PDA

View Full Version : Green exp penalties


garfo
09-14-2019, 06:21 PM
Apologies in advance since I'm sure this has been answered somewhere, but are we confirmed that the hybrid exp penalties ARE in place at Green launch?

ty, sorry!!

loramin
09-14-2019, 06:23 PM
They're confirmed in the sense that they're a classic part of EverQuest, and Green is about reproducing classic EQ.

To put it another way ... if they aren't letting you have the pet window, do you really think they'd unclassically remove hybrid penalties?

But no I don't think they've explicitly said as much yet: it's just very clearly implied.

Veleria
09-14-2019, 08:18 PM
the only reason the xp penalties were removed was that it happened at a certain point in the classic timeline. there will be hybrid penalties to start and at the appropriate time, they will be removed.

sacman08
09-15-2019, 06:41 AM
...at the appropriate time, they will be removed.
Hopefully...

Danth
09-15-2019, 07:03 AM
Note that while the experience modifiers are usually called hybrid penalties because those classes get the steepest modifiers, a lot of classes have experience penalties in the original game. Paladin/Shadow Knight/Ranger/Bard have a 40% modifier. Monk has a 20% penalty. Necromancer/Magician/Wizard/Enchanter have 10% penalties. Rogues and Warriors, being intended to be low-difficulty classes, have their usual modest bonuses. These bonuses or penalties multiply against racial modifiers, so a Troll Shadow Knight has a total 68% penalty (ouch!), and a Kunark-era Iksar Monk has a 44% penalty--steeper than the stock hybrid modifier. All of the class penalties are removed in early Velious, at the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

Danth

soronil
09-15-2019, 07:09 AM
the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

What does this mean? A Troll still needs more exp, but he doesn't get proportionally more of the group exp?

Danth
09-15-2019, 07:21 AM
What does this mean? A Troll still needs more exp, but he doesn't get proportionally more of the group exp?

Correct. Once that change goes through (early Velious) the Troll simply levels slower than his Dark Elf buddy, as is presently the case on P1999-blue.

Note that the way the original experience system (the one we'll have on Green) works, experience is split according to a character's total experience. A lower-level Troll Shadow Knight will still take a smaller chunk of a group's experience than a Human Warrior who's several levels higher.

Danth

slowpoke68
09-15-2019, 08:47 AM
Note that while the experience modifiers are usually called hybrid penalties because those classes get the steepest modifiers, a lot of classes have experience penalties in the original game. Paladin/Shadow Knight/Ranger/Bard have a 40% modifier. Monk has a 20% penalty. Necromancer/Magician/Wizard/Enchanter have 10% penalties. Rogues and Warriors, being intended to be low-difficulty classes, have their usual modest bonuses. These bonuses or penalties multiply against racial modifiers, so a Troll Shadow Knight has a total 68% penalty (ouch!), and a Kunark-era Iksar Monk has a 44% penalty--steeper than the stock hybrid modifier. All of the class penalties are removed in early Velious, at the same time as the racial modifiers are made self-only.

Danth


I disagree with your assessment of why Rogues and Warriors get xp bonuses and the other classes get penalties.

If you pull out an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook from way back when you will see those penalties pretty well translate the experience tables for the different classes in the table top version. In AD&D it took a lot more xp to level up your paladin than it did a thief or a fighter. It has always been my belief that the original devs were doing their darndest to accurately make an online AD&D sim.

Similarly, as I recall some races had level caps in playing some classes. Obviously capping a Troll at level 43 while letting a Human level all the way to 50 would have been a problem in an MMO. I think this is how they dealt with that issue.

As a final note I had always heard that humans were supposed to be the ones to receive the halfling xp bonus to represent the versatility they had in AD&D but it was actually a programming error that resulted in the halflings getting it.

On a different note I also heard that hell levels were actually the result of a programming error as well.

Jibartik
09-15-2019, 08:53 AM
What is crazy amazing about everquest is they just created all this history, all these balance rules, all these stats: In 3 years in their heads, then basically hard launched it and we've been playing it ever since.

Pretty crazy 3 pointer if game development was a basketball game. (I'm trying to use more non everquest references in my day to day per doctors orders)

It's nice to know they ripped off a lot of it or how the hell did they remember to add all these details.

Check out the big brain on Brad.

Demoraliser
09-15-2019, 08:56 AM
Troll SK is the worst in classic right?
Then Iksar SK in kunark?

Danth
09-15-2019, 09:09 AM
I disagree with your assessment of why Rogues and Warriors get xp bonuses and the other classes get penalties.

You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

jibartik: 989/Verant didn't design absolutely everything from scratch. A good deal of what became EQ was, shall we say "borrowed" from MUDS which existed at the time. EQ is in many ways simply an early 90's MUD with a graphics engine pasted on top.

Danth

loramin
09-15-2019, 11:31 AM
Troll SK is the worst in classic right?
Then Iksar SK in kunark?

The two are the same. Troll/Iksar both get the highest (20%) racial penalty because they have the "best" (by classic standards) racial power: regeneration. The Iksar's AC bonus (vs. the Troll) is "balanced" by the Iksar's inability to wear plate (... until Velious).

Cen
09-15-2019, 11:50 AM
You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

jibartik: 989/Verant didn't design absolutely everything from scratch. A good deal of what became EQ was, shall we say "borrowed" from MUDS which existed at the time. EQ is in many ways simply an early 90's MUD with a graphics engine pasted on top.

Danth

Well, in this case your wrapping a secondary statement in a separate truth. It's true your religion and class will dictate what difficulty rating you get (Dark elf Warrior gets medium), but nowhere did it state that's why it has any effect on any experience penalties. The penalties weren't actually spelled out in game at all. I'm not saying you're wrong, im just saying there's no evidence what your saying is the reason.

Danth
09-15-2019, 02:23 PM
I'd have to link old usenet and webforum discussion. Too much effort if those old boards even exist anymore. Let's just agree that it doesn't matter in the here-and-now why it is how it is, only that it'll be that way on Green.

Danth
.

Cen
09-15-2019, 02:54 PM
I'd have to link old usenet and webforum discussion. Too much effort if those old boards even exist anymore. Let's just agree that it doesn't matter in the here-and-now why it is how it is, only that it'll be that way on Green.

Danth
.

you damn right and im gonna be a ranger too for some rediculous reason lel

slowpoke68
09-15-2019, 03:18 PM
Danth I didn't mean to be argumentative and appreciate you laying out those original penalties so succinctly. :) I was just giving my personal take which is completely unsupported by anything other than speculation and conjecture.

Danth
09-15-2019, 03:23 PM
Danth I didn't mean to be argumentative and appreciate you laying out those original penalties so succinctly. :) I was just giving my personal take which is completely unsupported by anything other than speculation and conjecture.

Oh, don't be apologizing or anything, if I came across as aggressive or something you have my own "my bad, that's not how I meant it." I like forum discussion and seeing the alternate points of view; I only meant my own opinion was based on what I saw in-game and from old-time sources. It's still an opinion with room for different interpretations. As an aside, I liked the tidbits about the D&D mechanics. I never played that....I was too cool for it and was more likely to be making fun of the guys playing tabletop RPG's. Here I am, now, so the joke was on me in the long run.

Cen: If I'm on green at all it'll be on a hybrid, or nothing. Damn the torpedoes!

Danth

xCry0x
09-15-2019, 11:00 PM
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/011401_EQ_Producers_letter.html

They had the penalties to balance out what they deemed as the stronger classes.

Logically.. a hybrid would be stronger than their non hybrid counterpart. In practice, that wasnt the case.. and they realized the game ends up balancing at the end game not the leveling game, so they removed class penalty.

Race penalty was there because of race superiority.

Shared pain was there so a group of friends didn't end up out leveling their troll sk tank friend.

TBH this is one of those vanilla things that shouldn't exist for the same reasons they eventually removed it.

The shared penalty more than anything, people refuse to invite hybrids to groups when there are other choices.

xCry0x
09-15-2019, 11:08 PM
You might disagree, but you're arguing with the game itself, not with me. My comments are based on the original character creation UI if you remember it. Classes like war/rogue were explicitly listed as low difficulty right there in-game, while something like a shadow knight was listed as high difficulty.

Danth

Problem with that logic is it would have made no sense to put a penalty on the hard classes and not in the easy ones. Unless your interpretation was that the difficulty was based on the exp rate.

My assumption is the difficulty was supposed to be around the actual playstyle mechanics.

You can imagine assuming that a hybrid would be much more mechanically complex to play compared to a generic warrior or rogue.

With that logic you would give the exp bonus to the hard classes to encourage people to play them over the easy ones... The modifiers are how they tried to balance the game, like how the zone exp modifiers were how they tried to encourage people to go into their cool dungeons.

slowpoke68
09-16-2019, 05:44 AM
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/011401_EQ_Producers_letter.html

They had the penalties to balance out what they deemed as the stronger classes.

Logically.. a hybrid would be stronger than their non hybrid counterpart. In practice, that wasnt the case.. and they realized the game ends up balancing at the end game not the leveling game, so they removed class penalty.

Race penalty was there because of race superiority.

Shared pain was there so a group of friends didn't end up out leveling their troll sk tank friend.

TBH this is one of those vanilla things that shouldn't exist for the same reasons they eventually removed it.

The shared penalty more than anything, people refuse to invite hybrids to groups when there are other choices.

That was an interesting read.

Gustoo
09-16-2019, 10:09 AM
All the pet exp penalities should be removed so necros and mages and all other pet classes don't have to kill their pets to get full exp.

Makes sense since they're going to have to look at spell book to meditate.