XP Rebalance - Make Non-Scout Roles More Rewarding

you do get more exp for hunting in harder biomes:

this was in the deciduous forest, critter trail:
Finished a hunt! Your hunting pack, 1, returned from their hunt. Riptide captured the prey!

& this was in the coniferous forest, critter trail:
Finished a hunt! Your hunting pack, 1, returned from their hunt. Pluto captured the prey!

Thalassa gained 51 EXP and +1 stalking proficiency point.
Deimos gained 73 EXP and +1 chasing proficiency point.
Danica gained 73 EXP and +1 chasing proficiency point.
Libra gained 67 EXP and +1 chasing proficiency point.
Pluto gained 72 EXP and +1 finishing proficiency point.

so..moving to a harder biome does give you more exp for hunts. I do recall those in the extremely hard biomes are returning around 400exp for hunts that failed even. its why I moved biome actually, more EXP. as now, for a medium hunt fail, I get around 120exp, vs for a medium hunt capture that netted around 70exp.

which I mean..hunting makes sense. starter biomes are easier to hunt in with lower skill requirements. I can say that I'm let to see a large trail, hunting pack 1 gets critters (I did just replace my stalker however), and hunting pack 2 usually gets small-medium scent trails. its definitely harder.. which I guess is the point, but I also get more exp. so I guess its a balancing act.

...but scouting is still OP & nothing compares:

my scout (that I've had from the beginning) is miles ahead than any other wolf. he's at level 15 rn (half way through). and when he's netting 1k exp for exploring the glacier.. I can easily earn thousands of exp a day for him.

its plain as day to see with my two siblings, Dione & Elara. Dione is a scout, level 8, Elara is a herbalist, level 6. &..I devote my days to wolvden, I have timers, so wolves are being sent out on the dot. but when a 1 hour foraging session gives me 20exp.. oof.

& even tho I'm in a medium biome, getting in ten hunts a day.. lets say I'm lucky (I'm not) and every hunt is a captured small trail, giving me 130exp for each wolf - I still only earn 1.3k of experience a day, this *sounds* like a lot but, when my scout is out exploring the glacier and bringing home 1.1k of exp.. it's really not.

with each scout taking 1hr 45m, and energy regen 1h 20 min, each scout+regen is 2h 55m. if I'm on wolvden for 12 hours that day, I can send out 4 scouts, and earn 4.4k exp or more for the glacier. far more than any hunter.

the glacier is an extreme example, so I'll take my newest scout re-scouting, in her time in the desert, she got around 380exp. she still earns more than my hunters, at 1.5k exp a day. its not that much more, but overtime the gap will become more & more apparent.

pupsitters & herbalists really get the short end of the stick:

as everybody else has mentioned, pupsitters are the worst and herbalists aren't far behind them either. its been a while since I had any pups, but with my herbalist getting a measly 25exp per forage and not that much more for crafting/sick wolves.. its been a slow process to say the least. my two pup sitters rn are NBW that are just there to "fill a roll". but by the time they pass on, I'll probably genuinely swap my scouts out, or find nbw's to protect the pups & then chase some time later.

overall, I think the system is more balanced for harder biomes (for hunting, at least):

for those who are able to live in the glacier, their hunts (even for fails) probably net more EXP than a scout ever would be able to in a day. but for those easier biomes.. the difference can be staggering. and it isn't easy to live in the harder biomes, esp if you don't have extremely high statted wolves to begin with;;;;

so it feels like a loose loose. levelling in easier biomes feels difficult and sluggish. consequently getting to the point you can survive in a more difficult biome takes even longer, without buying other wolves that is.

I guess scouting is more of a "get levels quick scheme" but it still feels slightly sucky either way for the other roles in the pack. hunting is more of a long term chase; but it can feel out of reach to get to max level if you're in a starter or easier biome. herbalists & pup sitters are p much a no go and will end up not progressing much at all :T

I do support the herbalist and pupsitters getting a bit more XP for the important work they do.

The hunters I have to not support though. I agree you can level up faster with the scout -I move mine around to do that on occasion. But you can get higher XP for hunts in the harder biomes. In the glacier with my former stalker (who recently died) I was getting 600-690 XP per hunt on all on small trails. I haven't seen more than 300 XP now because my new stalker isn't up to her stat level yet, but if you have high enough stats to get 600 per hunt or more times 10 hunts a day that's just a good as scout IMO. I think the mechanic is already there to get higher XP in the hardest biomes, but most of us haven't reached the stat level needed yet. I never see anything over small trails in the glacier, but with those at 600 I can only wonder what the medium and large trails might give. 

I agree on the fact that hunters don’t need rebalancing, due to Thebes reasons stated above (it’s also why I moved to the prairie, I will likely move again to a harder biome once they reach 100% synchronization).

My concern really is mostly about pupsitters and the herbalist.

The problem with hunters runs deeper than a rebalance, though. You may be able to get stats in one of these biomes, sure, but the stats you need to successfully complete hunts consistently in said biomes and therefore feed your pack are next to impossible to achieve, at least right now. This is especially true if you play with a lore playstyle like me, and do not breed wolves as code and data and rather breed them as families. This means I rely on NBWs, and NBWs have trash stats, meaning my wolves will never get high enough to reliably support themselves. For the game to be unplayable for some players and playable for others needs a rebalance. In fact, many of these problems already have their own threads outside of this one. It's a recurring issue.

It's already really hard to hunt in any biome that is not a basic biome, regardless of the biome's difficulty (my 100% synergy and 100% proficiency wolves have been hunting since the beginning, and they are still not very high stat- certainly not high enough to bring back consistent large prey in riperian woodland, and that biome isn't near as challenging as glacier or rainforest). If you want to catch up to the scout with rainforest or glacier, you will starve your pack, especially if you have a larger pack. It's unbalanced no matter how you look at it.

I think all three roles (hunters, herbalist, and especially pupsitters) need work.

Even in the harder biomes, hunting experience does not compare to scouting.
I know, I've moved around too.

A large game hunt in a medium area gives my hunters about 190-250 exp, likewise for a critter hunt in a challenging area. I'm sure large game hunts in challenging areas are very rewarding, but we don't all have packs of stat monsters. Getting that experience, or even being able to sustain your pack in these areas, requires having high stat wolves already. Scouting gets you those high stat wolves since any wolf can scout a revealed area.

And 10 hunts a day would be 1900-2500 exp and 5 hours of logging in every 30 minutes.
For equivilant experience with a similar-level scout, that's two trips and logging in twice in 6 hours.

You can get more than double the experience per day for a fraction of the player's effort from scouting.

Yes, hunters need tweaked too.
Nothing else is even half as good as scouting and that is an issue.

I agree! The fact that 95% of your wolves will never reach the end goal of level 20 — even when being used as much as possible throughout the day — is a completely broken system. I have hunters that I’ve had since the day this game launched publicly and I’ve sent them out on all 10 hunts just about every day since and they’re not even level 15 yet. That is MASSIVELY broken and super irritating (like, what’s the point of having that end goal if you can never achieve it?) Pupsitters won’t even scratch level 10 by the time they die, even if they pup-sat constantly. My current herbalist is the very first one I had set (much like a lot of my hunters) 4 days after public launch and she’s only level 12. Gonna be honest — it’s stinks. Big time :/

Also, I agree with owl bear and greyhound. Not everyone has the same amount of time they dedicate to being on this game. Hunting and being able to sustain a pack in the biomes that reward with hefty EXP is impossible. In order to get wolves strong enough to hunt medium and large prey in rainforest or glacier you need a good means for leveling up — which hunting is NOT good for. So it’s either: Hunt and feed your wolves but get crap exp... or get better exp but starve.

EDIT: I would also like to add that the majority of your wolves will be hunters since they’re unlimited. Having to pick only 2 wolves that will exponentially grow quicker in stats than the majority of your pack (hunters) who will more than likely not reach level 20 (or takes literal ages to reach it) just doesn’t sit well with me.

i could not agree with this more. I was just thinking the other day how abysmal the XP gain is for herbalists and sitters, to the point they're worthless roles from a stat point of view. nobody would use them if they weren't vital to the health of the pack and thats... not good.

i've made a suggestion before about a new role that works side by side with the herbalist in many things, which would both help raise the XP gained as well as give it an actual good purpose. Certainly, something needs to be changed about it. as for sitters, there has got to be some sort of training/tutoring system put in place. the entire community is crying for it. there could literally just be an item that does what the pupsitters do for the huge lack of any form of interaction with that role.

anyway. yes. i support this fully.

Yeah there's something to be said for the fact that all my current pupsitters are my retired hunters, all in the 'waiting to die' phase of their lives. Which works lore-wise, I suppose, but you'd think the pups would at least be gaining the benefit of hearing war stories from the 'guess how many open wounds I got in one day' old-timers.

EDIT: For how many open wounds can proc on hunting packs (I got five yesterday), there should at least be a scar drop possibility, or additional XP for having gotten gored or w/e and living to tell about it. But that's another topic entirely. :V

I definitely support the tweaking of xp and I like the idea of adding a tutor/training position to aid in the increase.