Surprise Patch Tomorrow & XP Improvements

No bans are a good thing when people exploit.. and on my server a regularily see over 400 in general chat and after the ban it will probably still be over 400.

It's not an xp bonus; they're restoring the normal xp that was removed a few months ago. That's like someone stealing your wallet & then handing it back to you as a gift.

It wasn't from a dev; that was from player testing.

He said what I said, only he did this: (waves hand)
-Rat
(who remembers that commercial?)

As for the things developers actually have control over, they're doing what they think is best after long periods of deliberation (and in some cases, not enough time to think things all the way through and still get anything meaningful done). The thing that makes sense as being the best plan isn't always what people want and riding the line between stabilizing game's physical and mental health using either natural health food or candy is a hard balancing act. It's hard to see it that way because after a hard day at work everyone wants candy but enough of it will cause sickness just as not enough will cause tantrums.

I realize that some of it involves perceived healthy traits being removed. Mistakes will be made. I do believe many have been, don't get me wrong. Some things need to be observed in practice to be gauged and that goes for everyone. There's a right way to bring it to attention, and then there's screaming your head off like a banshee and calling them incompetent for at least trying. Consider which method might yield attention and the respect you desire.

Civility works a lot better than threats and open disgust, even if you have to diplomatically tell someone you think that their idea was terrible. Take a breath before you post.

Again, thanks to the team for all of the work you do. There's a lot to get done and not enough time to do it. Many put in more hours than they have to trying to compensate. Some people do know and appreciate it.

On a completely different note, I too wonder if the increase in mercenary xp is sapping some of the task reward experience. Moreover, I am curious if Lesson will/does affect mercenaries. This may be well-known, but I'm fairly recently back from an extended hiatus.

Joining the huggle-party. Who doesn't like those?

We agree, there is a lot to get done yet they've now spent who knows how many man/lady-hours trying to "fix" and re-fix level experience which wasn't broken for the first 15 years of the game's existence, plus nerfing and adding new mechanisms to HA's which also were not broken.

We're often told about how the devs have a long list of action items which they have to prioritize. How many of those items did not get struck off the list due to the time spent on this nerfing/maybe un-nerfing nonsense? The answer is most assuredly "Too much." Especially now given the staffing cutbacks.

This whole expansion has been a completely awful mismanagement of resources. Completely, completely awful.

Since Roshen wouldn't give us any details, I spent some hours on test killing things and then killing myself to delevel, then killing those things again.

First up are Darklight Bats in Neriak 4th gate.

I thought these only had one spawn level because the 4 I killed at 105 each gave 162% AA exp. But they do actually have a 3 level spread, with aa exp awarded based on level difference between the player and bat. Each of the 3 levels that killed even con bats got the same amount of exp from those even con bats. These were mainly used a control, since cotf exp hasn't had additional nerfs.


The RoF mobs I tested on were 'a crocodile' in Chelsith Reborn. They only had one spawn level and I could bind on the beach.


In retrospect, having a level spread would have been nice. But the main thing I was looking for was the exp decay rate compared to cotf.

Graphing out the exp decay, compared to nerfed RoF looks like kill exp is working fine now.


I tried collecting data in Brother Island as well. But every spawn point has 2-5 different mobs, each with a level spread. So despite killing ~50 things over 5 spawn cycles, I didn't actually get enough data to form more than a couple line segments.

(Since this was done on test server, exp amounts are about twice as much as live. Sub-1% aa exp wasn't recorded, so all numbers could be +/-1 due to rounding.)

What bonuses?

I don't call un nerfing, or partly un nerfing the exp changes that came in with TDS a bonus.

I'm feeling a bit jaded at the moment, we finally get them to look at something and they break something else, PoK vendors, closely followed by the changes to CS and the forums. What are they going to break next?

With the CS changes I'm not going to be trusting their new loot system to not mess up no drop items which CS wont' fix, so as far as I am concerned that loot system is a waste of time. Time which could have been spent on other things on their very long to do list.

Checking through quest exp rewards, it appears most of those ARE still nerfed. Which is quite a shame, since RoF partisan rewards were one of the best things they've done in years. Worthwhile rewards for playing through content that provided a 95-100 leveling plan by doing quests with little to no extra grinding for level exp.

By 'xp bonus', lesson working on HA task xp was being referred to. I thought it was actually a bit much as far as xp went without the ability to use lesson on it, though I admit being able to use lesson for something again is nice. But why kill in zones when you can just do HAs until your brain bleeds? I don't really like it tbh but whatever. There's a new flavor of the day every day around here.

I really must agree that I don't personally believe the most important things are being prioritized, but I foresee the new loot system potentially being an incredibly bad idea. I'm rather scared to see it. I'll reserve judgment but looking at the other games which do similar things to what I understand the concept to be, if people don't throw things in aggravation by the time all is said and done I'll be surprised.

I'm not aiming to be critical of something that's intended to be an improvement in good faith but loot being awarded based on need/greed/etc. should be something discussed among team members--- not settled with a button. To name a game under the company's banner, look at Dragon's Prophet. People with full sets of the best armor hit Need on something that they don't need and either go 'whoops!' or 'haha suckers!'. If it is indeed like DP, it's disaster waiting to happen.

And I absolutely echo Yinla's concerns on the CS changes making sorting out the issues a bigger problem. I say this all because I plead for feedback to decide if the system goes live rather than just introducing something deemed unacceptable by the community. I believe many changes should have been explained and then put to a vote before they took up valuable time only to anger folks, as many of the changes have as of late. Mark my words for the future: If this isn't done right it will self-destruct in a bigger way than has been seen in quite awhile.

Also: PoK vendors aren't broken, unless by broken you're taking poetic liberties. But they were not broken... and... I suppose ruining immersion and years of documented tradeskill information was somehow necessary for 'ease of access'. Fixing things that weren't broken~ le-sigh.

Too many changes from business as usual lately. All involved have my respect, but I must respectfully disapprove of the way things are going as well, I'm sorry to say.

Oh, and lila? That's dedication. My hat would be off to you, if I had a hat.

Honestly the PoK Vendors is an argument the player base will not win and it actually helps more than it hurts. The consolidation was some what poorly done, but it is either fixed or being worked on still. I would rather use one vendor that run around to 5-6. Mainly the reason I used CR to TS in.

Now If those vendors can be placed in guild halls.......

I would rather use 1 or 2 as I have done in the past and not run round to smithing vendors to find fletching items....

If the smith is no longer just a smithing vendor and is now a general tradeskill vendor his title should change as should his note on find. The same goes for the baking vendors...they are no longer just bakers....they have smithing stuff.

Why they still need to clean up and fix the consolidation.

Thanks. I will probably start giving you money again. It still makes me mad though because it was also so pointless. You were fixing an imaginery problem that didn't need to be fixed. There's plenty of real issues in EQ to spend your time on.

I would like to have full groups to get XP in new content. I've been there and it's an easy button. The hardest part is fostering a clique and being consistent in your playtime so that people can always count on you to join them. Nerfing XP in old content was just nerfing casual players like me because for many classes that's the only content that's doable if you solo.

Regular experience in RoF seems to have gone from a 75% nerf to a 25% nerf. Went from 7.5 aa for light blues solo in Chapterhouse to 22.5% aa per kill at level 105.

So still nerfed, but not as much. I didn't bother testing anything earlier, since the mobs in VoA are relatively low level. I wonder though, if the nerf is relative to expansion, did anyone test anything earlier?

None of this is making feel like going to Shards Landing @ 101-105 with my pre-101 friends or anywhere else. The only way I can play and get pre-nerf xp is if I buy a potion and I'm never going to do that ever and this tweak to the xp is a pile of dung.

We're currently getting about 75% of the exp we were getting before the nerf in pre-cotf, or a 3x bump in the exp we were getting a week ago. So pretty good, and I'm ok with the numbers even if it's still worse than it was at the expansion launch.

How is the RoF xp for someone below level 101 grouped with someone above 101? (Yes, I'd like someone besides me to be the guinea pig *grin*)

Exp for killing mobs in Old Bloodfields for lvl 101+ has been un-nerfed. Low enough?

I am in no hurry to level. I just enjoy the journey! I like the challenge!