Change up the ZEM

[cd288]

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

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.

Went back and re-read and Loramin explains this in much more detail than I did, and he's exactly right. Using the Kurns and FOB example, you'd need to basically take two characters of the exact same class, race, and level...you'd level one in FOB and one in Kurns for 1 level starting at the beginning of that level (i.e., 0% EXP earned). You'd have to be absolutely sure that each of those characters is killing a mob of the same level each time (tough to do that, at least in an outdoor zone where mobs will have a level range more often than they will in a dungeon IIRC, and there's no way to fully know just based on /con). And then you'd have to track how many kills it would take to go from 0% to 100% on both characters.

I think another commenter noted something else which I think is correct: When you're talking about the lower levels where you don't need as much EXP to level and where mobs don't give as much EXP per kill, a ZEM difference is going to be much less noticeable. It's going to be much closer to Loramin's A vs B example above than it would be, say, in the 40s or 50s.

And all of this is assuming the Wiki ZEMs are accurate, which we still don't definitively know. IIRC, the current percentages are based on numbers that were originally somewhat speculation. So the staff says "We increased the ZEM by X% in zone A" and we edit the Wiki, but the base number we're using we have no idea if that base number was accurate in the first place.