Quest Issue: Corrupt Guards quest - EXP reward adjustment

[Rygar]

I came across a few threads complaining that the exp on handing in guard bracelets to Captain Linarius in North Karana for the Corrupt Guards quest was abysmal and not classic (saying that exp bar did not move in 8 hand ins of bracers, as said here).

I did some digging on why the exp is the way it was. Found this thread with message from Uthgaard here:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...+guards&page=2

It started off giving next to none. I increased it, people said it was too much. I decreased it, people said it was too little. I'm tired of changing it, and Kunark is more important.

Now I'm not judging Uthgaard here, seemed to be a lot of stuff going down during this time frame and it seems like the early days of server things were a bit more loose on the bug research (as in, taking people's testimonials as gospel, not linking evidence). However, his reasoning gave me suspicion to investigate this further.

So I started looking for evidence of this quest and found the following:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030618...html?quest=373

Posted @ Thu, Dec 19th 1:17 AM 2002
Yeah he's tough, my 35 ranger takes too long to kite him. I won't try that again for some time.

BUT the XP is really nice actually. I get half a blue per bracelet, and from dontal or whatever his name is, that's not much work for half a blue in hell.

Time frame is a year out of era, but just wanted to get that little bit listed, more on that later.

Posted @ Mon, Mar 12th 12:33 PM 2001
As the guards are often uncamped on my server, I was able to get from lvl 41-43 quickly just by camping them and turning in their bracers. As a druid with 183 wisdom, Guard Donlan was very easy to kill, taking only two bubbles of mana...just snare, then nuke. Although low blue or green, I still got some exp from him at 43 about half the time. McCluskey is a LOT harder though. I normally used 4+ bubbles of mana on him. He frequently resists snare, almost always resists root, and my fire-based nukes were frequently partially or fully resisted. Unless you have a lot of mana to work with, get a partner to help with McCluskey.

Luckily, the risk pays off. At lvl 43, 15 bracers give two blue bubbles of exp. The loot reward for bracers is usually not much, but bronze bracers and reinforced boots still get a few plat from lower level players in Qeynos...or make nice gifts. The Bunker Battle Blade is pretty worthless, so hopefully it is for a quest. Otherwise, it just weighs you down.

The above is an in era post detailing how much exp is given off the quest, significantly more than what was claimed on P99 (saying 8 bracers at 35 didn't move the exp bar).

Posted @ Sat, Sep 22nd 11:44 AM 2001
at the threaten level to dubious I got the following items from this quest.
2 tentacle whips
2 targe shields
2 FS daggers
1 reinforced boots
1 bronze bracer
1 FS longsword

I just wanted to list the above for potential loot reward changes, it is in era (other quests mention the bunker blade too). The wiki didn't list the Tentacle whips, so not sure if the range of rewards in game is accurate (I apologize, cannot log in to test doing this quest, laptop took a dump on me). Other posts in comments mention the whips too.


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EXP Calculation:

So looking at the exp gains from the in era post (@level 43, 15 bracelets = 2 blue bubbles), lets figure out how much exp gain that is. 2 blue = 8% experience.

If the wiki values are to be believed, then by my calculations that means level 43 will take 7,044,700 experience points to complete (assuming this druid was NOT a halfling, I believe a Halfling gets +5% bonus... brain hurts to calculate that).

8% of 7,044,700 = 563,576 experience points. Divide that by 15 hand ins and you get roughly 37,572 experience points per hand in.

To give people an idea of how lucrative this exp is, that is an 11% gain per turn in at level 11 (not too shabby). Could make this a lucrative camp on a new recycle server.

For those doing the fact checking of this exp gain against the out of era post (12/19/2002) of half a blue per bracelet on a 35 ranger (no hybrid exp penalty in effect)... In P99 terms I show a level 35 requires 8,215,600 exp to complete their level (yes, more than level 43 due to hell level). 2% per bracelet = 164,312 per bracelet (much, much higher). HOWEVER, remember that hell levels were eliminated on 9/4/2002 and exp smoothed out. I do not know the exact formula to double check that. I only make mention so that people don't read those comments and boost the exp significantly higher than it should be. It is out of era as well, not sure if anything was tweaked with the quest since.

*******
Conclusion:

I just wanted to make the argument for a proper adjustment, I couldn't find any posts mentioning evidence of why it was so low on P99 other than people's testimonials and Uthgaard's reasonings. Hoping this is a compelling argument to fix. I apologize if any of this has already been updated (as I mentioned, can't log into game for some time now to test... just going off forumquest feedback).

[Buellen]

Nice work!


I to always found this quest experience reward surprisingly low here on P1999.

The bandit sashes quest give more XP for a 34 ranger than the corrupted guard bracer quest here on P1999.

This is my memory, but i to remember following the druid advice in the post you quoted and farming those two guard in my early 40 on live back in the day of velious.

Hope they can fix this its not game changing but would be nice to have it fixed.

[Rygar]

kind bump for making a classic quest a viable reward.

[Rygar]

I found some more evidence to corroborate the initial findings. Had some trouble getting the direct link to work, but if you go to the EQ newsgroups here, then search "Power Level of Druid from L1-50".

In the initial post has the following info on the bracer quest:

At L36, I went to West Karana. I kill Cyclops brothers, Froon & Phoon, and
the lower corrupt guard. The cyclops are 17 minutes spawn, so I can run to
south tower to kill the guard and gate back to kill the cyclops again. When
the lower guard green out, I start to kill the higher guard. But he resist a
lot, he can resist two DOT in a row from me!!!! There is an advantage to
kill this guards, for their bracers. Turn these bracer to the Captain in the
North Karana for xp and items. 3 bracers can make xp equal to a blue kill.
It is good xp.

A 'blue kill' at level 36 is a pretty wide range, but I would err towards the higher side of the mobs based on he was killing at the time (cyclops' are 30+ and the 'higher level guard' he mentions is level 35 if the wiki is to be believed).

Assuming NK has a 75% ZEM mod (I don't know for sure, maybe it was 100% on live in era?) I show a blue mob exp range is 54,675 (level 27) to 91,875 (level 35) experience points. Divide those by 3 turn ins and exp would be 18,225 to 30,625 experience points per turn in.

That is slightly lower than the 37,572 exp points figure I calculated earlier, but I'm not sure exactly on the ZEM and what level the blue mob he was referring to is.

Assuming a higher ZEM of 100%, exp range for blue mob at 36 would be 72,900 (level 27) to 122,500 (level 35), divided by 3 that would be 24,300 to 40,833 experience points per hand in, which is in line with the original suggested figure.

Just thought I would share that info. There are other posts claiming it is good exp for the quest and a '2 for 1' for the quest (meaning 2 bracer hand ins equal 1 guard kill). I still think the original post link is the most valid information to go off of, with this new link giving a bit of added confidence to the figure.

[Rygar]

Bump for making a classic quest worthwhile once again!

[Telin]

The experience gain matches exactly what is described in those old forum posts. It must've been updated since the 2010 complaint.

I did update his response when you hand in the wrong bracelet. Also updated the faction reward and randomized the coin a bit.

[Rygar]

Well thank you Mr. Telin, sorry for the ForumQuest failure, probably should have tested on my lowbie wiz first :/ Stealth upgrade is most classic! Appreciate your time for the other minor fixes.

[nilbog]

Pending update:

-Added missing items to potential reward array
-Capt Linarius will accept and reward for multiple bracers at a time
-He discusses the quest at dubious, but it requires apprehensive on turn in