What can we conclude is likely from the PTR classic zone exp changes?

At the risk of pushing you over the ledge, I wanted you to know that you also will no longer be able to sell your Starter Robe for Coirnav.

LOL!!! But the devs do read the forums and take in feedback... Just not sure if its daybreakgames.com forums.

My testing has shown very minimal buffing, mostly just a reduction of higher ZEM zones and an overall evening out of everything. I will say that Perma is now worse than an outdoor zones. So yeah, avoid the ice goblins.

Your best bet for exp will be zones where you can get the most levels with the least amount of moving around. Unrest or Guk still fit that bill.

Are you saying that Permafrost's bonus was lowered? Because I'd list that as a candidate for an increase based on its location.

Now your trying to use common sense here, there will be enough of that!

All I can say is a testbuffed toon killing an even con level 25 mob got more exp in South Karana (15%) and several other outdoors zones (they all were at 15%) than I did in Permafrost (10%).

Now maybe there was an error in my testing, since I had a hard time finding a level 25 mob in Perma, so I didn’t test it multiple times (scryer is the only mob that is level 25 consistently). You can always run out and test it yourself.

I believe people will still go to those same zones. I went to those zones for PuG groups. I wanted to log in and exp withing wasting time. I did not want to wait around for 5 other people to agree on a spot, port, and then start exping. I'm sure I am not alone in this.

People will continue to go to unrest and lguk and thats not going to change ever. Unrest is popular because it lasts from level 8/12 all the way up to low to mid 30s while guk lasts from 30 to 50 and provides solid loot. No one in their right mind will do a 30 min run just to get some exp in highkeep or splitpaw. People in every mmo ALWAYS take the path of least resistance and moving around in eq hoping to find a group in a lesser zone doesn't make a whole lot of sense for most people.

The main problem with classic eq is the fact that varent put all the good loot into a few specific zones, solb and guk are the biggest examples of this and thats why people go to those zones, its because the ease of access to those pre raid bis items.

My tests for Permafrost were giving 19% exp for white cons at lvl 15, putting the ZEM around 20% which is what it was before. I'm pretty sure Permafrost is unchanged.

On what servers did you get this data from? Different servers have different experience rates.

Test server obviously, it's the only server with the new ZEMs.

My data lines up with Risiko's and Kahna's for the most part, every dungeon seems to fall between a 20% ZEM (Permafrost, Unrest) to a 50% ZEM (Befallen). Seldom used dungeons like Runnyeye, Najena, and Permafrost are unchanged while heavily used dungeons like Crushbone, The Hole, and Unrest were nerfed severely. Slight increases in Paw and Sol B but everything else seems unchanged or nerfed.

Test server has a double exp rate, the highest of any server I believe. It's better to get base rates on other servers and then compare after the patch to what the rates have changed to.

Thing is Lguk had almost no ZEM to begin with. You went there because the mobs didn't run and were easy to kill. I would expect it to remain largely unaffected, there only other viable zone in classic near that I can remember was sol b. Crushbone and unrest had crazy high modifiers. That's where things could get dicey. I hope the more increased zones that were unused, than nerfed frequented ones.

An Lguk nerf might actually be kind of substantial once you near 50. The ZEM was the only reason that it produced somewhat justifiable EXP.

Since all we are looking for is an idea of the value of the various zones that actual exp rate doesn't mean much, just how the compare with one another. The test exp is fine for that.

Hole, LGuk, Unrest, Najena, Mistmoore lowered severely and increases to Cazic Thule Blackburrow SolA and Paw. Permafrost and Highkeep seem the same.
Edit: missed one or two

Everyone in OoT or waiting for The Hole to be opened up. Should be good times.

The 45+ grind gonna be real here. I anticipate fast burnout after those first few mid 40s nag and vox kills.

Did you do cross testing between different dungeons? Go kill some white cons in outdoor zones, then kill them in Unrest? I think if you did and crunched the numbers you would come to a different conclusion.

The double experience doesn't matter because what people are testing is how the experience per kill compares between zones on the same server. They aren't comparing experience per kill between servers.

In other words, kill x number of mobs of a certain level range in 1 zone. Kill x number of mobs of the same level range in another zone. Compare the rate of experience gain between those two zones.

From what I saw, the dungeons at level 25 on the Test server had very similar experience per kill rates. There was a slightly higher rate in Unrest, but not enough to make me want to run there from Qeynos if I made a character on the west side of Antonica. I would just hang out over on the west side of the world instead.

That all being said though, people are most likely going to go where they usually go just because we are creatures of habit. People tend to do things that feel familiar and comfortable to them, so I don't expect to see a lot less people going to Unrest.

As for myself, I will likely try a non-Unrest leveling path this time because personally I like some of the other dungeons that don't get as much love as Unrest.

Also, people WILL go to Lower Guk even with other dungeons being more appealing for experience gain just because of the gear. Gear out of Lower Guk is a staple to classic EQ.