EXP IS SO SLOW!

[rioisk]

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

If this is truly the case, you should have been more clear about this in your testimony about the change. It really read like you said "My wife and I discovered I was outleveling her, so I told the dev team and they gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted to XP. I found the code mistake, fixed it, but found something else that I knew was classic and changed it too."

Further is the problem with the feeling that "I went in to fix something with the blessing of the staff, but I found something else I wasn't actually looking for, changed it, and then got the blessing of the dev team after the fact."

Maybe that's how it went down, maybe it's not. Maybe you had a conference call and discussed repercussions of this change, maybe you just did it and everyone else said "yeah that was in classic."

All I want to say is that the reason you specifically are getting so much flak from the community is due to the whole under-the-table, undocumented feel this change (I can't in good faith call it a fix anymore) has. We were all around when Verant pulled these tricks, we all got mad and complained because we all felt cheated. Sometimes it was an innocent mistake (Martin in customer service had strep and didn't write the patch notes), but the vast majority of the time it was either totally under the radar or expressed so vaguely in order to delay the firestorm that the developers knew the change would cause.

They weren't stupid. You're not stupid. It's Friday afternoon, you can either write patch notes that are going to result in you getting bombarded with hate mail or you can just do it and deal with it after your weekend. After crossing your fingers that no one notices, of course -- which is a complete joke as any software developer can tell you. Your users will *always* know your software better than you do.

Please don't take this as an insult as I'd rather not get banned, but it also doesn't help the situation that you've gotten so defensive, arguably smug, about what has become "your" change. I don't blame you for it -- stubbornly sticking to your guns is a common and effective thing to do. But it also leaves you stubborn and unwilling to reconsider the wisdom of your decision.

No matter how many times you say it, this isn't a binary choice. This isn't "This was classic, get frustrated and lash out and you're banned, end of story." You're implementing what the producers would come to admit as a design flaw.

There are plenty more of those you could implement. If you'd like, I'd be happy to dig through patch notes and break things that the patch ahead of where we are in the timeline fixed. I'm good with C++ and Java and dabble in several other languages. I would be happy to implement bugs and exploits, because bugs and exploits are classic and can be fun. They added the broken zaniness that caused many of us to have a sick love/hate relationship with the game, that, 10 years later, those famous rose goggles have changed into just love, kind of like the old girlfriend we've all had that was on that lovely border of gorgeous and plain, flawed and perfect, and was prone to outbursts of batshit insanity. We miss her more than the one or two barbies we got lucky (or so we thought at the time) with, the intellectuals, the emotionally dependents, or even are (hopefully) well-balanced, loving wives.

I don't know. Do what you want. Just try not to delude yourself or the rest of the staff into thinking this change is anything but actively harmful to this server and its community. Even the great stubborn Verant knew that was true when it was discovered -- that is, when Verant was reminded they'd implemented it.

Just want to add to this that mimicking classic mechanics and classic mindset are two different equations to creating the classic experience. The EQ community as a whole was pretty ignorant about all this XP penalties/group sharing etc etc (as they were with a lot of issues) back in 1999 but here we are same game same mechanics but now we suddenly have a problem with it.

We know devs here work very hard to provide for this server at no pay and we know what the "vision" of the server is. However, I think a majority of players don't like how "fixes" to make the game more classic are done months after the launch of the server. Trying to make a game more classic everyday only to see some of these changes reversed in an expansion (kunark/velious) not long after they're changed (or issues being totally ignored because they're patched out in kunark/velious) is highly aggravating.

[Haynar]

I am 99% sure I have found why EXP is off. The early on model for exp, differs slightly from what it is now. The formulas that Bum used are reasonable, and seem to work perfectly fine. We just might need some changes to the overall exp modifier. As soon as I finish my writeup, I will submit it for review by management and see if I can get it adjusted.

Haynar

[Astropunk]

I know that Nilbog is trying his best to keep this server exactly as he remembers it and since he played a paladin exp penalties were part of it. I have always disliked that the penalties were put in, but dealt with it since was part of classic.

However, there is no way that hell levels were a part of a group shared penalty. Groups did not level at the pace of the slowest person. My main problem with all of this is the hell level shared penalty.

I read that developer's letter and I don't see it say that hell levels are shared. I DO see it saying that hybrid penalties are shared. It seems to say that because an ogre sk has more exp total and has a penalty he gets a larger share, I DON'T see it saying that every group member gets the same percentage of their level per kill (which appears to be how it is currently coded). Hell levels were clearly noticeable because you didn't level as fast in a group as people around your level in the group.

My level 35 ogre sk now cannot possibly find a group ever as I turn every group I join into the worst group ever. My ranger alt might as well be deleted. I'm very frustrated because I wanted to play my character in groups and now I can't. Certainly the devs can understand my plight here.

[Oogmog]

Astropunk... I feel you man. I've said multiple times hell levels were not penalized by group in classic and I'm almost to the point of assuming the devs that support this didn't actually level through a hell level in classic. I'm not trying to be rude, but if you're going to make such harsh changes that were classic, it would be nice to make an assumption decision based on experience.

[Aeolwind]

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

I am 99% sure I have found why EXP is off. The early on model for exp, differs slightly from what it is now. The formulas that Bum used are reasonable, and seem to work perfectly fine. We just might need some changes to the overall exp modifier. As soon as I finish my writeup, I will submit it for review by management and see if I can get it adjusted.

Haynar

One of the adjustments that Haynar mentioned here went in with the patch yesterday.

[Oogmog]

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

One of the adjustments that Haynar mentioned here went in with the patch yesterday.

Was it a fix for how characters in a hell level effected group xp? I haven't seen any word to see what was changed, however, I just got back into town so hadn't even noticed there was a change until you posted this.

[Oogmog]

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

Was it a fix for how characters in a hell level effected group xp? I haven't seen any word to see what was changed, however, I just got back into town so hadn't even noticed there was a change until you posted this.

Also wanted to point out another thing. I know major modifications were made to light blue mobs giving next to no experience anymore, especially in a group. However, if you take a look at patch notes - http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2001-2.html - Under November 7th, 2001, we can see that light blue mobs were not even introduced until that time -- this was right before Luclin. Something else that might needed to be considered since all the experience adjustments are going around. While the "light blue" con was designed to give higher level people experience, if someone just dinged while in a dungeon and the majority of the mobs begin to go light blue, I'm fairly certain they would still be blue on live (Following the same formula for whether a not a someone of a certain level can get xp with you I'm assuming is the same formula to determine if a mob yields experience)