Green exp penalties

[Danth]

Note that while the experience modifiers are usually called hybrid penalties because those classes get the steepest modifiers, a lot of classes have experience penalties in the original game. Paladin/Shadow Knight/Ranger/Bard have a 40% modifier. Monk has a 20% penalty. Necromancer/Magician/Wizard/Enchanter have 10% penalties. Rogues and Warriors, being intended to be low-difficulty classes, have their usual modest bonuses. These bonuses or penalties multiply against racial modifiers, so a Troll Shadow Knight has a total 68% penalty (ouch!), and a Kunark-era Iksar Monk has a 44% penalty--steeper than the stock hybrid modifier. All of the class penalties are removed in early Velious, at the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

Danth

[soronil]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

What does this mean? A Troll still needs more exp, but he doesn't get proportionally more of the group exp?

[Danth]

Originally Posted by soronil [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What does this mean? A Troll still needs more exp, but he doesn't get proportionally more of the group exp?

Correct. Once that change goes through (early Velious) the Troll simply levels slower than his Dark Elf buddy, as is presently the case on P1999-blue.

Note that the way the original experience system (the one we'll have on Green) works, experience is split according to a character's total experience. A lower-level Troll Shadow Knight will still take a smaller chunk of a group's experience than a Human Warrior who's several levels higher.

Danth

[slowpoke68]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Note that while the experience modifiers are usually called hybrid penalties because those classes get the steepest modifiers, a lot of classes have experience penalties in the original game. Paladin/Shadow Knight/Ranger/Bard have a 40% modifier. Monk has a 20% penalty. Necromancer/Magician/Wizard/Enchanter have 10% penalties. Rogues and Warriors, being intended to be low-difficulty classes, have their usual modest bonuses. These bonuses or penalties multiply against racial modifiers, so a Troll Shadow Knight has a total 68% penalty (ouch!), and a Kunark-era Iksar Monk has a 44% penalty--steeper than the stock hybrid modifier. All of the class penalties are removed in early Velious, at the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

Danth

I disagree with your assessment of why Rogues and Warriors get xp bonuses and the other classes get penalties.

If you pull out an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook from way back when you will see those penalties pretty well translate the experience tables for the different classes in the table top version. In AD&D it took a lot more xp to level up your paladin than it did a thief or a fighter. It has always been my belief that the original devs were doing their darndest to accurately make an online AD&D sim.

Similarly, as I recall some races had level caps in playing some classes. Obviously capping a Troll at level 43 while letting a Human level all the way to 50 would have been a problem in an MMO. I think this is how they dealt with that issue.

As a final note I had always heard that humans were supposed to be the ones to receive the halfling xp bonus to represent the versatility they had in AD&D but it was actually a programming error that resulted in the halflings getting it.

On a different note I also heard that hell levels were actually the result of a programming error as well.

[Danth]

Originally Posted by slowpoke68 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I disagree with your assessment of why Rogues and Warriors get xp bonuses and the other classes get penalties.

You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

jibartik: 989/Verant didn't design absolutely everything from scratch. A good deal of what became EQ was, shall we say "borrowed" from MUDS which existed at the time. EQ is in many ways simply an early 90's MUD with a graphics engine pasted on top.

Danth

[Cen]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

jibartik: 989/Verant didn't design absolutely everything from scratch. A good deal of what became EQ was, shall we say "borrowed" from MUDS which existed at the time. EQ is in many ways simply an early 90's MUD with a graphics engine pasted on top.

Danth

Well, in this case your wrapping a secondary statement in a separate truth. It's true your religion and class will dictate what difficulty rating you get (Dark elf Warrior gets medium), but nowhere did it state that's why it has any effect on any experience penalties. The penalties weren't actually spelled out in game at all. I'm not saying you're wrong, im just saying there's no evidence what your saying is the reason.

[Danth]

I'd have to link old usenet and webforum discussion. Too much effort if those old boards even exist anymore. Let's just agree that it doesn't matter in the here-and-now why it is how it is, only that it'll be that way on Green.

Danth
.

[Cen]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'd have to link old usenet and webforum discussion. Too much effort if those old boards even exist anymore. Let's just agree that it doesn't matter in the here-and-now why it is how it is, only that it'll be that way on Green.

Danth
.

you damn right and im gonna be a ranger too for some rediculous reason lel

[xCry0x]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

Danth

Problem with that logic is it would have made no sense to put a penalty on the hard classes and not in the easy ones. Unless your interpretation was that the difficulty was based on the exp rate.

My assumption is the difficulty was supposed to be around the actual playstyle mechanics.

You can imagine assuming that a hybrid would be much more mechanically complex to play compared to a generic warrior or rogue.

With that logic you would give the exp bonus to the hard classes to encourage people to play them over the easy ones... The modifiers are how they tried to balance the game, like how the zone exp modifiers were how they tried to encourage people to go into their cool dungeons.