the xp changes and my own study of the situation, I don't think chains will be very workable at all going forward except where a small number of trusted friends are involved and really the term chain will be a misnomer for the new structures.
For most people, just obtaining vassals who play a lot will be the better option and the option most chose. Being available and helpful to vassals will be the new model(again!)
Honestly, we're not sure exactly how any of this is going to work, at least not until we see it running after the changes are put in place or until Turbine publishes their numbers on how the leader/loyalty bonus will be built.
How I think it will work is roughly: okay, but not as efficiently as before. The automatic passthrough rate of 93.75% is an insanely high percentage of XP to pass through from vassal to patron and it's no wonder chains were built in the first place. I don't think Turbine's new system will eliminate chains; it will simply change the way they work. Under the new system your direct vassal can pass up to 90% of their hunted XP to you. You will pass up 10% of what you receive, and only 1% will reach your grandpatron. Your direct vassal becomes more important than before (before you could tolerate slackers in the chain for a while, you won't under the new system).
There will be no need or benefit to stacking people up like we currently do in the chains, other than it is a convenient way to see everyone's stats. I think Gruhen do said it right when he said the term chain will be a misnomer.
We plan to start out with a chain structure like now, with every effort to have maxed loyalty bonuses before the February patch (we get to keep our loyalty bonus in effect at the time). In reality, nothing will matter except what your vassal hunts for and what you hunt for. What we will have will in reality be a bunch of little cells strung together for administrative purposes.
I think the XP will still be good, but probably not as high as it currently is. I think once we get the math we will figure out how to make it as efficient as possible.
The last thing I think is that I partially agree with something else Gruhen said, "For most people, just obtaining vassals who play a lot will be the better option and the option most chose." I think an active power player who has a handful of active vassals will receive more XP that will be possible in a normal chain. However, I also think most people (and maybe especially longer term chainers) will be too lazy or lack the patience to go through the hundreds of noob vassals to find the few who will stick around (looking ahead to when Turbine makes the game available for purchase again). It will be the easiest thing to stay in a chain, hunt, and depend on your chain vassal hunting also.
Right now, assuming everyone hunts for 100 million raw XP per week, your vassal would pass you roughly 40 million and you would pass up 37.5 to your patron (plus 40 million from what you hunted for).
You would be up 140 million for the week (your hunted + vassal XP) and your patron would be up 177.5 million (patron's hunted + your 40M + vassal's 37.5M)
Under the new systemy your vassal would pass you roughly 90 million and you would pass up 9 million to your patron. You would be up 190 million (yourhunted + vassal XP) and your patron would be up 199 million (patron's hunted + your 90M + vassal's 9M).
