some exp numbers orc shaman vs orc rogue

[kiryan]

Just some interesting information. I don't necessarily think theres anything wrong with this.

the exp group averages 5-7 people, including 4-7 pets

shaman stoning, wracking, ghealing, memming out
rogue some better than average gear just assisting

orc shaman starts 50.12 ends 50.380%

orc rogue starts at 45.80 ends at 50.270%

now assuming that the exp percents are show accurately, which the herse is they are not, rogue 46-50 is easier than shaman 49-50.

[kiryan]

oh rogue hasted probably about 50% of the time

[Ace]

that sounds about right, casters are harder to level for a good reason.

Ace

[Gura]

should they be that much harder to level though?

[Branthur]

No question. Yes. Yes they should be that much harder to level.

[Ragorn]

That's ridiculous. No class should be 17 times easier to level than another.

[Gura]

gonna agree with ragorn here

[fotex]

You also can't simply divide 4.47/0.26. Gaining xp at lvl 46 is gonna happen alot faster than at lvl 50.

[Guw]

XP test - 3 man group at Meiliches.

Both mage/warrior had no meilich mage on trophy before test started.

Level 42 a tanking warrior was gaining xp at 1.3 times the rate of a level 40 mage stoning/hasting/blinding with occasional damage spell thrown in. Third person in group a mid-to-high 20's invoker was getting big xp as you'd imagine.

The 30% "bonus xp" (easier spell table or tanking xp or both.. doesn't matter) to warrior is reasonable I think.

1.3 times is reasonable. 3 times is understandable.

17 times is crazy.

[kiryan]

I don't have good numbers for a warrior since we used a couple different ones, but warrior 1h with shitty hit/dam rarely hasted was about 1/3 to 1/4 as fast as the rogue and in the same approximate level range as the rogue.

The trophy was all comparable, 5-6% range on ship mobs, some smoke mobs. This may have been a big factor, but I have never seen a real large impact on exp from a trophy standpoint, and I would suggest that the rogue may have had more ship trophy. A small impact multiplied by several days worth of ship exp may be the culprit here, but I did not attempt to measure that accurately.

I still don't know how I feel about that, but I'd have to ask the question.... Are rogues so limited in ability that their exp gain rate (which takes into account more than just table) should be as easy as it is.

Perhaps after all the changes that were made to make rogues more viable in zone in terms of abilities and survival, their exp gain rate was never evaluated. Rogues of old dropped like flies... Today the story is perhaps different.

[kiryan]

Just another thought, many of us probably assume that trophy has the same impact on every class, perhaps it does from a code standpoint, but it may have a different impact in real life considering some classes get all their exp from kill and others get most from damage.

a 10% reduction on kill exp (due to trophy) to a priest or mage may hurt much worse than to a rogue or invoker who get significant exp from damage.

[rylan]

I'm thinking thats what does it, since I think trophy only effects the xp gained from kill. So while the rogue may have a high trophy, they still gain full damage xp while the defensive type casters get trophy reduced kill xp and little damage xp since they don't do much damage.

[Delmair Aamoren]

i would have to agree with rylan here. Although rogues do have an INSANELY easy exp table by comparison. With damage exp figured in, plus kill exp, they level faster than any other class in the game.

Should this be? maybe, maybe not. For the sake of reason, perhaps warriors should have a lesser exp table also because tanks are more likely to die?

I realize that exp for some classes should be harder than others but for enchanters it's rediculously low compared to any other class i've seen. Its to the point i refuse to play one just because of the exp table.

Bottom line, if its a boring class, make its exp table easier to encourage playing that class. If it's something exciting or popular, make it tougher. It will all work out int he end...

[rylan]

Rogue xp was also easy because they used to die sooooo often in zones. Remember before the evasion skill, rogues were lucky if they survived 2 areas... so the fast xp made up for their 3-4 deaths per zone.

[Iyachtu]

i would have to agree with rylan here. Although rogues do have an INSANELY easy exp table by comparison. With damage exp figured in, plus kill exp, they level faster than any other class in the game.

Should this be? maybe, maybe not. For the sake of reason, perhaps warriors should have a lesser exp table also because tanks are more likely to die?

I realize that exp for some classes should be harder than others but for enchanters it's rediculously low compared to any other class i've seen. Its to the point i refuse to play one just because of the exp table.

Bottom line, if its a boring class, make its exp table easier to encourage playing that class. If it's something exciting or popular, make it tougher. It will all work out int he end...

Well, coupla things:

1. Rogue exp table, the ACTUAL table, isn't insanely easier.
2. Rogue damage exp is what causes this affect.
3. The only way to fix this situation would be to not give damage exp, but to instead give greater split exp. This has it's own set of problems, because people will twink the split to power level chars.

It's not an easy situation to solve. Some ideas have simply not worked out in testing.

[Ragorn]

Ragorn's Experience System v1.0

1. Reduce damage, healing, and stoning experience drastically. Allow players to gain experience through these actions, but this should not be the primary source of experience gain.
2. Compensate by increasing mob death experience appropriately.
3. Create "grouping bands." Only give a character a share of the kill experience if he is within seven levels of the average level of the group.
4. Allow any character over level 40 to receive full experience regardless of the average group level. This is designed to allow characters in the lower 40s to participate in zone groups with 50s without getting the shaft.
5. If the group size exceeds 10, allow a ten level band. This is to help upper 30s get in on zones that aren't designed to be level-50 only.
6. Give no experience to any character more than 20 levels lower than the HIGHEST group member.
7. When the mob dies, calculate how much TOTAL damage was dealt to it. Give the kill experience to the group that dealt the largest share of that damage. This prevents level 50s from morting big mobs and letting little groups just take the kill. 99 times out of 100, this code would be transparent.


Examples:

Two man groups (little experience groups):
- A level 50 and a level 40. Both would gain experience (average group level 45).
- A level 50 and a level 35. The lowbie would not get kill experience (average group level 42.5).

Five man group (normal experience groups):
- A ship group consisting of a 42, 40, 38, 36, and 35 would all gain experience (average level 38.2)
- A ship group consisting of a 42, 40, 38, 36, and 30... the level 30 would not gain experience (average level 37.2).
- If the level 30 gained a level and hit 31, he would receive experience from this group (average level 37.4)

15-man group (zone group)
- Any group member above level 40 could participate
- If the average level of the group is 47, then anyone normally considered "zoneworthy" could gain experience normally. If you're taking people under level 37 to zones, they're probably not participating enough to earn experience anyway.

Stupid example:
- A level 50 grouped with 14 level 1s, trying to powerlevel. Normally, all characters would get experience (average group level 4.2), but under rule #6, the newbies would get nothing for being so far under the level 50.

I think I closed all the silly exploitable loopholes, but some may exist. Anyway, this was about 20 minutes of me throwing numbers around, but my point is that it's POSSIBLE to design a system that isn't based on damage experience that can't be exploited to powerlevel newbies.

[Vahok]

I don't mind the difference that much only because rogues do get wacked pretty damn quick in zones. Globe dropped? Dead. Area spell? Dead. Fail hide? Dead.

17x faster is a little nutty. A shame most rogues need it to recover from SPOB, seelie, etc..

[Yayaril]

8)

Only foolish rogues who don't wear hp gear get whacked that fast.

[Tasan]

Ragorn's Experience System v1.0

6. Give no experience to any character more than 20 levels lower than the HIGHEST group member.

Why should you not gain any experience at all? I can watch someone shoot someone else and learn from them, granted at a penalty.

Just thinking about this system makes my head hurt. I can't imagine wth a new player that wants to be an elf would do. There just isn't enough lower level players to make something like this work... granted it was thrown together, but those numbers would need a LOT of tweaking.

T

[kiryan]

Thanks for the comment Iya.

Workable suggestion ragorn.

Couple things to consider.

Does trophy make sense in its current implementation. Is it intentionally weighted in favor of classes who can gain signficiant non-kill exp? Is there a way to modify trophy penalities to even out the effect?

certain mage classes and clerics have it even worse than shaman. How much worse I can't really say but i figure about 25% slower for cleric (depending on how you play it) and probably 50% slower for an enchanter that mems out (since you dont get stone exp if your not in the room, stone exp is such a double edged blade).

The point of spending alot of time and code worrying about how fast "twinks" can level. Who are the twinks that are pleveled.... the people who have mastered the game and have a lot of friends to plevel them. What do you accomplish by inflicting 2 more pdays worth of time on the twink while he inflicts 2 pdays worth of time hogging choice exp?

[Iyachtu]

Ragorn's Experience System v1.0

1. Reduce damage, healing, and stoning experience drastically. Allow players to gain experience through these actions, but this should not be the primary source of experience gain.
2. Compensate by increasing mob death experience appropriately.
3. Create "grouping bands." Only give a character a share of the kill experience if he is within seven levels of the average level of the group.
4. Allow any character over level 40 to receive full experience regardless of the average group level. This is designed to allow characters in the lower 40s to participate in zone groups with 50s without getting the shaft.
5. If the group size exceeds 10, allow a ten level band. This is to help upper 30s get in on zones that aren't designed to be level-50 only.
6. Give no experience to any character more than 20 levels lower than the HIGHEST group member.
7. When the mob dies, calculate how much TOTAL damage was dealt to it. Give the kill experience to the group that dealt the largest share of that damage. This prevents level 50s from morting big mobs and letting little groups just take the kill. 99 times out of 100, this code would be transparent.


Examples:

Two man groups (little experience groups):
- A level 50 and a level 40. Both would gain experience (average group level 45).
- A level 50 and a level 35. The lowbie would not get kill experience (average group level 42.5).

Five man group (normal experience groups):
- A ship group consisting of a 42, 40, 38, 36, and 35 would all gain experience (average level 38.2)
- A ship group consisting of a 42, 40, 38, 36, and 30... the level 30 would not gain experience (average level 37.2).
- If the level 30 gained a level and hit 31, he would receive experience from this group (average level 37.4)

15-man group (zone group)
- Any group member above level 40 could participate
- If the average level of the group is 47, then anyone normally considered "zoneworthy" could gain experience normally. If you're taking people under level 37 to zones, they're probably not participating enough to earn experience anyway.

Stupid example:
- A level 50 grouped with 14 level 1s, trying to powerlevel. Normally, all characters would get experience (average group level 4.2), but under rule #6, the newbies would get nothing for being so far under the level 50.

I think I closed all the silly exploitable loopholes, but some may exist. Anyway, this was about 20 minutes of me throwing numbers around, but my point is that it's POSSIBLE to design a system that isn't based on damage experience that can't be exploited to powerlevel newbies.

Quite similar to something that I've worked on. However, I was able to take a character from level 10 to level 40 in very little time by exploiting the system. Coming up with a better system would require tremendous amounts of additional tracking, and in the end I believe you'd end up with, again, a very exploitable scenario.

[kiryan]

>edit bunch of stuff quoted from rags

Quite similar to something that I've worked on. However, I was able to take a character from level 10 to level 40 in very little time by exploiting the system. Coming up with a better system would require tremendous amounts of additional tracking, and in the end I believe you'd end up with, again, a very exploitable scenario.

So rather than doing ourselves brain damage trying to make the unexploitable exp system, why not just correct the things that are broken..

1. trophy affects certain classes more significantly than others
2. the question whether rogues exp is broken (and any other revelant classes). Do their skills and survivability justify such an easy table or should it be brought inline with other classes.
3. the group exp penalty phenomenon. This is a grouping mud if i remember correctly, but you do the hands down best exp solo/2/3 man. i dont get it.

If we even think about revamping exp, #3 should be really really looked at. If you were a new player, why would you want to play here when you never get invited to an exp group.... What are you supposed to do, solo up to zoning level then all of a sudden figure out how to group and zone?

[Ragorn]

Iyachtu: How would one exploit this system? I can only think of one or two very specific situations where you could even powerlevel someone under a system like this... perhaps if a level 50 warrior removed his weapon and tanked while ungrouped, then a group of lowbies all nuked it to death. But you can accomplish the same thing right now, adopting this system wouldn't make that any easier. The key is not giving experience to a group or individual who simply kills it from awful or incap, and that's how most of Sojourn's powerlevelling was done back in the day.

It really depends on what your goals are in terms of experience distribution. Do you want the code to discourage powerlevelling or make it completely impossible? What do you consider an exp group as opposed to a zone group?

Since I don't actually play, I'm really only looking at this from a design standpoint. Just curious to see any holes in the plan, so I can maybe take it elsewhere and use it if Sojourn doesn't want it :P

[rylan]

I guess the question is, is it really worth Itchy's and other coder's time to spend a lot of coding effort and testing etc to tweaks the xp system, when they could be spending their time on other cool stuff. I'd rather see the other cool stuff.

[Dalar]

I agree with Kiryan. For a MUD that encourages grouping, it sure discourages people to exp in groups. Newbies probably have a hard time finding an exp group already. It sucks to have to turn down someone just because any additional members takes a HUGE chunk of exp away.

Many MMORPGs encourage group exp by giving an exp bonus for each player in group. Why can't TorilMUD have the something similar?

[Ragorn]

I was under the impression that Sojourn/Toril already gave grouping bonuses for additional group members. I know Exile did. But yes, many MMOGs grant a flat experience bonus, say 20% per member, for groups. So if you solo a mob, you might get 1000 exp. If you kill it in a balanced group of two, you might get 600 each, etc.

[Dalar]

Well from observation, exp is just crappy when you add just one member into an exp group, so I assume there is no exp bonus. I know iRO gave an exp bonus and it was very noticeable with a large exp group.

[Todrael]

I thought Invokers were getting too much damage exp too, so they cut it down dramatically. Why can't they do the same for Rogues, if that's the source of the imbalance?

[Guw]

A group xp idea - modify kill xp.

For each person that's in a group, add BONUS XP equal to his/her level as a percentage, to the xp gained for killing mob.

Examples:

(a)50th level joins a group, the kill xp to be shared by group when mob dies increases by 50% of original mob kill xp.

(b)If a 1st level joins a group, the kill xp increases by 1% of original mob kill xp.

(c) 3 man group of levels 50/40/30. Total maximum xp to share amongst group will be
100% original xp + (50%+40%+30%) bonus xp = 220% of original mob kill xp.
BUT if level 50 is out of room when kill takes place then xp reduces to
100% original xp + (40%+30%) bonus xp = 170% of original mob kill xp.


Proviso's:
(i) the bonus kill xp is only calculated for those in the group who are actually in the room when the kill takes place.
(ii) grouped pets aren't included in bonus calculation
(iii)no bonus for 1 person groups :P


This system would not reward pleveler's, but would give an xp boost to larger xp groups consisting players of similar level.


ps. could someone let me know if this needs clarification, I'm not sure I've explain the idea very well

[kiryan]

Many MMORPGs encourage group exp by giving an exp bonus for each player in group. Why can't TorilMUD have the something similar?

Just to head off the "but is coded as a bonus" response

Although its been stated before that there is a positive EXP bonus for grouping, it has never come even remotely close to overcoming the penalty of adding extra people.

Right now the net effect of adding extra people is a decrease in the per hour exp rate for most classes.

Damage based classes being an odd exception.