Exp NERF evidence - its not just a nerf for soloers

[fee]

So some astute people of noticed the apparent exp nerf when hunting blue con mobs. Some say it only affects those rotten soloers who feed off of low blue con mobs for exp, the data I present suggests this change to exp is nothing short of a full scale nerf for all, grouped or otherwise.


Data collection method:
Using the original exp formula and personal experience logs I was able to generate a list of exp given befor the September 4 patch. Next using the dreaded level 60 monk soloer, I captured the exp rewarded for the post September 4 patch.

**edit
Using showeq to examine the contents of the CharacterProfile packet transmitted to client when the client zones, I was able to get the before and after experience for my character. These numbers listed below are provided by the server and are treated as empirical data.


Original Exp Formula


(mob level^2) * class mod * (Zone experience mod) = exp reward
ZEM = 75, class mod = 1.2 for monk
I have not included the additional factor for group exp because it does not apply for a soloer.





mob lvl |Pre Sept 4 patch |Post Sept 4 patch |% of pre Sept 4 exp
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
47 198810 69583 34.999
48 207360 82944 40.000
49 216090 97240 44.999
50 225000 112500 50.000
51 234090 128749 54.999
52 243360 146016 60.000
53 252810 164326 64.999
54 262440 238820 90.999
55 272250 265443 97.499
56 282240 293529 103.99
57 292410 ukn ukn
58 302760 354228 116.99

this is strictly level exp with AAexp turned off, AA exp gain has always been significantly less than level exp

Conclusion:

For level 60 characters, any mob less than 56 will not reward experience equivalent to what it was prior to the September 4 patch. However mobs whose level is 56 and up will see a significant % increase. Unfortunately it is not feasible for me to map the % gain in higher level encounters while solo; we can only assume the bonus gets better. These changes may not be limited to level 60 players but may in fact affect all levels.

I ask the reader to evaluate the impact these changes have on their personal game play and to decide for themselves if this is good or bad for them.

Please feel free to cross-post this article to your favorite message board.

Fee
ShowEQ Developer
[email protected]

[Ratt]

Not to dispute your findings, Fee... however, I noticed I was gaining signifigantly more experience last night soloing.

Mobs were in the 52 - 56 range... I did notice a HUGE improvement on 56, but 54 and 55 seemed to be better as well. I can't comment on the 52 and 53 mobs as the difference was so minimal.

It may be I just got lucky and got a bunch of 56 mobs in the few hours I played with it, I wasn't really keeping track.

All in all, though, I do agree sub 56 mobs the SUCK ASS curve is HUGELY and INSANELY steep. The farther you get from 56 the more it starts to suck and it starts to suck hard pretty quick.

[Hobo]

Ratt, was your opinion (findings) also based on being a level 60 character? I ask because I'm wondering if this applies to all mobs under 56, regardless of a persons level or if it is more of a thing where you only get good xp for mobs that are within 4 levels of you. In other words, since I am level 57 will I get excellent xp from mobs 53 and up or 56 and up?


Bo

[rizwank]

yeah im sorry but i think that scale is wrong in some way... it looks like 53 or so is the 100% baseline, if not lvl 50 mobs.

[S_B_R]

Don't forget they Also "Soothed out" the XP from 50 through 60. So you actually need more XP now in 60 than you did before. Therefore I'm guessing the values you recorded for "post Sept 4 Patch" are skewed lower.

Not trying to flame you or anything. I'm just pointing to a possible flaw in the testing.

[Khallus]

After looking at fee's data in a spreadsheet for a bit, I'm pretty sure the change scales according to the level difference between the recipient and the mob killed.

From fee's data, we see that mobs that are seven levels below you give 65% of their "standard" experience amount, and for each level below that, you lose 5% experience. From this, a L46 mob should give a L60 character (-14 level difference) 30% of the experience it used to, and a L45 mob (-15 level difference) should give 25% of the experience it used to.

For mobs six or less levels below the character, the scale shifts. 91% for mobs exactly six levels below, and 6.5% more for each level closer to you. So a level 57, which hasn' t been tests, should hypothetically give a L60 monk 323113 points of experience or 110.5% more than the old system. I also would expect a L59 mob to give 123.5% the experience it used to.

If this scale continued for even con and higher mobs, the exp mods would look like:

Diff - Mod
0 - 130%
+1 - 136.5%
+2 - 143%
+3 - 149.5%
+4 - 156%
+5 - 162.5%
+6 - 169%
+7 - 175.5%
+8 - 182%
+9 - 188.5%
+10 - 195%
+11 - 201.5%
+12 - 208%
+13 - 214.5%
+14 - 221%
+15 - 227.5%

It is, however, quite possible and even likely that the scale changes again for even con and above, so the actual exp gains may be higher.

So now we have a better grasp of what this change does (to blue cons, at least).

It would appear that VI wants to encourage people to stop "bottom feeding" (ie, killing the very lowest level dark blue mobs for fast, low downtime experience) and move on to more challenging experience areas.

However, there's a problem with this. At L60, there are very few places with a good supply of mobs L56 and higher, and once mobs become even cons, their difficulty and downtime shoots through the roof.

[Yueh]

Like S_B_R said, completing 60 used to be roughly the same as completing 56. If they smoothed out the entire curve through 60 you can't use that yardstick anymore. AA is really the only thing that hasn't changed, as far as we know anyway.

Edit: Never mind, was being dense. Fee clarified that he was actually using the zone data to get exact exp numbers. Should have been obvious but hey, it was a speculative time :)

[Twidddler]

Likely this is the base formula...

(Mob base XP/# in group) * ( ( MPD >= 7 ? 0.35 : 0.91 ) + (( MPD >= 7 ? .05 : .065 ) * ( (MobLvl >= 54 ? 6 : 13) - MPD) )

where MPD is level difference between Mob and Player

[casey]

Don't forget they Also "Soothed out" the XP from 50 through 60. So you actually need more XP now in 60 than you did before. Therefore I'm guessing the values you recorded for "post Sept 4 Patch" are skewed lower.

noted, but its irrelivant. The Experience needed to level and the expereince given by a kill have never had a correlation. The exp per kill formula is (was)

exp = mob lvl^2 * ZEM * class mod * group mod

your current level and exp requirements for the level did not influence this calculation, though now it appears that your level somehow factors into it.

[Warriotex]

I understand that the data steam now only includes a percentage of the experience bar which SEQ then uses to calculate the experience point value based on a hard-coded value of exp points/level. If the "smoothed out" levels don't require the same number of exp points in level 60, the numbers would be wrong. This seems reasonable to me, please respond with whether or not this is true, and if not how it works. A lot of people across the message boards are linking to this table and it's causing a lot of unnessessary angst if it's erroneous.

[Ratt]

Experience in 60 is EXACTLY the same as it was for me before... unless SEQ is reporting erroneous values for MAX level 60 experience. There appears to be exactly ZERO change, at least for my class/race combo in experience required to max level 60.

Yes, my tests were conducted as a level 60 with all experience going to AA. They were very informal and could be subject to a wide range of factors that make them invalid. Lots more emperical data needs to be collected :)

[Cryonic]

Total amount of exp needed to clear levels 1 - 60 has not changed at all in the game. Amount needed to clear any 1 level has changed (reshifting of exp for 30 - 50 to reduce/remove hell levels and the recent shift of the 50 - 60 curve). Amount needed to clear 60 has increased, total exp gained through all levels by the end of 60 has not changed).

[Warriotex]

unless SEQ is reporting erroneous values for MAX level 60 experience

This is exactly what I'm asking about. If the server indeed only sends % updates and the number reported by SEQ is based on hard-coded values for total exp/level and calulated by multiplying those % values by the hard-coded exp numbers for level 60, then those hard-coded numbers could be out of date since the patch and causing incorrect exp numbers to be calculated. Can anyone verify whether or not this is the way SEQ exp numbers are calculated?

I'm not an SEQ user, let alone a coder, so I could be completely wrong here, just going from what I was told by someone who may or may not know what they're talking about.

[Cryonic]

While hunting in a zone only bar movement is sent to the client, zone and the true TOTAL numeric exp gained by the char is sent to the client.

[fee]

ok, here are the 2 methods the EQ client is updated about players experience.

1) When a player zones/logs in. The cumlative value of experience the player has earned is transmitted to the client along with all the other player information. This is known as the CharProfile or PlayerProfile Packet. It contains every detail of your stats to your inventory. I captured the above data by zoning in, logging my exp value from this packet, killing and changing zone to get the update value. Simply subtract the 2 and there is your actual exp gained.

2) when the player earns exp, the server sends an update that moves your exp bar. This update does not contain the updated cumlative value but a value between 1 and 330. This value equates to exactly how many ticks are in the exp bar.

So for the math freaks.

1% exp equals 3.3 ticks ( note that since fractional ticks do not exist that the % is rounded ) This rounding can equate to a significant error reported by the % value in the client.

Fee
ShowEQ Dev
[email protected]

[Warriotex]

Thanks fee...sounds like your numbers are probably right on unfortunately.

[HanzO]

Experience Patch "Un-nerfing" petition has started...

It can be found here: Experience Patch "un-nerfing" petition (http://pub23.ezboard.com/fgraffeswizardcompilationfrm1.showMessageRange?top icID=20331.topic&start=21&stop=40)

[Gullork]

Hey all, haven't had much time on the boards lately, but I'm back for a bit.

Anyway, I have been meaning to ask... what "level" is the AAXP bar? In other words, is it a level 50 bar? a level 55 bar? Or does it match whatever level you happen to be atm? This isn't the correct terminolgy, but I think you know what I'm trying to ask.

I ask this for two reasons.

The first is out of curiosity, wondering if it is better to earn aaxp in low 50's or wait until high 50's to 60. I've heard many theories on both and still don't really have a close answer.

The second reason is that the testing for the values above show close to even exp at around 55. If the aaxp bar (which had all exp going into it for the testing) is level 55, then the exp may be even to the level it is applied to. If not, then ... well not. Just a thought.

[Cryonic]

From looking at SEQ it appears to be a static 15,000,000 per AA point.

[Ratt]

Warriorx ... are you the same yutz that's saying that on the FoH boards? Whoever that is needs to be beaten. The FoH boards are as bad as whineplay... there's so many armchair coders, it's sickening... They need to get a frigging clue before posting... the CODE IS AVAILABLE. LOOK AT IT BEFORE speaking... sheesh.

Anyway, SEQ knows your experience, it's sent from the server when you zone... as Fee has already explained in detail.

Got home late, so can't really do a whole lot more testing, given the hour.

[Warriotex]

No, I saw the post on the FoH board, and came here to ask if it was true.

[Ace]

I didn't really understand the notation Twidddler at first, but he ties it too closely to some specific numbers. Also, Verant (like most developers) tends to kludge this stuff onto the end of an old formula in a simple way. So this is intended to show how this would fit in with our old models.

This formula would be for dark blue cons only. We have no data on even or higher cons, nor do we have any data on light blues. It also ignores the party modifier and party split as they are irrelevant in the solo case. And, of course, there are different formulas at the lower levels. Given the way the numbers worked out, I'd be shocked if even con wasn't on the same formula. And, for the same reason I'd be very careful of extrapolating this to yellow and higher cons.

LDM stands for Level Difference Modifier

levelDiff = characterLevel - mobLevel

if (levelDiff < 7)
LDM = (1300 - (65 * levelDiff)) / 1000
else
LDM = (1000 - (50 * levelDiff)) / 1000

Experience = (mobLevel^2) * classMod * raceMod * ZEM * LDM
For Fee's data ZEM = 75; classMod = 1.2; raceMod = 1