Numerical Proof of Kunark Experience Discrepencies

[Absolus]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but if they dramatically lowered the xp required for 59 then the penalty for deaths in 60 is much lower than it used to be. Now let's discuss the impact of this so early.

[ewjax]

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

Check out the eq.stratics reference on the P99 wiki Experience page. Despite a note on our wiki saying it's out of era, the earliest snapshot is during Velious. It shows 51-53 as regular hell, 54-58 as double hell, 59 as triple hell, and 60 as regular hell. The ratios match up pretty nicely to the OPs data, too.

Wow. Well those values at least match the observed data I'm seeing for levels 52-54 much closer.

My observed data: Human Enchanter, soloing Howling Stones entry area mobs:

Level / Kills Per 1% Exp Gain / Comment
52 / 1.14
53 / 1.33 / A bit harder than 52, no surprise
54 / 2.86 / Significantly harder than 53. Definitely a hell level compared to 52.
55 / 3.41 / Should have been easier than 54??? Clearly not. Something is up.

The patch message mentioned in the P99 wiki:

September 4, 2002 3:00 am
** Experience Changes **
- We have smoothed out level progression from 50-60. This should mitigate the "penalty effect" that occurs in levels 51, 54 and 59. Note that it will cost the same experience to level from 50 to 60 as it did before. Also, death experience loss will appear different in some levels. This is an unfortunate side effect that must remain to prevent some experience exploits.
Note: The above "XP smoothing" is not in effect on P99, and is not planned on the P99 Development Timeline.

Comments:
1. This patch is supposedly not in effect for P99
2. Even if it somehow is, it claims that "the total amount of exp required from 50-60 hasn't changed" but if the wayback eq.stratics hell level multipliers are accurate, that is certainly not true with those numbers. Using wiki mutipliers, human enchanter required 618M exp to reach 60. Using the eq.stratics multipliers, the new total is 737M exp.

My memory from that time recalls that 54 and 59 were really rough, and the intervening levels much less so. The patch message says they attempted to smooth that out. Well, if the math from the old eq.stratics website is accurate, they smoothed it out by making the easier 55-58 harder, not by making 54 and 59 easier.

[Sabin76]

My only explanation is that the multipliers currently on the wiki are simply not classic (and it is VERY likely that this is the conclusion that RogBog came to). Assuming these new ones are classically correct, I imagine the 2002 "smoothing patch" probably upped the 51-54 levels and brought the 54-59 levels down somewhat. This would also explain death experience losses going up for 52-54 that were implicitly mentioned.