Extreme differences in AA XP gain between characters

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Chitiwok, Oct 9, 2020.

  1. Chitiwok Journeyman

    Some time about 3 days ago (around the time the Fall Fun xp bonus started), my shaman started gaining way less xp per kill than my monk - about 4 times less. For example, killing a mob in Droga earned my monk about 25% of an AA point, while my shaman earned about 6%. I've been 2-boxing these characters for about 15 years now, and this is the first time there has been any kind of xp discrepancy since the second character caught up to max level while my guild was still raiding PoTime.

    All settings that I can think of are the same.
    Both are level 115. The monk has about 19,000 AA and the shaman about 22,500.
    Both characters are in the same group with no other characters and 2 mercs up.
    Neither is in a Fellowship.
    Both have XP set to 90% to AA.
    Both are wearing identical evolving gear, none of which can evolve in the zone.
    Both are Iksar.

    I have asked guildies for suggestions of other things to check and we've run out of ideas other than that the character might be bugged somehow. I sent a petition and they basically said, "we can't help with that, post on the boards." Can anyone think of something we may have missed that might be causing this?
  2. Tucoh Augur

    Duder likes this.
  3. Chitiwok Journeyman


    That seems to be what's doing it. Pulling with the shaman, the values reverse. Very strange that I hadn't noticed it before. I guess I don't tend to xp in older zones too often and only noticed it now because I'm working on hunter achievements while the xp bonus event is happening.
  4. Machen New Member


    Is one of them (or both) a recruit-a-friend account?
  5. Chitiwok Journeyman

    Nope - we thought of that. It's definitely the puller thing in older expansions. The bonus xp event just seems to make it way more pronounced than normal.
  6. Ebine Augur

    Did you set the puller as group puller Just wondering if that makes a difference.
  7. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    The Role setting makes no difference, first to aggro gets more xp (hence puller), it's a long-standing & known bug that's been around years that seems to become more and more noticeable the later into the game you get.

    It is however always worth double-checking your fellowship XP sharing is turned off if your xp seems really slow.
  8. Elskidor Augur

    I only noticed it in Frontier Mountains a couple of years back but figured it was surely fixed by now. Maybe some zones are just more out of whack than others.
  9. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    I noticed this for the first time on Thursday, in Lcea. Puller got 19 AA in 30 min, other char got 9 AA. Same level, no evolving gear, both have 20k+ AAs, etc.

    Fortunately for me, the lower AA total char is the puller, so, I guess he'll catch up, LOL!

    One question, for those who may know:

    Are we seeing:
    1: One char is getting penalized (i.e. total XP disrtibuted is getting shafted)?
    2: One char is getting bonus AA XP (i.e. more XP distributed than there oughta be?)
    3: Overall XP is correct, it's just distributed incorrectly (i.e one gets shafted, the other gets a bonus?)
  10. Cragzop Cranky Wizard

    There is a negative penalty when you xp in a previous expansion when you are above the max level for that expansion when it was current (ie EoK max level was 105 ... so if you are 106+, there is a penalty imposed while xping in EoK). This is for zones RoF+. They want you to xp in current zones.

    What was discovered was that the puller/first aggro person does not have the penalty applied. Which is why you see the difference between puller & non-puller. The non-pulling toons are receiving the xp that the devs want you to get, while the puller gets a bonus by not getting the penalty in the first place.

    Some speculate that it's because pullers sometimes miss xp, but no devs have ever confirmed that. This has been posted too many times for the developers not to realize this behavior exists and not address/do something about. So unless they change their minds, it's just a fact of EQ.

    Ironically, this means that you are far better off soloing/moloing in older zones than grouping ... assuming you care about the xp levels on all group toons. A number of zones, like FM, HS, ST from EoK, are just xp jackpots relative to mob strength and respawn that even with the penalty, the xp is still great. With the recent change in ToV regular xp relative to mob kills, it would be ... very bad ... by the time 116 to 120 rolls around. We'll see if there is a change or if ToV is a ghost town.
  11. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Thanks, Cragzop. So, it's #1 on my list, with the caveat that I said "one char" get penalized, because I was only playing 2 chars. The generic rule, as you're stating it, is all chars but the puller get the penalty.

    Note: not complaining about the XP rate over all. Even with my example, I was making almost 1/2 an AA per mob on the penalized char, for mobs which were taking ~40 seconds to kill. I've been around long enough to remember how long AA #1 took, back during SoL.... hours and hours, LOL!
  12. Atrocity(Zak) New Member

    I had a "guess" after a similar experience that a character needs a set amount of AA experience to max out AA, regardless of the actual points needed. This results a vastly different rate of individual point gain. Kind of a "balance" for the difference in total AAs between classes. My reason for that theory is as follows.

    During a previous bonus exp session I went kind of nuts (june/july of this year, I'd have to check achievements). I had an Iksar SK with 21k aa (give or take a couple hundred), and a dark elf enchanter with 21k AA (also give or take.). As I did my grind, the SK pulled further and further ahead of the enchanter despite being grouped together. reaching a difference of nearly 10k AA. BUT, Here is the thing.

    They capped within an hour of each other. the SK with 51848, and the enchanter with 42760. How else would 2 toons who began with an almost identical amount of AAs being grouped together 100% of the time, end up with a difference of almost 10k, yet have no more AA to buy at almost the exact same time.

    I noticed it again recently as I was AAing a shaman and a monk together. (2 other classes with a huge difference in maximum AA), but it wasn't over as large of a sample size.
  13. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    I'm fairly sure that this is a new thing, and was not a thing before they introduced the penalty for xping in old content, as a puller for groups I would always fall behind others because of losing out on xp from kills while I pulled more mobs for the group. It became even worse when they first introduced the lower xp in old zones mechanic.

    I know they tried several times to fix the losing out on xp issue, but none of them ever worked for me. I honestly thought that they said somewhere that they added the puller bonus in to cover the fact that they missed out on xp while pulling a lot of the time in groups.
  14. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    So, if a higher level char plays in older content, solo or molo, do they NOT get the XP penalty, since they are the one pulling?
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    From what I can gather the puller doesn't get penalised in groups or solo/molo, it's just that when grouped the players that aren't pulling do get penalised.

    This has been going on long enough it may well not be a bug & might have been designed this way intentionally.
    Tatanka likes this.
  16. Zunnoab Augur

    Weird I didn't know about that quirk.

    I knew about the bug they fixed years ago that denied the rest of the group experience if the puller ran too far away when the mob fell.
  17. RyeToast New Member

    Yep the.puller issue. Also take in account that older zones also have xp penalties on mob types as well. So all the level 110 mobs in a zone done give the same xp either.
  18. Badwon New Member

    I’d wager it’s not actually a bug, but an intended feature. I know my puller dies significantly more than all my others toons hahaha