Change up the ZEM

[zelld52]

More raid targets became available than were available in kunark *

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

CT only works as a full zone. Why incentivize heartache?

[Kich867]

This is gonna be some real conspiracy theory shit but, are we sure ZEM actually does anything? Or, does something to the degree we think it does?

Started duoing with a friend in FOB, eventually got PL'd for a level or two in kurns. According to the wiki Kurns should be a massive XP increase, and our gains didn't reflect that at all. We were still getting 2-3% xp per yellow, 1% xp per blue. That's what we get in FOB. But according to the ZEM chart it should be like, substantially higher.

Maybe it all maths out in the end but I was surprised at how not big of a jump we went from FOB to Kurns when it should've been like, +60% increased XP which should've been incredibly noticeable.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is gonna be some real conspiracy theory shit but, are we sure ZEM actually does anything? Or, does something to the degree we think it does?

Started duoing with a friend in FOB, eventually got PL'd for a level or two in kurns. According to the wiki Kurns should be a massive XP increase, and our gains didn't reflect that at all. We were still getting 2-3% xp per yellow, 1% xp per blue. That's what we get in FOB. But according to the ZEM chart it should be like, substantially higher.

Maybe it all maths out in the end but I was surprised at how not big of a jump we went from FOB to Kurns when it should've been like, +60% increased XP which should've been incredibly noticeable.

ZEM does something but we don't know what the current ZEMs are. The Wiki could be completely inaccurate. Even the original ZEM values were speculation by the player base based on last available information in the classic era. So adjustments from there are likewise speculation.

[onmove_broke]

Was ZEM even a thing back in 1999? I do not remember people going to a certain place because of that...normally you just found a place that was not crowded with 1500 people without any expansions. LGuk was 50 deep all day..same with SolB

[WarpathEQ]

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

Was ZEM even a thing back in 1999? I do not remember people going to a certain place because of that...normally you just found a place that was not crowded with 1500 people without any expansions. LGuk was 50 deep all day..same with SolB

Yes the ZEM concept is classic, however the specific ZEMs on P99 would not be the same as they were in era. The goal is zone population management by incentivizing less traveled zones and disincentivizing overcrowded zones.

Would be interesting if they cut the currently leveling path zones in half and doubled all other zones, anything short of that is unlikely to have any tangible impact on player behavior.

[onmove_broke]

ZEM technically should be a risk vs reward concept. For example Sol A should have a higher ZEM being indoors and pretty close quarters. MM should be a bit higher because it is outdoors and is wide open outside of fighting in the castle. However the mob density in MM makes up for it. From what I notice, people take the path of Unrest>MM>CoM>KC because it is outdoors with room to move around, especially for big races. So even if Perma is 225% ZEM, it is far and mob density if pretty crappy, so people do not even bother going there

[loramin]

I think the problem is there's two conflicting motivations here. In general, everyone wants rotating ZEMs, because we're all tired of doing the same zones over and over, and new zones are fun.

But at the same time, it says "Classic EverQuest" in the upper-left. Having everyone on the server in the Hole was fun ... but it wasn't classic. If someone from '01 came to P99 they'd be very confused: why is everyone in the Hole and not the places they remember from live (Seb, KC, Velks, etc.)

I think P99 could straddle that line better. The current P99 ZEMs aren't classic, and when the staff does adjust them they do so rarely and extremely ... so why not fix both at once?

The staff should go back to the EQ Emu numbers, or whatever ZEMs are our best guess for live. Furthermore, they should publish them ... something they've never done in the history of P99. Why? Because everything else classic about the game is published, and knowing "in classic Sebilis was a hot spot" isn't a bad thing.

But at the same time, mystery was also part of the classic ZEMs (live folks might have known Seb was a hot spot, but they didn't know its exact ZEM percentage). P99 should never directly use the published/classic ZEMs.

Instead on server creation, and every year (or two) after, the staff should randomly adjust the ZEMs ... but not too much (no one zone like The Hole would suddenly dominate). Like the classic ZEM change, it should be roughly between 10-25%. and only around 10-15 zones should adjust. Then, when the ZEMs are randomly adjusted again, they should restart with the classic ZEMs, not the previously adjusted ones, so the sever stays only one random variation away from classic.

With only those simple changes I think the entire server would be more classic AND still expose players to fun new zones.

[cd288]

If there's not significant difference between ZEM then people just go to the easiest and most convenient dungeon.

[cd288]

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

ZEM technically should be a risk vs reward concept. For example Sol A should have a higher ZEM being indoors and pretty close quarters. MM should be a bit higher because it is outdoors and is wide open outside of fighting in the castle. However the mob density in MM makes up for it. From what I notice, people take the path of Unrest>MM>CoM>KC because it is outdoors with room to move around, especially for big races. So even if Perma is 225% ZEM, it is far and mob density if pretty crappy, so people do not even bother going there

People do CoM and KC because they are super convenient and not very dangerous.

People don't do Perma because it's far and it's quite dangerous, and mobs heal through walls etc making it a big pain in the ass.

Even really high ZEMs can't always make up for that, as we see with Perma. Since everyone is twinked out and knows everything about the zone, people are chain pulling masses of mobs in dungeons these days...as such the pace of killing can often offset part of the lower ZEM making it a more efficient choice to just go to the most convenient and safest dungeon.