Flav wrote on Feb 6
th, 2014 at 1:35pm:
Please at least consider that I have one working neuron.
- killing BB if done the right way can bring life to the social panel.
- I don't intend to just kill BB, Killing BB needs to be done while looking at the bigger scheme of things, or said another way something to replace the XP earned through BB needs to be found.
Honestly, if you were able to select for each and every quest the level of bonus ( up to the equivalent of Max BB ) without breaking any BB wouldn't it make you more willing to party up to that Normal quest that usually you would avoid but would love to do , and then go back to Max Equivalent BB on the next quest.
and also if done the right way it can bring more level of bonus... Instead of no BB, Hard BB and Elite BB we could have +10%, +20%, +30%, +40% +50%. So if you know the quest it tough instead of going the whole 50% you go only 20%, no fuss, next one is easy, go 50%.
Killing BB will absolutely NOT make me more prone to run normal or hard. Nor will it make me more willing to pug.
You know what I pugged this life on my melee FvS? In The Flesh. Elite. For bravery. I wouldn't have been able to solo it, and I'm not willing to do hard or normal. If that LFM hadn't been up, I wouldn't have bothered to run it at all. If I hadn't gotten an extra 50% for the quest due to BB, I wouldn't have even bothered to hit the LFM.
I mean really it boils down not to how good of a player you are, but to knowing your limitations. Maybe that's a hallmark of a good player: knowing what they can and can't do. Or maybe I'm making excuses for being a shitty player. I don't know the answer to that one. What I DO know is that if BB didn't exist, I wouldn't bother with half of the quests I do. Once and done on elite is FAR superior to e/h/n/n/n/n/n/n/n/n/n/c the best xp/min quests like it was back in the old days.
And you'll never see a return to the old days where doing Stormcleave on elite at level 4 or Madstone on elite at 9 was a thing. They've already put in stupid level lock-outs on parties to avoid exploits, I can't imagine they'll ever go back on that and bring back the underlevel bonus.
And besides, how are underlevel bonuses any different than elite streaking? To get the best bonus, you want to be as far below the quest level as you can possibly be to get max XP. In the current state of the game, that would mean that shitty puggers join LFMs for underlevel quests and just fucking die instantly. It would likely be a much worse problem because elite BB means you're the same level as the quest, in most cases. So people wouldn't put up LFMs anymore than they currently do. Why would you take some random asshole instead of a friend/guildie/channel mate that you can rely on?
Do you really believe that bringing back the underlevel bonus would mean people would be more willing to do normal or hard? I don't think that's the case. I'd say a bigger problem than the elite streak 50% bonus is the 80% bonus for first time elite. I'm no math wizard, but 80% is more than 50%. What was the old underlevel bonus? 10% per level? So to equal the elite BB streak bonus, you'd be doing level 6 quests at level 1. Level 13 quests at level 8. Level 16 quests at level 11. Does that sound MORE pug friendly to you? Tell me honestly.