Should XP Be Based on Level?

iceseraph · October 2004

In several of the MMOs I have tried recently, I have found a quite annoying aspect in earning XP. Many games award the amount earned XP for a particular mob based on your level and the level of the creature.

For example, a level 20 killing a level 35 creature gets much less xp than a level 35 killing the exact same mob. And vice-versa, a level 50 char gets considerably less xp for killing a level 40 creature than does a level 41.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Nearly all MMOs increase the amount of XP required to level as the char advances. It may take 1,000 xp to go from level 4 to 5 and later on it may take 500,000 to go from 30-35....why should you suffer a penalty or recieve a bonus for a mob based solely on what level you are. If you get 10 xp for killing a mob at level 1...you should get 10 xp for killing it at level 100.

Many argue that this keeps people from powerleveling and creates easier grouping as people tend to stay to creatures of their own level to maximize xp. I say, bah, to both. Its simple enough to implement something like Eq's locked combat to prevent powerleveling if thats an issue. And as for limiting people to only hunting mobs catered to their level, well, that takes out the fun.

Wheres the risk and adventure in killing something you know you can 'handle'? Once in a while its fun to test your play skills by taking on the seemingly impossible mob. But if you are penalized for the attempt...whats the use?

Should xp be based on level? I say No. What do you think?

Jimberfly · October 2004

No, I don't like that pro-rated xp nonsense personally.

I think that if a game is well balanced, killing lower level creatures is generally pointless because of the increase in xp you need as you get higher levels.

However, you should have the choice to kill 100 of mob X or 20 of mob Y to level, whichever one you enjoy more.

Cyan8313 · October 2004

I agree. You should get the same xp no matter what level you are. You should not get a (artifical) bonus for killing harder mobs or penalty for killing easier mobs.

Esp not in games where moast characters depend on equipment for survival (moast every mmo) since mob rare dropped/crafted tend to be very expensive, so if you don't make enough money you won't get the armor/weapon for your lvl and then you can't kill the mobs at your lvl.

Some may say that you should get lower xp for easy mobs so to prevent higher lvl's chars going berserk killing masses of easy mobs. But the way the game tells you if it is easy or not is flawed.. By only looking at your level, it does not take into account what armor you have or weapon or even if you use range, melee or magic.

Wish has a controversial xp system. Yes I know that Wish never saies xp but you do get it for every attack/spell that works. But the point is that you get less and less xp when fighting a particular monster untill the char knows everything about how to fight the monster with whatever he attacked it with, you can learn everything you can on how to fight the monster with a sword but that doesn't mean you know how to fight it with an axe...
Realistic ? To an extent.
Overly complicated ? Probably..

Cyan

jimhus · October 2004

Originally posted by Jimberfly

No, I don't like that pro-rated xp nonsense personally.
I think that if a game is well balanced, killing lower level creatures is generally pointless because of the increase in xp you need as you get higher levels.
However, you should have the choice to kill 100 of mob X or 20 of mob Y to level, whichever one you enjoy more.

Exactly!

No idea why, and you just know they spent hours-n-hours in meetings on this) they come up with the pro-rated XP approach... the XP per level automatically pro-rates it.

But lowering XP when you kill higher level mobs (AO!!) is incredibly stupid.

Edit: I have no problem with eventually mobs going "grey", having no XP, and being non-aggro. Eliminates an annoyance critter - which is worth it IMO.

Theely · October 2004

I feel that it should be level based, but to a certain point. Lets use the following numbers for my following example... You level 49 and fighting level 45 mobs.

When you gain a level, you become more powerful, but your exp to level again is not always that much higher then it was to gain your latest level (yes its is higher, but not astronomical). So, you just gained level 50. Now, if the exact same level 45 mobs were to give you the exact same amount of exp for killing them now that your level 50, why leave them and find new mobs? You just raised a level, so your a tad more powerful and you kill them off faster then you could before. I wouldn't leave the area.

Another way to picture this. Lets say that your a wizard with an AOE spell. The currect exp that you get a normal mob that your killing is lets say 1000 (for easy math, we are a lower level wizard now). Now, lets say about 5 levels ago there were mobs that gave you 100 exp per kill, and they were in good sized NPC camps. If they still have you the same exp that they did then, you could just walk in, blast one spell and kill them and get exp at the same rate as the harder mobs that you should be fighter, which would result in higher level characters always camping these Mobs that were designed for a lower level player, that would suck.

And that is my reason for level based exp.

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Helldog · October 2004

probably because some mobtypes are very easy to camp and some people would (afk) camp them from l0 to l50 and still gain much exp, while now some mobtypes might be harder to find and might require u to venture through the wilds

propolyz · October 2004

i agree with fly

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Darkage of Camelot | Since Day 1 |

jimhus · October 2004

Originally posted by Theely

When you gain a level, you become more powerful,
Depends - in a skills based system level has little to do with it. But ok, I am now ~2% stronger (49--->50).
but your exp to level again is not always that much higher then it was to gain your latest level (yes its is higher, but not astronomical).
Again, it depends. DAoC was the easiest to figure - the XP required doubled (until the 1/2 levels started??? not positive). I don't know any that go up less than 2% XP on subsequent levels.
So, you just gained level 50. Now, if the exact same level 45 mobs were to give you the exact same amount of exp for killing them now that your level 50, why leave them and find new mobs? You just raised a level, so your a tad more powerful and you kill them off faster then you could before. I wouldn't leave the area.
Another way to picture this. Lets say that your a wizard with an AOE spell. The currect exp that you get a normal mob that your killing is lets say 1000 (for easy math, we are a lower level wizard now). Now, lets say about 5 levels ago there were mobs that gave you 100 exp per kill, and they were in good sized NPC camps. If they still have you the same exp that they did then, you could just walk in, blast one spell and kill them and get exp at the same rate as the harder mobs that you should be fighter, which would result in higher level characters always camping these Mobs that were designed for a lower level player, that would suck.
And that is my reason for level based exp.
AoE farming has always been a technique (problem?). Most AoE farming is on same con or higher level critters with groups to keep the AoE'er alive, but it might work on lower XP critters for tiny groups or solo. Since AoE attacks are less damaging than DD attacks - I can't see trying to AoE 10 small mobs (2-3 AoE pulls) instead of killing a solo same-con.
You can stop AoE farming with less dense camps, mixing in higher level mobs, etc.
And I have no problem at all with turning a mob grey once you are over-powered to it - which eliminates the issue of killing lowbie mobs and macro-ing low-risk hunting (and annoyance mobs if the grey-cons are non-aggro).
AO, as an example, did what you explained. They used a bell curve on XP rewards. If you were too low or too high - you'd get less XP than someone the "optimal" level. Spawn fights and KS'ing are the rule in AO - finding a nice, isolated spawn of Hecklers no one else knows about: everyone's dream. And AoE farming is rampant among NanoTechs.
Anyway - bell shape curve on XP rewards didn't help AO, while AC didn't have near the spawn-fights and KS'ing despite having a flat-rate XP. I suppose if someone could have AoE'd Tuskers in BSD - Turbine would have had to do something: but it was never an issue.

iceseraph · October 2004

Originally posted by Theely

I feel that it should be level based, but to a certain point. Lets use the following numbers for my following example... You level 49 and fighting level 45 mobs.
When you gain a level, you become more powerful, but your exp to level again is not always that much higher then it was to gain your latest level (yes its is higher, but not astronomical). So, you just gained level 50. Now, if the exact same level 45 mobs were to give you the exact same amount of exp for killing them now that your level 50, why leave them and find new mobs? You just raised a level, so your a tad more powerful and you kill them off faster then you could before. I wouldn't leave the area.
Another way to picture this. Lets say that your a wizard with an AOE spell. The currect exp that you get a normal mob that your killing is lets say 1000 (for easy math, we are a lower level wizard now). Now, lets say about 5 levels ago there were mobs that gave you 100 exp per kill, and they were in good sized NPC camps. If they still have you the same exp that they did then, you could just walk in, blast one spell and kill them and get exp at the same rate as the harder mobs that you should be fighter, which would result in higher level characters always camping these Mobs that were designed for a lower level player, that would suck.
And that is my reason for level based exp.

Although your argument seems valid, changing the xp percentage is not causing players to move on to different mobs, unfortunately. An example of this was posted by jimhus - AO. In AO, players in Shadowlands hunt hecklers, they are the best overall xp from lvls 40 - 80ish. They are a level 80 mob. As a lvl 40 player you get roughly 6k for killing it, but as you get closer to the mobs targeted level the xp increases. Around level 60 you are getting about 12k for the same creature. And after level 70ish, the xp slowly tapers down again. Still...for at least 30 levels, there is no incentive to move on to different creatures. Why bother to try and figure out the ratio of xp to level for every mob when you have one you can do for 30 levels? Hence...camping ensues..lol.

As for AoE, if a player can singly AoE a full camp of NPCs 1-5 levels below him without death, then the character is a little overpowered in my opinion. This stems from packaged characters and level based development. If a character has magic skills, he should not automatically gain the melee defense skills required to tank an entire camp as he AoEs. With well-balanced skills, this should not be happening and adjusting xp for this is not a fix to the problem.

Reality is for people who can't handle fantasy.

Umbrood · October 2004

You can use a sports analogy for this one, there it is common sense that the following is true.

In any competitive game you can not gain any skill, (Exp), by meeting and defeating much weaker opponents.

Take tennis as an example, and the following scenario.

I am slightly better player then my friend, we play some and he gains in skill and gets better. I then stop playing for a while while he continues. Now the next time we meet he has greatly surpassed me in skill, (lvled), no matter how many times he beats me he will gain no skill (exp), or none to speak of.

It is logical to do it this way, now if this is the reason behind these systems I do not know, I assume very few of the gaming devs have a background as sport trainers but..

Might just as well be a way to halt people from lvling to fast or whatnot.

But to say these systems make no sense, well talk to you local college fotball trainer or whatever and he will tell you.

iceseraph · October 2004

Originally posted by Umbrood

You can use a sports analogy for this one, there it is common sense that the following is true.
In any competitive game you can not gain any skill, (Exp), by meeting and defeating much weaker opponents.

If you use this analogy then you should say that you would only gain xp for mobs higher than you level and in the same sense you would also have to award xp whether you defeated it or not.

In RL sports, you gain experience, as you say, by playing tougher opponents. And you gain that experience whether you win or lose, correct? Of course, that wouldnt work well in MMOs, but I was expanding the analogy.

My point is not that xp should be constant in order to hunt lower level mobs. It is that if you want to challnge tougher mobs, you should not be penalized (by reduced xp) for doing so. Why should a level 80 killing a level 80 mob get more xp than a level 70 killing the same mob. This definitely doesnt fit the sports analogy.

Reality is for people who can't handle fantasy.

Umbrood · October 2004

Of course loosing to better opponents give you skill (but wastly superior opponents give none, like Roseanne Barr will not be a better highjumper after competing with Sotomayor for example), as do opponents that at least have a theoretical chance of defeating you.

Reason I said "meeting and defeating" much weaker opponents is the fact that if you loose to someone who is considerably worse then you in whatever field you HAVE learned a lesson. Be it, "dont do drugs before a match" or "stay awake" and so on. But I honestly did not consider loosing an option cause then you are within "XP range" or whatever, I maybe overstated that sentence, ok..

And no, a lvl 80 killing a lvl 80 should not get more XP then a lvl 70. I was only referring to the fact that most games tend to scale XP like in the sports thingy. What game plays like you described btw?

iceseraph · October 2004

Originally posted by Umbrood

Of course loosing to better opponents give you skill (but wastly superior opponents give none, like Roseanne Barr will not be a better highjumper after competing with Sotomayor for example), as do opponents that at least have a theoretical chance of defeating you.
Reason I said "meeting and defeating" much weaker opponents is the fact that if you loose to someone who is considerably worse then you in whatever field you HAVE learned a lesson. Be it, "dont do drugs before a match" or "stay awake" and so on. But I honestly did not consider loosing an option cause then you are within "XP range" or whatever, I maybe overstated that sentence, ok..
And no, a lvl 80 killing a lvl 80 should not get more XP then a lvl 70. I was only referring to the fact that most games tend to scale XP like in the sports thingy. What game plays like you described btw?

LOL...your Roseanne example is a little exaggerated, I can't her imagine her jumping at all! But if indeed she did compete - regardless she would in RL gain some experience from the encounter whether she lost (which of course she would - lol). She would gain experience if only in the fact that she had jumped a number of times more than before and had the experience of learning some skill in the encounter. This of course would not work in an MMO...otherwise people would level only by the attempt.

The most well known game that plays this way is Anarchy Online, though there are other less known that do as well.

Reality is for people who can't handle fantasy.

Cyan8313 · October 2004

Well the sports analogy doesn't work for me. I don't see getting out and killing a few tousand (ok, atleast a few hundred) mobs as a sports game/match I see it more as training. And if you don't get better of fighting ppl who are below you skillvise why do boxers spar significantly lower "lvl" ppl ?

Cyan

TaskyZZ · October 2004

There has to be a cap somewhere. If not, the game just becomes to easy.

What if I was a 30th level Mage in EQ and I just set my Earth Elemental into an area that spawn 8th level gnolls and told him to kill everything. I just sit back and collect XP without no worry in the world whatsoever. A 30th Level Earth Elemental can solo 30 to 50 8th level gnolls all by himself all day long...

This would be the ultimate in botting. A bot built right into the game.

ziklag · October 2004

If a lvl 1 gets 50 xp for killing a lvl 5 mob this is going to be very hard for the lvl 1 to do. However if a lvl 10 got 50 xp for killing the same lvl 5 mob the lvl 10 is going to slaughter it. I think the exp penalties is fine. It means a lvl 10 can not just go around slaughtering low lvl mobs to lvl he has to work a little for it if he wants fast exp

Cyan8313 · October 2004

Originally posted by TaskyZZ

There has to be a cap somewhere. If not, the game just becomes to easy.
What if I was a 30th level Mage in EQ and I just set my Earth Elemental into an area that spawn 8th level gnolls and told him to kill everything. I just sit back and collect XP without no worry in the world whatsoever. A 30th Level Earth Elemental can solo 30 to 50 8th level gnolls all by himself all day long...
This would be the ultimate in botting. A bot built right into the game.

Sure you could do that but to lvl you would prob have to kill maybe 30'000-50'000 of those lvl 8 gnolls.

The point is that there shouldn't be an artifical cap either up or down, the exponetial xp ramp should take care of that. But anyway the lvl based system is flawed by design anyway but thats another discussion.

Cyan

Umbrood · October 2004

Originally posted by Cyan8313

Well the sports analogy doesn't work for me. I don't see getting out and killing a few tousand (ok, atleast a few hundred) mobs as a sports game/match I see it more as training. And if you don't get better of fighting ppl who are below you skillvise why do boxers spar significantly lower "lvl" ppl ?
Cyan

Because they have no choice, believe me that fighters try to get the best possible sparring partners money can buy, its just that if you are Holyfield ot whoever there just aint that many people around to choose from. With 100% certainty all boxers try to get the best possible sparring partner there is for them.

Training to kill or training to put a ball in a goal, same same but different. Not that reality needs to be reflected at all in computer games, prolly better if it isnt really. But anyone who trains something were you have opponents know this to be true, there are of course exceptions but they are very few. This is like on page 2 in every manual there is on the subject.

And having played AO for 3 years I think that game has an excellent XP curve, could be better balanced of course but all in all one of the better ones out there..

NeoKyosuke18 · October 2004

I personally think it would be nice if every monster had a static EXP ratio to give.. depending on your level you get.. example: Level 1 warrior kills level 2 monster, gets 10 experience... Level 10 Warrior kills level 2 monster gets 6 experience... Level 2 warrior kills level 2 monter gets 8 experience.

Now I would much rather have an experience table for ur character in the game meaning

level 1 - 100
Level 2 - 500
level 3 - 900
level 4 - 1700

and that if your level 50 and need 1980000 exp to level up, you can still get 2 exp from killing a level 1 creature.

same thing in reverse if your level 1 and manage to kill a level 10 you get 100 exp!

My least fav. game for how they did experience was Final Fantasy XI!!! I got so frustrated with how they did the experience in game. all based on 100! ARGH?!!?!?

anyway thats what I would personally like!

iceseraph · October 2004

Originally posted by Umbrood

And having played AO for 3 years I think that game has an excellent XP curve, could be better balanced of course but all in all one of the better ones out there..

I disagree...Ao's xp curve is the most annoying I have seen. Killing a lvl 80 heckler results in 6k xp at level 45 and 13k at level 60. When it takes substantially more effort to kill the mob, you are rewarded with less xp for the attempt? I dont see the logic in that at all.

Mad-E-Fact · October 2004

The reason, I believe, is class balance.

Say a lvl 30 warrior can kill a certain lvl 40 creature, while a mage of same lvl struggles hard or can't at all. Now all lvl 30 warrior go and camp these creatures, while the mages and the rest go complain on the forums about the warriors having an unfair advantage.
So as to prevent such cases, they put the xp cap in place that needs you to be a certain lvl to get full xp from a creature.
Now in a world where all classes are perfectly balanced in PvE that might not be neccesary, but see the other thread around here that deals with class balance, people DO want diversity in their classes, and that can't possibly be all balanced out.

EDIT: Now I managed fine to post with Opera. Strange, strange world...

Finwe · October 2004

Didn't read it all. But my pet peeve is in some games where there is a maximum amount of XP gained by monster.
I kill a werewolf at level 1. Say its a lvl 10. Much higher level. I get 500XP
I'm at lvl 10. Same level. And I get say 5000XP (Numbers are probably a little off. But the point is made)

Now this really makes no sense. The harder the experience, the more you should learn right?

Personally I liked the AC1 system to an extent, although the whole thing of tuskers always being hunted and camped I didn't like. Should of been more diversity. Made for interesting adventures, but none-the-less.

Anyhow, how it worked was, you kill a tusker guard at lvl 1, you get say 10K exp (can't remember the exact amount, believe it was around there though.) You kill it at lvl 50. You get 10K
Whats the difference? At lvl 1 it takes 1K to level. So first kill you level like 4 times.
At level 50, it takes about a million to level. So you have to kill 100 of them. Lvl 60. 10 million to level. And so on.

"The greatest trick the devil played on humanity in the 20th century was convincing them that he didn't exist." (Paraphrasing) C.S. Lewis

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