Pet taking half exp

[zaltabik00]

So I play a mage here on p99 and I only played a mage on live for many years. Im pretty new to server. Pet takes half of your exp when solo'ing unless you do more than 50% damage. According to the Wiki as long as you did at least 1 damage to the mob you were fighting then you would receive full exp, why did this change? As a mage we are built to be solo'ers. We have strong pets and the ability to keep those pets alive. We are not the strongest dps in the game and not always a first selection for a group which is why being able to solo is one of the aspects people enjoy about being a mage. However if you have to out damage your pet to gain full exp then you are basically stuck with 1% a kill. If you are out damaging your pet then you are medding after two kills. So basically you can solo and gain the same amount of exp you would in a full group at a tiny fraction of the speed that a group can kill in or you are forced to group anyway. This a link to a post from a guy that copy and pasted from the Developers corner http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=960. It is dated 2002 so im just wondering was that change made later or is this a p99 thing with pets. I love to play my mage as a solo class but it would be incredibly slow to level one up solo'ing so there really is no point unless you are farming for gear. Maybe we all need to just quit and make OP enchanters or rogues with epics at level 1.

[Nocte]

Seems like the article you linked was specific to charmed pets v. dire-charmed pets. Magician/Necro pet aren't even addressed.

edit: I shouldn't have skimmed. Says 'summoned' in there.

[Sinestria]

Mage pets are pretty OP. you should not be trying to out damage your pet, ever.

Either 1)reclaim your pet when the mob is at low hp and finish off with a low level nuke or full XP

2) just toss your fire pet a occasional heal and let him destroy all. While taking a XP hit you will still solo faster than most

3) duo with any other class and the penalty is negated.

[Somekid123]

Fire pets were stronger then certain blue con mobs. Mages would go afk with pet at a single spawn, by the time it repop'd the pet regen'd full hps and just left there mage afk exping over night while in bed.

At that point it went to 1 damage for 100% exp, later changed to 51% or more unless grouped, I don't know why but its screwy, it also affects anyone with a pet including charmed mobs.

[uniqueuser]

3) duo with any other class and the penalty is negated.Which isn't historically accurate either.
It seems there was an additional caveat on live that isn't in effect on P99:
I was just informed by Scott Hartsman that I made a mistake about the pet experience thing. Pets only take experience from a group if they outdamage the entire group. If they do, then they gain a share as if they were a group member. If they do not, they take no experience at all.

This is how it's been working the whole time, and it makes a lot more sense. I'm sorry for the mistake. http://wayback.archive.org/web/20030819155724/http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum1/HTML/000514.html

[zaltabik00]

Situation 1 - You are soloing and you have a summoned pet or a charmed pet (not including Dire Charm)- read atleast before you add a comment thanks, that was for Nocte post about my link, its in the very first paragraph lol.

[Nocte]

Whoops. Thanks for being a sweetheart about it.

[zaltabik00]

fire pets are stronger then most blue cons? people im not talking about level 4 mages ok, yes you are right level 4 mage pet is stronger then most blue cons. My mage is level 30 and fire pet gets raped by blue cons i have to heal him constantly just to keep him alive, there is no chance of me even doing damage if I want my pet to live. I want to know why this was changed, why do mages need to do 50% or more damage to gain full exp while solo'ing, why was it changed?

[zaltabik00]

mage pets are not that overpowered. it is recommended that mages chain cast pets at higher levels in order to kill 1 mob. If pet is OP then why would that be necessary. My pets DPS is not very high at all. Pet misses more then half the time when attacking, if you relied on pet damage alone your dps would be very little. This post really has nothing to do with that fact regardless but why mages ability to solo and gain full exp was nerfed in the first place.

[ibso]

Was it like that on live? In other words, did pets take half the mage's exp on live if they did majority damage? I don't remember that. :confused:

[zaltabik00]

on live if you did 1 damage you got full exp from mob, i played a mage and only a mage for many years. according to noleafclover's mage guide to leveling http://wiki.project1999.com/Noleafclover_Magician_Guide on the wiki it was also like this on p99 but for some reason it was changed in an october patch but why.

[zaltabik00]

at my level it takes about 50% of my mana to solo a blue con mob using any pet (fire pet requires massive amounts of heals to keep alive) other pets you need to nuke as well and for a whopping 1% a kill please tell me how this is OP.

[Sinestria]

If you're struggling so badly then you are doing it wrong. Are you getting max level pet? Do you have your torch? Are the mobs low DB? Where are you killing?

[zaltabik00]

that is all irrelevant Sinestria. Yes i have Torch, yes i am summoning max level pet, yes i am killing low dark blues, yes i can only kill 2 or 3 before i am oom and yes i am only getting 1% a kill still.

[CodyF86]

It's actually not irrelevant at all, but the simple answer is it was changed (even tho it's not classic) to prevent people from afk camping things. (Along with increasing spawn times on certain merbs that it was conducive toward.)

lvl 30 is the akward lvl range where you kind of suck. At 39 your pet starts regening 30 hp/tick instead of 6. At 46 you can click Burnt Wood Staff and never be out of mana ever again.

Also, all you have to do is right click that torch to reclaim your pet when the merb starts to run or is at a few %, kill the mob, get full xp, recast a new pet with full hp. Pet spells only cost 200 mana up to 49 then 300 mana after, so instead of healing your pet (for 150ish mana), just cast a new one before it dies, and tell it to go away right before the spell goes off.

Once you get your 39 pet, you'll start to suck less.

You don't even have to worry about getting a max pet each time if you chain cast. Although I was able to use a max level fire pet up until the 49 pet series without chain casting.

Aaradin
Aaradone
The A-Team

[baalzy]

Chain Casting
At some point in a mage's life, fluffy will not take the hits like he used to. The pet heal spells, although great for soloing at lower levels, do not keep pace with fluffy's hps or the damage output of mobs. Therefore it becomes necessary for an alternate strategy: chain casting, which is the summoning of multiple pets in succession to kill a creature. At lower levels, the mana cost of pets and the cost of reagents makes this less feasible (and unnecessary due to your pet being strong enough to take the hits). However, at higher levels the mana cost of summoning pets drops (in addition to naturally dropping relative to your mana pool as you level), making it more cost effective to recast your pet rather than try and heal it.


Even in the days of having to do 1 dmg to the mob, pet chaining was a thing that mages had to do eventually. It's a bit less efficient now with the 50% dmg requirement because you have to reclaim on your pet just before the mob dies even when your pet is doing just fine on HP, but it's still going to be your best bet to continue solo'ing at a decent rate.

[zaltabik00]

thankyou CodyF86 for answering my question as to why this happened. I am not even sure as to what AFK camping something is can you please explain that. And can you have an open mind here and understand why after realizing someone was exploiting something that the punishment would be that mages and every other mage that is ever going to be made will have this exp penalty and you stated yourself that its not classic. it seems to me that someone just took the simple way out of a problem instead of addressing the actual issue there. There is absolutely no reason why you shouldnt get full exp after doing damage to the mob.

[ibso]

I don't have a mage on 99, but I'm kinda with the OP on this one. It seems like the way to deal with people afk camping is for players to report it, not to effectively nerf mage solo exp in a non-classic way.

[Potus]

Pets on P99 are woefully underpowered compared to live, which is saying something because on live they were rather gimpy.

History lesson:
EQ launches in 1999, the servers are extremely overcrowded and a lot of classes are broken/buggy/unfinished on release. People see Mages and Necromancers solo'ing and start spamming the Verant forums demanding both classes get nerfed.

Verant responded by nerfing pets hard. Like every patch for months hard. Reduced levels, reduced hp, reduced damage, changed the way pets used weapons (damage/delay used to impact them), and added all sorts of weird code to make them gimpy.

The exp nerf to my knowledge never really played out the way Verant at the time said it did. If you do at least 1 point of damage your pet didn't steal exp. That's the way it ended up working. This was a kneejerk response to rumors that people were AFK solo'ing entire levels while asleep. Shit that was much more fiction than fact, for obvious reasons.

So no, you shouldn't have to try to outdamage your pet. Verant claimed that pets leveled with experience which was a flatout lie as well. There was a lot of hearsay garbage said on the early Verant boards that weren't true about pets (at times the developers tried to claim that pets were "better" after the nerfs).

So yeah, no stealing of exp, no reclaiming pets so you get 100% exp, that's absurd and not classic at all. Just like having instant aggro isn't classic. Just like high level pets not innately dual-wielding isn't classic.

[Asap]

Even from a lore standpoint, mages out damaging their pets makes zero sense. A magician is nothing without his elemental, why would he try to outdo it? He wouldn't, a Mage lets his pet do his bidding for him, and sends a nuke to get the finishing blow.

[Potus]

Even from a lore standpoint, mages out damaging their pets makes zero sense. A magician is nothing without his elemental, why would he try to outdo it? He wouldn't, a Mage lets his pet do his bidding for him, and sends a nuke to get the finishing blow.

Yeah it really makes no sense. If a mage is supposed to outdamage his pet safely then he's going to be tanking the entire fight. We're talking 60-70% of a mob's health so that you for sure get full exp.

That's really, really unlikely. Necro's fear kiting large HP mobs barely hit that stacking dots. For a mage to do that is complete suicide. Especially on this server where pet aggro is completely broken and non-existent.

[phacemeltar]

mage/ranger duo

[element08]

there's a lot of mage duos that would be fun if there was any chance of your pet holding aggro without your partner having to wait until it's half dead to attack/debuff/etc.

[tristantio]

I thought high level pets do innately dual wield?

[Velerin]

I always crack up when people call mage pets OP. Think people just get jealous when they see a mage chilling and medding while pet is fighting/tanking. The pet takes a lot of maintenance with buffs, DS, heals. In every fight you have to decide if its going to be a 1 pet mob or a 2+ pet mob. In the latter case you better not cast anything on the mob at all or the new pet won't be able to aggro it off you. If you nuke you're pot committed and better kill the mob before the pet dies (don't try and rely on earth pet root unless you know nearby clerics).
As people say you also have to kill pet at end and nuke for full exp. This also gets tricky if you're not fighting some place with no chance of new aggro, esp in dungeons. You're taking a risk killing your pet in a dungeon because a mage w/o a pet is a sitting duck. If that nuke resists or the mob is able to wander a bit or a wandering mob (maybe even a greenie) comes by, good luck channeling a 10 second pet summon. Better hope you have some charged root nets.
Having a quadding charmed pet that rarely ever breaks while locking down full rooms of mobs with 3 min roots and mezzes is OP. Mage pets are far from OP.

[Raavak]

1) find another mage to group with
2) mow down shit
3) $profit$

[Asap]

1) find another mage to group with
2) mow down shit
3) $profit$

While this is correct, it doesn't help when you are actually choosing to solo.

On the bright side, the pets seem to hold there own at 44. The fire pet can easily take down a Spectre with 50% hp remaining. I just feel like it shouldn't take 44 levels for the pets to start to shine.

[Iumuno]

While this is correct, it doesn't help when you are actually choosing to solo.

On the bright side, the pets seem to hold there own at 44. The fire pet can easily take down a Spectre with 50% hp remaining. I just feel like it shouldn't take 44 levels for the pets to start to shine.

Don't worry they will unshine in the mid 50s.

[Velerin]

The pinnacle of mage life is level 49. That pet is a beast when you get it (almost double hp of 44 pet). Then things dwindle down from there.

[Asap]

Don't worry they will unshine in the mid 50s.

lmao.

That epic pet tho

[zaltabik00]

atleast we are all mostly concur here that mages should in fact get 100% of the exp from mobs after damaging them lets see if we can make a change happen. the purpose of my post was for other mages like myself to acknowledge this, we need to come together and get this problem resolved b/c it is a problem.

[Potus]

I thought high level pets do innately dual wield?

Necromancer pets don't, and Emissary of Thule on Red doesn't DW no matter what. Super broken.

[TWDL_Prexus]

atleast we are all mostly concur here that mages should in fact get 100% of the exp from mobs after damaging them lets see if we can make a change happen. the purpose of my post was for other mages like myself to acknowledge this, we need to come together and get this problem resolved b/c it is a problem.

There is 0 proof in this thread to change this. The link in the first post is from 2002(shortly before POP release) aka way after this servers timeline. As far as I know the pet exp change puts p1999 in line with classic.

[Potus]

There is 0 proof in this thread to change this. The link in the first post is from 2002(shortly before POP release) aka way after this servers timeline. As far as I know the pet exp change puts p1999 in line with classic.

"Situation 1 - You are soloing and you have a summoned pet or a charmed pet (not including Dire Charm)- * If you do any damage to the monster at all, you get all of the experience. * If you don't do any damage to the monster, the pet gets 75% of the experience."

Pretty clear that you get 100% exp if you do one point of damage. The article doesn't say it was a new change -- it was just explaining how the rules worked. This is how it always worked on Live at all time periods, the "Do 50% damage or more to get full exp!" thing was an urban legend.

[zaltabik00]

Potus thankyou that is exactly how it is supposed to work but this is a direct copy and paste from the P99 wiki pet guide explaining how it actually works.
Pets and Experience

Oct 23rd update: "Classic pet experience distribution." Oct 23 2011 Patch.

In order to receive full experience for a kill solo, you need to do more than 50% of the damage to the mob. If your pet out-damages you, it will take 50% of the experience away from the kill. This is a major change from the previous system, in which you only needed to do a single point of damage to the mob in order to get full experience. If you are grouped, you and your group will get full experience from the kill, regardless of how much damage the pet does.

and my main question in this post was why was that change implemented in the first place, and if its to deter afk camping you can tell any mage on here is not so OP that they are afk camping, also TWDL prexus if that is true then we can expect it to change back after velious launch correct?

[uniqueuser]

This is how it always worked on Live at all time periods, the "Do 50% damage or more to get full exp!" thing was an urban legend.No (http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1297980#post1297980)

[Potus]

It'd be nice if a developer could clarify. The Wiki isn't always accurate and that is confusing. The 2011 change just says "classic pet distribution" which would mean that pets don't steal exp as long as you do 1 dmg to the monster.

[Potus]

No (http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1297980#post1297980)

Like I said in the other posts, this isn't correct, and here you even have developers contradicting that statement multiple times a mere 3 months later:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=960

So no. That's not correct. Verant said a lot of stupid shit about pets that were just outright false and contradictory.

[uniqueuser]

Like I said in the other posts, this isn't correct, and here you even have developers contradicting that statement multiple times a mere 3 months later:Because they changed the rules from what they were 3 months before:
Rich sent me a clarification to the pet experience changes we're makingSo no. That's not correct. Verant said a lot of stupid shit about pets that were just outright false and contradictory.You've got to be in denial to believe that a correction citing another developer (meaning it's even less likely to be incorrect) is outright false.

[zaltabik00]

The fact is anyone on here that ever played on live knows that you never had to do more then 50% damage to gain 100% exp from the mob as a mage. The fact is mages are designed to be the strongest pet class, thats why they have the strongest pets(which are undeniably still under powered) to make it so a mage needs to out damage its pet to gain full exp is to take away its main means of damage the sole purpose of a mage. The fact is its a broken system, you shouldnt have to reclaim your classes main source of damage when a mob is low on HP to make a loophole to gain full exp. Thats like taking a away a wizard's ability to nuke when a mob is at a low percentage and only from melee damage do they gain full exp. Its a flawed system and whether you choose to disagree you can at least agree on that.

[zaltabik00]

If there is no change that comes of this there should at least be an amendment to the Race/Class Experience Penalty to reflect that mages suffer a 50% penalty to exp when solo'ing because this is pretty much whats going on. You may be able to gain full exp from reclaiming your pet but it makes you super vulnerable to death, at lower levels if you do not summon a max level pet on your first cast you might as well forget about it and pets don't innately duel wield at low level so pet is already gimped right from the start.

[Asap]

Well, let's not seem entitled or whiny. But I do agree at least Magician pets should be looked at. Either changing the experience distribution, or increasing the pets ability to deliver and hold threat. Nuke before 50%? Game over

[uniqueuser]

The fact is anyone on here that ever played on live knows that you never had to do more then 50% damage to gain 100% exp from the mob as a mage.The fact is you certainly had to prior to the changes made mid-Luclin.

Even the source you linked as evidence confirms it:How is this different than the old way for non-Dire Charmed pets?
In the old scheme, if a pet did more than half of the damage to a monster, it took half the experience reward. In the new scheme, pets take zero experience unless no player does damage.

[Potus]

Because they changed the rules from what they were 3 months before:
You've got to be in denial to believe that a correction citing another developer (meaning it's even less likely to be incorrect) is outright false.

Or it could be that Verant was talking out of its ass and three different developers were all saying contradictory shit within 90 days of one another.

What you're advocating is that all pet classes should have an experience penalty larger than an Iksar Shadowknight. (pet takes 70%, race+class exp penalty was 10%)

Don't you think people would have noticed that during Classic?

[uniqueuser]

Don't you think people would have noticed that during Classic?Some of them did:
1) Is there any chance that in the future the experience penalty for a pet doing over 50% of the damage while soloing to any monster will be removed? -Ghalon Soulburn

A) There's always a chance. Again, we'll look at that as well when we review casters. However, remember that whatever 'soloing ability' Mages have now (whether considered great or average) would be dramatically increased if pets suddenly stopped earning experience for all of their hard work and sacrifice.http://wayback.archive.org/web/20030802084719/http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum1/HTML/000511.html

Whether or not exp was split if a pet did over 50% of the damage isn't the issue here, because it irrefutably was.

[Potus]

Some of them did:http://wayback.archive.org/web/20030802084719/http://boards.station.sony.com/ubb/everquest/Forum1/HTML/000511.html



That doesn't say anything about having an exp penalty greater than Troll Shadowknights.

Seriously, you'd think someone would have noticed that, no?

[Iumuno]

The fact is anyone on here that ever played on live knows that you never had to do more then 50% damage to gain 100% exp from the mob as a mage. The fact is mages are designed to be the strongest pet class, thats why they have the strongest pets(which are undeniably still under powered) to make it so a mage needs to out damage its pet to gain full exp is to take away its main means of damage the sole purpose of a mage. The fact is its a broken system, you shouldnt have to reclaim your classes main source of damage when a mob is low on HP to make a loophole to gain full exp. Thats like taking a away a wizard's ability to nuke when a mob is at a low percentage and only from melee damage do they gain full exp. Its a flawed system and whether you choose to disagree you can at least agree on that.

I played a mage on live, started pre kunark, then through Kunark and quit at level 53. Mages had to outdamage the pet to gain 100% xp from the mob.

I do agree that it's an undesirable mechanic, hence why it was removed during Luclin. But it's entirely classic.

What's not classic is current pet aggro.

[uniqueuser]

That doesn't say anything about having an exp penalty greater than Troll Shadowknights.I believe the way this is implemented on P99 is that the awarded exp is simply being halved, whereas on Live the exp was split as if the pet were another player, meaning the pet's level would've been factored into the calculation.

After level 20, the mage tends to be several levels higher than his highest pet, so he would've received more than 50% exp, in proportion to the level difference between them.

[tristantio]

Pets should be taking 75% of the xp if no one does damage (and 0% of the xp if someone does do damage) if we want to use the ruleset from 2002 which is the closest to how it is currently.

However, we should probably also add the other pet changes (no mobs agroin on pets that walk past).

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20020605a.html


With this patch we've made some rather sweeping changes to the way pets work.

Pets will not attack mesmerized creatures. Pets basically treat mesmerized
NPCs as if they were dead.

Pets are neutral to NPCs. Monsters will not attack pets first unless the pet is being
aggressive to something.

Pets take 75% of the experience from a creature if no player does damage to that creature.

Pets take ZERO experience from a creature unless no player does damage to that creature.

The exception to the above rule is Dire Charmed pets, which will take a share of the
experience scaled by the amount of damage they do. In most situations (with an
active party, for example) the Dire Charmed pet will not take experience. Like all
pets, they will take 75% of the experience if no PC does damage to the target. As
long as a player does damage to a creature, a Dire Charmed pet will never take
more experience than it used to.

Charmed NPCs will now respond to the /pet report health command.

/pet sit down command should now work on charmed NPCs.

Fixed a bug that was preventing reclaim energy from working on Magician Epic pets.


But to really match the timeline, pets should not take any XP, and to combat AFK experiencing while a necro is AFK, we need the following change from earlier in our own timeline (adding a limited duration to necromance Feign Death):


The "Feign Death" spell, when cast by a Necromancer, will now have a fixed duration.
The Necromancer will receive several warnings prior to the spell wearing off. This change
was necessary because some Necromancers found a way to gain experience through
their pet while being AFK for an extended duration, such as being in bed for the night.
Note: This does not affect Shadowknights or Monks.


Sourced from:
http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20000217a.html

^^^ The above necro comment also indicates that it WAS entirely possible to AFK xp as a pet class (and no risk as a FD'ed necro)

[uniqueuser]

Pets should be taking 75% of the xp if no one does damage (and 0% of the xp if someone does do damage) if we want to use the ruleset from 2002We don't, because it's from mid-Luclin.

This is not a Luclin-era server.

This is not difficult to comprehend.

[Gustoo]

Yeah the pet EXP nerf is not good. It makes a pet class a completely different class than it otherwise could/would be. Basically changes the game completely. I already hate mages (to play) but the pet exp nerf just makes the whole experience retarded.

[Potus]

It'd be nice to see a developer chime in. Are pets eating 70% of exp if you don't outdamage them?

If so Mages are completely broken. Their pet doesn't aggro enough to keep the monster tanking while the Mage has to outdamage it.

[Priceline]

bump

[Magifyre]

We don't, because it's from mid-Luclin.

This is not a Luclin-era server.

This is not difficult to comprehend.

[wwoneo]

I also agree that Mage pets taking away exp if you don't do more than 50% damage to the mob is a broken mechanic. I don't even play a mage, but I don't see why this would be the case. Need to be changed.

[Deadlyfury]

It's classic, if you were a classic mage you wouldn't be complaining because you would be used to it.

We must adhere to the classic terms in all their faults and glories be them bad or good :)

[Uteunayr]

If I remember correctly, like half a year back, a necromancer did some low level testing on pet XP stealing in group, at distance in group, etc. Basically seeking a way to safely bypass pet XP stealing (being in a group but at a huge distance from the person you're grouped with). Their data seemed to indicate that currently, pets are taking exactly 50% of XP. It was always a difference of 6 to 3% on a >50% from pet.

Additionally, does anything about that 2002 patch suggest that it was 75% before that? If they instituted the 75% penalty at the time of 2002, then everything on that list of notes is irrelevant to the server.

[Buellen]

Like to chime in.

pet agro was "slightly adjusted" a couple patches ago.

i have tested this a few times since the patch as long as you wait till pet does roughly 11 percent of damage to a mob you can cast a spell or two or even just sit down.

As some of you remember it use to be if you sat down or even cast a damage spell the mob would stick to you till it died no matter how much damage a pet did to it.

PS

Remember pet agro is what is here due to pet tanking in raids and need to control that aspect. It will not be truly how it was in classic due to this limitation.

[Theturtlehermit]

Bump. I want to hear about this from a dev too plox
Mage requires too much jimmying around to be a proper class. Get a group and then go in different zones? We have to pretend we are charm kiting and kill our pet before the mob dies for full XP? Please tell me more.

[SamwiseRed]

mage pets commonly out DPS even the twinkiest of twinks pre 55. i know my 53 air pet was doing some god damn work. only a monk with epic t staff could out dps it and occasionally a pre 55 rogue with epic would too.

mage pet is pretty damn powerful atm.

the past 2 days my parser has 17 out of the top 20 dpsers as pets either mage or necro.

my point is, i can see why there is a penalty which can easily be relieved in a duo or group. i pretty consider the pet a whole bother player anyway since its so strong.

[Deadlyfury]

mage pets commonly out DPS even the twinkiest of twinks pre 55. i know my 53 air pet was doing some god damn work. only a monk with epic t staff could out dps it and occasionally a pre 55 rogue with epic would too.

mage pet is pretty damn powerful atm.

the past 2 days my parser has 17 out of the top 20 dpsers as pets either mage or necro.

my point is, i can see why there is a penalty which can easily be relieved in a duo or group. i pretty consider the pet a whole bother player anyway since its so strong.

I totally agree! Love my mage pet, makes solo'ing so much easier, and just let it eat the exp, it's worth it in the lower levels