Oakwynd Feedback

It was flattened a few years ago. ZEM is basically a non-issue when it comes to exp gain. Mob density is about the only thing that matters and makes some zones head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to exp. People aren't piled in Paw because of the ZEM they are piled in Paw because it's a ton of mobs with mediocre HP/DMG. They can be killed quickly and efficiently.

That isn't going to change without a ton of work and probably isn't really even doable with the code they are working with.

In order to make more zones competitive for exping the ZEM would need to be anything but flattened. Zones with high mob density will always reign supreme unless given a serious exp hit or the other zone given a massive bonus.

The same handful of zones will always be used for min/maxing purposes until devs step in and just drop the hammer on them or elevate more up. Classic you better like your brown pixelated walls of Guk and Hole and SolB. Kunark you better like more brown pixelated walls of Seb and Chardok. You also get the joy of going from killing frogs in Guk to...more frogs in Seb! YAY!

ZEMs definitely still exist. I did some in-game testing a couple years ago that you can find in this thread:

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/zone-experience-modifiers-some-data.275160/

It was flattened, but not completely. Dungeons will still give more XP per kill on same level mob, someone tested it like a year or two ago with % and stuff. Zones like Maiden's eye would have less XP than same level mob in the best zones. But yes, mob HP and ease of kill and amount of pulls is what matters.

This is an important point as it isn't the XP per kill that matters but the total xp gained over a period of time.

A few months ago, on mischief, I did some parsing. An example is at level 61 a level 51 mob in velks gives 4.95% aa and in howling stones a level 51 mob gave 2.52%.
That is a LONG way from flattened and its no wonder no one exps in HS but velks is busy.
I just think it would be nice if, say, those two 51 mobs gave that 61 char 4% or so. It would spread the population out and open up some of the less used zones.
I appreciate that exp/hour is the true measure of exp gained in a zone and this differs for each group/char. In my experience the mobs in velks have more hp but less dps than those in HS, even out the exp/mob and the exp/hour would follow and so would the groups.
Isn't everyone bored of the unrest>velks>paw cycle?

There is more to consider then just the xp each mob gives. If you could kill twice as many mobs in the same time in howling stones as in velks it would be better to go to howling stones as you would get more xp overall even if each induvial kill gives more.

Bad itemization and stat inflation really killed HS as viable as well. A loss of exp wouldn't be so bad if there was incentive to get the loot there. HS has LOTS of named mobs and lots of loot. It's just very...bad loot for the level required to attain it, especially compared to zones like Velks and Kael.

I'm going to guess a global raid currency created for all expansions that formerly had no expansion-specific currency. Or just a currency per expansion but that seems like unnecessary work when you can have a single currency and simply adjust prices as you progress.

Expanding on this, using Plane of Justice as 1.0 baseline

Justice 1
Disease 1
Nightmare 1
Innovation 1.03
Valor 1
Storms 1.1
Decay 1.05
Torment 1
Tactics 1 (1.294 when hotzone)
Honor 1
Solusek Ro 1
BoT 0.99
PoFire 1 to 1.25 (varies between fields and castles)
Goru'kar Mesa 0.94
Sunderock Springs 1.225
Splitpaw 1.26
Steppes 1.225
Direwind Cliffs 1.27
Icefall Glacier 1.27

I did mention exp/hour...

Anyway, I was able to rip through mobs in both HS and velks but got about 50% less exp for my efforts in HS. Seems a fairly big barrier for anyone wanting to exp/group in HS. I appreciate the loot table in HS is bad but that is mitigated by Mischief rules.

The situation with Paw is unique, and it shows for reasons other than any ZEM:

Factors that impact xp rate / hour include but aren’t limited to (no particular order of importance)
PC level vs NPC level
HP / AC of NPC
Mob density
Respawn rate
NPC average DPS
Group composition / DPS
ZEM, as applicable

There is a reason Kurns and unrest are ideal PL locations, same as Sol A, Gunthak, Dulak, Velks (to a degree), the Deep and Old Seb.

In most cases, mob HP is comparatively low, their DPS is too and their respawn and density create these niche locations to burn to level 43 quickly (afterwards, you leech off of 65’s the rest of the way).

In general, what applies to PL locations also applies to more traditional group situations and is what makes Paw so ideal for its relevant eras:
1. Lots of mobs
2. Relatively low HP because many caster types are in the mob density mix.
3. Respawn is not exceedingly long
4. Mob level (up to 70?) makes for more xp per kill.

Take for example, C2 in Fire - those mobs seem to have more HP, are around level 68, they hit like comparative trucks to Paw mobs.
Other planar equivalent places such as lower PoWater lower caverns take some “breaking” and again mobs have more HP, hit harder and lack the relative density as Paw. Earth and Air are not necessarily pickup group friendly zones between the traps, see invis mobs while having other annoying mechanics like spin stun, splits and the like.

So collectively Paw is observed as a better (easier) place that meets many of the criterion for what would be a great DS PL location if DS continued to scale well post level 43 (which it does not).

My existing box setup has evolved to a point that I don’t even bother slowing most of the time in Paw (as an example) and is getting to the point that I need to crawl because the static camps have too much downtime and very long pulls.

ZEM isn’t the issue; it’s the design of the zone (or lack of mob type diversity / density for alternatives) that makes the “PL XP highway” as desirable as it is.

To fix the ZEM view you have, you’d need to re-balance NPC class types, add diversity of those types of NPC to more zones and generally revamp entire zones to push / lure people out of the “ZEM” zones.

Or just give us back TLP hot zones (without the item rewards) with kill counts or collect X whatever from those temporarily higher and rotating ZEM zones.

Last point I’ll make is that older era zones are heavily penalized with stat / level inflation of later expansions, which makes them more appealling, not less for leveling characters up to 43. A high level DS, temp and a regen turns any sub level 20 PC into a “god”. Which is why Kurns 1-15 is such a popular spot. Unrest would be even more popular if it wasn’t so far of a run from PoK (for the same reason).

A compelling approach would be the “further” a zone is from a PoK book, the bigger the xp bonus is for killing NPC there; doesn’t fix Paw though… Paw is 2 and 1/2 zones away from a PoK book.

The simplest way to break the Unrest>Velks>Paw cycle is to give XP rewards for the Hunter achievements, would probably have to limit the reward to only being claimable in era or maybe era+1 to avoid running into issues of Hunter raids being completely insane PL.

Thinking about it some more would probably need new Hunter achievements that update for killing the ph(s), even 10 named mobs in Dalnir, let alone the issue of The Kly being much higher level vs the amount of time people take to go from say 25-30 if a new TLP opens with Kunark. Even if you got a full level for Dalnir Hunter it probably wouldn't be faster than SolA.

Kinda hoping for no trade stuff being made heirloom so no more rotting loot, and doing hand-me-down gear to alts on the same account.

All spells and AAs and disciplines no longer have an expansion requirement.

Maybe duplicate the Traveller achievements but with "Kill 25 creatures" instead, and give it a nice xp boost on completion. Incentive to hunt a bit in every zone, but not tied to specific camps.

A refactoring of the vanilla/kunark/velious/luclin Hunter achievements for the purposes of spreading players out would be good for the game overall. The target time per named spawn when you're killing their PHs reasonably fast is 72minutes, when that fits, hunter is a great reward system for EQ. But that number can have massive spikes with no system to balance it. Some of the zones have convoluted spawn structures that make certain named crazy, even the latest expansion has a few outliers (Ex: Shak Dathor which is at about 7.5 hours per spawn https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/rare-mob-spawn-rate.287927/page-2 )

Would be busted but fun as hell. If they tuned up some mob HP/damage I would be so down. Messing with game balance this far out though is probably way too much to ask the probably 1 guy who has anything to do with any of the code/values.

I dont see the point. Since most discs/spells have a level req matching the expansion level era at most you'd get a few spells an expansion or two earlier than normal.

I cant wait to check zam for the weekly zem and zim levels. I'll have to create my own zone output modifier calculations to see if its worth grinding that week. Or maybe instead of having to check a website they would streamline it and give us a zone update modifier to let us know whats going on.