Which expansion does missions become the primary source of XP?

So to sum up this argument: "I used collections this year to skip the grind, therefore, no one had any complaints about the ToV exp dropoff" (They did though)

And folks were trying to figure out why DB made leveling off grinding harder. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...killing-sales-of-bottles-of-adventure.262113/

I think we lost at least a few threads as they turned into flamefests. I know one was temp locked because of it.

At 110, you wouldn't notice the difference. What everyone else is referring to is 111+, which is not what you're talking about.

Up to, and including 110, xp gain off of mobs was fine because you're talking about levels under the old system. The difference in the amount of xp needed to get through levels pre- and post-111 is night and day.

It's a subjective perception.
Let's compare the numbers:
This Can't be Good task from Falmonius (famous PoK library task add) gives approximately 2% of the level at level 100 (what it is tuned for). Meanwhile, a level 70 character can be task added for a turn in. And at level 70 the task gives a whole level of the experience. (actually, slightly more).
Since the task gives fixed number of experience points it simply equaates to the amount of experience needed to level at 100 is 50 times more than at level 70. (30 levels difference, now that is a cliff). At level 80 it gives somewhere around 40%, so it's 20 times more for 20 levels.
Comparatively, a Partisan in ToV gives approximately 16% of the level at 120. Meanwhile, a level 100 can be task added to it and was rewarded almost 4 levels of experience. That's approximately 25 times more experience in 20 levels.

It's actually very simple, experience per level increases exponentially, not linearly. And it creates the perception of a "cliff", because people tend to compare it to "good old days". Meanwhile, if you compare to a previous expansion numbers it is just a small change. But as "compoud interest" it grows fast.

RoF is when they began adding chunks of exp to quest achievements. However, in early expansions like RoF/COTF it was 100% viable to level through quests, grind, or both. They're all about equal in speed to get max. It was fantastic design (my favorite, personally).

However, in TOV they decided grinding isn't acceptable anymore and a majority of leveling exp is done through quests + overseer. It's dumb and terrible design. Let's fundamentally change a major component of the game which thousands enjoy inexplicably! I'm sure that'll be beneficial for the game!

/s

Many many people right after the ToV expansion launched complained about the cliff referring to the increased amount of grinding needed to level versus using mission exp added with ToV. This was not a gradual event.

Also, at level 111 there is "old expansion mobs penalty", which people tend to forget. When level 111 goes back to TBL the experience per kill is halved, sometimes even worse. So, people are forced to fight in ToV where monsters are much tougher than TBL. Killing 6 million HP orcs goes much faster than killing 36 million HP giants in Kael. Perception is wrong. Experience per kill was reduced very slightly, but the efficiency of grinding was reduced as exp per time.

That logic is debatable. The simple fact is every expansion get harder and harder. This is a natural progress. Mobs get fatter, hit harder, and characters improve to match it.
Nevertheless, players keep asking for making fights more challenging. This can be achieved in EQ by only means of having mob fattening curve slightly faster than player improvement curve. Just so slightly.
But that is enough to eventually have a big gap between monster toughness and players abilities.
What should DPG do at that time? Weaken the mobs intentionally? Boost players dramaticlly so close the gap? They try both. It's called game balancing. But the principle remains.
Whatever the course is, sooner or later the "easy grind" mode was to be a thing of the past.
So, the Achievement experience, Overseer, collectibles etc were actually helpful to close that gap.
Not a detriment, but an aid and a remedy. Not "dumb and terrible design", but actually ingenious and working solution.
Meanwhile, I do not understand complaints from people not happy with grinding experience. Their point is that they do not want to do quests/progression and prefer to grind for levels.
Well, since they like to grind - they now have an opportunity to grind ever more! Never ending grind with purpose of leveling. They should enjoy, not complain.

Would be interesting to see a graph of level and % xp for a kill of a white-con mob (possibly with typical time to kill a white con mob given how that varies over the years).

From my recollection the XP required to level increases dramatically from 110 to 115, such that you start to see that dramatic curve at level 114, but I never quantified it.

I think you're conflating a lot of player feedback here. Generally, players want the introduction parts of the game that new/returning players go through to be easy, and select endgame encounters (like a couple missions and raids and maybe a single zone per expansion) to be difficult.

Basically nobody wants the easy zone in an expansion to be more difficult. It should be a picnic.

No, it's not debatable. What you posted is nothing but word salad with no actual refute.

There's nothing tough about modern EQ. I did all the LS progression (minus the group missions) two boxing with one char using TOV group gear and another using ToV/CoV raid gear. There wasn't a single challenging thing about it other than it takes significant amount of time killing monsters due to their massive hp pools now. The mobs aren't special nor difficult. The explosion of mob HP numbers and the implosion of per kill exp absolutely decimated grinding viability. Nothing more, nothing less.

It takes maybe 30-60 minutes doing a zone's worth of partisans/mercs at a slow pace with undergeared/AAed chars? That nets you something like 22% exp between any level from 120-125. How much exp could I get in an hour of grinding in LS? Probably 5-8% at most with lesson considering you get like .1%/kill which means I'd need to kill 50-60 mobs in an hour? With the amount of hp they have with two only chars and two mercs? I'm honestly not sure I could even hit the 5% mark now doing the math.

They want to pigeonhole everyone into these one-time useful quests which are basically the same thing over and over in different zones and are absolutely mind-numbingly boring. Hunting named NPCs has been almost ostracized in favor of grinding two missions over and over. Why spend an average of 70 minutes (this is according to devs) getting a single named when you can run through the LS missions in 30 minutes tops and get 4x more loot? They've removed almost every incentive to go out an explore, hunt, and kill waves of mobs and replaced it with two repeatable missions which aren't engaging or fun. I've had more fun painting bedrooms than doing LS content.

ever feel like were just feeding him? Its about him "winning" now, as he's not right but keeps going. Exhausting the competition still counts as a win to them

Pretty sure that's because there were supposed to be twice as many missions, each with half the loot.

Here it goes, as you have requested:

You are blatantly wrong. That is a smart and awesome design.

Let's not. Your suggestion is dumb and terrible.

You are wrong again. It will be very detrimental to the game.

Did I provide sufficiently non-salady words to refute your writing?

That's highly subjective at best? And what exactly does this refute? How is locking exp behind one time quests and a not very intuitive & interactive web gui good design? Please explain how overseer exp being more viable than actually playing the game's content good design?

They already did fundamentally change it? That's literally the point of the comment you're quoting? Did you drink enough coffee today?

Also, what suggestions? Giving players the option to choose grinding as a viable way to gain experience? That's dumb and terrible? LOL. Please, someone take away your keyboard.

So you're agreeing with me that it was detrimental? I'm not sure if you have basic reading comprehension, but that sentence you're quoting is facetious and poking fun at how bad EQ's yearly content cycle is now compared to what it used to be.

No, this entire post further validates how you simply lacked any basic critical thinking and discourse skills. Please, reread what I wrote, which you quoted multiple times, and get an understanding of the words that formulate sentences. Then, come back and post.

Just out of boredom took my two chars, one on live one on aradune. Same class. Took them to in era zones.

Aradune - Went to a T4 zone (HOF Threshold), killing a white con mob. With nothing but auto attack and some self + sham buffs it took just over a minute to kill. 0.302 exp (.201 in non bonus periods).

Live - Went to T1 zone (Laurion's Inn), killing a blue con mob. Almost full burns with self + sham buffs. Took 80 seconds to kill. 0.139 exp (.09 exp in non bonus time).

Now, my live char is pretty under-geared and under AAed at the moment. Regardless, it required me to leverage basically all my burns only to take 33% more time to kill the mob for less than half the exp amount. I cringe thinking how long it would take me to kill a mob in HF or Pal'Lomen solo. 120 seconds maybe?

Edit: White con in Pal'Lomen took 125 seconds dumping everything i had into it for 0.164 exp (.109 in non bonus). So over double the time to kill a white con mob in the highest tier zone running full burns for half the exp vs my 100 counterpart.

I have a few personas/alts to level and I still have to use my Heroic tokens. I'll keep notes from lvl 100 forward, perhaps only for proper in-era mobs.

As I recall - it was the time needed to level increased significantly, not mob count. Experience per kill was reduced by a small fraction, but mobs very much tougher and took much longer time to kill.
Typically mobs die in 30-45 seconds with in-era group gear, and ToV mobs took twice as much with TBL weapons/spells.

I just did a test between a level 100 and my 125. Just see above.

Well over double the time, leveraging full burns, resulted in half the amount of exp per kill. Double time to kill and double amount of exp needed? You're looking at 4x longer to gain a level at 125 vs 100.

Exactly and for many of us we kept playing EQ because we liked that part of the game.

No idea why some think it has to be either or. Give grinding players a reasonable return and leave mission exp where it is. This way returning players can ACTUALLY PLAY eq when they cant get groups for older content since ToV. They an always grind it. Right now if returning folks cant box missions themselves they can play overseer till they get to end game content. That is enough to turn anyone off EQ forever.

This is incorrect. HP values etc mean nothing as DPS increases. For example:
Mob has 10 HP -> You hit for 1 Damage. You deal 10% of its max health.
Mob has 1000 HP -> You hit for 100 Damage. You deal 10% of its max health.

Both values are essentially the same. Difficulty is designed based on a mix of mechanics, zone design, and Your values vs Mob values. We do essentially "reset" each expansion, but that happens regardless.

I would easily put CoV much more difficult in era than LS is in era <from a group player perspective>. Sure mobs don't hit "as hard" in CoV, but that is looking back in a full 125 char. Some expansions named have mechanics in open world, this expansions, there really isn't any or a very lack <At least from what I can tell>.

Adjusting stats is a very baseline way to "make it more difficult", but I doubt the players that actually want difficult content just want HP soaks that "hit hard" which boils down to bring another healer and you win.

People love playing TLP/Classic EQ servers, that doesn't mean we all want every single level to by Classic hell level 59 because "it would make the journey longer!"