Nachyoz
10-26-2009, 10:42 AM
I know classic EQ had EXP penalties and I am not going to say take them out. But after playing a hybrid class (paladin), I can safely say the EXP penalties are seriously out of whack when it comes to groups. My sister (shaman) and I met up in blackburrow when I was just a little into level 6 and she was about 3/4 of the way through level 5. After playing EXCLUSIVELY in the same group as her (mostly partnering). She is now less than 1 orange from 12 and I am only 1 and 1/2 orange into 11. We used to split the gnoll fangs 50/50 but now she started letting me take them all just so I can keep up (and it's not helping).
On live during this period we did pretty much partnering and never had a problem with her ranger falling behind my druid.
I am pretty sure on live the exp penalty was "shared" by the group in order to prevent friends from having this problem. I found this letter (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/011401_EQ_Producers_letter.html) on allakhazam from the EQ developers when they took the exp penalties out. It explains the intentions of the penalties as well as some other info.
In regards to the sharing of the experience penalty, it was apparent in beta, before the penalty was shared, that those playing characters without an experience penalty leveled faster than those that did. It was obvious that this would occur, but it was to the extreme that a group of friends, all playing together, would become separated to the point that they could no longer group efficiently in the mid to upper-mid levels. So we chose to distribute experience in the group on the basis of the total experience of each member rather than the level, in order to keep groups together.
As such, a level 20 Troll SK, having more experience total than a Human Wizard of the same level, would get more experience from each kill, while the total experience for the kill was unchanged. Essentially, the SK would take part of the Wizard's share were everything distributed equally to begin with.
Basically, the amount of EXP each member gets is based on the total EXP they have. This is also regardless of what level that EXP amount makes them. The current method has EXP is split evenly for all members. Technically, classes with bonuses share the bonus as well resulting in them getting less per kill when grouped.
As the weighted split isn't happening all classes/races with penalties are going to fall behind. This could be why some people feel they leveling slower than live (since grouping doesn't help with penalties like it should).
We are already getting to the point where in order to play together she needs to play less or just basically power level me. When it should be we can just group and she would get less per kill and I'd get more and we'd stay close to the same level.
-Nachyoz
On live during this period we did pretty much partnering and never had a problem with her ranger falling behind my druid.
I am pretty sure on live the exp penalty was "shared" by the group in order to prevent friends from having this problem. I found this letter (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/011401_EQ_Producers_letter.html) on allakhazam from the EQ developers when they took the exp penalties out. It explains the intentions of the penalties as well as some other info.
In regards to the sharing of the experience penalty, it was apparent in beta, before the penalty was shared, that those playing characters without an experience penalty leveled faster than those that did. It was obvious that this would occur, but it was to the extreme that a group of friends, all playing together, would become separated to the point that they could no longer group efficiently in the mid to upper-mid levels. So we chose to distribute experience in the group on the basis of the total experience of each member rather than the level, in order to keep groups together.
As such, a level 20 Troll SK, having more experience total than a Human Wizard of the same level, would get more experience from each kill, while the total experience for the kill was unchanged. Essentially, the SK would take part of the Wizard's share were everything distributed equally to begin with.
Basically, the amount of EXP each member gets is based on the total EXP they have. This is also regardless of what level that EXP amount makes them. The current method has EXP is split evenly for all members. Technically, classes with bonuses share the bonus as well resulting in them getting less per kill when grouped.
As the weighted split isn't happening all classes/races with penalties are going to fall behind. This could be why some people feel they leveling slower than live (since grouping doesn't help with penalties like it should).
We are already getting to the point where in order to play together she needs to play less or just basically power level me. When it should be we can just group and she would get less per kill and I'd get more and we'd stay close to the same level.
-Nachyoz