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Announce post #2843: MAJOR PvE Gold/Experience changes
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<pre>5/12/2018 at 0:58
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
MAJOR PvE Gold/Experience changes
As the next step to massive PvE changes, we've made the following three (summarized) modifications. Details will follow:
1. Gold drops from sentients have essentially been doubled.
2. A throttle now exists for gold drops. It is set to a value we consider very generous, and far in excess of what a profitable trip should be.
3. Our exp formulas have been altered to give out experience based on difficulty, not just arbitrary mob level.
Please keep in mind that all three of these things involve a few numbers that we will tweak as we continue with this rebalance.
EXPLANATIONS THAT MIGHT GET WORDY:
1. We have literally just removed a "gold/2" from the formula. Because the initial gold is determined by experience given by the mobile dropping the gold, however, and via point #3 we did just change the experience formula... who knows! I expect you will find that some areas will drop the same, while others vastly more. Nothing appears to initial math as a reduction.
2. The throttle is based on a running average over four hour periods, not a cap. This means that gold drops will be viewed over a four hour period, and if they exceed a certain gold/hr value they will be proportionally reduced. For example: if you manage to double what the throttle considers average gold/hr, your drops would be halved until the next time the formula assesses your average. The assessment of your average is in 15 minute steps, and the 'average' is chosen by me based on our data gathering.
The goal here is to not instate a gold cap, but to keep drops from being unreasonable while we tweak what the new formula does. After the testing period, the throttle will likely remain to prevent absurd gains and rampant inflation.
I should add that the throttle is currently so high that I am not positive it can be hit. Please do take that as a challenge, it would be fun to see.
3. Exp formula did not scale well to difficulty before. We used to have just tack on a flat-exp modifier to an area in order to make the mobs actually worth their difficulty (e.g. Xaanhal mobs give +45k xp). Unfortunately this was a bit arbitrary and did not really reflect the mob's difficulty. This led to some areas being vastly superior to other areas for bashing. We've gone ahead and removed this flat-exp modifier, and MASSIVELY adjusted the formula used to determine a mob's experience to make up for it.
This does mean some areas would've taken a hit in average overall experience. Tiyen Esityi in particular took the biggest hit here. However, this does mean areas you might've ignored before will also give out better experience.
Without getting too much into specifics on how the formula works (it's a complex metric involving mob level, attack speed, and attack possibilities), mobs will also now grant additional bonus experience based on the following:
- if they're aggro
- if they will track you down
- if they break shields
- if they're critical immune
- if they're non-sentient (non-sentients get a bonus because they don't drop gold)
- if they will loot your corpse if you die
- if they will defend other mobs in the room
- if they haven't died recently, every Howling, mobs will give +5% bonus experience if they didn't die that day. This stacks up to a maximum of +50% (10 days without dying). Reset whenever someone kills that mob. So don't ignore areas!
-T
PS
Let me emphasize that all of this is part of the larger picture of balance. Nothing is perfect, and we're happy to discuss this on the forum link that will follow this. There are a lot of tweaks that will happen over the process, some involving full changelogs, some we might just sneak in because you couldn't see it anyway.
Penned by my hand on Closday, the 23rd of Arios, in the year 473 MA.</pre>
Tiur, the Gnosis
Everyone
MAJOR PvE Gold/Experience changes
As the next step to massive PvE changes, we've made the following three (summarized) modifications. Details will follow:
1. Gold drops from sentients have essentially been doubled.
2. A throttle now exists for gold drops. It is set to a value we consider very generous, and far in excess of what a profitable trip should be.
3. Our exp formulas have been altered to give out experience based on difficulty, not just arbitrary mob level.
Please keep in mind that all three of these things involve a few numbers that we will tweak as we continue with this rebalance.
EXPLANATIONS THAT MIGHT GET WORDY:
1. We have literally just removed a "gold/2" from the formula. Because the initial gold is determined by experience given by the mobile dropping the gold, however, and via point #3 we did just change the experience formula... who knows! I expect you will find that some areas will drop the same, while others vastly more. Nothing appears to initial math as a reduction.
2. The throttle is based on a running average over four hour periods, not a cap. This means that gold drops will be viewed over a four hour period, and if they exceed a certain gold/hr value they will be proportionally reduced. For example: if you manage to double what the throttle considers average gold/hr, your drops would be halved until the next time the formula assesses your average. The assessment of your average is in 15 minute steps, and the 'average' is chosen by me based on our data gathering.
The goal here is to not instate a gold cap, but to keep drops from being unreasonable while we tweak what the new formula does. After the testing period, the throttle will likely remain to prevent absurd gains and rampant inflation.
I should add that the throttle is currently so high that I am not positive it can be hit. Please do take that as a challenge, it would be fun to see.
3. Exp formula did not scale well to difficulty before. We used to have just tack on a flat-exp modifier to an area in order to make the mobs actually worth their difficulty (e.g. Xaanhal mobs give +45k xp). Unfortunately this was a bit arbitrary and did not really reflect the mob's difficulty. This led to some areas being vastly superior to other areas for bashing. We've gone ahead and removed this flat-exp modifier, and MASSIVELY adjusted the formula used to determine a mob's experience to make up for it.
This does mean some areas would've taken a hit in average overall experience. Tiyen Esityi in particular took the biggest hit here. However, this does mean areas you might've ignored before will also give out better experience.
Without getting too much into specifics on how the formula works (it's a complex metric involving mob level, attack speed, and attack possibilities), mobs will also now grant additional bonus experience based on the following:
- if they're aggro
- if they will track you down
- if they break shields
- if they're critical immune
- if they're non-sentient (non-sentients get a bonus because they don't drop gold)
- if they will loot your corpse if you die
- if they will defend other mobs in the room
- if they haven't died recently, every Howling, mobs will give +5% bonus experience if they didn't die that day. This stacks up to a maximum of +50% (10 days without dying). Reset whenever someone kills that mob. So don't ignore areas!
-T
PS
Let me emphasize that all of this is part of the larger picture of balance. Nothing is perfect, and we're happy to discuss this on the forum link that will follow this. There are a lot of tweaks that will happen over the process, some involving full changelogs, some we might just sneak in because you couldn't see it anyway.
Penned by my hand on Closday, the 23rd of Arios, in the year 473 MA.</pre>
5
Comments
From what I can tell, the rolling four hour average for the throttle seems to be around 40k gold, or 10k/hour. This may be completely off and is just based on some really rough estimates from what I can make out in my log. I would say that it's currently set high enough that nobody will be able to hit in a normal day of bashing, but is definitely achievable if someone dedicated 4 hours at a time to gold bashing with the appropriate buffs up. I just did what I found comfortable doing without worrying too much about whether the mobs would drop gold or give more experience.
I will add that I think that all sentients that can drop gold should drop gold every time, even if the average amount dropped had to be reduced to keep the overall average the same. If the goal is to break bashing down to a choice between bashing for gold (sentients) and experience (non-sentients), I think it would be more enjoyable for each kill to actually give something towards the stated goal.
On the experience side, in the same period I got around 80% exp at level 116 with a 170% exp bonus. I might have died once or twice in there, but it feels like this is an overall increase compared to what I would have been able to get before these changes. I never really recorded my experience gains before to I have nothing to really confirm that.
Overall, I think the changes have improved the bashing experience for someone like me who can take on most areas, but I'm not so sure if this will be felt by people who don't have a bunch of arties or are still working toward level 100.
edit: Caramel, +50% damage per hit. Plus maybe 21 in a stat?
Also, woooooow, that is a lot of coding changes! I kind of like it, too. I should test it out, sometime. I like the more dynamic approach, though.
Bashed Tiyen for testing. Run ended at 7:00 AM with at least all of upper Tiyen done, part of lower.
Xp before: 134 5.56%
XP after: 134 6.53%
Gold drop total: 2654
Corpses: 103
I will do other runs later today and pull more numbers.
So, I'm trying out Vortex now. Killing both sides, no holdbacks. I'm up about 2% xp-wise or something and at about 5k gold already and probably 75% done. So, definitely a nice boost in there gold-wise. It used to be about the same drop rate as Tiyen is right now. And if you did just one side plus the quests? I think the margin is definitely still better by 1-2k a round compared to before.
Edit: Full run done - 7.4k gold without quests.
When I've been doing my runs, I do notice a significant increase in gold gain. Now, its still going to cost a little bit to hunt when you tack in the need to buy the gold commodities for curatives, but I'm noticing you get far more gold now than you did before. Which is excellent!
The downside, I've noticed at least a 25% decrease in xp gain from most places. I had hunted in the Vortex for an hour (and cleared it) and only gained about 900k xp, when before I would gain 1.3M. That said!!!..... I really don't think this is a huge deal. A vast majority of the populace doesn't really care about xp gain. So trading 25% xp loss overall for a huge boost in gold gain is something I think a majority of players would actually prefer.
However.... I still think that the xp loss on death could be changed still as 1% loss on PVE/PVP death is still a hell of a punishment.