Exp STILL NERFED after September 6 patch

[BaelinTM]

king is wrong.

here's my short statement in plain egnlish

What they did is they nerfed the XP gain in all the 51+ levels except for the 54 and 59 hell levels wich got a pretty big bonus ... the net result of that is that you need exactly as much exp as before to get from 51 to 60 .. you just have a much smoother ride along the way.

They ONLY changed the xp flowing into your normal xp bar ... the AAXP gains are not subject to the modifiers they added to the normal levels so they're still the same as before the patch.

What fee is saying is " WHAA .. they slowed down the normal exp gain at level 60 so they must have nerfed AA XP also." without testing AAXP ....

AAXP gain is still the samed as it was before sept. 4th

Really short version:

The slowed down xp gain at levels 51,52,53,55,56,57,58,60 to compensate the increase of XP you get at levels 54 and 60 in such a way that you need just as much xp to get from no xp in 51 to pull 60. They did not do anything to AAXP other then restore it to the values before sept 4th

wish some level 60 with show EQ would run a test with AAXP turned up to 100%

[Acrobat]

In plain english:

Level 60 XP is now slower.

Which is part of the whole "smoothing out the curve" deal.

Nothing else has been demonstrated.

And this really doesn't make any difference, as most people don't even bother to fill their xp bar in 60 nowadays (the point is mainly getting to 60 rather than filling the bar in 60.)

What fee has shown, however, is that at 60, you don't get any bonus xp from mobs lower than 55.

What hasn't been shown, and might possibly be useful to know, is whether or not this bonus varies based on the level of the player. It might indeed be possible that a level 55 would gain more xp from the same level 55 mob than a level 60 would. And then, if they were grouped, how would it be split? There's a wealth of data that hasn't been collected. This is more like a single data point than anything else, and any conclusions drawn from it should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Ratt]

I don't think what you're saying BaelinTM is correct, or perhaps you and Fee are miscommunicating.

As far as I know, the experience required for a given character to max out level 60 is anywhere from 700 million - 950 million, yes, depending on the class/race.

We need to verify that the experience required for max 60 (total experience, not level experience) remains the same. It may have changed, actually, so I don't know for sure... but it's the first step that needs to be taken at this point.

I would find it somewhat strange to find that Verant gives a per mob bonus depending on your level. I know that my experience for max level 60 (level experience) has increased slightly (100,000 exp more required to max 60. That indicates to me that the amount required for any given level has changed, and that there is no change to the amount of experience given for a mob (IE - a level 55 mob will give you X experience, regardless of your level. There's no evidence to support the contrary yet.)

If someone level 55 wants to kill a level 55 mob and note the exact exeperience given, then someone who is level 60 kill the same mob/level and note the exact same experience given, that will clear up the question. However, I suspect you'll find the amount given be the same (Taking class/race modifiers into account). Say, a level 55 high elf Wizard and a level 60 high elf wizard kill the same mob solo.

It would be needlessly complex to program a bonus given the players level, when contrasted against smothing out the experience required for a given level. I'll try to diagram what I'm talking about below.

http://seq.sf.net/exp.php

Shows a chart for a pure caster human prior to the nerf.

As you can see, level 54 and level 59 have a ridiculously large increase in the amount of experience required to level compared to the previous level (64% and 40% respectively).

I do know that to max out the required amount of experience in 60, it takes about 112,000 (that number is not exact) more experience to max. That means the total amount of experience for any given level is different, or at least most likely is.

Given that fact, I doubt there is a bonus applied to mobs killed based off your level... meaning that if a level 60 kills a level 55, and a level 55 kills a level 55, they would both get the same amount of experience. I can almost guarentee this. In fact, I will go test tonight with a level 56 killing a level 56 mob and a level 60 killing a level 56 mob (with same class/race modifiers) and see how much experience is given for each... that should answer that question once and for all.

[gore]

While having an exp mod based on level to counteract the hell effect may SEEM clumsy, there are a couple of good reasons for it. I hadn't even considered that they might do it in this manner until Gallenite stated that they did, but when you think about it...

Any change to the exp system requires that all players' exp bars remain in the same visual location.

What options do they have to do this?

They could essentially add or remove player exp to put them in the same location on the bar, while adjusting the start/endpoints of the levels. This would require toying with the database to adjust EVERY SINGLE PLAYER in that level range's actual exp value... something that was probably not a viable option. I don't have much coding experience but I imagine that would be a nightmare...

The other solutions are even more complex. Create per-person exp tables so that the exp remaining between where they are and 60 is the same as prepatch... that's just ludicrous and obviously not viable. (Although this is actually "fair" where almost any other system isn't - see later in post)

The easiest fix is doubtless what they have chosen. This means the tables remain in tact, and nobody's actual or visual exp will move at all. All that happens is that levels that used to take longer now do not due to a bonus, and levels that used to be shorter are now longer due to a penalty. One can only hope/assume that they used the correct math to balance out the penalty/bonus numbers.

It should be mentioned that this (and any other system that isn't dynamically adjusted based on where each player sits when the change goes live) isn't going to be "fair" - people who had just completed hell levels pre-patch *effectively* have lost ground in their course to 60, people who had just entered them effectively gained ground. (just something else to ponder...)

-gore

[Ratt]

Like I already stated... the experience table IS NOT INTACT. My required experience to max level 60 has gone up (albiet very slightly) ... so that means the table has been adjusted from top to bottom... as I doubt they'd mess with just one level.

[gore]

I'm inclined to trust Verant here. My own visual observations indicate that I once again get pre-patch levels of exp for the lower level mobs, not 75%.

Also, you can (or at least COULD) go slightly beyond 60's full visual representation in actual exp. I'll test when I'm able to zone again to give you the number.

Try this - with full visual 60, put exp towards normal, kill something, and zone. See if you gain some (I'm unable to test currently, I'll verify this later)

Even assuming the actual endpoint of 60 has changed, that would be trivial in relation to changing the entire tables.

Why would Gallenite lie? I see no reason. The method he suggests seems to be accurate based on what SEQ is telling us, and seems logically the easiest implementation.

-gore

[Ratt]

You are inclined to trust Verant... What planet have you been living on exactly?

Regardless, I'm not understanding what part of "The experience table has changed" is unclear.

You can't change the "endpoint" experience and NOT change everything else unless you change the total experience required, and that has NOT CHANGED.

it's like a big broomstick with a bunch of hash marks on it. You can rearrange the hashmarks all you want, but you can't just "extend" out the tip of the broomstick unless you add some material to it. This is simple math here...

In the example given, it takes 712,800,000 experience to level the caster to max level 60.

Now if you originall required 35,049,300 to max out 60, and now require 35,160,000 to max out 60... and yes the 712,800,000 figure remains the same, it means the entire experience table has moved around, much like an accordian.

[gore]

Edit - your last post cleared that up. I thought you were simply saying that you could acquire more total exp.

I'm not sure how you can say 60 takes more exp now, and the endpoint remains the same, when the only raw number you have to go by is the actual amount of total EXP you have.

Edit again - the reasons I believe what Gallenite said here are 1) it would seem to be the simplest way to adjust things, 2) I see no evidence of any changes to my AA advancement on mobs in the supposedly "nerfed" level range, and 3) I have yet to see any evidence to contradict his claims.

If you can show to me why you think 60 takes more numerical exp than before, while the cumulative exp you can acquire for all levels remains the same, then I will certainly reconsider.

-gore

[ladybat]

would I be understanding this correctly then that since I am at level 59...it will now take me LESS exp to get to 60?

thats kinda what I am inferring from looking at Ratt and fee's posts.....


thanks!

[BaelinTM]

Does anyone have the ability to make a table similar to what fee did with AAXP turned to 100% on a level 60 character ?

(with exp gained per level X mob before sept 4th and after sept 6th)

That would clear up a lot of things

And don't come running to me with the argment that it doesn't matter wether you use level 60 normal xp or AAXP .. the whole point of my posts was that i think it does and i'd love to see some hard evidence .. don't care if it proves if i'm right or wrong ... just wanna see it

[Acrobat]

This seems the most likely case for post-50 xp:

exp = (level^2)*ZEM*classmod*racemod*levelmod*bonus

Using this as a theory, we can see that at level 60, the level mod is .75, meaning that filling level 60 will take 33% longer.

If you apply this to the numbers fee has above, bonus is 1 (no change) for pre-55, then at 55 is 1.95 (95% boost) and 2.08 (108% boost) for 56.

Presumably, AA exp ignores levelmod as well as class/race mods, but the bonus should still apply.

Anyone care to comment on this theory? The only thing that's uncertain is whether the bonus is based solely on mob level, or if it's got your level as a factor in the formula somewhere.

[BaelinTM]

That's more or less what i've been trying to prove the entire time acrobat lol

[gore]

Actual AA exp values aren't sent to the client IIRC - the only numerical value is cumulative actual EXP (I think). My SEQ is having trouble decoding the char profile packet atm, so I'm not getting jack, but I think that the only indication of AA you have is the % estimate sent to update the client's display.

And yes. 59 now takes less time - so if you'd just gotten to level 59 prior to this patch, you *effectively* have your progress towards 60 increased. If you'd just dinged out of 54, you effectively lost progress towards 60.

-gore

[Ratt]

Ok, I just finished testing out a small portion of this... interesting results.

1. Level 60 (10/10 race/class) Regular Exp for level 56 Mob - 415,808
2. Level 56 (10/10 race/class) Regular Exp for a level 56 Mob - 495,720

As Gore said already, the AA experience isn't updating properly on zone, so the results are suspect:

1. Level 60 (10/10 race/class) AA Exp for level 56 Mob - 408,600
2. Level 56 (10/10 race/class) AA Exp for level 56 Mob - 363,200

The AA experience doesn't make much sense, so I think the data is flawed. But the Regular experience does make sense... it's harder for a level 56 to kill an even con than it is for a 60 to kill a level 56, so the experience reward is greater.

Now we need to test this with other levels, races and classes to build up a table of the modifiers.

*Rolls up sleeves* ... lets get to work!

[BaelinTM]

That mean we're done yelling at VI for lieing about us about restoring exp to normal on low blues ratt ?