Before I post in the bug forum, I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this.... I'm leveling 3 toons right now, and have lately been hitting the hot zones (per Franklin Teek). Yesterday I was in Barren Coast, and with the three toons grouped, and no merc, I was getting about 2-3% of a level per kill. Mobs were mostly dark blue, some white, a very few were light blue. Today I took them to Arcstone (again, a hot zone per Franklin Teek). They were the same level they were when they left Barren Coast (61), and when I got to Arcstone, the first four mobs I killed were all dark blue. Same group setup, etc, etc. And I got less than 0.5% XP total for all four kills. That seems really off to me.
Did you have more mercs unsuspended? Were you pulling with a different character? Though its a higher level hotzone there could be different ZEMs or negative experience modifiers that make it less efficient exp for yourself. Harder to kill mobs give more exp than easier to kill mobs independent of their con.
Agree with Soul. There is something about Arcstone and I am too lazy to look it up or figure it out. But I am pretty sure its based on the class and group make up. Certain of my alts get really good exp there and others hardly get any.
Zones have different xp multipliers (or zem as they are generally referred to by us old farts). Hotzone flagging boosts (or at least should boost) the zem factor. But since zem factors can vary zone to zone, the boost doesn't change the base difference. So yes, in general, you can see a swing like you saw between zone xp even if both hotzones and both cons are relatively the same. The hotzones are more of a nudge in a direction if you don't know where to go, but are often not the best place to xp for your level. If I remember correctly, there were some mobs in Arcstone that gave really poor xp in general vs other mobs (sort of the "weak" mob types you see in Shards Landing ... the dogs). But it has been awhile.
I noticed that the first critters you see in arcstone gave zero xp. Not just very small, but actually zero. Bugged it long ago but meh.
Some mobs in arcstone are bugged and give zero xp. Been that way forever and reported many times. Posts here from 10 years ago: https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=20318
Those stags are part of a quest called Crossfire which gets you a nice aug. Many kills in quests do not give experience. We always told people to leave them alone unless your doing that quest.
OK, thanks all. It sounds like I was hunting the mobs giving very little (or no) XP. Perhaps I'll take them back later and go further in, and see what I can see
Long time ago ... (it was during SoF or maybe SoD), I used to XP alts in Arcstone on the undeads around the manifestation of Ravenglass. The XP was not bad ... but the loot is terrible.
I mean I guess. Well over 99% of regular strength mobs give xp regardless of if they are involved in quests or not. The only exceptions that make any sense are city guards or significantly overconned mobs like those gophers people farmed in cotf for evolving items. Having a regular mob that has absolutely no discerning features and just happens to be involved in a quest is a ridiculous reason to deliberately have them give no xp. A thread about Arcstone pops up every few years just like this one. It's a hot zone and there are just "gotcha" mobs that look totally normal but give no xp for no apparent reason. They even give a "You gained experience!" message when killing them just for that extra deception for the unsuspecting hot zone player.
Sigh, lol. Not sure why you're being so pedantic about this. Yes, ok - HA's are an obvious exception to normal xp rules. That was a deliberate and publicly made adjustment with a documented reason for it. The point remains there is no real precedent or explanation for just having an average everyday mob wandering around in an average everyday hotzone for an average everyday player to kill and be awarded with no xp for no real reason. Just saying "oh it's involved in a quest so no xp" is nonsense when there are thousands of other mobs involved in quests that all give xp, and the mobs in question are clearly the exception and not the rule.
Yeah, that made me chuckle Honestly, with the new UI showing 5 significant digits for % of level, I do think they give SOME xp. It was changing, just by really small amounts. It's really no big deal, now that I know those mobs are bugged, I'll just try another camp next time I go there.
