Why the pet exp penalty came about?

[BennoFlo]

Is there any reason besides afk leveling that this change came about?

I just started playing a necro and was totally unaware of this change until today. I started EQ on live in the velious era and played a bard, so this didn't affect me, but after reading a few forum posts, it really urks me.

I feel one of the key points of a pet class is to utilize, buff, and accent your pet to be a successful player, and I feel like these changes almost divert from that concept. For example, if I get spells to buff my pet's damage later on, I will in no way be encouraged to use them because it greatly increases the chance of losing the dmg race with my pet.

Also, since this is a community server and not run by a bunch of corporate BS, was this change a consensus among players? It just seems so counter-intuitive in my knowledge of old world and new world mmo's to intentionally nerf your pet's potential in order for higher experience gain.

Thoughts?

[Furniture]

in case you havent noticed the devs here are trying to emulate the mechanics for the era the servers in

[ManticSquee]

It's just the way the game is set up. Different races and classes have unique abilities that are offset by xp penalties. If you are say a Troll Shadow Knight you would have 68% xp penalty essentially. You wouldn't be losing xp just required to gain much more than a class/race combo that has less important abilities. Just look at pet classes as receiving a penalty for having the unique and powerful ability to use pets. At least when you are grouped it goes away and there are other ways around it also.

[Heavydrop]

Thought it was just mages that had the pet exp penalty and not necros?

[ManticSquee]

People have been talking about both and even charmed pets. I'm under the impression that it applies to all pets. I would look it up to make sure but I have to leave for work. Try wiki or searching for it in the forum if you are still curious.

[Chedduh]

all pet classes are effected, mages are just generally the most talked about because they can't handle the aggro from trying to out dps their mobs as efficiently as a chanter or necro

[goshozal]

1) It applies to all pet classes, including charmed pets

2) It only applies while solo, and only if the pet does more than 50% of the damage for a given kill. There are ways around this mechanic (mem blur for enchanters, reclaim for mages, and so on).

3) The same penalty was on live, and therefore it was implemented here. The reasoning for it was that mages could do nothing but chain cast fire pets and /afk their way to 50 during vanilla. Verant answered the QQ from other classes with the mighty nerfbat.

[BennoFlo]

Isn't getting around game mechanics through loopholes (killing pet, grouping with someone not in the same zone as you) considered exploiting?

[BennoFlo]

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

3) The same penalty was on live, and therefore it was implemented here. The reasoning for it was that mages could do nothing but chain cast fire pets and /afk their way to 50 during vanilla. Verant answered the QQ from other classes with the mighty nerfbat.

From searching around, I think the mechanic was quite different on live in the Kunark era. From Live patch notes:

Situation 1 - You are soloing and you have a summoned pet-
* 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.

Situation 2 - You are in a group and you have a summoned pet-
* If you or your group do any damage to the monster at all, your group gets all of the experience.
* If you or your group don't do any damage to the monster, the pet gets 75% of the experience.

In my opinion, these rules are much better, and they still prevent afk leveling.

[Somekid123]

Killing pet is not an exploit to getting around it. Grouping with someone outside a different zone would be and was done when you could, but its been nerf'd for over a year now, believe me ive tested it. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]