Should ZEM even be in the game this early?

[Fireblade7]

High ZEMs for dungeons with amazing loot don’t even make sense. The high ZEMs should have been terrible zones where no one wanted to go, making people choose between loot and exp

[Rooj]

Originally Posted by Fireblade7 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

High ZEMs for dungeons with amazing loot don’t even make sense. The high ZEMs should have been terrible zones where no one wanted to go, making people choose between loot and exp

Which is pretty much what SOE said themselves in Jan 2001. Now how things ended up the way they supposedly are, AKA completely contradictory to that statement, I have no idea.

I do wish the staff would talk about it more, since it's a pretty big part of the game, but they feel like even just talking about it is unclassic.

[loramin]

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

Now how things ended up the way they supposedly are, AKA completely contradictory to that statement, I have no idea.

I think this was a case of the staff trying to make things more classic, by changing the ZEMs from the classic values to add mystery.

But what we gained in classic "mystery", we lost in ... well, everything else. As I've said in other threads, NO ONE wins from the current ZEM system. Whether you're a classicist or a "make P99 as close to live today as possible" player, and whether you want to see "classic clumping" in certain dungeons or whether you'd like to see the population more spread out ...

... no matter what, the current ZEMs don't serve your, or anyone else's, interest. I honestly don't think they even serve the staff's (except that not changing them = less work for the staff).

[Roth]

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

I think this was a case of the staff trying to make things more classic, by changing the ZEMs from the classic values to add mystery.

But what we gained in classic "mystery", we lost in ... well, everything else. As I've said in other threads, NO ONE wins from the current ZEM system. Whether you're a classicist or a "make P99 as close to live today as possible" player, and whether you want to see "classic clumping" in certain dungeons or whether you'd like to see the population more spread out ...

... no matter what, the current ZEMs don't serve your, or anyone else's, interest. I honestly don't think they even serve the staff's (except that not changing them = less work for the staff).

I understand what you're saying here, you've posted this same thing a few times, but it's really distracting from the actual issue. Any changes the staff have made to zem have seemed to be minor and mostly the issues are with the original or stock values of zem. Trying to misdirect this issue onto the staff setting bad zems is out of touch with the actual problems. All zones that had originally high zems seem to still have high zems.

[loramin]

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

I understand what you're saying here, you've posted this same thing a few times, but it's really distracting from the actual issue. Any changes the staff have made to zem have seemed to be minor and mostly the issues are with the original or stock values of zem. Trying to misdirect this issue onto the staff setting bad zems is out of touch with the actual problems. All zones that had originally high zems seem to still have high zems.

And you're basing that on ... your wishes? A handful of zones you've visited? I mean if you're going to call me out and say I don't know what I'm talking about, maybe have something to base it on? [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No one (except the staff) knows the current ZEMs, so it's fallacious for anyone to claim that A) they know what they all are, and B) that they're all the same as, or close to, classic ZEMs. All you, I, or anyone else has to go on is subjective player reports. If you take those reports for what they are, in aggregate, they most certainly do strongly suggest that zones here have unclassic ZEMs, and this fact is not controversial.

People have given numerous specific examples (eg. in those other threads you referenced reading). There's no point in repeating them all here, but one very obvious one is Kedge Keep. Kedge gave very good XP on live, and gives comparatively terrible XP here, so while no one knows it's exact ZEM, subjective measurements strongly suggest it's significantly different (and not classic) here.

At the end of the day, I'm all for rotating dynamic ZEMs, or the staff setting some new sensible ones that encourage people to not clump, or whatever. I'm also in favor of 100% classic ZEMs. But either way, if we can't even acknowledge the reality that the staff made a Faustian bargain with ZEMs here (they wanted mystery and traded both the original devs' goals/logic and the "soul of classic" to get it), I don't see how the discussion can really be honest.

TLDR; I don't see how unclassically nerfing the XP of a zone like Kedge makes the game better for anyone ... but P99 definitely does it.

[Lulz Sect]

if the Project 1999: Green/Teal 2019 ZEMS are randomly generated and randomly change after X hour/X date, do you EVEN think Staff would let the playerbase know?

i think not

[Vizax_Xaziv]

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

if the Project 1999: Green/Teal 2019 ZEMS are randomly generated and randomly change after X hour/X date, do you EVEN think Staff would let the playerbase know?

i think not

No and it could be a scripted event. We've seen bonus XP be implemented without having to take any servers offline in the past.

[Dolalin]

ZEMs were in from the start. But the insane bonuses on newb dungeon ZEMs was added during PoP when they added the low level cleric rez spells etc.

I've done all the digging.

In era sources from a ShowEQ dev that the max ZEM was 100 pre-Luclin, explicit references to Crushbone and Najena ZEMs being 80, and so on.

We are playing with PoP ZEMs and this should change.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=343193

[fadetree]

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

ZEMs were in from the start. But the insane bonuses on newb dungeon ZEMs was added during PoP when they added the low level cleric rez spells etc.

I've done all the digging.

In era sources from a ShowEQ dev that the max ZEM was 100 pre-Luclin, explicit references to Crushbone and Najena ZEMs being 80, and so on.

We are playing with PoP ZEMs and this should change.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=343193

I think Dolalin is correct. My opinion:
ZEM was always a core mechanic. That way they could make small adjustments to compensate for the 'difficulty' of a dungeon/zone. It could also be used globally to slow people down across the board, as was mentioned.

Luclin and the insane zem on Paludal Caverns was the fist sign that the devs were beginning to react to fears that new people would be left behind as the huge wave of people that had been playing all along would all be end game. They were afraid they'd start to lose new subs because 'there's no-one to play with'. Solution - tinker with noob dungeons to really crank up the zem, that way people can blast through and join their friends. Of course, much later, they were like, 'eh...just start 'em at 80'.

They also started to think about underused zones and how to get people to them, since, craven little min-maxers that we are, everyone followed the same path through 4 or 5 zones to end game. This was what started the 'hot zone' idea later.

I also think the zems in play on p99 are probably from a much later era. Should they fix them? I think so...the problem is I don't think we have any hard data that describes all of the zems per zone at an era that applies to classic. Also, we may SAY we want it 'fixed', but of they did I bet it would cause a firestorm of complaining.

The zem change to Kedge was a p99-specific deal...not sure exactly but I think it was a response to people being able to exploit charm and.or pbAOE or something and render the dungeon easy and yet still with a high zem.

[cd288]

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

I think Dolalin is correct. My opinion:
ZEM was always a core mechanic. That way they could make small adjustments to compensate for the 'difficulty' of a dungeon/zone. It could also be used globally to slow people down across the board, as was mentioned.

Luclin and the insane zem on Paludal Caverns was the fist sign that the devs were beginning to react to fears that new people would be left behind as the huge wave of people that had been playing all along would all be end game. They were afraid they'd start to lose new subs because 'there's no-one to play with'. Solution - tinker with noob dungeons to really crank up the zem, that way people can blast through and join their friends. Of course, much later, they were like, 'eh...just start 'em at 80'.

They also started to think about underused zones and how to get people to them, since, craven little min-maxers that we are, everyone followed the same path through 4 or 5 zones to end game. This was what started the 'hot zone' idea later.

I also think the zems in play on p99 are probably from a much later era. Should they fix them? I think so...the problem is I don't think we have any hard data that describes all of the zems per zone at an era that applies to classic. Also, we may SAY we want it 'fixed', but of they did I bet it would cause a firestorm of complaining.

The zem change to Kedge was a p99-specific deal...not sure exactly but I think it was a response to people being able to exploit charm and.or pbAOE or something and render the dungeon easy and yet still with a high zem.

IIRC we use the ZEMs currently in place because those are the last comprehensive ones we have. There are obviously references to certain zones here and there pre-this list of ZEMs, but I don't think there was ever a comprehensive one that they could locate so they use the comprehensive one that's available from as close to classic era as they can get.