Change up the ZEM

[Kich867]

Did a lot of testing today, gotta say, pretty positive Kurns and FOB have the same ZEM.

Every even con kill in either zone gave 2% XP. Every blue kill that wasn't a super low level blue, in either zone, gave 1%.

This just further improves my conviction that dungeons aren't actually worth it. Why the fuck would you go somewhere like Kurns with 18m 20s respawns when outside its 6m 40s and the same XP and infinite pick of mobs?

[zelld52]

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

Did a lot of testing today, gotta say, pretty positive Kurns and FOB have the same ZEM.

Every even con kill in either zone gave 2% XP. Every blue kill that wasn't a super low level blue, in either zone, gave 1%.

This just further improves my conviction that dungeons aren't actually worth it. Why the fuck would you go somewhere like Kurns with 18m 20s respawns when outside its 6m 40s and the same XP and infinite pick of mobs?

May be a pretty insignificant difference at low levels but there is a significant difference as you get to 55+.

The difference between killing 10 mobs for 1% and 4 mobs for 1%. And the loot

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by zelld52 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

May be a pretty insignificant difference at low levels but there is a significant difference as you get to 55+.

The difference between killing 10 mobs for 1% and 4 mobs for 1%. And the loot

Totally, I just think some of these numbers are wrong on some zones. I forgot to mention that was in a duo as well, meaning we'd probably be seeing ~4% per even con solo as iksars with a 20% xp penalty.

According to the ZEM, FOB is 110% XP and Kurns is 171% XP. A 61% difference should be hugely noticeable, no?

It's entirely possibly the XP chart on the wiki is wrong, but assuming its accurate, in order for an even con at level 18 to give 2% XP in a duo of iksars a mob would have to give 44,112xp. According to the wiki, a level 18 mob gives 24,300xp.

The ZEM in FOB should put that mob to 26,730. The ZEM in Kurns should put it to 41,553xp, well within the expected range of consistently providing ~2% XP on your bar per kill (would give ~1.9% per kill so you'd regularly roll over to 2%).

So either the ZEM in FOB is wrong, the ZEM in Kurns is wrong, the XP chart is wrong, or they're all wrong which is probably more likely.

On the flip side, killing blues in Gfay vs CB, I had a blue in CB give me 3% and a white in CB give like 7%, so it seems clear there IS a difference between those two zones as I never came close to that in Gfay.

[onmove_broke]

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

Totally, I just think some of these numbers are wrong on some zones. I forgot to mention that was in a duo as well, meaning we'd probably be seeing ~4% per even con solo as iksars with a 20% xp penalty.

According to the ZEM, FOB is 110% XP and Kurns is 171% XP. A 61% difference should be hugely noticeable, no?

It's entirely possibly the XP chart on the wiki is wrong, but assuming its accurate, in order for an even con at level 18 to give 2% XP in a duo of iksars a mob would have to give 44,112xp. According to the wiki, a level 18 mob gives 24,300xp.

The ZEM in FOB should put that mob to 26,730. The ZEM in Kurns should put it to 41,553xp, well within the expected range of consistently providing ~2% XP on your bar per kill (would give ~1.9% per kill so you'd regularly roll over to 2%).

So either the ZEM in FOB is wrong, the ZEM in Kurns is wrong, the XP chart is wrong, or they're all wrong which is probably more likely.

On the flip side, killing blues in Gfay vs CB, I had a blue in CB give me 3% and a white in CB give like 7%, so it seems clear there IS a difference between those two zones as I never came close to that in Gfay.

I leveled my monk in Kurns a bit going back and I agree that I noticed almost no difference leveling in Kurns vs FoB. And even though Unrest is supposed to be higher ZEM than MM, I seemed to level way faster in MM than Unrest. I think the numbers are just way off or simply incorrect.

[loramin]

Measuring ZEM is really, really hard.

Let's say zone A has a ZEM of 100%, zone B has a ZEM of 120%, and at your level it takes 900 XP to be able to measure anything (ie. see the XP % change). In both zones you kill mobs of the same exact level worth 360 XP.

(Now of course, you usually can't know the exact level of the mob you're killing, just whether it's blue or green con. That pretty much rules out any measurement whatsoever in most zones, because to measure, both zones require mobs that always have the exact same level. Otherwise, zone A might not have a better ZEM, but it might seem like it does because it has a higher average-level of mobs.)

But for the sake of argument, let's pretend both A and B have mobs with the same fixed level, and you kill 10 of them in each zone; your XP will increase like so:

A: 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10
B: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9

Notice that both zones have the exact same number of XP increases, and the two are identical for the first six kills! Even when there is a difference, it's only a single kill apart. If you're just casually observing, the two zones would be indistinguishable.

TLDR; IF you can find two mobs in both zones of the same consistent level, and IF you kill a lot of them (more than ten, but the exact number will vary), AND you meticulously record whether each kill increased the percentage or not ... AND you're willing to do some math ... THEN you can actually meaningfully comment on a zone's ZEM.

Otherwise, you're just kidding yourself.

[loramin]

P.S. The above is why the wiki ZEMs are so awful. It's not that anyone likes the outdated ZEMs there ... it's just that they're better than no ZEMs at all, and no one wants to do what I described above to correct them.

[cd288]

If you want to determine if KC actually has a good ZEM you need to be killing equivalent level mobs in a different zone, not lowbie mobs in FOB lol

[Kich867]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you want to determine if KC actually has a good ZEM you need to be killing equivalent level mobs in a different zone, not lowbie mobs in FOB lol

Kurns, not Karnors.

[cd288]

Ah my bad misread since people had been talking about KC.

In any case, make sure you are certain of the level of each of the mobs you're killing. That's one thing that can account for things.

The other is simply that we're using UIs that show EP bars in flat percentages. You might be getting a flat 2% in FOB but getting 2.5% in Kurns.

The only true way to determine is to take two characters of the same level (and with the same racial EXP penalties and/or bonuses) and kill mobs that you know for a fact are the exact same level as each other for an entire level and see how many kills it takes to go from 0 to 100%.

[Bukowski]

I don't think I've ever once looked up ZEM for a zone. I just go to new places on new characters.