Experience Rates With 0-5 Other Group Members

[Feanol]

Originally Posted by alaiwy0503 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is the most entitled and self-centered post I've read all day and I have read the Red99 forums today so that's saying something. Who are you to tell every person what the core of the game is about? Get out of here with your judgmental attitude and let the nerds do their work.

^^

Confirmed number cruncher who only lets Monks and Clerics in her groups. I can tell I hit home.

You know there's other servers that let you use mercenaries for maximum control. You don't even need other people!

Avoidavoidavoid.

[Axoc]

Thanks for the solid explanations everybody. I understand now.

I'm not sure if it's some form of half-hearted trolling to get this upset over asking questions just to learn basic game mechanics, but as I've previously implied I'm more interested in the actual social aspect of the game. EQ seems to be more about the journey than the actual destination. As I've already blatantly stated, this thread was made for knowledge for knowledge's sake in order to explain an apparently widely misunderstood game mechanic, since every group I've been in has a different explanation for the way it works, all of which appear to be incorrect based on the way it was explained in this thread.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Originally Posted by mr_jon3s [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I hate when people add people in a group just to fill up the group.

You, sir, obviously have never had the pleasure of driving a clown car. because if you did, you would realize, there is always room for another clown, and it is right and proper to invite them in.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Is it correct to put the matter this way:

a) the exp penalty of a given class (they need x times more exp to level) is partnered with a sort of exp bonus in groups (they eat a small amount more of the exp of a given kill than chars in the group without the penalty).

b) This system is a way of imposing a penalty (twice the exp needed in some class/race cases) but also partially offsetting it, so diff classes and races leveling rates do not get totally out of whack (exp penalty classes simply fall way behind, given equal playing times)?

Not trying to understand the math, but the overall logic of the system and what the "penalty" is and is meant to do, and how it is (or is not) offset.

[Vaderman]

Pal and SK bring a huge grouping advantage over warriors. At a minimum, we can lock down agro on multiple mobs with ease. I pay the price for my class and so do groups, but we gain an advantage with that price.

[Amalec]

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

Is it correct to put the matter this way:

a) the exp penalty of a given class (they need x times more exp to level) is partnered with a sort of exp bonus in groups (they eat a small amount more of the exp of a given kill than chars in the group without the penalty).

b) This system is a way of imposing a penalty (twice the exp needed in some class/race cases) but also partially offsetting it, so diff classes and races leveling rates do not get totally out of whack (exp penalty classes simply fall way behind, given equal playing times)?

Not trying to understand the math, but the overall logic of the system and what the "penalty" is and is meant to do, and how it is (or is not) offset.

I really don't understand the logic of it of it's implementation. But you're correct. For a character playing a hybrid, your exp penalty gets almost entirely offset by the extra experience proportion you take from the group. And the portion that isn't offset is effectively shared by everyone else. This is where the old 'hybrids shit up group xp' comes from. As a hybrid, long as you stick with full groups, your rate of leveling is only slowed by 1/6th of your experience penalty. A Troll ShadowKnight, for example, only levels about 11% slower than anyone else. Interestingly, this applies in reverse to the Halfling Rogue. Your 15% exp bonus might look good, but in a full groups you're only leveling about 2% faster.

For everyone else, taking a hybrid into a 6-man group means each member's share might fall from ~16% of the exp to ~14-15% of the exp. It's not so bad, in other words. It is something to be mindful of, however, particularly if they are a few levels higher than the rest of the group or you've already got a couple of high penalty characters.

[falkun]

Remember that EQ was ripped from D&D, which would have been in 2nd ed during that time (source). Multiclassing in 2ED&D meant splitting your exp among your classes, so you leveled up slower than if you had only a single class (source). Since EQ only had a single EXP pool, Verant implemented it through a penalty that required more experience to achieve the same level. Then, they made the "pie" system for distributing exp, so hybrids munched more of the pie, "decreasing" everyone else's individual slices.

In Velious, they finally corrected it, but because they didn't want to change current exp totals, they slapped on an equivalent buff to hybrids. I haven't tracked down exactly how the math works out with their fix, but its something like hybrids an additional 40% to level, but their piece of the pie is multiplied by 1.4 once its divided up to them. I think the hybrid penalty removal also stopped their group members from having smaller pieces, but again, I'm not sure how that math was handled.

[towbes]

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

Remember that EQ was ripped from D&D, which would have been in 2nd ed during that time

As someone who knows very little about D&D, I would like to thank you for explaining this little bit of history. Always good to know the roots of a decision.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Some of us fell in love with eq, because we used to dream that someday, computers would be powerful enough to run a "DM Simulator" where the computer was the dungeon master, and it could involve every stat and calculation you would want, AND it would be graphical, not just text based. And then eq came out, and it was wow, it finally happened.

Without D&D, everquest never happens.

And one could argue, without Tolkien, there never would have been D&D.

Geek history is deep, and at the roots of more things that people take for granted today than many realize. The internet was invented, defined, and initially populated by the military.... and D&D enthusiasts and Monty Python fans who could code.

[perditionparty]

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

As someone who knows very little about D&D, I would like to thank you for explaining this little bit of history. Always good to know the roots of a decision.

(*EDIT* - this is typed off the top of my head, so it's sloppy and not intended to be a complete explanation)

In the 60s, there were war games; you had an army, depicted by miniatures and rules on their abilities and stats. This slowly turned into proto d&d games where you controlled one character vs an army. Heavily influenced by tolkien and other fantasy writers, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (among others) worked on systems they had already built to design the first edition d&d in the early 70s. You advanced through your levels collecting gold (early versions and other games actually equated gold earned to experience earned) and killing enemies. With other expansions (later known as splatbooks) would contain content for different classes, dungeons, settings, etc. It eventually kept building till they made changes/advancements which became Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Im pretty sure Arneson was out of the picture at this point) and published by TSR (later D&D rights were bought out by Wizards of the Coast - when they created 3rd Ed). AD&D's reign was from the later 70s up to 2000.

The idea was that you would earn experience as you killed monsters. Certain races were classes in an of themselves in 1st ed and 2nd ed (Elf being a class for a while). Certain classes were considered more powerful (such as elves) so to off set this, they would assign xp penalties to offset their power vs other available class/race combos. If you dual classes (for instance, fighterman and a thief) you were considered at a disadvantage because you needed to learn the skills of being a fighterman and the skills of being a thief at the same time, thereby slowing your progression than if you were straight fighterman or straight thief. This also incurred an xp penalty.

This is where Everquest followed the idea (although, being level 60 in d&d is laughable, because the initial intent was by level 10 you were either a lord, or king and some classes had the ability to own a castle, recruit followers or had to retire). Some classes/races had abilities that put them at an advantage over other classes, so they assigned similar xp penalties, requiring more xp to advance.

You had stats, abilities and skills - which would either increase as you leveled or found items that would increase them. The variation here is that D&D skills didn't increase through use, you would assign them based on available points as you leveled.

Religion was used, so clerics and paladins would get their abilities from their deities.

There were good and evil races, but the system that is absent from Everquest is alignment. This ranged from being good to neutral to evil and would be the driving force of how your character behaved in certain situations.


All in all - Everquest was a graphical immersion of D&D type games, where the computer did all of your number crunching (a 30 second battle in d&d could last hours because you had to figure out attacks, spells, resists, thac0 (a contrived version of AC) by rolling dice, looking up corresponding charts and doing the math in your head.)