Implementation of AE XP, Recent Patches

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Dasidarius, Jul 10, 2020.

  1. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    TLDR: Wednesday's patch increased the XP required to get an AA by another 11%.

    I know the recent implementation of changes to AA xp has been debated to death.

    I've waited to pass judgment on it until the second portion of the changes were implemented. That happened this Wednesday.

    I've gone through my logs and have produced a spreadsheet of my findings.

    All of this xp was done in Maiden's Eye.

    A couple of things about this data.
    1. The character that is getting XP is sitting in a 6 person group but is out of range of death messages in many instances. I have a log for the wizard that is in range and will match up to the kill times. I am happy to provide both of these logs if necessary.
    2. Because of 1, I'm relying on averaging these into total XP hits. The pulls include, generally speaking, the same mobs occasionally getting a named or a single caster that needs to be peeled out. Because of this I recognize that the data is not as clean is Torven's FG data but I strongly believe it is reliable, especially averaged over thousands of mobs. Something like 10 or less XP hits in a given day are single kills and prior to Patch 1 that wouldn't have mattered.
    3. I have more pre-patch 1 data but felt confident that additional data was not necessary.
    4. I have only included data from ME and specifically from 1 time stamp where an AA was gained til the next time stamp where an AA was gained.
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...6I5ADqjV74F20zsZos0/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true
    As you can see, this is showing that the amount of xp required to gain an AA while AEing went up after the first patch on 6/26. This increase was 30.4% for ME. I understand that based on the AE XP logic the total reduction scales off of mob level. At this point I'm not trying to argue this.

    What I don't understand is after the 2nd patch on Wednesday 7/8 the number of mobs required to gain an AA increased, AGAIN. This increase was an additional 11.4% or 41.4% over what it took to gain an AA point prior to the 6/26 patch. I was under the impression that after the 2nd patch the total amount of XP required to gain an AA would fall around 15% more than the first patch while AEing. The patch notes indicate that we should have seen 28% less kills per AA, instead the total amount required seems to have increased by 41% from before the AE XP nerf.

    At this point my simple question is, was this intended?
     

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    Last edited: Jul 10, 2020
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  2. Tyrion

    Tyrion Well-Known Member

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    Interested to see the response on this hard data
     
  3. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    One valuable thing may be to check your wizards kill logs for each of those time frames and check the number of Goranga, wolves, bats, skeletons and wurms in each set.

    One would assume it should be the same distribution for each if the same pull method is utilized. But if you’re grabbing a bunch more high level Goranga and wurms than you are skeletons and bats that may be one explanation for a difference.
     
  4. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    Darchon, I agree with you on that and would be happy to do so but the distribution has not changed over the past month. The pulls have remained the same.

    The only variable is the two patches. I also understand that the High Level Kill Modifier was removed and it may be affecting some of these kills but it would have to be a modifier of 40% (or more if it doesn't apply to every mob) in order to have the math add up.
     
  5. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

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    Didn't the con range change with this patch as well? By one lvl? Maybe some are LB now.
     
  6. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    Nope nothing is LB.
     
  7. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    The high level kill bonus exp multiplier (which scales to level difference) was being applied to kills level 52-54 erroneously (assuming a level 60 player) and that was removed. The range is now +/-5 levels. So yes, less exp in Maiden's Eye is intended if you're killing a significant amount of level 53-54s in there. Before you were getting about 2x the exp you should have from level 54s, and something like 65% more exp from level 53s. For level 52s it was about 28% which breaks even with the reduced AA amount.
     
  8. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    So I understand correctly, the bonus was removed for 52-54 and we now now need to find zones that have mobs of level 55+ for solo killing or mobs that are entirely 51 and lower to see the same returns as previous? Things that have been reliable xp for the past two years in Luclin in the 52-54 level band will now yield 100 to 28% less xp than previously?
     
  9. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    I found errors in our experience logic and they were corrected. The goal is to replicate AK, not make a custom server. When killing mobs level 51 and under for AA exp when not PBAoEing, your AA rate is now 28% faster.

    I wasn't going to completely omit the high level bonus multiplier just because I lacked data on specific level ranges. I might not have ever found more data to improve it, I had no idea. The result would have been far less like AK with it gone. And people would have been screaming bloody murder after PoP launched. So I put in the best guess that I could come up with. It was very accurate when killing level 55 to 60 mobs for AA exp. I didn't know it should stop at -5 levels. It's fortunate that I had recently stumbled upon reliable exp data in old threads when looking for light blue con exp so I could greatly improve our model.

    I'll remind everybody that our jobs here are much, much more difficult than Sony's was as they could arbitrarily adjust anything they wanted at a whim. We have to do a lot of digging, crunch a lot of numbers and decompile the client to try and come up with the best estimates to what AK was like. We don't have a functional server to observe on anymore, which makes some things virtually impossible to figure out. (and even if we did, it would still be very time consuming) The result is often you'll have it easier than you should for awhile (and sometimes harder) until things are more figured out. I suppose I could have just done what the WoW emu guys did and knowingly jack up NPC stats because 'the game was too easy' so when users played the real thing again they were lulzing over how easy it was compared to 'private' servers. But I'm actually aiming for correctness here, so that means often what the players get is too forgiving on my first attempt.
     
  10. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    So will we bringing be back fully juiced callers now that exp is "fixed"? That would replicate AK.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2020
  11. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Maybe at the same time I start charging you $10/mo per account to play here
     
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  12. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    So custom content for things you don't like. Accurate archival server for things you do. Got it.
     
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  13. Mascha

    Mascha People Like Me

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    Dasidarius, you have done nice research on ME AOE pulling. But, you posting shows a hostility against Torven which is not justified. He does the best he can, at no pay, to replicate the AK experience. If the results do not please you, thats too bad, but not his fault. The devs are helping us to relive AK and it is neither nice nor fair to go against the devs in such an aggressive fashion.
     
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  14. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy in that logic. The philosophy seems to be, quite frankly, accuracy until I don't like an old mechanic. There are MANY examples of this. The VP change is another one IN THIS PATCH.

    My response above was flippant. For that I apologize. But so was Torvens and I don't expect I'll see an apology for that.

    I have not been derogatory, I have not resorted to any name calling. I have been short. I have been direct. And I would disagree that I have been hostile.

    This type of change, particularly at this point in time in this expansion, should have been fully explained so that players understood exactly what was changing and why. Instead portions of the changes were obfuscated and the patch notes did not address the specific changes that were being made to 52-54 level mobs. We're left to parse it to see how badly we were affected.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2020
  15. Slade

    Slade Member

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    Hey Torven,

    Thank you for all that you do. I had a question about the high level kill bonus multiplier. Judging by the name, I assume this is supposed to reward players for killing mobs closer in level (ie harder than lower levels). you mention the range is +/-5. If a lvl 60 kills a level 66+ mob, that means they would not get the bonus correct? That seems a bit unintended, given the presumed nature/intent of the exp bonus. Is there anyway the bonus could be -5 and + 10 or 15?
     
  16. Yinikren

    Yinikren Well-Known Member

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    I'm under the impression that the bonus percentage caps at +5 levels. I don't think it disappears at 66+, you just don't get an additional bonus.
     
  17. Sketchy

    Sketchy People Like Me

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    Not that I agree or disagree with either side of this issue, I think the decision has been made. It may not be the popular one, but often that is a choice a leader or Dev must make. This patch will not satisfy everyone. No patch ever will. I wish there was a better answer, but there never will be. We're recreating a server based on logs, client decompiles, and what Torven said above. Torven has dome some legit amazing work here. He has also implemented some changes I disagreed with but I just moved on, nerds can't agree on everything. This server is well put together, and will never be 100% accurate, but we can get close. Sometimes things are missed for a year because the Devs are busy and hadn't noticed neither had the player base. Some fixes in the name of Akkuracy will of course come across as nerfs, even though that's not really the goal. I think we should always be expecting to have some minor upsets and discussions. The previous thread I thought went quite well. I hope that Torven didn't feel too defensive or attacked, to me it looked like peer-review. Which is stressful of course. A lot more data and even original EQ developer commented, though as Torven stated, it may not be accurate.

    Torven is of then the dev that pushes more controversial patches, he spends a ton of time researching and I will always respect him for that. By putting yourself out there, you're opening your self up to tons of nerd criticism, some beneficial, some not.

    The playerbase here is fantastic, and is something that really stands out in this community. So many new players, often refugees from P99, are blown away by the chillness we have going on here. Lets continue with this chillness and fiinish up PoP, instead of being bogged down in details. As much as I have a huge respect for the volunteer devs who have helped to breathe life and create the community, I also have to shout out to the community here. The community that slays AHR 30 times, just b/c. And the community that provides bug reports. It's very much a symbiotic relationship. It's worth noting the value of the community. Everyone has their roles, dev, player, corpses loser, etc. They don't need to be equal, but at the end of the day someone has to make a decision.

    Lets move on, lets keep going, and lets see what PoP AA looks like. And lets keep it chill, since this is what the server is about. There are some tempers flaring in this thread, and well I don't really care about a bit of nerd rage, having engaged in it myself, it's just better not too.
     
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  18. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    I'll respond civilly but at this point you sound like a troll to me.

    First of all, the VP change was not arbitrary and I provided evidence in the changelog thread. I since even found video of the zone I had made showing the dragons buffing the minion NPCs. As far as I'm aware, NPCs only buff NPCs that they assist. I have no desire to make VP different than it was on AK and if I did I would change the ignore ranges in there which I think are stupid and a terrible design flaw. The linked aggro that Rimi pointed out is fixed on Dev and pulling in there will get much easier next patch.

    Secondly, I'm not going to asterisk every time I say 'the goal is to recreate AK' with: except for a handful of bugs that the developers deem harmful to the game and that Sony's developers of EQ would have fixed at the time had they been aware of it and saw it widely abused. Leaving the erroneous MLM bonus going down to -8 levels game-wide just because we had it that way awhile makes no sense. The math is crystal clear and this affects the entire game, not just one zone.

    Thirdly, the caller caves running with fully bugged 12 callers would result in far more exp than would have been possible on AK due to improvements made to the clients and our pathing allowing the pulling of mobs down into the caller cave from outside.

    I mentioned the reduction of level 52-54 exp in the experience thread. That you failed to read the thread is not my problem.
     
  19. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Sony had put in some anti-powerleveling checks in that logic, so there are cases where the multiplier would not apply. If a low level player is grouped with higher level players such that the lower level player is far under the group's average level then it will also not apply. A Feb 2003 post stated this quite explicitly and the AK data seems to agree.
     
  20. Slade

    Slade Member

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    Was yininrens above post correct? The exp bonus would still be in place for a lvl 66 mob (assuming a lvl 60 or group of lvl 60s)? It’s just that bonus would not be any greater than killing a lvl 65 mob?

    thank you again
     
  21. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    No, the bonus would not apply in that scenario and not to anybody under 5 or more levels from the NPC's level.

    The bonus also caps at 3x, which is hit at +3 levels. The Zamiel thread states quote: "It is known that there is no marginal benefit for killing a mob over 3 levels higher than you". This strongly suggests that the MLM is capped at 3.0, (for level 60-65 players) which is a nice round number that the bonus scaling ends up at. White con exp at level 60-65 grants 2.6x. Sub 60s are subjected to a lower cap.

    So, a level 60 killing a level 63-65 would get 3x normal then 1x normal at 66.

    Why would Sony do this? Because the group exp split in EQ is very forgiving, so lower levels in a group end up with a share nearly as large as the higher level ones and because the MLM is calculated individually and not by the highest group member or whatever. Sony rightfully must have concluded than some sanity checks had to be in place otherwise your level 55s in tier 2 PoP zones grouped with level 65s are going to end up getting nutty amounts of exp.
     
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  22. Sketchy

    Sketchy People Like Me

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    yo, thanks for taking the time to explain all this to us. I could imagine it being frustrating, there is only one of you, and many of us. Many devs would never take the time to explain to the community what their thoughts are and game mechanics.
     
  23. Placer

    Placer Well-Known Member

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    For what it was worth, Maiden did feel like too much xp. But I wasn't going to post something based on a feeling. Heck, pathing and traps still aren't what they should be there. What I can tell you is that on old AK I true soloed all of my level 54-55 in Maiden and it took over 200 Goranga.
     
  24. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

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    Has anyone else seen a significant hit with a low level (40ish) alt with a 60 toon? For instance, Grimling AE nets my 40 bard about 10% of the XP previously received by other alts I've run through the same gamut. Each kill (40 bard in group with 60 wizard AEing) is worth about .035% vs .4% previously.

    I know some of this is the anti-AE code, but less than 10% the XP? Have people seen similar with dragging a low level alt along with a 60 as you blast through, say, Droga with an epic mage pet?
     
  25. Placer

    Placer Well-Known Member

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    I had a friend with Provo (60) who was 41-42 just last night duoing high 30 mobs abou 5-10 at a time. The xp seemed as fast as normal for him.
     
  26. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

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    It has to be the AE code somehow. I just brought my BL out to kill the same grimlings and am getting nearly 1% per kill on my 40 bard (24% with 23 mobs) vs .035% per kill when paired with my 60 wizard (2% with 56 mobs).
     
  27. Mascha

    Mascha People Like Me

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    Experience with 60 mage and 45 rogue in Droga seems about 25% of what it was before the second last patch. This is in Droga. No AOE, straight pet killing with mage doing 10 damage to each mob.
     
  28. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    That does surprise me. Grimlings were a very fast way to PL a toon into the high 40s on AK, and I think I usually stayed until about level 50 before moving on to PoJ. Perhaps @Darchon has a log somewhere?
     
  29. Ripwind

    Ripwind People Like Me

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    I'm about 90 kills in with Syphie now and it's definitely about 1% per mob my bard is getting vs far less with the wizard.
     
  30. Amirite

    Amirite Well-Known Member

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    while this doesn't have to do with AE exp..

    does this xp change have any reason to adjust your xp - aa when you die and rez? several people have noted getting aa xp or plinking when they get a rez now.

    i've noticed i've lost alot of xp and gained aa exp on a rez. but i could be wrong?