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It's crazy that a few astral hunts took my new demi from around 22mil to 99mil. I bought second trade, within 2 weeks of hitting demigod? That's insane (and I'm not including the essence I was given by the artifact). I ran wax lips, golden tonic and harmony when I could, and occasionally got lucky with poteen pot. *edit I forgot there was a few times also with 100% buff from cookies.

This is a ridiculously excessive rate of gain. Stand in one room, stratagems and SSC for eternity. The only effort is on the part of the person watching the linking. I love that I have avoided so much boring grinding but I also find astral bashes ridiculously mind-numbingly boring, but they are way too good to pass up.

I think if astral hunts are ten times faster than a motivated, fully artifacted individual, it really is something that should be addressed - Maybe bringing down the rates on astral, and bringing up the rates you'd get when doing solo/small group hunting? I think double experience rates for large groups would be okay, but as it is now, it's really silly.


I would like to see solo hunting be a viable alternative - Right now people can easily earn more essence in two hours than I can in a week of grinding, by just afking with their autobasher on.

I was going to wait until the weekend but it seems consistent enough get a handle on rates after playing a few days. Let's throw some numbers since it came up in discord today given the last 4 days of astral-fest.

With several buffs on:
50+ million potential is happening on group astral hunts that last only a few hours or so.
1-2 million per hour potential is what a very quick hunter can generate solo with same buffs on.

Buff levels:
50% Wheel
100% golden tonic
100% lips
100% silver cookies
10% harmony karma? (Not sure on % here)
5% human
25% baton
50% poteens
25% waxlips
25% Immaculate Control

(I probably forgot something, and there's also other limited ones like bloodrage, autumn, etc.)

That's well over 400% experience boost, most of that is easily permanent if you have enough wealth.

Suggestions in priority order:
1) Group astral needs be toned down. There's never been anything close to a time could you afk a few hours for 4 days and get #1. Sure that will shift over time, but given the baseline of demi powers costs and such, it's ludicrous by any standard.
2) Buff solo bashing, by whatever means makes sense. New super XP pinatas, buff existing mobs? Heck, anything.
3) Reduce or limit the exp buff stacking (maybe only those at demi level so newer players aren't affected); compress the gulf between those who can afford all those boosts and those who cannot. Does anyone else care about this part? Do people want to actually feel like they earned a thing or is that a pipe dream?
 

There's always been a pretty consistent complaint regarding ascendants in that 1) they're just so much better and required and 2) you have to raise someone that's combat-oriented or it's a waste. 

These changes seek to reduce/remove both of those complaints by making the differences less. There are still mechanical advantages and RP accolades associated with it.