Kill XP too high for mobs that are too weak

[Maergoth]

It's a problem cause it didn't take 3 months at launch. I'm talking 2004 here, not 2006. I don't know about 2006 cause I was in KOS.
I can 100% tell you that in KOS it took less time than in vanilla, just going back and leveling some alts.
We would go into FG level 20 and exit 25.

In vanilla, we were lucky to get 1 or 2 levels a day past 20. We were all horrible noobs, but we also spent hours and hours playing.

Vanilla is 100% about the journey, but if the journey is an unsatisfying slog it will do more harm than good.
Especially if it's overtuned the other way cause a fistful of people want to spend ages at lvl 18.

You're advocating for less xp gains from mobs, slower spawn rates, less xp from collections (which BTW, were ALWAYS absolutely massive and contributed to leveling alts), etc. There's no quest XP as it is.
You think people are interested in grinding every evening to get half a level in 2 hours?
It 100% was NOT like that in vanilla. I know cause I was there. Despite being noobs, shard runs and knowing absolutely nothing about the game or the zones, the XP bar kept moving.

I'm advocating for ensuring the XP rates (quest, kill, collection) are what they were in 2006, which has been well documented and posted clearly, repeatedly. If the rates are the same (~1% XP per heroic kill, 3-6% per quest, ~10% for a white collection after level 20) then the time it takes will *still be faster* because we're better at the game. Which part of this is confusing?

 

[Zenji]

It's a problem cause it didn't take 3 months at launch

You like to just randomly create a number and then get mad about it. Even with the suggested nerf to kill XP it wouldn't take 3 months to get to 50. Also measuring in weeks and months is just a very unclear way to measure leveling speed. It should be by hours played.
Because what 1 person thinks is average hours per week is very different than someone else.

 

[Axer]

Extremely strongly disagree they should buff quest XP.

One of the things that makes this feel "classic" to me is very much so that you are encouraged to group up and kill monsters to level.

Questing has a purpose and reward: Much better gold and gear than purely grinding mobs. But it's simply not as rewarding socially or long term play as playing killing monsters together, as the quest system while much better than modern mmos about sharing objective progress - is NOT perfect. Very often you end up grouping with people just 1 stage behind on a quest that can take several hours, if not days/weeks for casual players.. That sucks HARD for them if that was the main way to advance in levels.

Luckily it's not, so if there not so worried about it, they follow along the kills, they do NOT fall behind in levels - infact they catch up if there a bit lower.. And all is well , because the gear/gold rewards they are missing out on, are no critical. Levels are, especailly when it comes to playing with your friend.

So I quite like the current system.

Also I can speak on behalf of new players, which is what they wanna get.. i am one. I literally paid the $15 (actually i paid $30 cuz i bought my friend a sub too) just to play the beta.. And as buggy and confusing as it is, I consider it money well spent so far.

While im a veteran to many mmos and in other games can level extremely fast.. This one felt TOUGH, very hard and slow to level.. 3, 8+ hour sessions to 12..

Because yea.. if you new, this game is insanely complex and does not hold you hand.

I can only imagine what a player TRULY new to any mmos would take to get to lvl12 as it stands.

So yea, I get the ultra hardcores who played for 20+ years can to get to 12 blinfolded, easily and fast. But that doesn't makes it too qiuck. Even for someone like me that wants tot harken back ot the asherons call days (that game took over a year for the first person to hit the lvl cap)

It's imo, well balacned for an early low cap. Because the game is simply too slow paced and boring until you get a decent amount of abilities to juggle. So yea, 1-6 is quick and it should be. 6-12 is a slower than any other mmo on the market, if your new, thus slow enough.

That said id be fine with an extremely slow 13-50 that really required both doing tons of hours of grinding hard mobs you can only easily handle in groups. But don't make us do quests for XP, it's boring AF and there are already 81,278 other mmo's that do that, lets not make all games the same.

 

[Maergoth]

Extremely strongly disagree they should buff quest XP.

One of the things that makes this feel "classic" to me is very much so that you are encouraged to group up and kill monsters to level.

Questing has a purpose and reward: Much better gold and gear than purely grinding mobs. But it's simply not as rewarding socially or long term play as playing killing monsters together, as the quest system while much better than modern mmos about sharing objective progress - is NOT perfect. Very often you end up grouping with people just 1 stage behind on a quest that can take several hours, if not days/weeks for casual players.. That sucks HARD for them if that was the main way to advance in levels.

Luckily it's not, so if there not so worried about it, they follow along the kills, they do NOT fall behind in levels - infact they catch up if there a bit lower.. And all is well , because the gear/gold rewards they are missing out on, are no critical. Levels are, especailly when it comes to playing with your friend.

So I quite like the current system.

Also I can speak on behalf of new players, which is what they wanna get.. i am one. I literally paid the $15 (actually i paid $30 cuz i bought my friend a sub too) just to play the beta.. And as buggy and confusing as it is, I consider it money well spent so far.

While im a veteran to many mmos and in other games can level extremely fast.. This one felt TOUGH, very hard and slow to level.. 3, 8+ hour sessions to 12..

Because yea.. if you new, this game is insanely complex and does not hold you hand.

I can only imagine what a player TRULY new to any mmos would take to get to lvl12 as it stands.

So yea, I get the ultra hardcores who played for 20+ years can to get to 12 blinfolded, easily and fast. But that doesn't makes it too qiuck. Even for someone like me that wants tot harken back ot the asherons call days (that game took over a year for the first person to hit the lvl cap)

It's imo, well balacned for an early low cap. Because the game is simply too slow paced and boring until you get a decent amount of abilities to juggle. So yea, 1-6 is quick and it should be. 6-12 is a slower than any other mmo on the market, if your new, thus slow enough.

That said id be fine with an extremely slow 13-50 that really required both doing tons of hours of grinding hard mobs you can only easily handle in groups. But don't make us do quests for XP, it's boring AF and there are already 81,278 other mmo's that do that, lets not make all games the same.

There are group quests. In fact, most of the quests are group quests because the mobs they have you kill are group mobs.
You buff quest XP and nerf mob EXP because it encourages you to go to different places to do different things, instead of clump up in the highest xp yield spots in the game and do nothing but kill the same 3 mobs on repeat.

If you've been questing enough to know that the xp is too low, then you've been doing it wrong and don't know how fast XP can be.

 

[Riaak]

There are group quests. In fact, most of the quests are group quests because the mobs they have you kill are group mobs.
You buff quest XP and nerf mob EXP because it encourages you to go to different places to do different things, instead of clump up in the highest xp yield spots in the game and do nothing but kill the same 3 mobs on repeat.

If you've been questing enough to know that the xp is too low, then you've been doing it wrong and don't know how fast XP can be.

As pretty much any EQ player knows, the focus has never been on the quests for EXP. Mob kill exp has always been much higher than doing quests. Are you suggesting the developers deviate from the original formula?

 

[Maergoth]

As pretty much any EQ player knows, the focus has never been on the quests for EXP. Mob kill exp has always been much higher than doing quests. Are you suggesting the developers deviate from the original formula?

I'm suggesting it be made classic, which is quest xp being 2-3x as much as it is now, and mob xp being 1/3rd what it is now. Again. And again.

and again

and

again

 

[Riaak]

You are talking about increasing quest exp from what the game originally had in 2006. Quests were not great exp, no one grouped up to "grind quests". Everyone grouped up to kill mobs and level, so again I ask why are you trying to change the intent of the server? The intent is to group up with other players. Anyone can go solo quests on live, that is not what people are looking for here. We want to group up and have a good time. So please please stop trying to make this server into what you've googled about the game back then.

 

[CommaCommander]

You are talking about increasing quest exp from what the game originally had in 2006. Quests were not great exp, no one grouped up to "grind quests". Everyone grouped up to kill mobs and level, so again I ask why are you trying to change the intent of the server? The intent is to group up with other players. Anyone can go solo quests on live, that is not what people are looking for here. We want to group up and have a good time. So please please stop trying to make this server into what you've googled about the game back then.

The quest xp needs to be raised and the mob xp needs to be nerfed.

Quest XP doesn't need to be super buffed... but when a quest you turn in gives you less xp then killing a mob at +1 level higher.... there is a problem...

 

[Araxes]

Out of curiosity for those of you posting into this thread, when you hit level 12 (if you hit level 12) did you do a /played and see how many hours it took to reach level 12?

I did, on my troubador, shortly after reaching 12, and it took ~ 21 hours.

Most of that was solo questing, exploration, some time spent in chat (not much) and some time spent AFK (even less) and at level 11-12 I did a Blackburrow group that spent more time dying and accruing debt than anything else. ;p

So — if an average player logged in once per day and spent ~1 hour playing; it would take 20 days to reach level 12. Assuming that person has a social life, family, and other obligations, and they can’t play on weekends in general, that means it will take them about 1 month to reach level 12.

Let’s go a step further and say the person has ~2 hours per day; then you cut this in half and in about 2 weeks you are at level 12.

I think this is OK, because that number will increase by some amount exponentially as the levels increase. I don’t know it will double, but let’s say it will increase by 1/3 each time. So levels 12-22 may take 30 hours; levels 22-32 may take 40hours. Going from 1 - 32 at that rate could be about 90 hours of play time, or 3 months playing 1 hour per day to get to level 30; ~ half of that time if you can devote ~2 hours per day, 5 days per week.

TLDR: I think this conversation can go on ad nauseum. Let’s wait and see how it plays out when people hit level 32. (I’d also love to know if the Beta server has any sort of behind the scenes adjustment on it for the sole purpose of getting people to test content, which would render this entire conversation moot.)

 

[Maergoth]

You are talking about increasing quest exp from what the game originally had in 2006. Quests were not great exp, no one grouped up to "grind quests". Everyone grouped up to kill mobs and level, so again I ask why are you trying to change the intent of the server? The intent is to group up with other players. Anyone can go solo quests on live, that is not what people are looking for here. We want to group up and have a good time. So please please stop trying to make this server into what you've googled about the game back then.

No, I'm not. The quest XP isn't what it was in 2006. I have posted evidence of this: ~3-6% per quest is common for the era. Not 1%.

 

[CommaCommander]

Out of curiosity for those of you posting into this thread, when you hit level 12 (if you hit level 12) did you do a /played and see how many hours it took to reach level 12?

I did, on my troubador, shortly after reaching 12, and it took ~ 21 hours.

Most of that was solo questing, exploration, some time spent in chat (not much) and some time spent AFK (even less) and at level 11-12 I did a Blackburrow group that spent more time dying and accruing debt than anything else. ;p

So — if an average player logged in once per day and spent ~1 hour playing; it would take 20 days to reach level 12. Assuming that person has a social life, family, and other obligations, and they can’t play on weekends in general, that means it will take them about 1 month to reach level 12.

Let’s go a step further and say the person has ~2 hours per day; then you cut this in half and in about 2 weeks you are at level 12.

I think this is OK, because that number will increase by some amount exponentially as the levels increase. I don’t know it will double, but let’s say it will increase by 1/3 each time. So levels 12-22 may take 30 hours; levels 22-32 may take 40hours. Going from 1 - 32 at that rate could be about 90 hours of play time, or 3 months playing 1 hour per day to get to level 30; ~ half of that time if you can devote ~2 hours per day, 5 days per week.

TLDR: I think this conversation can go on ad nauseum. Let’s wait and see how it plays out when people hit level 32. (I’d also love to know if the Beta server has any sort of behind the scenes adjustment on it for the sole purpose of getting people to test content, which would render this entire conversation moot.)

I went from level 6 to level 12 in about 4.5 hours... just killing mobs in the CL/Crypt...

We were getting 2-3% on non-heroic yellow mobs...
We got 6% on a few yellow heroic packs...

Even solo in qeynos I was getting 1 - 2.5% solo... killing beetles, snakes, rats, wolves, etc... that were yellow to blue.... however, the difference here is downtime...

 

[Maergoth]

I went from level 6 to level 12 in about 4.5 hours... just killing mobs in the CL/Crypt...

We were getting 2-3% on non-heroic yellow mobs...
We got 6% on a few yellow heroic packs...

Even solo in qeynos I was getting 1 - 2.5% solo... killing beetles, snakes, rats, wolves, etc... that were yellow to blue.... however, the difference here is downtime...

This is kinda how I think this whole issue is playing out:

People who did quests think XP is fine. People who didn't do quests and immediately jumped into a group know that it is not.

Which is why it's not fine. Because if you nerf mob XP (like you have to) then the people solo XPing with quests will be getting a third as much mob XP, making it not fine. So you raise the quest XP to compensate.

Doing one thing versus another was never that totally dooming during classic. Mobs gave less, quests gave more. 4 hours from 1 to 12 is very doable right now, if not faster. And that's not using tricks. That's finishing the boat, doing the 2 island collections, leaving the island, grinding snakes and beetles and rats in commons/antonica by the gate until 9-10, and then hitting whichever heroic dungeon is nearby.

 

[Nayiin]

Doing one thing versus another was never that totally dooming during classic.

Bump quest xp, nerf quest xp, bump mob xp, nerf mob xp. I don't really care either way. When everyone came over to eq2 (from eq1) most people who went back did so because bugs and/or progress in general was too fast. I only say that to say I was around at launch playing with experienced players... and nobody who was concerned with progress speed touched quests, they were a joke and doing them (solo or group) was a massive time sink that would massively increase your 1-50 time. Did it get a little better by 2006, sure... but this patch era includes some of the changes they were making for EoF, so while some of you are saying "2006 everything must be slower!, others could say 2006, everything should be faster!

 

[Mountbatten]

Quest XP needs a bit of a boost if for no other reason than discovery XP being disabled. I mean, there are good other reasons, but even if you want just one reason, that is it. I am not going to comment on combat XP, but even going through noob island it's pretty obvious that something is amiss.

 

[Axer]

I went from level 6 to level 12 in about 4.5 hours... just killing mobs in the CL/Crypt...

We were getting 2-3% on non-heroic yellow mobs...
We got 6% on a few yellow heroic packs...

Even solo in qeynos I was getting 1 - 2.5% solo... killing beetles, snakes, rats, wolves, etc... that were yellow to blue.... however, the difference here is downtime...

For some, learning the mechanics, getting better at your class, exploring the world, reading the text, listening to te voice overs is "down time"

For me, it's playing the video game.

So yea, if you eliminate 100% of that and know where to go, your numbers line up.

Anyways moot point since they listened and lowered the XP curve back to whatever it was back in the day.

 

[Happypanties]

I'm suggesting it be made classic, which is quest xp being 2-3x as much as it is now, and mob xp being 1/3rd what it is now. Again. And again.

and again

and

again

You didn't even play classic and we have got 2006 exp rates. They not after making it 2004 rates.

 

[Maergoth]

Classic is 2006 is classic. Split hairs however you want, the XP rates we have now are solid Enjoy!

 

[Mountbatten]

ON the one hand "People want everything immediately. Slow XP down, it's about the journey not the destination!"

ON the other, "XP is way too slow. How am I ever supposed to catch up?"

 

[Caul Shivers]

ON the one hand "People want everything immediately. Slow XP down, it's about the journey not the destination!"

ON the other, "XP is way too slow. How am I ever supposed to catch up?"

Well few things.
XP is absolutely dire now, and we're talking lvl 13-14, not level 40+.

There is no discovery XP.
Quest XP basically doesn't exist.

It's barely manageable with XP potions, but they won't be free at launch.
At least at 14-15 you have 6-7 buttons to press, going back to level an alt now is an awful experience.

In general, leveling alts if things stay like this will be a miserable thing - as there will be much less people about.

But hey, at least we didn't get reduced spawn rates of mobs from the same people pushing for the XP change - people who never played vanilla btw.
Imagine Wailing Caves, a tiny zone anyway, with mobs respawning every 20 minutes. Would be some next level game design.

 

[Maergoth]

Well few things.
XP is absolutely dire now, and we're talking lvl 13-14, not level 40+.

There is no discovery XP.
Quest XP basically doesn't exist.

It's barely manageable with XP potions, but they won't be free at launch.
At least at 14-15 you have 6-7 buttons to press, going back to level an alt now is an awful experience.

In general, leveling alts if things stay like this will be a miserable thing - as there will be much less people about.

But hey, at least we didn't get reduced spawn rates of mobs from the same people pushing for the XP change - people who never played vanilla btw.
Imagine Wailing Caves, a tiny zone anyway, with mobs respawning every 20 minutes. Would be some next level game design.

You'll be begging for reduces spawn rates for mobs when you try to go hunt in dungeons you aren't geared for
"XP is absolutely dire now" In what context?

What is your goal?

To keep up? Slower XP makes it easier to keep up. Escaping level range of your peers takes more than a day.
To get to end-game? For what? 80% of the content in vanilla isn't level 40+

What are you "Barely managing" to do?