Looks like VI screwed the pooch on alt exp split

[Protector]

I added code to pick up the alt exp packets (opcode 0x2322) and have been watching my exp gains (in increments of x out of 330). Duoing and killing the same mobs for 100s of times, my exp would look something like 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 2, 2 (the one from the occasional light blue). I then switched to only being 80% alt exp and 20% level exp. My alt exp started looking like 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 2 while my level exp looked like this 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0.

To me this looks like one of two things..instead of keeping track of the rounded down portions, they are simply discarded and lost, or the 80/20 split is not working as you would expect, with far more than 20% being routed from alt exp to level exp.

If it is the second case, with just a different ratio than expected, then no biggie once it is known. If however it is the first case, and any uneven exp is being discarded, then this would also greatly affect group split scenarios in a negative fashion. Come to think of it, this would also explain why people have been saying that solo alt exp is much better than grouped alt exp.

Anyway someone please confirm this independently if possible.

[high_jeeves]

Remember, you are being sent the delta in x/330. If the change is so small that is less than 1/330 of the experience you need (which is surely is in the 80/20 split) then the number 0 is the accurate # for them to be sending. Once you have earned enough experience that you need to move up to the next 1/330'th of your level you may miraculously get a 1 for the next kill of the same creature. On the server side, they are still storing the "real" xp value, its just the packet getting sent to you only contains a 1/330 delta.

"Real" experience isnt being effected... its possible that the client isnt showing the value correctly, but you arent actually getting screwed out of the xp.

This is also the reason why sometimes you see a 2, and sometimes a 3 for the same kill (even if the level is the same), because you have have bumped through either 2/330 xp or 3/330 xp slots depending on your experience before that kill.

Not sure how good of an explanation this is, so lets try a quick example:

you need 3300 experience to get through level 2 lets say. each 1/330 = 10 experience points. You kill a mob worth 15 experience points. The first time you kill it, you are at 15xp or 1/330 (floored). The packet you are sent says "1" point. The second time you kill it, you are at 30xp or 3/330 (floored). The packet you are sent says "2" points, because you went from 1/330 to 3/330 (even tho its the same raw xp value). On the server, it is storing 30xp tho, not 3/330.

Make sense?


Note:
This is just speculation based on years of networking/game dev experience, its possible that I am way off base here, but if it were me, thats how it would be implemented :).

[Protector]

Well actually the server is sending the total alt exp at that time out of 330, the delta I am calculating myself off of the last value sent.

Other than that, I agree entirely...which is why I was suprised to see the run of 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1.

What it should come down to is that after say 10 kills where I gleaned a total of 20 pts at 100% alt exp, I should see around 16 points killing the same 10 mobs again at 80% alt exp. However the sequence that I saw had the total exp after killing x mobs much less than the 80% that I expected.

I will continue to do more checking both solo, duoed and in a full group to see what kind of results I get, but pending that it still looks wrong to me.

[high_jeeves]

Ahh.. gotcha...

My first hunch would be that this has something to do with the ratio between AA point raw value and XP point raw value, but that still doesnt explain why you arent getting 80% of the amount of AA points you were previously getting.

Its possible that the 80/20 split is based upon the ratio between the AA and XP raw value. But i'm not sure how. It would be interesting to experiment with a few different splits and post the raw data here for analysis.

[casey]

take a look at how much exp you need for current level, how much exp you need for an alt point (not sure if this is known) and then take into account rounding issues. It makes plenty of sense.

Your assumption, from what i can tell, is that if you add the deltas for alt and normal exp they should come out to your deltas for 100% normal exp. This is wrong. For one, you now have round down error in 2 pools instead of 1, lowering your count overall, add to that, the fact that your two pools arent even the same exp amount. (2/330 exp in main pool != 2/330 exp in alt pool). You cant just add them.

if alt advancment exp becomes known, then one could calculate the validity of the split, but your method is error prone and primitive, after you take some higher level math than your current you may understand why that is.

Exp worked the way it did pre-xp-nerf-patch, and i'd hope a percantage split isnt something thier coders would mess up. Exp is kept as it always was on the server (and i think you get this value when you zone in), but what the client sees now is purely a number to determing what the exp bar should look like, i wouldnt be surprised if someone dissasembled the exp bar drawing code and saw that there were 66 possible positions for the blue bar (and yellow) (66*5bars = 330), meaning that the x/300 value they send is litterally to advance the look of the exp bar, and no other purpose.

And we did have advanced notice of this particular patch, patrick (aka rowyl) told us our exp code would stop working because of it a month or so before it happened.

[high_jeeves]

Actually, I think the assumption is that if I have a distribution % as 100%AA 0%XP and 20 kills gets me 20AA points, then when i change to 80%AA 20%XP, those same 20 kills should get me 16AA points and some number of XP points depending on the ratio.

I agree that in the example above, the total number of points should not be equal (because, as you said, the total amount needed is different for each). However, I do agree with Protector that the #of AA points gained should be roughly 80% of those gained before. From the #'s posted above is appears that, assuming he is killing roughly the same things, he is nowhere near 80% of the # of original AA points.

[Protector]

I think Jeeves has my point now.

Of course the raw required exp numbers for an alt point and a level are going to be different and you wouldn't expect the total adjusted to 330 scale alt advances and level advances to add up. But you should expect the total summed alt advances to be 80% of what they were previously, and they weren't.

From further testing it looks as if they might be weighting the split to match up the movement of both the level exp and alt exp bars. So that if you go 80% alt and 20% level, after x number of kills you will get 8 blue alt and 2 blue level. This means that the higher level that you are, the more exp is taken from alt and moved to level (to keep the bars balanced) for every 10% you shift over.

If as supposed the alt exp skill point is about a typical L52 exp quantity, then when you are 52 the raw exp split will be about 80%/20%, but as you level and the raw exp to level changes, the actual raw exp split from alt to level becomes heavily weighted to the leveling side, to the point that at level 60, an 80% selected alt exp actually leaves you with only 40% of the raw exp going to alt that you would have had with a selected 100% alt exp, since the rax exp required to move the level bar is more than twice as much.

Testing still underway today...

[Ratt]

Are you sure about Level 60 in this equation? The level exp requirement increase is not linear. At 59, you have a 3.5 (?? can't recall it's been so long since I looked at it) multiplier, whereas at level 60, the multiplier drops back down to something ridiculous like 1.1.

I'll have to check the exact numbers again... but I know at 59, I require about 89 million exp to level, and at 60, it's 35 million. So after 59, the AA/Exp split should even out more, in fact, if we can get hard numbers on exactly how much exp is required to get an AA point, it may be that Verant optimized it FOR the level 60's, where an 80/20 split would yield 8 blues / 2 blues on an AA / regular exp split of a 60's exp.

That would make some sort of sadistic sense in the long run, because AA points aren't really intended for anyone lower than 60, IMHO. They have that option, no reason NOT to give it to them, but it sounds like there may be a substantial penalty the closer you are to 60, but not actually at 60 yet.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head though.

[Protector]

Bah, can't get this into a table

Tesing results

2 chars both level 60 grouped

Spilt 80% for char 1 and 70% for char 2

Mob Level, Lev Exp 1, Alt Exp 1, Lev Exp 2, Alt Exp 2
46,0,1,0,1
48,0,2,0,2
47,0,1,1,1
46,0,1,0,1
43,0,1,0,0
44,0,1,0,1
45,1,1,1,1
47,0,1,0,1
44,0,2,0,2
46,0,1,1,1
44,0,1,0,1
45,0,1,0,1
Totals 1,14,3,13

Split 100% for char 1 and 100% for char 2

Mob Level, Lev Exp 1, Alt Exp 1, Lev Exp 2, Alt Exp 2
49,0,2,0,2
48,0,2,0,2
49,0,2,0,2
48,0,3,0,2
45,0,1,0,2
45,0,2,0,2
46,0,2,0,2
45,0,2,0,1
46,0,2,0,2
52,0,2,0,3
46,0,2,0,2
44,0,1,0,1
Totals 0,23,0,23

This is just a limited sample set, and there are 3 more light blues in the first group than the second, but this seems to bear out the fact that shifting a percentage from alt exp causes more than you would expect to be diverted in actual exp.

[Elberg]

Come on folks...

The ALT exp pool is (according to Verant) about the same amount of exp that it takes to get from 51 to 52. If you are level 51 or 52, then using a 50/50 split will show somewhat equal increases in exp. As you go higher than level 52, this disparity increases, and while you may have exp set to distribute between main and alt advancement equally, you're going to get alt points faster than you gain actual levels because the size of the pool to be filled for alt points remains the same, but the main exp bucket you need to fill will just keep getting larger. i.e., you will always see a bigger increase in your alt pool than your main exp pool past level 52 when you kill mobs.

Exp is not getting lost. You just need to do more complex math.

[deathinc]

Originally posted by Elberg
The ALT exp pool is (according to Verant) about the same amount of exp that it takes to get from 51 to 52.

This was true for a few days after SoL came out -- unfortunately Verant swung the Nerf-Bat around a bit and upped the XP needed to some unknown value.

[Elberg]

Is this just something you heard or was it in a patch message I overlooked?

As of two days ago I was still getting a blue of ALT exp quadding wyverns in Cobalt Scar. If it was nerfed, it wasn't nerfed much.

[deathinc]

It was in a patch message around the time of The Grey Nerf....

[Mr Guy]

It's my understanding not that they dramatically increased the alt-exp pool, but that they instead corrected how alt-exp was calculated for hybrids. Hybrids were previously receiving "adjusted" rates for alt-exp, and alt-exp was calculated after the original hyrbrid penalty was already compensated for, so they were recieving double compensation.

[quack]

I have no idea what the true formula for alt-xp is, however, I've been playing around with alt-xp at 10% (I don't mind giving myself the hybrid penalty because it will give me something else to "look forward to").

While I was in level 53, I got 2 yellow bubble of real xp. At the same time I got 2 blue bubbles of xp. In level 54 I have also made 2 yellow bubbles of xp and 2 more blue bubbles of alt. During this time I have died only once.

Even though I have programmed myself to push 10% of my xp towards alt-xp, it appears that it is growing at the rate of 20%.

I realize the xp pools for lvl 53, 54, and the alt are different. However I have received the exact same proportion of alt xp for both 53 and 54 (a blue for every yellow of real xp) while programmed for 10%.

Just wanted to throw out this data point.