You be the dev: XP for Kill Formulae omgthissucks

[LinuxPup]

Had a lvl 13 ecl1 when the change was made. Went to ordian clan caves and the mobs were a bit tougher than usual (couple more ab, maybe hp's... noticable but not out of line). Died to a nasty trap...

Whenever that happens, think of me.

[Rufio]

I had to run and didn't flesh out my points very well in that last post.

The way I see it, there were 2 objectives to the change:
1: Promoting party play
2: Promoting leveling in the higher level planes

My point about soloing is that even if you can't find a party, it doesn't mean that you are stuck in forest home getting 30 exp per kill.

Being in TC and NC didn't make finding parties easy for me. Even if there were a bunch of TC and NC toons logged in, if they weren't in TSS or FoN, they weren't inviting me into their parties. Don't confuse those monday night runs into celestia and the other epic planes as being just another day for us, we organized those runs in advance on our forums, and they were meant for organized groups of level 40's, not for leveling toons or pvp builds. The last month or so my routine has been "log in > shout for a party at my level > crickets > log off". This weekend was the best party leveling I have done in months.

[Daral0085]

I'm gonna reiterate Bargeld's point. It seems like a lot of the impact of the changes is to make leveling easier at lower levels. The simple fact is that there aren't 38+ CR mobs that you can realistically fight at lvl 38. As Tep says, the endgame (i.e. celestia, abyss) is for 40 toons who are gear hunting. They just aren't effective at leveling because the difficulty is *wayyyyyy* out of scale with the CR. Even the easier celestia mobs, like Angels, are only what, CR 37? Compare an angel that sees you across the map, crits for 200 with 60 unresistable, has like 70+ AB and probably 3k+ HP, to like what, goblin shaman at 35? elite dwarf at 34?

I guess I would summarize my point/complaint as that the CR to difficulty ratio is massively skewed for 36+ mobs. CR 35 = corpse reaver, crypt chanter, amazon priestess, felldrake, glimmerskin, vampire rogue, huecuva, etc. So HoD, amazon bosses, low-end posi, DE. This is doable with ~35 lvl toons.

CR 36 (ONE CR UP) is celestial avenger (!!!), chwidencha, death archer, demilich (wtf?), hound archon (wtf?), lantern archon, marraenloth. This is doable with either a custom-built, epicly geared farmer toon, very very slow, or a large, well-balanced party of 40s, which goes reasonably fast but gets negligible XP.

By the time you get to CR 38, you are basically exclusively talking about end-game celestia/abyss/DWP mobs or a few lower end bosses, which are not realistically farmable because of the 30 minute spawn timer.

So adding an XP penalty for killing lower CR mobs is not helping at the epic levels, which have always been the hardest to finish off, both because the available areas to level start dropping off, and the difficulty absolutely skyrockets.

So yeah, feel free to knock down Skara CR if you like, that's a fair move, but if you aren't intending to give us any reasonable solo zone for 35+ toons, at least give us an area that is CR:difficulty comparable to earlier areas. Because the fact is that mob difficulty is going up dramatically, but toons really don't gain that much power from 35-40. You're getting like 3 AB, maybe 30 HP, variable AC depending on how you level, and maybe 1-2 epic feats, at most like epic dodge or dragon form or something. Meanwhile, the mobs are gaining tons of AB, dmg, HP, devastating abilities, hellballs, etc. There is just no parity.

I feel like there are two separate XP scales. There's everything under CR 33 plus early DE (komodos, naga, etc), elysium, maybe HoD, and then there's everything above. So you either have to shift everything above UP, or everything below DOWN. Because right now a bunch of stuff is mashed together into 34-37, and it's really not consistent difficulty at all. And the difficulty for 35+ is not at all consistent with the difficulty of 34-.

[mining]

I'm gonna reiterate Bargeld's point. It seems like a lot of the impact of the changes is to make leveling easier at lower levels. The simple fact is that there aren't 38+ CR mobs that you can realistically fight at lvl 38. As Tep says, the endgame (i.e. celestia, abyss) is for 40 toons who are gear hunting. They just aren't effective at leveling because the difficulty is *wayyyyyy* out of scale with the CR. Even the easier celestia mobs, like Angels, are only what, CR 37? Compare an angel that sees you across the map, crits for 200 with 60 unresistable, has like 70+ AB and probably 3k+ HP, to like what, goblin shaman at 35? elite dwarf at 34?

I guess I would summarize my point/complaint as that the CR to difficulty ratio is massively skewed for 36+ mobs. CR 35 = corpse reaver, crypt chanter, amazon priestess, felldrake, glimmerskin, vampire rogue, huecuva, etc. So HoD, amazon bosses, low-end posi, DE. This is doable with ~35 lvl toons.

CR 36 (ONE CR UP) is celestial avenger (!!!), chwidencha, death archer, demilich (wtf?), hound archon (wtf?), lantern archon, marraenloth. This is doable with either a custom-built, epicly geared farmer toon, very very slow, or a large, well-balanced party of 40s, which goes reasonably fast but gets negligible XP.

By the time you get to CR 38, you are basically exclusively talking about end-game celestia/abyss/DWP mobs or a few lower end bosses, which are not realistically farmable because of the 30 minute spawn timer.

So adding an XP penalty for killing lower CR mobs is not helping at the epic levels, which have always been the hardest to finish off, both because the available areas to level start dropping off, and the difficulty absolutely skyrockets.

So yeah, feel free to knock down Skara CR if you like, that's a fair move, but if you aren't intending to give us any reasonable solo zone for 35+ toons, at least give us an area that is CR:difficulty comparable to earlier areas. Because the fact is that mob difficulty is going up dramatically, but toons really don't gain that much power from 35-40. You're getting like 3 AB, maybe 30 HP, variable AC depending on how you level, and maybe 1-2 epic feats, at most like epic dodge or dragon form or something. Meanwhile, the mobs are gaining tons of AB, dmg, HP, devastating abilities, hellballs, etc. There is just no parity.

I feel like there are two separate XP scales. There's everything under CR 33 plus early DE (komodos, naga, etc), elysium, maybe HoD, and then there's everything above. So you either have to shift everything above UP, or everything below DOWN. Because right now a bunch of stuff is mashed together into 34-37, and it's really not consistent difficulty at all. And the difficulty for 35+ is not at all consistent with the difficulty of 34-.

You clearly haven't been on the past few days. CRs are changing .

[Bargeld]

It is gonna take a lot of time and tweaking, that's for sure. The ideas in place are sound ideas, but it's a big realm and that means a lot of checking and a lot of scenarios. Each area has to be checked for difficulty by solo toons from all the factions to see how do-able they are. You need to have large parties steamroll through them to see how the xp flows at max rate. Need to tweak areas where people know 'tricks' that could be exploited. Etc...

There's a lot to do... my best advice for everyone at this point is document the numbers. I started doing it because the rates at which my toons were leveling was way out of whack compared to what I was used to. But the values in an xp table don't tell the whole story as far as in-game reality. Let's be glad that it IS being actively worked on and that we are being heard

[Daral0085]

You clearly haven't been on the past few days. CRs are changing .

Ironically, I have been on the past few days. It's the weeks before I haven't. But even in a few days of gaming, almost nobody goes to high difficulty areas because tough areas are tough areas. Or to steal another meme, one does not simply walk into Celestia. You could have upped Zaphkiel to CR 99 and nobody would know for another 3 months.

[Delisha Zrazorian]

Built a couple new PCs to try things out...

power-leveled to 12 took all our books, de-leveled to 1 and then leveled back to 16 in about a day and a half...

You've certainly fixed the low level runs... 1-16 at least, is but a blink of an eye... will keep you posted as we progress...


Went to the Posi plane as advised with our 37s... very tough fighting for very little xp...

yes...believe it or not we want you to challenge yourself a bit. which means taking your char somewhere it might actually have to fight a bit for the right CR:xp ratio.

Where?




at your service,
DZ

[dethonlegs]

I would think a huge mid 30 party killing it's way through a near end game area (like DE and Ely) should be be making huge XP and be at the extreme end of whats possible. I'm talking about 3-5 levels in a good session, not half to one level.

Pity the poor solo toon trying to level in these types of places.

[Eldaquen]

This part of NS4 xp might not be all that important in the grand scheme of leveling but before was an added benefit. In the past, Raiders would receive some meager xp when npc cradle defenders were slain. Not much when raiding with 40's but it was something. Considering that factions' cradle maps contained anywhere from 6 to 15 npc defenders that was anywhere from 60 to 150 xp per attempt (estimate numbers.) Under the new xp table high level raiders won't receive any xp. You might initially think this isn't a big deal, but considering that some builds would use that xp to craft consumables or build a buffer against raiding xp loss it was helpful in the long run. In the past when I've raided RK, SL, MA, or AO at least I received something for the effort if npc's were slain. Even when the attempt failed. Player defenders recieve xp for slaying raiders in their faction. With the new table I would surmise (haven't tested) that a high level raider would not receive xp for killing a npc defenders, taking away the xp for possible arrow, scroll, or potion crafting for future attempts. Would you consider giving raiders xp if they pk a player defender in the cradle room or some meager amount of xp for npc defenders in cradle rooms?

[weasel423]

I was in a 36-39 party yesterday (at the low end) in DE (after the CR changes) and we were getting VERY GOOD xp (and I am ECL3). The Green Wyrms, for example were giving 339xp as were the Rangers (bout time on those... they are tough).

[frogofpeace]

I've spent a couple hours killing beetles and such outside MA tonight. Svirf, cleric, now L3. That's a couple boooring hours. 3-5 seems to be acccelerating some, but I wouldn't mind seeing some more love for low levels.

[trickovthlyte]

Would you consider giving raiders xp if they pk a player defender in the cradle room ?

Now we're talking!

[mining]

I've spent a couple hours killing beetles and such outside MA tonight. Svirf, cleric, now L3. That's a couple boooring hours. 3-5 seems to be acccelerating some, but I wouldn't mind seeing some more love for low levels.

It depends how clever you are about it - if you chip in for a cleric amulet you'll be able to sweep mobs.

Note: Send me all CR 0.5 stuff - should really be CR 1.

[DeputyDog]

Already upped most lvl 1 stuff to 1 except a few of the .5s that need to be fixed manually in the database. Ive been all around the mod upping low lvl cr a point or two here and there or making things like dire rats not hit so hard. It shouldnt take a couple of hours to get to 3. Maybe to 5-6, especially in MA with all the the stuff to kill.

The hard part I found in ma was after the beetles are not worth much xp, getting some means formians or kobolds or others things that are harder. I nerfed the formians somewhat so that should be a good place after the plains.

[trickovthlyte]

I come here for the PVP, not the leveling / grinding experience.

Me too

By PVP I mean the kind that can go either way and both sides have chances. The knockdown/drag out kind of PVP that can go on for quite some time if two or more parties have incentive to fight.

The above quote by dethonlegs is an important point that shouldn't be passed over lightly.
It deserves a forum post of it's own since I, and alot of other players, can't get enough PVP, and this thread isn't about PVP.

Returning to subject of the thread, it looks to me like you can get to 37 faster than ever and then it's a grind again. I ain't complaining.