Hidden EXP Nerf? Looks that way....

[Cabulus]

<p>So after I finished redoing my entire UI and getting used to the new layout, I went out to get some exp.  Oh my, how unpleasant that was.  Same mobs as yesterday, and about 1/10th the experience.  Is this working as intended or was it a stealth nerf?  The exp potions and "Sony Cash" items have been increased in the amount of exp bonus.  Was this to make up for the fact that exp in general was decreased?  Inquiring minds want to know.....</p>

[SnoesieQ]

<p>Yikes.</p><p>I noticed the same thing testing the remade starter areas, DLW and GF, but chalked that up to them not having tweaked the progression with the new (fewer) quests.</p><p>I hope you are wrong. But as I was on the alpha server with free stationcash, the thought crossed my mind, as even with free 100% potions on top of vitality I struggled to keep my level up to be able to finish the quests.</p>

[Xill]

<p>Well I know the Eq2X servers will have a tougher XP curve, to try to milk more SC out of the XP potions. But I heard nothing about it hitting live as well.</p>

[Aaramis]

<p>Would really like to hear from the devs on whether or not this is intended.</p><p>I have no interest in playing EQ2 if it is going to emulate Aion's levelling curve.</p>

[Kosh]

<p><span style="font-size: small;">What's the big secret?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Please tell us if a change in the rate of XP gained has been made.</span></p>

[Cabulus]

<p>I'm on Unrest (PVE) and I can tell you with 100% certainty that the exp is very much lower for the exact same mobs I was killing yesterday, blue heroic ^^^ in Sebilis and Chardok on my alt toon.</p><p>It's not a matter of IF the exp was changed, because that's a given.  I just want to know if it was a stealth nerf, or if it was a mistake that was only supposed to be live on the new Pay4Stuff servers.</p><p>Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p>Just buy some XP potions and it will be fine .......</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p>Sad thing is, it would not surprise me if this was intentional. You know...sneak it in...go "Oh sorry that was not meant to happen"...then revert it back...but not quite to place it was before. So very sad that SOEs actions of late have put me into a conspiratorial mindset.</p>

[Murdo]

<p>If this is intended and we are now expected to buy those new potions as a means to lvl as we have always been able to, my accounts will be canceled immediately. The spell effects are a game breaker as it is, but this would be the final straw.</p>

[Chunkaliscious]

<p>So much for the to pay to play stuff not affecting the real version of the game.  There are also threads on people not getting AA XP anymore in the battlegrounds as well as people noticing that the combat xp potion now offer a larger boost than before.</p>

[scrapiron7]

<p>Hmm.. that would be very dirty of SOE <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kenrod]

<p><cite>Malakus@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hmm.. that would be very dirty of SOE <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>But surprising? Nah.</p>

[Helrazor]

<p>Wow I never thought I'd say it, but they may have finally found a way for me to cancel my accounts.  The lack of communication on the change is really what's getting to me I guess.  I suppose I'll wait until I get home to verify it for myself, but I can't see people being wrong when they are seeing a 90% difference in experience gained yesterday to today.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p>What bothers me most about this is that they can't simply come out and say "No, that wasn't intended, it's being reverted immediately on the live servers".  The conspiracy theorist in me kinda feels that this was intentional, with them hoping we wouldn't notice and would just be over time further motivated to buy the "NEW AND IMPROVED" AA/XP/TS potions.</p>

[Sserak]

<p>Played since Launch.</p><p>If this is true. I will cancel.</p><p>You better hope eq2x works because you are destroying your loyal customer base very quickly.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What bothers me most about this is that they can't simply come out and say "No, that wasn't intended, it's being reverted immediately on the live servers".  The conspiracy theorist in me kinda feels that this was intentional, with them hoping we wouldn't notice and would just be over time further motivated to buy the "NEW AND IMPROVED" AA/XP/TS potions.</p></blockquote><p>This thread has been here for all of 45 minutes. If they don't respond within a day then maybe thinking it was intended is warranted, but with several other bugs related to F2P being seen today (MC items on the EU-server marketplace) it's also possible that it was a bug from EQ2X (which only serves to prove how badly SOE needs to improve on separating builds).</p>

[convict]

<p><cite>Sserak wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Played since Launch.</p><p>If this is true. I will cancel.</p><p>You better hope eq2x works because you are destroying your loyal customer base very quickly.</p></blockquote><p>Mine, my wife, and our 2 kids have all canceled. 5 Days left.</p>

[Waters]

<p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p>

[Vinyard]

<p>Well, maybe this is just a "bug" like the mastercrafted items appearing on the Runnyeye servers marketplace? Maybe this bug came over to all live servers?</p>

[Kerri]

<p>thx for the answer</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for looking into it.</p><p>Also, thank you for subtley acknowledging that you do read the forums. Come back again soon!!</p>

[Hellswrath]

<p>This would be quite the counterproductive change...  Hopefully this really was a mistake and they will be fixing the code.</p><p>However, I forsee this being the second of a long series of bugs due to two different versions of the game.  The first was the marketplace mastercrafted gear and such showing up on international servers (the normal Live ones) this morning. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Edit: Of course, there is an answer while I write. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />  Thanks for the update, and glad to hear that the exp will not be different on the two versions.  Makes one less thing to cause bugs.</p>

[Te'ana]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for checking this out.</p>

[Rothgar]

<p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>Could you clarify this a little ?  Was this an actual Exploit or was it an unintentional thing? Like say XP bonuses being applied before XP to AA conversion ?</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>good to see you have been on top of things ty for the information.</p>

[Cabulus]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for the update.  I look forward to hearing what the problem was and when a solution will be implemented.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>Has there been some kind of new potion or mechanic added in the last several months that I am not aware of? Because I don't think there has been.</p><p>Now, to label as an "exploit" the stacking of the stuff that has existed for a long time, and been talked about on these and other forums ad nauseum, sure seems like you chose to use that term now in order to "unstack" stuff so that people will have to buy more of the potion on the marketplace.</p><p>Yeah you upped the limited ones we get as vet rewards, but depending on how you handled stacking, that may mean that players could overall still be getting less use of the mechanics than we have in the past. We have vitality, and vitality fillers as vet rewards, we have bonuses for 90s, we have bonus weekends, etc...</p><p>In order for us to take off these tinfoil caps you need to explain:</p><p>What the unintended stacking mechanic was.</p><p>When it was identified.</p><p>What was changed.</p>

[Jeal]

<p>this xp problem was definitely prior to the GU as i was leveling a toon in seb yesterday and at level 81 with 275 bonus xp gain i was getting .7 - 1 % per triple up yellow mob killed... which is INSANELY low (slider to full level xp no aa)</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>The only thing I can think of is perhaps XP boosts applied to current xp gain and not to 'base' xp gain.</p><p>That is you normally earn at 100%, if you had vitality that would make it 200%, if you popped a 50% xp potion it would make it 300%.</p><p>The change in that case would make the 50% xp potion be 250% (+ 50% of 'base' xp gain) instead of the 100% (50% of the modified 200%)</p><p>Still if thats the case then its not so much an exploit, as they are redefining xp modifications and would apply to all cases.</p><p>That is "before' if you had vitality and it was double xp weekend AND you popped a 50% xp potion, you were actually getting 600%  and now you would be getting 350% after the change.</p><p>I have no idea if thats what they did but its the only thing I can think of... meh leveling was too fast anyway, but I'd find it so typical that $ony would finally change it, not because of how it hurt gameplay or had people 1-90 in a week.. but rather find time to get it done just when they wanted to sell more xp increasing items at the store.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...but I'd find it so typical that $ony would finally change it, not because of how it hurt gameplay or had people 1-90 in a week.. but rather find time to get it done just when they wanted to sell more xp increasing items at the store.</p></blockquote><p>Kind of the impression I got.</p>

[Odys]

<p><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">If it is not an error, it seems that the current direction have decided to suicide the game ...</span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Enforcing xp-potions and aa-potions on a live server is probably a move that no sound manager would try.</span></p><p>Apparently it is a bug -)</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>Could you give us a little more info there? Was how bonus were stacking that was the issue (stacking multiplicitavely instead of additatively with RAF bonus perhaps)? Based solely on the doubling to 110% instead of 55% on the xp pots, I'm guessing that vitality was stacking and causing the bonuses to multiply with it rather than just add?</p>

[Cuedywene]

<p>Welcome to what every patch or bug going forward is going to be like.  Since SOE compromised the integrity of the game with micro transaction now every bug will be seen as another potential malicious way SOE is scheming to wedge us into their new favorite business model. </p><p>This appears to be an honest bug or mistake...whatever but our trust has decreased significantly in the product that is being offered. </p><p>I'm not trying to flame SOE or be hyper critical...it's just the way it is now...</p>

[NikkiT]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked</p></blockquote><p>Could you clarify this a little ?  Was this an actual Exploit or was it an unintentional thing? Like say XP bonuses being applied before XP to AA conversion ?</p></blockquote><p>Probably they realized how trivial AA gain gets when you combine a 100% combat XP bonus (bonus weekend), a 50% XP potion, an additional 200% combat XP bonus (RAF), an AA slider set to max AA, the 300% AA bonus for mentoring down 50 levels , a 100% AA bonus (bonus weekend) and while we're at ita 50% Flask Of Achievement...if my calculations are correct, that's <strong>8100</strong>% bonus AA.</p>

[Nektulos_Rishi]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>I'm sorry but you guys have had to have known about all the xp potions, bonuses, etc that stacked. You gave us a double xp weekend which people were 1-90/250 aas in 1.5 days. You've given us all the different bonuses and no restrictions on stacking, and you wait until today to nerf this with no notes about it, no mention of it anywhere until this thread? This 100% screams that you guys are just trying to make more money from SC potions which is already ruining the game for a lot of us. Between the changes that have been made today + reading this thread, my motivation to play this game outside of raid time is disappearing, and I know I'm not the only one. You keep up with your subscribers only logging on for raid time, they'll realize what they are missing in real life and cancel their accounts. Please stop ruining game play for your loyal fanbase who have been around since day 1.</p>

[Eveningsong]

<p>I wouldn't expect any details.  I'm sure they don't want to give players ideas of other ways to possibly exploit xp bonuses, heh.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>If this is due to the stacking of RAF, xp potions, etc., then SOE is going about it the wrong way.  Either reduce the AA curve, or make quests (particularly L80+ quests) give more AA.  The current system is so stinking dull that players would rather grind mobs than do the bleeping quests.  Nerfing instances and redoing how the bonuses stack is NOT going to fix the crux of the problem.</p>

[EQ2Player]

<p>Give us Double Experience this Weekend as compensation. Matter of fact, kick it off now in celebration of EQ2Live or whatever.</p>

[Lannan]

<p><cite>EQ2Player wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Give us Double Experience this Weekend as compensation. Matter of fact, kick it off now in celebration of EQ2Live or whatever.</p></blockquote><p>I second that!</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p>Took me a while to find the quote I remembered.</p><p>Anyway...there was some bonus experience weekend (<a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=50&topic_id=422460">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=422460</a>) and they were talking about stacking in some fashion, and the producer at the time popped in to say...</p><p><cite>Kirstie wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>A few people have said this but I wanted to make it 'official'.</p><p>When you mentor someone and the two of you kill an NPC and get experience that is considered combat experience, so it will get the bonus experience modifier for this weekend.</p><p>Separate from this bonus experience weekend, there is a mentoring bonus that will be in place for the entire month on July that is currently on.  This bonus is for the person who mentoring down, not the mentoree.  You can see the full writeup and details on that here:</p><p>     <a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=1757&section=News&locale=en_US" target="_blank">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ws&locale=en_US</a></p><p> And yes they all do stack!</p><p>- K</p></blockquote><p>Which demonstrates that at least at the producer level she knew about how things stacked in some form...something as obscure as a <strong>special one time</strong> mentoring bonus. </p><p>Which means that someone made sure how things worked then communicated it to her. Makes it hard for me to believe that the devs would consider this mechanic but not consider all the other run of the mill mechanics that have been used.</p><p>How could something that was a one time deal be defines, yet things that have been going on forever be missed? Especially since they have been talked about openly in other threads where SOE employees have posted.</p>

[Wytie]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation</span></strong>.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote><p>Oh its definatly not a bug folks.</p><p>This is a carefuly worded nerf to XP bonuses stacking. Read exactly what I highlighted in Rothgars post.</p><p>Now the "real" question is. What is the "normal situation"?</p><p>Because Id bet that everyone who noticed this nerf (aka everyone) was prob falling in there "exploit situation".</p><p>Man could you guys, have [Removed for Content] off more any more loyal customers with this update that obviously isnt for most of us???</p><p>Better throw us a good bone quick cause iv personally have had just about enough of the FTP BS messing with my gameplay in all areas of my game, all the while neglecting game breaking issues, that are long over due for a fix.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Kenazeer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>How could something that was a one time deal be defines, yet things that have been going on forever be missed? Especially since they have been talked about openly in other threads where SOE employees have posted.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think it was missed forever. I think they saw the ludicrously fast rate of XP gain on that 100% bonus-xp weekend and decided to put a code change in to alter the way bonuses stack to prevent that from happening. GU57 is the first GU since that happened, the code change has probably been waiting that long since they seem to bundle code changes for the GU rather than putting them in a hotfix.</p>

[Rothgar]

<p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p>

[Gaige]

<p>So you remove the trial, say that RaF is the only way we can bring new people to EQ2 live and then promptly nerf RaF the very next GU.</p><p>That's... pretty amazing.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p>Could you please explain how the mechanics are now meant to work?  There's really no need to be so vague about this, surely someone there has some idea, the changes weren't made by some renegade AI I presume.</p>

[boomerponc]

<p>Always managing to screw something up, always!</p><p>Wal-Mart</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p>You still havent said what was actually changed.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p>And of course all this was in the patch notes right? Along with it being Tested by your QA department and approved ?</p><p>I mean, its not like your changing anything significant at ALL</p>

[EQ2Player]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p>You still havent said what was actually changed.</p></blockquote><p>or if it is "fixed" and what is "fixed" exactly...</p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p></blockquote><p>Could you explain how exp bonuses are supposed to stack?  I wouldn't want to waste exp potions if vitality is supposed to be capping the bonus or whatever.</p>

[Dreadpatch]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Could you please explain how the mechanics are now meant to work?  There's really no need to be so vague about this, surely someone there has some idea, the changes weren't made by some renegade AI I presume.</p></blockquote><p>I believe the new mechanics prolly involve SC XP potions which most likely stack.  Just a guess tho, since no information has been provided in this thread.  Nor was there any information in the GU......</p>

[SmokeJumper]

<p><cite>Xill wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well I know the Eq2X servers will have a tougher XP curve, to try to milk more SC out of the XP potions. But I heard nothing about it hitting live as well.</p></blockquote><p>That's actually a false rumor you've heard. The XP curve is not different on EQ2X than EQII Live.</p><p>The XP for killing monsters and completing quests were not reduced at all, nor was the normal curve altered.</p><p>The only change we made was to reduce the effect that occurred when four or more stacked bonuses allowed ridiculously fast advancement.</p><p>If you're playing with Vitality bonuses and XP potions, you will see no difference whatsoever.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p>I take it that there is a bug? Can you please confirm that so we KNOW what to play? i would hate spending time playing the game for little to no reward...</p><p>And how hard can it be to verify really?</p><p>That would be telling. We want information... information... information. Like #2 said...  I really truely honestly dont understand the need for secrecy and not informing/keeping the playerbase informed. Such bad form</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p><p>+1 to whoever pointed out how rich it is they get rid of trial, point at RaF as the best method for new people to get on the live servers, and then nerf RaF on EQX launch day.</p>

[Nektulos_Rishi]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xill wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well I know the Eq2X servers will have a tougher XP curve, to try to milk more SC out of the XP potions. But I heard nothing about it hitting live as well.</p></blockquote><p>That's actually a false rumor you've heard. The XP curve is not different on EQ2X than EQII Live.</p><p>The XP for killing monsters and completing quests were not reduced at all, nor was the normal curve altered.</p><p>The only change we made was to reduce the effect that occurred when four or more stacked bonuses allowed ridiculously fast advancement.</p><p>If you're playing with Vitality bonuses and XP potions, you will see no difference whatsoever.</p></blockquote><p>And what about if you are using the RAF bonus as well?</p>

[AlienShine]

<p>Yeah, the servers are completely seperate, same thing as the update for USA and International servers...</p><p>Im not that dumb !</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The only change we made was to reduce the effect that occurred when four or more stacked bonuses allowed ridiculously fast advancement.</p></blockquote><p>Why can't we just be told what the formula is ?</p><p>If SOE wants to sell us Bonus potions and RAF accounts then we should at least know what we are getting.</p>

[Sydares]

People "taking advantage" of Recruit-A-Friend should be your indication that AA experience is glacial to the point of being detrimental to your game.

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Noctew@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked</p></blockquote><p>Could you clarify this a little ?  Was this an actual Exploit or was it an unintentional thing? Like say XP bonuses being applied before XP to AA conversion ?</p></blockquote><p>Probably they realized how trivial AA gain gets when you combine a 100% combat XP bonus (bonus weekend), a 50% XP potion, an additional 200% combat XP bonus (RAF), an AA slider set to max AA, the 300% AA bonus for mentoring down 50 levels , a 100% AA bonus (bonus weekend) and while we're at ita 50% Flask Of Achievement...if my calculations are correct, that's <strong>8100</strong>% bonus AA.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Uhm, did you mean 810? That, and the 300% bonus AA is only from named kills or precious item initial discoveries.</span></p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xill wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well I know the Eq2X servers will have a tougher XP curve, to try to milk more SC out of the XP potions. But I heard nothing about it hitting live as well.</p></blockquote><p>That's actually a false rumor you've heard. The XP curve is not different on EQ2X than EQII Live.</p><p>The XP for killing monsters and completing quests were not reduced at all, nor was the normal curve altered.</p><p>The only change we made was to reduce the effect that occurred when four or more stacked bonuses allowed ridiculously fast advancement.</p><p>If you're playing with Vitality bonuses and XP potions, you will see no difference whatsoever.</p></blockquote><p>Please consider posting actual XP numbers and bonus calculations so that we can be assured this is true.</p>

[Wytie]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xill wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well I know the Eq2X servers will have a tougher XP curve, to try to milk more SC out of the XP potions. But I heard nothing about it hitting live as well.</p></blockquote><p>That's actually a false rumor you've heard. The XP curve is not different on EQ2X than EQII Live.</p><p>The XP for killing monsters and completing quests were not reduced at all, nor was the normal curve altered.</p><p>The only change we made was to reduce the effect that occurred when four or more stacked bonuses allowed ridiculously fast advancement.</p><p>If you're playing with Vitality bonuses and XP potions, you will see no difference whatsoever.</p></blockquote><p>phew well.... good thing you boosted the SC potions today huh just in time for the "fix" right?</p><p>If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck.... Its a [Removed for Content] duck.....</p><p>So what you just said is, these bonuses allowed for "ridiculously fast advancement" that wasnt ok, so you changed it, but its now is ok as long as we are using your new potions... so we can "see no difference whatsoever"</p><p>See what I did there?</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noctew@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked</p></blockquote><p>Could you clarify this a little ?  Was this an actual Exploit or was it an unintentional thing? Like say XP bonuses being applied before XP to AA conversion ?</p></blockquote><p>Probably they realized how trivial AA gain gets when you combine a 100% combat XP bonus (bonus weekend), a 50% XP potion, an additional 200% combat XP bonus (RAF), an AA slider set to max AA, the 300% AA bonus for mentoring down 50 levels , a 100% AA bonus (bonus weekend) and while we're at ita 50% Flask Of Achievement...if my calculations are correct, that's <strong>8100</strong>% bonus AA.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Uhm, did you mean 810? That, and the 300% bonus AA is only from named kills or precious item initial discoveries.</span></p></blockquote><p>I wouldnt be 8100% anyway .. it would be 1575%  .. (x * 3.5) * 4.5 = ?</p>

[SmokeJumper]

<p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>Can we say, "most popular GU evuh!"  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /> </p><p>...btw, have you SOE guys ever heard of that game, SWG NGE?  ...[Removed for Content] off your existing customers before you get a new client base going wasn't a good recipe for success back then.  ...and it's not a good one now.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">So do potions, vitality, and RAF stack still, or do just potions not stack together?</span></p>

[Melanchol]

please note that we all have to be mindful that SOE's words are very carefully chosen in order to mislead the players and not give the whole truth. what they are REALLY saying is: We decided to reserve large bonus exp for people that buy $C pots only.

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>I must be stupid, because I'm having a horrible time understanding how nearly doubling the stated effectiveness of a potion makes it no more or less powerful than before.  Adding to my confusion is how you "increased the potions" thus leaving them the same... ????</p><p>Please explain the math here, because I'd love to increase the amount of sleep I get every night without actually increasing the amount of time I sleep at all.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I'd note that if RAF no longer stacks with vitality and potions that you really did change the leveling curve because using a RAF account was the primary method for leveling that most serious players opted for.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And Lhunara/Treize, the potions were increased because they supposedly don't stack anymore.</span></p>

[convict]

<p>I was told I would get 200% xp bonus for my RAF. Where did it go?</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Gaige wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So you remove the trial, say that RaF is the only way we can bring new people to EQ2 live and then promptly nerf RaF the very next GU.</p><p>That's... pretty amazing.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Hopefully RAF isn't nerfed given such a terrible predicament for legacy servers in comparison to EQ2X.</span></p>

[Melanchol]

eq2x will not effect live servers they said.

[Cabulus]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>Thank you for taking the time to reply.  However, there are two very important questions that I would like to get clarification on.</p><p>1)  If this intended "fix" to exp, bonus stacking, potions, etc. was a priority, why was it not listed in the game update?  Spelling corrections, or something minor I could see leaving out due to oversight.  This seems to be one of the the biggest game changes in the update, considering the amount of RAF accounts just on my server alone.</p><p>2)  Could you please post how the formula now works with RAF, potions, etc, detailing what will/not stack?  I've seen no official post on this, and considering people have to pay to convert their RAF account and pay Station Cash for exp potions, it would be nice to know exactly what is being paid for.  If you are bumping up the % on the potions to make them work the SAME as they did before, then something else had to change.  No mention of what changed either.</p><p>Again, thank you for taking the time to post, but please consider going into more detail on how things actually work now instead of being intentionally vague.  It's hard enough to look at this update objectively, but it's even harder when we get the Wag the Dog treatment.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>I must be stupid, because I'm having a horrible time understanding how nearly doubling the stated effectiveness of a potion makes it no more or less powerful than before.  Adding to my confusion is how you "increased the potions" thus leaving them the same... ????</p><p>Please explain the math here, because I'd love to increase the amount of sleep I get every night without actually increasing the amount of time I sleep at all.</p></blockquote><p>The hint here is that they doubled the potions.</p><p>The only thing I know of that is double right now is Vitality. That would suggest that bonuses were effecting other bonuses so</p><p>X * Vitality * Bonus1 * Bonus2 * Bonus3</p><p>100 * 2 (vit) * 3 (raf) = 600</p><p>But in the testing I had done in the past that was not what I noticed. The numbers I tracked fit perfectly into the following formula (because I kept track of with and without Vitality).</p><p>X * (Vitality + Bonus1 + Bonus2 + Bonus3)</p><p>100 * 4(vit + raf) = 400</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We're checking into this now - if players are getting less experience than they were before the update, it is a bug and we'll get it fixed promptly.</p><p>There are not different experience formulas for EQII live and EQII Extended.  Both games have the same leveling rate, and barring any bugs, it should be exactly what it was before today's game update.</p><p>When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I'd note that if RAF no longer stacks with vitality and potions that you really did change the leveling curve because using a RAF account was the primary method for leveling that most serious players opted for.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And Lhunara/Treize, the potions were increased because they supposedly don't stack anymore.</span></p></blockquote><p>Seriously... This is simple Logic.. let me give it a shot:</p><p>Dev #1 : Hey, you know.. serious players use RAF accounts to level alts and gain AA faster on said alts.. you think the XP curve, AA conversion, AA gain curves could be off?</p><p>Dev #2 : Nah, We just need to 'adjust' the bonuses .. you know?</p><p>Dev #1 : You thinking what im thinking, dev #2 ?</p><p>Dev #2 : Hell yeah, lets SELL them that bonus xp and lower the curve too!!!</p><p>*Dev #1 and Dev #2 does a Wyld Stallyns Air guitar immitation* AWESOME</p><p>.. or some thing like that</p>

[Teufell]

<p>The way i'm reading the responses from SOE is that the fix they made isnt working as intended and that while it gets fixed, the potions, ( the normal claimed potions as well) has an increased xp rate to compensate.</p><p>While this isnt perfect, its at least a compensation. I personally expect to see it back to normal asap, with the fix working as intended without ruining the xp from normal bonus and potions.</p><p>If that doesnt happen THEN i'll aggree that raging like you guys are doing right now would be in its place but not right now tbh</p>

[Vinyard]

<p>So, is the current quest exp bugged? Just did a quest in Sundered Frontier (Feathers for Peace of Heart ) at level 83, and it gave me only 1% exp.</p><p>AA slider is at 0%</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Teufell wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The way i'm reading the responses from SOE is that the fix they made isnt working as intended and that while it gets fixed, the potions, ( the normal claimed potions as well) has an increased xp rate to compensate.</p><p>While this isnt perfect, its at least a compensation. I personally expect to see it back to normal asap, with the fix working as intended without ruining the xp from normal bonus and potions.</p><p>If that doesnt happen THEN i'll aggree that raging like you guys are doing right now would be in its place but not right now tbh</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I don't recall anyone really raging more than what's usual for other threads, but in this thread. O_o</span></p>

[Brook]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>Dude why do you even post here?</p><p>Why dont you look at what you just said. "We <span style="text-decoration: underline;">increased</span> the potions (meaning made a change) so they do "<span style="text-decoration: underline;">exactly</span>" what they did <span style="text-decoration: underline;">before the change</span>."</p><p>Which means that you DID change them, and if they do the "exact" same thing that means you changed something else... does that make any sense to you?I for one am sick and tired of your double-talk, you could at least have enough spine to come here and tell us the truth being your the one calling the shots instead of having us try to figure out your cryptic messages that really don't say anything.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>Well, while they're tinkering, they need to remove vitality and make it permanently on.  I've never liked the idea of SOE playing the role of "mother".  "Oh, haven't you played this char enough?  Go play something else now."</p>

[Melanchol]

<p>oh it was very clear to me. "in order to increase sales of exp pots, we have taken your exp bonus away and applied them to purchasable exp pots instead. You can still get the same exp bonus you've always had, we just made it more convienent to use by placing it into the marketplace. We value your feedback and understand that many people like to use exp bonus for leveling. Nothing has changed with this patch. You can still level the old fashioned way without bonus, if you choose to"</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well, while they're tinkering, they need to remove vitality and make it permanently on.  I've never liked the idea of SOE playing the role of "mother".  "Oh, haven't you played this char enough?  Go play something else now."</p></blockquote><p>If they do that (and I'm not suggesting they should or shouldn't) then they should just do away with the concept of vitality and cut in half the amount of EXP needed to gain each level.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Brook wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>Dude why do you even post here?</p><p>Why dont you look at what you just said. "We <span style="text-decoration: underline;">increased</span> the potions (meaning made a change) so they do "<span style="text-decoration: underline;">exactly</span>" what they did <span style="text-decoration: underline;">before the change</span>."</p><p>Which means that you DID change them, and if they do the "exact" same thing that means you changed something else... does that make any sense to you?I for one am sick and tired of your double-talk, you could at least have enough spine to come here and tell us the truth being your the one calling the shots instead of having us try to figure out your cryptic messages that really don't say anything.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">He didn't say nothing was changed, only that a change was made to bonuses stacking.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The thing you should be asking is, Do potions and vitality stack with RAF?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">They should, or else the nerf would be uncalled for and it truly would be a nerf to the leveling curve despite Waters saying such a reform wasn't made.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Because, yes, serious players use RAF to achieve their desired leveling goals.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">RAF doesn't need to be nerfed if you guys aren't going to make a F2P-lite version for all legacy servers given that the trial is abolished.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means no "robust" Station Cash marketplace with more "convenience" items.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means the </span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><em><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Gold</span></em></strong></span></span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><em></em></strong><span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;">plan gets all races and server access.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means </span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><em><strong><span style="color: #e0e0e0;">Platinum</span></strong></em></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"> subscribers don't have to purchase expansion access every year or have a stipend of Station Cash forced onto them without appropriate bulk discounts, and it also means they get all server access.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Don't include SC to weight the rate unless there's a bulk discount of 50%, or 1K SC/mo instead of 10% discounted 500 SC/mo.</span></p>

[Thundy]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>Gosh, the way you post is so obnoxious, it makes me want to punch a wall.</p><p>Please for the love of all that is holy:</p><p>1) Post exactly how the stacking/XP worked BEFORE</p><p>and then</p><p>2) Post exactly how the stacking/XP works NOW</p><p>Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The thing you should be asking is, Do potions and vitality stack with RAF?</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff6600;">But the real question is not "Do they stack" .. but rather how is XP calculated. </span></p><p>Sorry about the color and large font size .. I wanted to be important too..</p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, is the current quest exp bugged? Just did a quest in Sundered Frontier (Feathers for Peace of Heart ) at level 83, and it gave me only 1% exp.</p><p>AA slider is at 0%</p></blockquote><p>We're still checking for a bug on this - examples like this one give us something to look at specifically, so thanks for posting it. </p><p>If anyone is seeing a situation where you feel like you're getting less experience today than you did last week, please post the details here or PM me with them.  Helpful info would be:</p><ul><li>Your level and how your AA slider is set</li><li>Info about the monster you killed or the quest you did, and what zone you were in</li><li>Whether you had vitality and any experience bonuses</li></ul><p>Thanks!</p>

[Vinyard]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, is the current quest exp bugged? Just did a quest in Sundered Frontier (Feathers for Peace of Heart ) at level 83, and it gave me only 1% exp.</p><p>AA slider is at 0%</p></blockquote><p>We're still checking for a bug on this - examples like this one give us something to look at specifically, so thanks for posting it. </p><p>If anyone is seeing a situation where you feel like you're getting less experience today than you did last week, please post the details here or PM me with them.  Helpful info would be:</p><ul><li>Your level and how your AA slider is set</li><li>Info about the monster you killed or the quest you did, and what zone you were in</li><li>Whether you had vitality and any experience bonuses</li></ul><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p>Thanks for the answer.  I guess I'll have to change my plans on leveling my monk until something is confirmed.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The thing you should be asking is, Do potions and vitality stack with RAF?</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff6600;">But the real question is not "Do they stack" .. but rather how is XP calculated. </span></p><p>Sorry about the color and large font size .. I wanted to be important too..</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">No, that isn't the question, because that could be more time consuming, complex, and useless for them to explain.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Besides, you should ask more specific things, like how much extra XP do you get from a red con as opposed to a green, white, yellow, or blue con?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">FYI, I never disseminate any inferences that font color establishes individual importance, but I can understand how easily one (you, Jesdyr) might be tempted to proudly condescend.</span></p><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">So do potions, vitality, and RAF stack still, or do just potions not stack together</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">In case the EQ2X feedback thread is being neglected because it's so monstrous (lots of visible developer observation here, hahaha), I'd also like to note a collection of inquiries I've established that I feel most consolidates consensus concerns from the community.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</span></p><blockquote><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">We need questions answered. </span></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 1.) How is a beta a beta when purchases won't be wiped when it goes live? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> <span style="color: #ff6600;">- This defeats the liberty of free-reign for testing. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff6600;"> - Why is there such a willingness to engender a transference of activity from legacy servers to EQ2X before ensuring equal appeal for both legacy and F2P models (yes, you can change things, it's pretty awesome that things aren't set in stone)?</span> </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> <span style="color: #33cccc;">- How can you defend that what's really being said isn't... </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> "We're okay throwing wool over your eyes and pulling a fast one. </span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> Despite not sharing how we supposedly think our consumers don't want F2P on their server, we'll announce the NGE for their newbies 3 weeks before it ACTUALLY GOES LIVE IN A FALSE BETA MADE FOR SHOW. </span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> We don't intend to be open to making many adjustments at all based upon concerns that fully take the future into account. </span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> The prepare for disaster after-the-fact strategy is a proven one we've seen succeed since Liebeck v. McDonalds, the coffee case. Katrina, USA's infrastructure, the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, these are our precedents. </span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> If you have many serious disagreements, we'll ignore the most common complaints and just act like it isn't a big deal to take very big risks with a few thousand people. </span></p><p><span style="color: #33cccc;"> Your communities, our bottom line, sometimes they don't get along." </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 2.) What CLEAR, DECISIVE sources were consulted to obtain the position that the F2P model shouldn't see all servers? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> <span style="color: #ff6600;">- The "robust" Station Cash marketplace with "convenience" items can remain on the EQ2X debut server. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 3.) Did Smokejumper actually mean to say "Maybe EQ2X will be the place to be for raiding," like there was any reason to allude to potential favoritism? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 4.) Why is it okay to create a F2P environment inequal to even our old trial? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> <span style="color: #ff6600;">- </span></span><span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><span style="color: #9e7c61;"><strong><em>Bronze</em></strong></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff6600;">/</span></span><span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><span style="color: #999999;"><strong><em>Silver</em></strong></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"><span style="color: #ff6600;"> plans do not compete. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"> - </span><span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><em><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Gold</span></em></strong></span></span></span><span style="color: #ff6600;"> plan is inequal to our live server plan (not all races or server access) </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"> - </span><span><span><em><strong><span style="color: #ffff00;"><span style="color: #e0e0e0;">Platinum</span></span></strong></em></span></span><span style="color: #ff6600;"> plan forces: a Station Cash stipend many might not want, repeated purchase of expansion access, not all server access. </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 5.) Are you open to rectify the misconception in saying there's a duping loop with server transfers? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> <span style="color: #ff6600;">- Customer service can ensure the character on the legacy server is deleted, prior to copying to legacy servers. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 6.) What is preoccupying SOE employee time in such a way where questions aren't answered, despite log-ins occurring? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 7.) How is it that the path of LoTRO or DDO isn't being plagiarized when core game features are being restricted, despite alternatives? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 8.) Do you agree that there is room for improvement when there was a past Producer letter on increased developer/playerbase collaboration? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> 9.) Is there any actual weight Smokejumper or anyone can levy, to ensure Ts are crossed and Is are dotted, or does everyone answer to some uncompromising, cave-dwelling behemoth of a beast? </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If you read my posts, you need to close your heart to taking offense, because these are sincere qualms that the majority of unique posters have presented. </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"> Cooperation, trust, yep, they can come through contending with frank hurdles.</span></p></blockquote>

[Wytie]

<p><cite>Melancholie@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>oh it was very clear to me. "in order to increase sales of exp pots, we have taken your exp bonus away and applied them to purchasable exp pots instead. You can still get the same exp bonus you've always had, we just made it more convienent to use by placing it into the marketplace. We value your feedback and understand that many people like to use exp bonus for leveling. Nothing has changed with this patch. You can still level the old fashioned way without bonus, if you choose to"</p></blockquote><p>BINGO</p>

[Paddyo]

<p>Why don't you just stick EQ2 extended out in a pasture somewhere, take all the live servers down, unapply this worthless patach and restore the game to where it was yesterday.</p><p>Then, consider working on another game, Mr. Smokejumper, where you can do the kinds of things you are doing and not disturb your paying customers.</p><p>If I had walked into Target or Walmart today, and all the prices were 3 times higher and they told me "it's ok, as long as you apply these coupons you get from our marketplace all your savings will be exactly the same as yesterday" I would tell them to shove it up their backside and head over to K Mart. It would be doubly certain I would walk out on them when I figured out they were gonna start charging me for the use of plastic bags to carry things home in and renting me carts.</p><p>6 accounts in my house today.  After I "patch" my finances, you will be getting "0" dollars instead of the "90" you get now; but, when you apply eq2 extended subscriptions to this base of "0", I'm sure it will all work out.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The thing you should be asking is, Do potions and vitality stack with RAF?</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff6600;">But the real question is not "Do they stack" .. but rather how is XP calculated. </span></p><p>Sorry about the color and large font size .. I wanted to be important too..</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">No, that isn't the question, because that could be more time consuming, complex, and useless for them to explain.</span></p></blockquote><p>"Stacking" does not mean much which is the problem.</p><p>Based on the changes they made and the little information they have given it is my guess that the formula changed from</p><p>(X * vitality) * (bonus1 + bonus2 + ..) = XP</p><p>to</p><p>X * (vitality + bonus1 + bonus2 + ..) = XP  </p><p>Which would effectively 1/2 the amount each bonus was appling while you had Vitality. If this is the case then people grinding without Vitality would actually see a boost to the XP while using the new potions that have 2x the bonus they use too.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The thing you should be asking is, Do potions and vitality stack with RAF?</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff6600;">But the real question is not "Do they stack" .. but rather how is XP calculated. </span></p><p>Sorry about the color and large font size .. I wanted to be important too..</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">No, that isn't the question, because that could be more time consuming, complex, and useless for them to explain.</span></p></blockquote><p>"Stacking" does not mean much which is the problem.</p><p>Based on the changes they made and the little information they have given it is my guess that the formula changed from</p><p>(X * vitality) * (bonus1 + bonus2 + ..) = XP</p><p>to</p><p>X * (vitality + bonus1 + bonus2 + ..) = XP  </p><p>Which would effectively 1/2 the amount each bonus was appling while you had Vitality. If this is the case then people grinding without Vitality would actually see a boost to the XP while using the new potions that have 2x the bonus they use too.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">My guess is that your guess is wrong (I think what you think they changed it to is how it was before), and that there were conditions created to ignore bonuses from potions when there was more than one.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If my guess is correct, it'd seem odd to me, why even make a change there then?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">However, the question that remains is...zomgsh does RAF stack with vitality and potions?</span></p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p>So $C potions were doubled because all OTHER forms of XP and bonuses were halved.  (It takes a while to disect these things nowadays)</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">My guess is that your guess is wrong (I think what you think they changed it to is how it was before), and that there were conditions created to ignore bonuses from potions when there was more than one.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If my guess is correct, it'd seem odd to me, why even make a change there then?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">However, the question that remains is...zomgsh does RAF stack with vitality and potions?</span></p></blockquote><p>My "what they changed it too" is what I always thought it was and all the testing and observations I have made while playing with AA conversion have supported.</p><p>My guess is based on Smoke's claim that doubling the XP pots with the new system produces the same effect as the old system. Only two bonuses were "double", Vitality and Double Bonus XP weekends. Being that Double Bonus XP weekends are very rare that would suggest they are working around Vitality bonus.</p>

[Trevalon]

<p>lol, this is so classic.  In all my years playing MMO's (Over 10 years now) I have never quite seen something so amazingly gutsy besides the NGE.</p><p>So you decrease all "Free" exp bonus options and increase the "paid" exp bonus options to "Make up the difference."</p><p>hahaha, you have quite a business plan going there.</p>

[Landiin]

No this is the bottom here. You nerf exp and now expect people to have to buy SC pots in order to get at least back to where it was before the patch. Man guys come on this is low... Borderline crooked!

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Trevalon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>lol, this is so classic.  In all my years playing MMO's (Over 10 years now) I have never quite seen something so amazingly gutsy besides the NGE.</p><p>So you decrease all "Free" exp bonus options and increase the "paid" exp bonus options to "Make up the difference."</p><p>hahaha, you have quite a business plan going there.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>No this is the bottom here. You nerf exp and now expect people to have to buy SC pots in order to get at least back to where it was before the patch. Man guys come on this is low... Borderline crooked!</blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Uhm, no, it seems all potions XP bonus rates were doubled.</span></p>

[Shareana]

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=445320&post_id=5392925" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=44532...post_id=5392925</a> There is no need to be insulting to other players please. Thank you!

[Sevirin]

<p>I waited in town all day not going out to quest, because this thread gave me the impression that exp was bugged.Instead, it's concluded that exp is only bugged for people who were exploiting RAF. What a waste of a day heh.I never looked into RAF. I always wondered why there were level 1 monks all over zones that they had no buisness being in. I had always assumed they were crafter alts out harvesting, or something.</p><p>As they say... If something is too good to be true, it's probably a bug.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><em><strong>- E D I T - Needed</strong></em></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Have you ever seen anyone official even say it was a bug (i.e. your cynical perception is irrelevant)?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only thing that I've seen said is that Rothgar referred to RAF as something "taken advantage of".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Which is to say that it wasn't a bug, but that they might've possibly wanted to change it for some time.</span></p>

[Shareana]

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=445320&post_id=5392971" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=44532...post_id=5392971</a> We do not Black list other players on these forums. Thank you!

[Zirbus]

<p>Personally I don't care what the official classification was, it turned progress into an easier-than-WoW joke. 300% never should have been included for any reason including RAF, and the idea that people feel they are entitled to even higher multipliers is just stupid. Leveling to cap in a day is far more exploitive and trivializing than buying mastercrafted with cash. </p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Zirbus@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Personally I don't care what the official classification was, it turned progress into an easier-than-WoW joke. 300% never should have been included for any reason including RAF, and the idea that people feel they are entitled to even higher multipliers is just stupid. Leveling to cap in a day is far more exploitive and trivializing than buying mastercrafted with cash. </p></blockquote><p>THIS</p><p>The RAF bonus was the biggest cause of making leveling easier then ANY other game I have ever played. The RAF exploit made leveling in eq2 a complete and utter joke. And Yes I did complain about it BOTH times they had a double xp weekend that made a complete mockery of the game. Honestly people who supported this exploit should have no issue with exchange servers and buying characters because powerleveling a charcter in less then a day was just as distasteful.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><em><strong>- E D I T - Needed</strong></em></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Have you ever seen anyone official even say it was a bug (i.e. your cynical perception is irrelevant)?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only thing that I've seen said is that Rothgar referred to RAF as something "taken advantage of".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Which is to say that it wasn't a bug, but that they might've possibly wanted to change it for some time.</span></p></blockquote><p>I am going to just take your last reply as incompetence because it normally fits your style, but then again it is well known you already approve of exploiting in the first place. Why don't you just use more dupe exploits next time.</p><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>fix an exploit </strong></span></span>situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Well, it'd also be incompetence of your own to claim I approve of exploiting, or that I normally have a style of incompetence.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">But yup, that part of what Rothgar said didn't get stuck in the memory bank, it seems. =[</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If you want to go on about being competent or not, I'm sure you can better evaluate what it is to reason.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Or not, that's your choice too.</span></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If you want to act like YOU are being competent, why is your RAGE not SEETHING from the center of the molten iron core of earth out to the furthest glimpses of red shift in the universe?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If YOU aren't incompetent, why are you NOT RAGING about the COMPLETELY unreliable, spotty, and incredulous attitudes expressed by SOE with leniency for or against their own UAASL/EULA?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">Think you're smart, but you yourself are a hypocrite.</span></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">We can now add RAF exploiters (lol, and there's a WHOLE freaking lot) to the list of those SOE is unreliable about penalizing and enforcing their UAASL/EULA with.</span></p><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pervis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I absolutely refuse to participate in any form of SOE beta or testing as of SF. <span style="color: #ff00ff;">The number of issues with this expansion that made it to launch was astounding.</span> They essentially asked me to spend my own time testing out their product, but they still ignore me just as much when I do as when I don't waste my time trying to help them. And the amusing thing is, they wonder why they don't get enough people testing content...</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ the Hole writ exploit going live where people would hold writ components in trade windows and hit LVL 90 in 30 minutes.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people weren't rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ Perah Celsis being bugged and people killing him tens or hundreds of times in the same instance and getting boatloads of Masters, platinum, Marks of Manaar, and Fabled drops.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Kander even posted that this was a bug.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people weren't rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ illicit, black market Legends of Norraths merchants breaking Section 9 of the UAASL (User Agreement & Software License/EULA).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Disallowing consumers to profit from SOE's intellectual property is a good business decision.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Not enforcing such a regulation fairly, isn't, especially when I've posted about this since almost exactly 4 months ago <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=476584�" target="_blank">Re:Re:Re:Re GU 56 Changes and You!</a>).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Gratulations on losing tens of hundreds of thousands of revenue?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people <em>aren't</em> rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">SOE's track record of unreliability for enforcing their own EULA is part of why people were willing to exploit so commonly.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Yet truly callous, merciless attitudes are pompously prevailing as work that customers accomplished through 1-5 years of gaming is left to remain destroyed at the whim of a fickle producer, or whoever was primarily responsible for such widespread intolerance.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And</span> <span style="color: #ff0000;">Waters</span><span style="color: #ff6600;">, bro, I'm not sure why'd you respond to this thread asking about specific examples over clarifying whether or not RAF stacks with vitality and potions, especially when so many have expressed curiosity about that specific inquiry. O_O</span></p>

[Glenolas]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Trevalon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>lol, this is so classic.  In all my years playing MMO's (Over 10 years now) I have never quite seen something so amazingly gutsy besides the NGE.</p><p>So you decrease all "Free" exp bonus options and increase the "paid" exp bonus options to "Make up the difference."</p><p>hahaha, you have quite a business plan going there.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>No this is the bottom here. You nerf exp and now expect people to have to buy SC pots in order to get at least back to where it was before the patch. Man guys come on this is low... Borderline crooked!</blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Uhm, no, it seems all potions XP bonus rates were doubled.</span></p></blockquote><p>Yes, but one only has a very limited number of free ones,  so doubling them doesn't  give away much.      The all only last for a hour, so you wind up where Trevalon predicts in a very few hours, and way before you are out of the need for potions.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I'd also like to highlight why the community may be a little bit expressive about powerleveling options potentially being reduced, <strong>it probably has something to do with how the amount of quests in Sentinel's Fate is a little bit low and the XP gain from them isn't much, or any, increased compared to quests in RoK or TSO</strong>.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">But, all that has been and had been stated multiple times... ;o</span></p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Well, it'd also be incompetence of your own to claim I approve of exploiting, or that I normally have a style of incompetence.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">But yup, that part of what Rothgar said didn't get stuck in the memory bank, it seems. =[</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If you want to go on about being competent or not, I'm sure you can better evaluate what it is to reason.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Or not, that's your choice too.</span></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If you want to act like YOU are being competent, why is your RAGE not SEETHING from the center of the molten iron core of earth out to the furthest glimpses of red shift in the universe?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If YOU aren't incompetent, why are you NOT RAGING about the COMPLETELY unreliable, spotty, and incredulous attitudes expressed by SOE with leniency for or against their own UAASL/EULA?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">Think you're smart, but you yourself are a hypocrite.</span></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">We can now add RAF exploiters (lol, and there's a WHOLE freaking lot) to the list of those SOE is unreliable about penalizing and enforcing their UAASL/EULA with.</span></p></blockquote><p>You know I really dont need to reply to you about incompetence where in the same breath you write about<span style="color: #ff6600;">My "claim that you (seliri) approve of exploiting"</span><span><span style="color: #ffffff;">and then go on in a tirade justifying your exploits because SOE doesnt enforce known exploits on all infractions. </span></span><span><span style="color: #ffffff;"><span>You do realize you were trying to justify you being caught exploiting?This isn't rocket science here buddy, it is basic ethics. My guess is you slept through that class. Just because they dont catch/persecute every criminal act does not justify your actions.It is your actions that dictate your approval of exploiting.The fact you try to defend those actions in your own words though have just solidified your approval. </span></span></span></p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Glenolas wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Trevalon wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>lol, this is so classic.  In all my years playing MMO's (Over 10 years now) I have never quite seen something so amazingly gutsy besides the NGE.</p><p>So you decrease all "Free" exp bonus options and increase the "paid" exp bonus options to "Make up the difference."</p><p>hahaha, you have quite a business plan going there.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Toranx@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>No this is the bottom here. You nerf exp and now expect people to have to buy SC pots in order to get at least back to where it was before the patch. Man guys come on this is low... Borderline crooked!</blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Uhm, no, it seems all potions XP bonus rates were doubled.</span></p></blockquote><p>Yes, but one only has a very limited number of free ones,  so doubling them doesn't  give away much.      The all only last for a hour, so you wind up where Trevalon predicts in a very few hours, and way before you are out of the need for potions.</p></blockquote><p>Grab a bunch of free LON cards and complete the scenarios. You will have more xp pots then you could possibly ever use. I did run out of the vitality boosters they gave, but honestly I made it to 90/250 and still have like 15 xp pots in the bank.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Well, it'd also be incompetence of your own to claim I approve of exploiting, or that I normally have a style of incompetence.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">But yup, that part of what Rothgar said didn't get stuck in the memory bank, it seems. =[</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If you want to go on about being competent or not, I'm sure you can better evaluate what it is to reason.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Or not, that's your choice too.</span></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If you want to act like YOU are being competent, why is your RAGE not SEETHING from the center of the molten iron core of earth out to the furthest glimpses of red shift in the universe?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">If YOU aren't incompetent, why are you NOT RAGING about the COMPLETELY unreliable, spotty, and incredulous attitudes expressed by SOE with leniency for or against their own UAASL/EULA?</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">Think you're smart, but you yourself are a hypocrite.</span></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">We can now add RAF exploiters (lol, and there's a WHOLE freaking lot) to the list of those SOE is unreliable about penalizing and enforcing their UAASL/EULA with.</span></p><p><span><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Pervis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I absolutely refuse to participate in any form of SOE beta or testing as of SF. <span style="color: #ff00ff;">The number of issues with this expansion that made it to launch was astounding.</span> They essentially asked me to spend my own time testing out their product, but they still ignore me just as much when I do as when I don't waste my time trying to help them. And the amusing thing is, they wonder why they don't get enough people testing content...</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ the Hole writ exploit going live where people would hold writ components in trade windows and hit LVL 90 in 30 minutes.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people weren't rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ Perah Celsis being bugged and people killing him tens or hundreds of times in the same instance and getting boatloads of Masters, platinum, Marks of Manaar, and Fabled drops.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Kander even posted that this was a bug.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people weren't rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ illicit, black market Legends of Norraths merchants breaking Section 9 of the UAASL (User Agreement & Software License/EULA).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Disallowing consumers to profit from SOE's intellectual property is a good business decision.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Not enforcing such a regulation fairly, isn't, especially when I've posted about this since almost exactly 4 months ago <a href="list.m?start=0&topic_id=476584�" target="_blank">Re:Re:Re:Re GU 56 Changes and You!</a>).</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Gratulations on losing tens of hundreds of thousands of revenue?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">These people <em>aren't</em> rerolled, suspended, deleted, or banned, unlike even first offense battlegrounds exploiters.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">SOE's track record of unreliability for enforcing their own EULA is part of why people were willing to exploit so commonly.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Yet truly callous, merciless attitudes are pompously prevailing as work that customers accomplished through 1-5 years of gaming is left to remain destroyed at the whim of a fickle producer, or whoever was primarily responsible for such widespread intolerance.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And</span> <span style="color: #ff0000;">Waters</span><span style="color: #ff6600;">, bro, I'm not sure why'd you respond to this thread asking about specific examples over clarifying whether or not RAF stacks with vitality and potions, especially when so many have expressed curiosity about that specific inquiry. O_O</span></p></span></p></blockquote><p>You know I really dont need to reply to you about incompetence where in the same breath you write abou<span style="color: #ffffff;">M</span></p><p>My "claim that you (seliri) approve of exploiting"and then go on in a tirade justifying your exploits because SOE doesnt enforce known exploits on all infractions. You do realize you were trying to justify you being caught exploiting?This isn't rocket science here buddy, it is basic ethics. My guess is you slept through that class.Just because they dont catch/persecute every criminal act does not justify your actions.It is your actions that dictate your approval of exploiting.The fact you try to defend those actions in your own words though have just solidified your approval. <span style="color: #ffffff;">y "claim that you (seliri) approve of exploiting"</span><span><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">You're incapable of rational thought because you've let pride, the root of all contention, emotionally compromise you into a bitter haze of jaded eyes.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I never justified exploiting, I never defended it.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I objectively outlined <em>part</em> of causation for many who have exploited.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Do I think exploiting is bad and shouldn't be done, especially because agreeing with such was done in vows that christened us as SOE customers?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Yup.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">But here you are, alluding to having been a studious participant in classes of ethics (or just trying a little bit too hard to be shallow, snide, and scathing), all while you excuse hypocrisy and contradiction on the part of SOE when it comes to fairly conducting action toward all the major exploits that have surfaced.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Ah, and don't forget, you know, trying to absolutely condescend to me as having a "usual style of incompetence".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If you now want to talk about ethics, then I'm sure you can comprehend the vice of partisanship.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">If you want to talk ethics, look to Jesus Christ, in the saying, "With what measure you mete, likewise will it be measured unto you".</span></p><blockquote><span style="color: #ff6600;">Matthew 7: 1</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">Judge not, that ye be not judged.</span>  <span style="color: #ff6600;">2</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.</span>. <span style="color: #ff6600;">Mark 12: 24</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.</span><span style="color: #ff6600;">Luke 6:</span><span style="color: #ff6600;"> 37</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:</span><span style="color: #ff6600;"> 38</span><span style="color: #ff0000;">Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. </span></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">So clearly, insofar, you've chosen against reason.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">If it really needs to be simplified for you bro, what I justify is temperance and tolerance with the enforcement of laws, especially given man's ability to be hypocritical or contradictive when they want to cast stones over minutiae.</span></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">All the exploits I mentioned, and their offenders, and even RAF offenders, could be penalized (sorry, searching logs isn't hard).</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">But they won't be.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">And the undue severity used against even first offender battlegrounds exploiters likely won't even be mitigated, because people think it's enjoyable to placate sin and be proud.</span></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">(P.S. Karae, who are you talking to?) =]</span></p>

[Karae]

<p><span style="font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 16px;"><div><h2>in·com·pe·tence</h2></div><div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 3px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-weight: bold; display: inline; font-style: italic; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">–noun</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #7b7b7b; line-height: 1.25em; font-weight: bold; display: block; float: left; width: 28px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">1.</span></span></span><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; cursor: default; background-color: transparent; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">the</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; cursor: default; background-color: transparent; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">quality</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; cursor: default; background-color: transparent; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">or</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">condition</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">of</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">being</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">incompetent;</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">lack</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">of</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 1.25em; position: static; padding: 0px; margin: 0px;">ability.</span></span></div></div><div></div><div>You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does. </div></div></div></span></p>

[Culsu]

<p><cite>Sydares wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>People "taking advantage" of Recruit-A-Friend should be your indication that AA experience is glacial to the point of being detrimental to your game.</blockquote><p>QFE</p>

[EledeenX]

<p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Hey Gungo, remember where you said:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></span></p><div><p><cite><span style="color: #ffffff;">Gungo wrote:</span></cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Not all bugs are exploits and not every exploit is a bug.</span></p></blockquote></div><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=60&topic_id=484794#5393152" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffffff;">Here.</span></a></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">What happened to that mindset?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Now. Let's say you go to Wal Mart, and they have a half off sale, on everything. You spend tons and tons of money because it's a sale, and you want things. You tell your friends, they tell their friends. Wal Mart is now crowded and losing money, fast. Wal mart decides the sale is over. Now, tell me: what does Wal mart do?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">1: Arrest you for "Exploiting" their system.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">2: Realize it was a bad idea, end the sale, and replace it with something more sane.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">I hope you answer 2. It was a method given to us to use to our advantage. Some of us used it more than others, sure. But </span><strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">SONY PUT IT THERE FOR US TO USE! T</span></strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">hey have every right to remove it, but to call those of us who used it "Exploiters" is plain wrong. End of story. Did they intend for it to be so powerful? Probably not. But that's their fault, not ours.</span></p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>EledeenX wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Hey Gungo, remember where you said:</span></p><div><p><cite><span style="color: #ffffff;">Gungo wrote:</span></cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Not all bugs are exploits and not every exploit is a bug.</span></p></blockquote></div><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=60&topic_id=484794#5393152" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffffff;">Here.</span></a></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">What happened to that mindset?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Now. Let's say you go to Wal Mart, and they have a half off sale, on everything. You spend tons and tons of money because it's a sale, and you want things. You tell your friends, they tell their friends. Wal Mart is now crowded and losing money, fast. Wal mart decides the sale is over. Now, tell me: what does Wal mart do?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">1: Arrest you for "Exploiting" their system.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">2: Realize it was a bad idea, end the sale, and replace it with something more sane.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">I hope you answer 2. It was a method given to us to use to our advantage. Some of us used it more than others, sure. But </span><strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">SONY PUT IT THERE FOR US TO USE! T</span></strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">hey have every right to remove it, but to call those of us who used it "Exploiters" is plain wrong. End of story. Did they intend for it to be so powerful? Probably not. But that's their fault, not ours.</span></p></blockquote><p>And obviously they chose option 2. No account was banned for abusing this bug. As rothgar stated it was a BUG and unintended for RAF to multiply bonuses. At no point has anyone at soe called anyone who abused this BUG an exploiter.Unlike the EXPLOIT seliri was caught doing when he was DUPING items in battlegrounds excessively and had his character stripped.</p>

[EledeenX]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>At no point has anyone at soe called anyone who abused this BUG an exploiter.</p></blockquote><p>But you have.</p><p>And you are wrong.</p><p>Care to have me link you the 3+ posts on the last 2 pages where you mentioned the "RaF exploit"?</p>

[Vinyard]

<p>Any updates on if quest exp is messed up or not?</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>EledeenX wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>At no point has anyone at soe called anyone who abused this BUG an exploiter.</p></blockquote><p>But you have.</p><p>And you are wrong.</p><p>Care to have me link you the 3+ posts on the last 2 pages where you mentioned the "RaF exploit"?</p></blockquote><p>You are correct in my opnion this was a BUG and not an exploit. People may have abused this bug, and in effect exploited this bug. But honestly many people may have not realized it was unintended or a bug in coding.</p><p>Although I was mostly referring to exploiting with seliri who was caught exploited on numerous occasions and trying to justify this bug in my posts.</p><p>and to be honest Rothgar DID refer to this as an EXPLOIT. Although I beleive it is a BUG and not an exploit. Eitherway it should have been fixed after they realized the insane amount of xp generated during the last double xp weekend.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Any updates on if quest exp is messed up or not?</p></blockquote><p>Good question, i would suspect NOT.... Since they are asking US for reproduction steps instead of just killing mobs looking to see if a lvl 85 mob killed by a lvl 85 toon with 0 Vitality etc gives the correct amount of xp ... i mean apparently thats not doable.</p>

[Bosconi]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>EledeenX wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Hey Gungo, remember where you said:</span></p><div><p><cite><span style="color: #ffffff;">Gungo wrote:</span></cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Not all bugs are exploits and not every exploit is a bug.</span></p></blockquote></div><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=60&topic_id=484794#5393152" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ffffff;">Here.</span></a></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">What happened to that mindset?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">Now. Let's say you go to Wal Mart, and they have a half off sale, on everything. You spend tons and tons of money because it's a sale, and you want things. You tell your friends, they tell their friends. Wal Mart is now crowded and losing money, fast. Wal mart decides the sale is over. Now, tell me: what does Wal mart do?</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">1: Arrest you for "Exploiting" their system.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">2: Realize it was a bad idea, end the sale, and replace it with something more sane.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ffffff;">I hope you answer 2. It was a method given to us to use to our advantage. Some of us used it more than others, sure. But </span><strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">SONY PUT IT THERE FOR US TO USE! T</span></strong><span style="color: #ffffff;">hey have every right to remove it, but to call those of us who used it "Exploiters" is plain wrong. End of story. Did they intend for it to be so powerful? Probably not. But that's their fault, not ours.</span></p></blockquote><p>And obviously they chose option 2. No account was banned for abusing this bug. As rothgar stated it was a BUG and unintended for RAF to multiply bonuses. At no point has anyone at soe called anyone who abused this BUG an exploiter.Unlike the EXPLOIT seliri was caught doing when he was DUPING items in battlegrounds excessively and had his character stripped.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol. If something is an exploit, then those who profit from it ARE EXPLOITERS.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Yep, Rothgar decided to call the RAF bonus stacking system an exploit.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">You want to champion the end of RAF bonuses supposedly not stacking with vitality or potions, but YOU could CARE LESS about ALL the other exploiters SOE lets go unchecked (and don't forget mentions quoted above): PvP writ stackers, RAF-botters, and adventurer class-to-cleric converters, included.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">That makes you a contradictive hypocrite with no moral higher ground to judge from.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And no bro, I wasn't character stripped, I was deleted and banned.</span></p>

[Thundy]

<p>I think the underlying issue causing all this angst is getting AAs is a broken system that really needs to be looked at.</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only thing that I've seen said is that Rothgar referred to RAF as something "taken advantage of".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Which is to say that it wasn't a bug, but that they might've possibly wanted to change it for some time.</span></p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I agree it makes financial sense for them to fix it. </p><p>I mean I just joined the RAF club (couldn't imagine the AA game w/o it) and was considering keeping my box open for a month of 200% for $15 rather than buying hours of potions for more money to = RAF bonus for 30 days lol.</p><p>But yeah, SF is partial fail because people see the carrot and can't reach it.  Lvl Cap raise & AA raise at the same time... They know ppl want at least 1 capped character... Then they quickly pack them in raids and load them down with debt before they hit 250 and they get nowhere...</p><p>Glacial AA rate was the /root cause of this abuse.  They no longer seem to be worried about paddin those numbers with Live RAF boxin abuse as all their eggs are in the Eq2x basket while we're the saftey net till that takes off.</p>

[Bosconi]

<p><cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only thing that I've seen said is that Rothgar referred to RAF as something "taken advantage of".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Which is to say that it wasn't a bug, but that they might've possibly wanted to change it for some time.</span></p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I agree it makes financial sense for them to fix it. </p><p>I mean I just joined the RAF club (couldn't imagine the AA game w/o it) and was considering keeping my box open for a month of 200% for $15 rather than buying hours of potions for more money to = RAF bonus for 30 days lol.</p><p>But yeah, SF is partial fail because people see the carrot and can't reach it.  Lvl Cap raise & AA raise at the same time... They know ppl want at least 1 capped character... Then they quickly pack them in raids and load them down with debt before they hit 250 and they get nowhere...</p><p>Glacial AA rate was the /root cause of this abuse.  They no longer seem to be worried about paddin those numbers with Live RAF boxin abuse as all their eggs are in the Eq2x basket while we're the saftey net till that takes off.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Well, I would clarify that it was potentially an "exploit" if stacked with vitality and bonuses, as Gungo poignantly noted, such a clarification didn't stick in my memory from Rothgar's first post in this thread.</span></p><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey they DID buff the station marketplace potions to compensate...</p><p>lol @ the "heres a nerf, but its not really a nerf because we let you buy your way back to the way it was  /thankme" excuse.</p></blockquote><p>Actually, that's not true. We increased the potions so that they do *exactly* what they did before the change. No more, or less, powerful than they once were.</p></blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF bonus was certainly the biggest cause of the problem and the main bonus that should have been affected by the change.  It's also the one that is "taken advantage of" most often due to the large bonus that it brings.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">So do potions, vitality, and RAF stack still, or do just potions not stack together?</span></p></blockquote> <p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just wanted to also chime in to say that a change was made to fix an exploit situation in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be at the root of the problem.  Our intent was definitely not to modify the leveling curve that you experience in a normal situation.</p><p>Since the intended change did affect the stacking of bonuses such as the xp potions you bought from the marketplace, we decided to increase that percentage to make up for the difference in the change.</p><p>We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.</p></blockquote>

[Waters]

<p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thanks for the feedback and information on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It helped us narrow the problem down more quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A few key points, if you don't read the whole post:</span></p> <ul type="disc"> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We don't plan to slow down the average player's experience gain at all.  This is true whether you use experience potions or not.</span></strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is an experience bug on live servers that we plan to hotfix this week.  Some intended bonuses are not working.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Before today's game update, the experience gain rate was where we wanted it in most situations.  </span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you do not use experience potions, you will get at least as much experience as you did before the game update.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If you do use experience potions, you will get at least as much experience as you did before the game update.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The only exception to this is Recruit-a-Friend experience bonuses.  This bonus has been significantly reduced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>I’ll post a new topic for this one.</span></li> </ul> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This game update, we made a change to how we calculate experience, mainly to make experience gain more intuitive and consistent.  Briefly, the old method took the experience you received from killing a monster and multiplied it several times.  For instance, if you killed a monster worth 100 XP, it would take that 100 and multiply it if you were mentored.  It multiplied it again if you had vitality, and again if you had max level character bonuses, or a potion, or a server bonus experience weekend.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In most cases, that was fine and we liked the amount of experience that it awarded.  It wasn't easy to explain though, because multiplying the experience at each step made it overly important to stack as many different bonuses as you could, regardless of how big those bonuses were individually.  It made it hard to predict how much experience bonus you'd really get from vitality or being mentored, because those bonuses varied a lot depending on how many other bonuses you were getting.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So with this game update, we changed the formula to take all the bonuses and add them up instead.  Say you killed that 100 point monster again - if you have vitality, you get an extra 200 points, essentially the same as killing that same monster twice more.  With an experience potion on, you can get another 100 points.  Being mentored adds in some more points, as do max level characters.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With a little math though, it's pretty obvious that multiplying will give bigger numbers than adding in many situations.  We wanted your experience gain to be the same though, so we're changing many bonuses to be bigger:</span></p> <ul type="disc"> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bonus experience weekends will give +100% experience in the future.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mentoring bonuses were doubled.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Potions (veteran rewards, LoN, and station cash) were all doubled.</span></li> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Max level character bonus is going up from 10% to 20% per character, and we're increasing it to work with up to ten max level characters. (+200% bonus from the previous cap of 50%)</span></li> </ul> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So that's a lot of details, but what does it mean to your experience gain now compared to last week?  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After this week's hotfix, you will gain experience as fast, or slightly faster than you used to if you play exactly the same way.  </span></strong></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is true in every case, except Recruit-a-Friend, which I’ll post about below.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For now, we'll keep an eye on the forums and our own play characters and make sure the new experience calculations are working correctly. Sorry this wasn't working right when we put it on live servers today, and we should have a fix out for you quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">- Rich</span></p></p>

[Waters]

<p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With today’s game update, we’ve made a change to Recruit-a-Friend experience bonuses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We should’ve included this in the update notes - it was an oversight that it wasn’t listed and I’m very sorry that happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The goal for the Recruit-a-Friend program was for players to invite their friends, help them level up faster to play with their main characters, and to give the recruiter a bit of bonus experience as well.  If you were playing with your friend, you both gained three times normal experience.  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In retrospect, we should've put a couple of rules on this - you and your friend's characters should be in roughly the same level range, even if you need to mentor down to their level to get the bonus.  You and your friend should also be in the same area, like you would be if you were playing the game together.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unfortunately, we didn't put these limitations on the Recruit-a-Friend experience bonus, so some players recruited themselves, logged in a level one "friend" on a second computer, and left them parked at the zone line while they got triple experience on their main character.  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Clearly not what we'd hoped for, and with the way the old experience calculation worked, giving triple experience on top of the other bonus made experience gain so easy it was silly - stacking bonuses could give up to 25 times normal experience in some situations.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The new experience calculation still gives triple experience for killing a monster, but now killing a 100 point monster gives +300 bonus points.  It doesn't multiply all the other experience bonuses you have by three like it used to.  This is still a nice boost, and if you're playing with a friend it's certainly worth doing. </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">- Rich</span></p></p>

[Vinyard]

<p>I'm still kind of confused, heh.</p><p>Was there a bug that increased the amount of exp to level? Or were quests and such reduced in exp?</p>

[Kenrod]

<p>So, if you're using the RAF the way it was intended, IE my g/f just started and I used RAF for her account. I play my inquis and mentor to her level. Is she getting the same amount of bonus XP as she would yesterday? I'm not parking a toon in a zone to PL my main. It's already 90. I'm using it the way it was intended, and if her account is being punished for it, that's just not right at all. We're doing it the way it was intended.</p>

[Nektulos_Rishi]

<p>Thank you for the indepth explanation. I know that's what a lot of us were wanting to know about. Do you have any idea as to when this hotfix is going to happen, so we can get back to leveling our alts?</p>

[Teufell]

<p>THANK YOU WATERS!</p><p>Excellent explanation and I for one am extremely pleased that you removed the exploit or bug or unintended usage of raf.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p><p>I do hope it does not hurt the people using raf as it was intented but as I read it it does, even tho it still gives a nice boost.</p>

[Lamatu]

<p>Sounds to me like another scheme to get players to not roll on live servers.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Lamatu wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sounds to me like another scheme to get players to not roll on live servers.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">LOL! </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Definitely appreciate the explanation though, Waters.</span></p>

[LardLord]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">This game update, we made a change to how we calculate experience, mainly to make experience gain more intuitive and consistent.  Briefly, the old method took the experience you received from killing a monster and multiplied it several times.  For instance, if you killed a monster worth 100 XP, it would take that 100 and multiply it if you were mentored.  It multiplied it again if you had vitality, and again if you had max level character bonuses, or a potion, or a server bonus experience weekend.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">In most cases, that was fine and we liked the amount of experience that it awarded.  It wasn't easy to explain though, because multiplying the experience at each step made it overly important to stack as many different bonuses as you could, regardless of how big those bonuses were individually.  It made it hard to predict how much experience bonus you'd really get from vitality or being mentored, because those bonuses varied a lot depending on how many other bonuses you were getting.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So with this game update, we changed the formula to take all the bonuses and add them up instead.  Say you killed that 100 point monster again - if you have vitality, you get an extra 200 points, essentially the same as killing that same monster twice more.  With an experience potion on, you can get another 100 points.  Being mentored adds in some more points, as do max level characters.</span></p></p></blockquote><p>Ah yeah, that makes sense.  I never was a hard core power leveler or anything, and, without ever testing it, I actually assumed it had always worked the way it does now.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Bosconi wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol. If something is an exploit, then those who profit from it ARE EXPLOITERS.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Yep, Rothgar decided to call the RAF bonus stacking system an exploit.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">You want to champion the end of RAF bonuses supposedly not stacking with vitality or potions, but YOU could CARE LESS about ALL the other exploiters SOE lets go unchecked (and don't forget mentions quoted above): PvP writ stackers, RAF-botters, and adventurer class-to-cleric converters, included.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">That makes you a contradictive hypocrite with no moral higher ground to judge from.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And no bro, I wasn't character stripped, I was deleted and banned.</span></p></blockquote><p>You are presuming I could care less about all other exploiters when i never said otherwise. I simply said the fact they do not punish all exploits equally does not justify you taking advantage of exploits. </p><p>Which has NOTHING to do with being a hypocrit. And honestly you as a person who lacks any moral compass and prides himself on exploiting this game have no position to judge anyone.</p><p>finally... LOL you got banned.  </p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span></li></ul></blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p>

[YasikoSetsu]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"> <li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span></li></ul></blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Qfeqfeqfe.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bosconi wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong><em></em></strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol. If something is an exploit, then those who profit from it ARE EXPLOITERS.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Yep, Rothgar decided to call the RAF bonus stacking system an exploit.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">You want to champion the end of RAF bonuses supposedly not stacking with vitality or potions, but YOU could CARE LESS about ALL the other exploiters SOE lets go unchecked (and don't forget mentions quoted above): PvP writ stackers, RAF-botters, and adventurer class-to-cleric converters, included.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">That makes you a contradictive hypocrite with no moral higher ground to judge from.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">And no bro, I wasn't character stripped, I was deleted and banned.</span></p></blockquote><p>You are presuming I could care less about all other exploiters when i never said otherwise. I simply said the fact they do not punish all exploits equally does not justify you taking advantage of exploits. </p><p>Which has NOTHING to do with being a hypocrit. And honestly you as a person who lacks any moral compass and prides himself on exploiting this game have no position to judge anyone.</p><p>finally... LOL you got banned.  </p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">lol @ assuming me to have no moral compass, or being one who "prides himself on exploitation".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">You're being completely bull-headed, despite all I've said. Suit yourself I s'pose.</span></p><p><cite>YasikoSetsuna wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span></li></ul></blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Qfeqfeqfe.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">QFE.</span></p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Was there a bug that increased the amount of exp to level? Or were quests and such reduced in exp?</p></blockquote><p>The experience bug: killing monsters wasn't giving all the experience bonuses it should, so you were getting less per kill than intended.</p><p>We looked at quest experience gain, and tested the specific quest you mentioned (<span>Feathers for Peace of Heart) with both the old and new experience calculation and they gave the same amount of experience.  Quests have never received experience bonuses, so if there's a bug in quest-specific experience gain, we haven't been able to reproduce it yet.  We'll keep looking.</span></p><p><cite>Durzin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span>So, if you're using the RAF the way it was intended, IE my g/f just started and I used RAF for her account. I play my inquis and mentor to her level. Is she getting the same amount of bonus XP as she would yesterday? I'm not parking a toon in a zone to PL my main. It's already 90. I'm using it the way it was intended, and if her account is being punished for it, that's just not right at all. We're doing it the way it was intended.</span></p></blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p><p><cite>Nysse wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><span>Thank you for the indepth explanation. I know that's what a lot of us were wanting to know about. Do you have any idea as to when this hotfix is going to happen, so we can get back to leveling our alts?</span></p></blockquote><p>We're hoping to get this hotfixed this morning, bright and early.  So, barring unforeseen problems you will be good to go later today.</p><p><cite>Lamatu wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><span>Sounds to me like another scheme to get players to not roll on live servers.</span></p></blockquote><p>The experience formula is identical on live and extended servers, so if it is a scheme it's probably not getting us into the evil mastermind hall of fame.</p><p><cite>Jesdyr wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><span>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</span></p></blockquote><p>Excellent idea.  I'll bring it up with the team.</p><p>Edit: added some line breaks to make this easier to read.</p>

[Vinyard]

<p>Awesome, thanks for the confirmation <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[TheSpin]

<p>I'm the type of player that plays because I enjoy the game and was never overly concerned about how fast or slow I leveled.  Usually my vitality has run out hours before I realize it and use my orb of concentrated memories.</p><p>There is another equally big unannounced change that hasn't recieved any attention and.. I guess I'm postin here in the hopes someone will notice our plight.  Station Access accounts for people who want to exclusively play EQ2 are now recieving less perks than those who sign up for long term subscription plans.  Also, non station access accounts can no longer /camp character to access characters that aren't displayed on character select.  Many of us have no way to access our mains, or had mule characters with important things we cannot access.  If we sign up for SA to access our characters, we lose the option to get the perks promised to us for staying on the live server.</p><p>As someone who generally leaves my /claimable xp potions in the bank and levels almost exclusively with Vitality and the orb of concentrated memories it sounds like I'll actually benefit from these exp adjustments.</p>

[Kenrod]

<p>Waters, a huge thank you.</p>

[Nektulos_Rishi]

<p>Thanks again for your in depth answers and friendly attitude Waters, I look forward to resuming game play as normally as I can, with the huge pally nerf /cry. And thanks for the quick action to get this fixed so we don't have to wait til Tuesday or something rediculous <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Niag]

<p>Thanks Waters,</p><p>It's awesome to see your posts!</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Niag wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thanks Waters,</p><p><strong>It's awesome to see your posts!</strong></p></blockquote><p>QFE...particular the part I bolded.</p>

[Barx]

<p>First: Thanks for coming out and communicating with us, Rich. Your posts have been clear and friendly despite this being a topic that potentially made people very mad (until we saw what changes were being made).</p><p>Second: I agree that multiplying bonuses got out of hand. XP gain on that 100% weekend was ludicrously good, especially if you had a recruit-a-friend bonus going. Addative bonuses are far easier to keep in check and also far more intuitive. The only thing I'd like to ask for is to have the tooltip that lists all your XP bonuses have a line that gives the total bonus. IE if you have vitality + a 110% pot, it should list those and then say Total Combat XP Bonus: 310%. All of us that read your posts know it'll be addative from now on, but doing that would make it very clear even to new players how the bonuses apply.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>First: Thanks for coming out and communicating with us, Rich. Your posts have been clear and friendly despite this being a topic that potentially made people very mad (until we saw what changes were being made).</p><p>Second: I agree that multiplying bonuses got out of hand. XP gain on that 100% weekend was ludicrously good, especially if you had a recruit-a-friend bonus going. Addative bonuses are far easier to keep in check and also far more intuitive. The only thing I'd like to ask for is to have the tooltip that lists all your XP bonuses have a line that gives the total bonus. IE if you have vitality + a 110% pot, it should list those and then say Total Combat XP Bonus: 310%. All of us that read your posts know it'll be addative from now on, but doing that would make it very clear even to new players how the bonuses apply.</p></blockquote><p>That is a great idea.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">...</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that <span style="font-size: large;"><strong>earning AA experience is too slow</strong></span>, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">- Rich</span></p></p></blockquote><p>QUOTED FOR FREAKING EMPHASIS</p><p>The ONLY reason I have 2 RaF accounts is AA gain is far too slow.  Level locked at 89.x for vitality with RaF, since you can spend 20 minutes (or far more) waiting for a mob to spawn to finish a quest that will give 2% AA OR you can go pull SoS or PoA floors mentored and get 4% in a couple minutes.</p><p>I don't want a RaF account, I want AA and there IS NOT ENOUGH HIGH LEVEL QUESTS DOABLE SOLO THAT WILL GIVE YOU AA (NOT to mention NEW content peters out at 87).  And groups do not exist on my server unless you are the endangered species of chanter.  People will not take you in a group without certain AA abilities (you can't fix this) which means you must earn the AA solo (you can fix this).  Took me 4 weeks with my fury to go from level 89.x with 160AA to 89.x with 204AA (According to eq2players  I was the 91st Fury to hit 90 which seems pretty low).  He was 80/129 (I think) before the slider was 'invented' and got there from 60/0 .</p><p>Lastly, thanks for responding and I hope you get these things sorted before lots of people bail for other games.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "></span></p></blockquote><p>First of all, thank you for the clarification and explanation. VERY much appreciated. Belive it or not, THAT is what people actually want so we can see the reasoning behind game mechanics changes, and behind game mechanics in general.</p><p>Secondly, ive suggested it before, but how about adding AA Vitality ? We have Adventure Vitality, we have Tradeskill Vitality, we have ways of resetting both - because both you guys and us LIKE that <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Give us AA vitality as well?</p>

[snowli]

<p>slightly on topic, but I get 1 aa a month on my main, I raid on him regularly, but as there is still no new content and nothing to do outside of raid times - aa gain is too slow, and group instances are too boring - I only ever do them to help friends enervate an alt. I actually wish I had thought of exploiting some raf type system for aa gain.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</span></p></blockquote><p>Excellent idea.  I'll bring it up with the team.</p><p>Edit: added some line breaks to make this easier to read.</p></blockquote><p>That would also be very helpful in that it would no longer be a motivating factor for some people to remain level locked at level 89 so they can try to get more or cap their AA.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">- Rich</span></p></p></blockquote><p>Yes... PLEASE!</p>

[Lannan]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">- Rich</span></p></blockquote><p>Yes... PLEASE!</p></blockquote><p>I have 115aa's and the aa xp is god awful slow. I would like to get the aa's out of the way so that I can enjoy playing and leveling. AA's in EQ1 were much easier to come by.</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Lannan wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">- Rich</span></p></blockquote><p>Yes... PLEASE!</p></blockquote><p>I have 115aa's and the aa xp is god awful slow. I would like to get the aa's out of the way so that I can enjoy playing and leveling. AA's in EQ1 were much easier to come by.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah but they literally have mulitple 1000's of AAs... so in the long run it is much much longer for them to cap at max than it is for us</p>

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

<p>Waters,</p><p>As I hope you've seen from the positive feedback from players on this communication, <em>please please please </em>keep a similar level of communication going for the upcoming class balance changes. In particular the explanation of the rationale behind changes, and acknowledgement of valid points and comments from the player-base, really helps to foster a positive relationship with players and keeps subscribers. All EQ2 players have been asking for, for a very long time, is an explanation (and, ideally, justification) of why certain changes are made. This hasn't happened recently - take a look at the avatar gear nerf thread in which very sensible, balanced suggestions from players were completely ignored.</p><p>If the upcoming class balance demonstrates developers who are genuinely listening to people who've played classes for years, and not leaving valid arguments from players ignored, then it will be of massive benefit for EQ2. If you can get the core gameplay right, and restore a good relationship with the player base, I still believe it will pull in and retain more subscribers than any $-based gimmicks EQ2x offers.</p>

[EQ2Player]

<p><strong>Level 90s get a raw deal by losing vitality. Especially now that it is doubled. Does this Hotfix give Max Level Chars get their Vitality Back?</strong></p><p><strong>If not. WHY?</strong></p><p>Edit: oops. Missed this part:</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><cite>Jesdyr wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p><span>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</span></p></blockquote><p>Excellent idea.  I'll bring it up with the team.</p></blockquote>

[vexation]

<p><cite>EQ2Player wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><strong>Level 90s get a raw deal by losing vitality. Especially now that it is doubled. Does this Hotfix give Max Level Chars get their Vitality Back?</strong></p><p><strong>If not. WHY?</strong></p></blockquote><p>Max level characters haven't had vitality for as long as I can remember.... judging by this thread the idea of vitality at max level isn't even something that'd crossed Mr Waters / the dev teams mind (HOW that idea didn't cross their minds is beyond me considering people have asked for it for months) but I wouldn't expect them to hotfix it in the day after the idea has been presented.</p><p>So yeah.. if everyone keeps in civil and Mr. Waters keeps up the communication (thank you by the way) you never know, you might actually hear some news about vitality at cap.</p>

[Kenban]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><span>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</span></p></blockquote><p>Excellent idea.  I'll bring it up with the team.</p><p>Edit: added some line breaks to make this easier to read.</p></blockquote><p>This right here.  I think vitality at level cap so that you can earn that towards AA would be a very welcome change.  People used to go 100% to AA before then hit 80 to earn AA.  There is no reason why you should take an experience penalty by leveling to max level.  I remember reading about people planning on doing this with the release of SF but not sure how many actually did.</p>

[Shareana]

<p>I can understand that changes are frustrating to some.  But please remember to post with the <span> <a href="list.m?topic_id=484648" target="_blank">Forum Guidelines</a> in mind.  Thank you!</span></p>

[Seiffil]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p></blockquote><p>Just so I can understand for my own purposes, the way it works now is if you had a RAF and a 100% EXP potion, and say the 50% exp bonus for 5+ max characters and vitality bonus,  On a 100 xp mob, you get the 100  base + 300 from RAF + 100 From potion + 100 from vitality + 50 from max level bonus resulting in 650 xp from one kill?  Where as before it would have gone 100 x 300% x 200% x 200% x 150% resulting in a gain of 1800 xp?</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Seiffil@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p></blockquote><p>Just so I can understand for my own purposes, the way it works now is if you had a RAF and a 100% EXP potion, and say the 50% exp bonus for 5+ max characters and vitality bonus,  On a 100 xp mob, you get the 100  base + 300 from RAF + 100 From potion + 100 from vitality + 50 from max level bonus resulting in 650 xp from one kill?  Where as before it would have gone 100 x 300% x 200% x 200% x 150% resulting in a gain of 1800 xp?</p></blockquote><p>Baiscally, yeah. The old system multiplied where the new one adds. That's why XP gain was so crazy when you stacked a lot of potions & effects.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Seiffil@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p></blockquote><p>Just so I can understand for my own purposes, the way it works now is if you had a RAF and a 100% EXP potion, and say the 50% exp bonus for 5+ max characters and vitality bonus,  On a 100 xp mob, you get the 100  base + 300 from RAF + 100 From potion + 100 from vitality + 50 from max level bonus resulting in 650 xp from one kill?  Where as before it would have gone 100 x 300% x 200% x 200% x 150% resulting in a gain of 1800 xp?</p></blockquote><p>Although a red name has yet to state this, I believe you are correct. All bonuses should be applying to the original BASE amount and then summed up. Previously it appears that multiple bonuses were being applied to the previous sum in the chain of bonuses.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>Thx Waters!</p><p>I was one of those using a RAF to gain AAs.  It's not that I was trying to cheat or short-cut the system.  It just got really old having to repeat every single, major questline to get a character up to 250AA.  Although 25x XP sounds like a lot, that's only under special circumstances.  The RAF grind on a normal day is so-so.  After a while I would get sick of the monotony of grinding and go back to choke a few more quests down.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p>I guess sales were down on XP potions, this should help.</p><p>It also smacks of what will happen on EQ2X with rares for sale, lower the rare percentage for more sales of $C rares.</p><p>How long has RaF been out and working this way?</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF grind on a normal day is so-so.  After a while I would get sick of the monotony of grinding and go back to choke a few more quests down.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah same here.  With RAF and my 90 in POA i was only pulling 2 aa an hour.  I suffered through it for my 244-250 on my main but couldn't even<em> stomach</em> that for my 84/164.  Every time I heard about uber leveling 12/250 and "got around to checking it" the door had already been shut.</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It also smacks of what will happen on EQ2X with rares for sale, lower the rare percentage for more sales of $C rares.</p></blockquote><p>I was talking to my crafting gf on this one.  She (and I) is concerned that the current "low" rare rates at endgame were tested on live to get a working supply/demand level tuned for eq2x. </p><p>I have a feeling that rares will be more profitable than MC armor on eq2 x....  Which is probably why they severely cracked down on the bot farmers on live to "test" their banning efficiency so they'll be in complete control of their product on eq2x.</p><p>If that is true, now that you have your data can you adjust the endgame rare rate on live to be a little more friendly or let the botters back on live since you don't plan on SC rares for live till we get merged to eq2x?</p>

[Grumble69]

<p><cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The RAF grind on a normal day is so-so.  After a while I would get sick of the monotony of grinding and go back to choke a few more quests down.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah same here.  With RAF and my 90 in POA i was only pulling 2 aa an hour.  I suffered through it for my 244-250 on my main but couldn't even<em> stomach</em> that for my 84/164.  Every time I heard about uber leveling 12/250 and "got around to checking it" the door had already been shut.</p></blockquote><p>I couldn't even get the AA that quick (maybe an AA every 45-60min), but I didn't have a well equipped char for it either.  Also, about the time I heard of the RAF grind, the news had started to spread.  The grind spots on CB server started to become popular and I had a hard time getting full benefit from them.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Seiffil@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Just so I can understand for my own purposes, the way it works now is if you had a RAF and a 100% EXP potion, and say the 50% exp bonus for 5+ max characters and vitality bonus,  On a 100 xp mob, you get the 100  base + 300 from RAF + 100 From potion + 100 from vitality + 50 from max level bonus resulting in 650 xp from one kill?  Where as before it would have gone 100 x 300% x 200% x 200% x 150% resulting in a gain of 1800 xp?</p></blockquote><p>Although a red name has yet to state this, I believe you are correct. All bonuses should be applying to the original BASE amount and then summed up. Previously it appears that multiple bonuses were being applied to the previous sum in the chain of bonuses.</p></blockquote><p>That is what Water's stated.... But I dont think it is correct.</p>

[SmokeJumper]

<p>-</p>

[Vinyard]

<p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[BlueEternal]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Smart edit imo.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Can you clue some of us in? Even if it is a paraphrase?</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>I want to know what it said <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[BlueEternal]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Can you clue some of us in? Even if it is a paraphrase?</p></blockquote><p>He said "See? No evil intentions at all <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />"</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Nariox@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Can you clue some of us in? Even if it is a paraphrase?</p></blockquote><p>He said "See? No evil intentions at all <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />"</p></blockquote><p>Rats. I was hoping it might have been something addressing the possibility of increasing AA gain.</p>

[Laenai]

<p><cite>Nariox@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>He said "See? No evil intentions at all <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />"</p></blockquote><p>I think if I rolled my eyes any harder, they'd pop out of my head.</p><p>You're right. The edit is better.</p>

[BlueEternal]

<p>When I look at the direction of the game, I lol at his comment.</p>

[Melanchol]

<p><cite>Nariox@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>When I look at the direction of the game, I lol at his comment.</p></blockquote><p>lol... this.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>I don't think his intentions are evil.  They just should have been handled a lot better.  If he's going to stir up the monkeys, he at least needs to give em a banana.</p>

[Jesdyr]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> If he's going to stir up the monkeys, he at least needs to give em a banana.</p></blockquote><p>Actually .. I am kinda sick of getting the banana from SOE ...</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>1) I couldn't even get the AA that quick (maybe an AA every 45-60min), </p><p>2) The grind spots on CB server started to become popular and I had a hard time getting full benefit from them.</p></blockquote><p>I feel your pain... Let me clarify a little more:</p><p>1) My 90/244 inq was getting 2AA/hr RAF-in in POA with no competition for mob spawns during peak raid times on CB. My 84/164 Wiz averaged more like 1.3 AA/hr since he killed slower when mentored to 75 than the Inq did even when there was no competition because of power & lack of<em> spike</em> dps ouput. </p><p>2) Yeah I tested many zones and if you're over 160 or 200 AA POA is the only place to be with RAF.  Unfortunately you have to be on during raid times (not raiding) and farming AA xp in there.  Also if you on a slower killin character others may mow over your xp farm mobs i.e. my inq killed faster than my wiz and I had to wait a lot more on the wiz for mobs to pop that were killed by others than the inq who never was hosed by others farmin.</p><p>I hope this "step" in the right direction on RAF trick will be taken one more and the AA gain rate will be adjusted so 2 hours of RL time either questin or killin gets the same amount.  It's just hard to want to quest for inconsistent gains when you can "calculate" how long you have to kill X to get to point Y.</p><p>I mean they dumbed the graphics to WOW, why not just dumb the AA to match the current level curve?  Let's not forget how much vocal dissention there was over impossible AA progression this past year.</p>

[Shizune]

<p>If something gets messed up due to a mistake, please own up to your mistakes and fix it. Thats really all we're looking for but all this lying and misleading has to stop.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> If he's going to stir up the monkeys, he at least needs to give em a banana.</p></blockquote><p>Actually .. I am kinda sick of getting the banana from SOE ...</p></blockquote><p>Double entendre for the win. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Grumble69]

<p>Heh, there's some sage old advice on that subject from GySgt Hartman (Full Metal Jacket).  But I can't post that here.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Nariox@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-</p></blockquote><p>/highfive for what you said before the edit <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Can you clue some of us in? Even if it is a paraphrase?</p></blockquote><p>He said "See? No evil intentions at all <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />"</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">I think legacy servers need F2P-lite as I've been vying for, to truly be on a justified, fair plane with EQ2X.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">While intentions may not be evil, risking accidents can be evil! =[</span></p><p><div><p><cite>Seliri@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">RAF doesn't need to be nerfed if you guys aren't going to make a F2P-lite version for all legacy servers given that the trial is abolished.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means no "robust" Station Cash marketplace with more "convenience" items.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means the </span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><em><span style="color: #ffcc00;">Gold</span></em></strong></span></span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><strong><em></em></strong><span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;">plan gets all races and server access.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">F2P-lite means </span><span><span style="color: #ffff00;"><em><strong><span style="color: #e0e0e0;">Platinum</span></strong></em></span></span><span style="color: #ff0000;"> subscribers don't have to purchase expansion access every year or have a stipend of Station Cash forced onto them without appropriate bulk discounts, and it also means they get all server access.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Don't include SC to weight the rate unless there's a bulk discount of 50%, or 1K SC/mo instead of 10% discounted 500 SC/mo.</span></p></blockquote></div></p>

[Thistleknot]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p></blockquote><p>I'm confused by this... especially after todays update of making the vitality bonus 200%.</p><p>So if I have a 200% vitality bonus, and I RAF, which gives 300%. Instead of getting a 500% bonus, I just get the RAF 300%... fine. Does that mean I don't lose vitality either, since if I do, I'm effectively "wasting" that bonus, since it's not giving me any benefit?</p><p>Also, how does this apply to the bonus XP from max level characters. You say it's going  up to 200%, but will that stack with vitality, or overlap it? Same with XP potions... will they stack with the max level bonus?</p><p>We basically need to know how all the various xp buffs work with each other, because otherwise we end up wasting vitality, xp potions, etc on a bonus we never get.</p>

[Aaramis]

<p>No mention of this in the hotfix notes for today - can anyone confirm if this was fixed?</p>

[Valentina]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Lamatu wrote:</cite></p> <blockquote><p><span>Sounds to me like another scheme to get players to not roll on live servers.</span></p></blockquote><p>The experience formula is identical on live and extended servers, so if it is a scheme it's probably not getting us into the evil mastermind hall of fame.</p></blockquote><p>Awesome reply.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[MoralBeliefs]

<p>forgive my newbness ...what is POA? zone?</p>

[S_M_I_T_E]

<p><cite>MoralBeliefs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>forgive my newbness ...what is POA? zone?</p></blockquote><p>Palace of Awakening</p><p>Zone</p><p>mid 60's low 70 mobs</p><p>Shared Dungeon</p><p>Kingdom of Sky Expansion Pack</p><p>Barren Sky Overworld Zone is where the entrance is at for POA</p>

[Stubbswick]

<p><cite>Thistleknot wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>RAF bonuses give +300% experience now, regardless of how you use it.  So if you and your girlfriend kill a 100 xp monster, you'll get 100 + 300 = 400 xp.  So every single monster you kill is as good as killing four monsters.  This is a solid bonus, and well worth using.  If you and your girlfriend used experience potions or always had full vitality, you probably got a bigger RAF bonus before this game update.  If the RAF bonus was the main experience boost you used to use, then you'll get about the same bonus now. </p><p>The main situation where the RAF bonus took a big hit is for players who stacked a large number of experience bonuses.  If you used to play with RAF + experience potions + mentoring bonus + full vitality + max level characters on your account, then you're going to see a drop in your experience per kill.  If you played with RAF + vitality, it won't be a big change.</p></blockquote><p>I'm confused by this... especially after todays update of making the vitality bonus 200%.</p><p>So if I have a 200% vitality bonus, and I RAF, which gives 300%. Instead of getting a 500% bonus, I just get the RAF 300%... fine. Does that mean I don't lose vitality either, since if I do, I'm effectively "wasting" that bonus, since it's not giving me any benefit?</p><p>Also, how does this apply to the bonus XP from max level characters. You say it's going  up to 200%, but will that stack with vitality, or overlap it? Same with XP potions... will they stack with the max level bonus?</p><p>We basically need to know how all the various xp buffs work with each other, because otherwise we end up wasting vitality, xp potions, etc on a bonus we never get.</p></blockquote><p>No, basically the change makes bonuses additive instead of multiplicative.  Before, a 200% (2x) vitality bonus and a 300% (3x) RAF bonus would have given you 600% (6x) bonus.  Now, it gives you a 500% bonus.  That's not a huge change, but when you start adding things beyond that.  Say you had a 50% bonus for max level characters... now you would have 5.5x the normal.  Before you would have had 9x (6 x 1.5, if my math is right).  If it was a double exp weekend, you will now have something like 7.5x the normal with all those bonuses, versus 18x with the old way.</p><p>My math is probably wrong in there somewhere, but you get the idea.</p><p>I always assumed it was additive... that makes the most sense.</p>

[Iamken]

<p>Did this get fixed today? I did not see it in the update notes.</p>

[Farrudanu]

<p>I don't know if this has been mentioned but, the XP nerf is because of the added very large SC button SOE added yesterday.</p><p>Thank you SOE for the crap GU.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Xtera@Oasis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't know if this has been mentioned but, the XP nerf is because of the added very large SC button SOE added yesterday.</p><p>Thank you SOE for the crap GU.</p></blockquote><p>Wrong. Please actually read the developer responses. Anyone that saw people leveling on that 100% XP bonus day with RAF, potions, etc. saw how broken the system was. Bonuses like that need to add not multiply or things get out of hand quickly.</p>

[Eryn Bo'beryn]

<p>Assuming your changes aren't already fixing this... can you address the way AA is earned at level 90?  I keep hearing that a lot of people lock exp at 89 to grind out AA's since you lose vitality at 90 and that just seems awful silly after you've come so far.</p><p>Thanks <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Transen]

<p><cite>Eryn Boberyn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span><p>Assuming your changes aren't already fixing this... can you address the way AA is earned at level 90?  I keep hearing that a lot of people lock exp at 89 to grind out AA's since you lose vitality at 90 and that just seems awful silly after you've come so far.</p><p>Thanks <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p></span></blockquote><p>Was responded to on page 9:</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=120&topic_id=484774#5393715" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...=484774#5393715</a></p><p>[Editted: Wrong link]</p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p>

[Thundy]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>While that change is certainly appreciated (thanks), it all depends on how fast Vitality burns at max level. If it just dissipates in an hour it seems like another ploy to sell SC potions. Maybe that's a little conspiritorial (I made that word up) but you guys brought that on yourselves.</p><p>I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p>

[Kraqen]

<p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>While that change is certainly appreciated (thanks), it all depends on how fast Vitality burns at max level. If it just dissipates in an hour it seems like another ploy to sell SC potions. Maybe that's a little conspiritorial (I made that word up) but you guys brought that on yourselves.</p><p>I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>Players : Dev can you change this mechanic to allow this thing?</p><p>Dev: I dunno, let me check.  Sure sounds like a great idea.</p><p>Dev: Good news, we can and will make the change you asked for!</p><p>Players : AHA!  Caught you!!! Another ploy to force me to pay for potions!!! So glad my sub is up next week!!!!  Dev just wants to make money like this is his job or something!</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Thundy]

<p>I don't personally plan on cancelling any time soon. I have also spent a good amount on SC potions for AA grinding, so really, I'm a great customer <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Ulrazaj]

<p><cite>Kraqen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><p>Players : Dev can you change this mechanic to allow this thing?</p><p>Dev: I dunno, let me check.  Sure sounds like a great idea.</p><p>Dev: Good news, we can and will make the change you asked for!</p><p>Players : AHA!  Caught you!!! Another ploy to force me to pay for potions!!! So glad my sub is up next week!!!!  Dev just wants to make money like this is his job or something!</p></blockquote><p>He is already employed, making money, asking for more money to give the same or poorer service is what we have a problem with.  Having SC thrown in my face at every turn is poorer service in my opinion, so much so I'm considering cancelling my account so that they don't get the money they're already giving.  Get'n $15 a month, asking for $30-$45 a month, resulting in $0 a month!  Power to the consumers!</p>

[Kraqen]

<p><cite>Ulrazaj wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>He is already employed, making money, asking for more money to give the same or poorer service is what we have a problem with.  Having SC thrown in my face at every turn is poorer service in my opinion, so much so I'm considering cancelling my account so that they don't get the money they're already giving.  Get'n $15 a month, asking for $30-$45 a month, resulting in $0 a month!  Power to the consumers!</p></blockquote><p>Witch is fine an dandy, and while I truely don't understand why an extra little button on your screen would make this big of an issue, I am sorry that it is something that is removing you from your preffered game / hobby (not being snarky here).  I just don't see what is in the marketplace right now that you feel you would need to buy to maintain your current gaming experience.</p><p>But that's beside the point, my post you quoted was more about the 'tinfoil hat' crowd that is rampant on these boards.</p><p>Oh, and Thundy seems like he took it with a sense of humor <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Kenban]

<p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>While that change is certainly appreciated (thanks), it all depends on how fast Vitality burns at max level. If it just dissipates in an hour it seems like another ploy to sell SC potions. Maybe that's a little conspiritorial (I made that word up) but you guys brought that on yourselves.</p><p>I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>Unless something has been done to make a player burn vitality faster I never have had an issue with it near max level.  I have only been able to use up my vitality on lower level toons.</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>Fixing vitality (for AA gain at cap) is a GREAT change, and I thank you.(for those who do not know, vitality which gives you double xp stops when you reach level cap, so for combat xp converted to AA not at cap, you get 1/2 as much. Its why you see people stop xp at 89.9)</p><p>Also fixing the RaF proper and completely legal use to gain AA faster is also understandable.</p><p>Both above are fine... I just want to point out to you Waters and to your lame boss that it is still VERY TELLING that the above problems existed for quite some time and only were able to be responded to (much less fixed) when it finally bumped into $ony's pre-arranged current plan.</p><p>When it was just existing customers complaining about an issue it was ignored.</p><p>AS SOON as it was a side-effect of your new 'free-to-play' model changes, it was addressed within hours.</p><p>I guess its a case of the right thing for the wrong reasons... Its like I can count on my problems being fixed, as long as I can wait until you screw me again.</p><p>A bitter-sweet victory... whatever.  Its good, but it still isn't good, but thanks anyways... I think.</p>

[MurFalad]

<p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>While that change is certainly appreciated (thanks), it all depends on how fast Vitality burns at max level. If it just dissipates in an hour it seems like another ploy to sell SC potions. Maybe that's a little conspiritorial (I made that word up) but you guys brought that on yourselves.</p><p>I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>That's only true for power levelling, for me (and I hope most of the player base) the easiest way to earn AA is to play the game, it should also be the most fun way too or there is something seriously wrong.</p><p>And secondly with the current mechanic encouraging people to level lock at 89 doesn't vitality get used up anyway?  If so then this change is just a pure improvement (thanks Waters for fixing this unfortunate game mechanic, and thus saving players from themselves!).</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Fixing vitality (for AA gain at cap) is a GREAT change, and I thank you.(for those who do not know, vitality which gives you double xp stops when you reach level cap, so for combat xp converted to AA not at cap, you get 1/2 as much. Its why you see people stop xp at 89.9)</p><p>Also fixing the RaF proper and completely legal use to gain AA faster is also understandable.</p><p>Both above are fine... I just want to point out to you Waters and to your lame boss that it is still VERY TELLING that the above problems existed for quite some time and only were able to be responded to (much less fixed) when it finally bumped into $ony's pre-arranged current plan.</p><p>When it was just existing customers complaining about an issue it was ignored.</p><p>AS SOON as it was a side-effect of your new 'free-to-play' model changes, it was addressed within hours.</p><p>I guess its a case of the right thing for the wrong reasons... Its like I can count on my problems being fixed, as long as I can wait until you screw me again.</p><p>A bitter-sweet victory... whatever.  Its good, but it still isn't good, but thanks anyways... I think.</p></blockquote><p>Actually it doesn't have to be because of EQ2X. The issue became most evident during the 100% XP bonus weekend, and this GU was the first GU after that, meaning that its very likely the code change resulted from what they saw that weekend.</p>

[Terron]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Thanks for the feedback and information on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It helped us narrow the problem down more quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">A few key points, if you don't read the whole post:</span></p> <ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">We don't plan to slow down the average player's experience gain at all.  This is true whether you use experience potions or not.</span></strong></li></ul></blockquote><p>That is a pity, but understandable.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Before today's game update, the experience gain rate was where we wanted it in most situations.  </span></li></ul></blockquote><p>It is faster than I would prefer.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Bonus experience weekends will give +100% experience in the future.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Mentoring bonuses were doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Potions (veteran rewards, LoN, and station cash) were all doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Max level character bonus is going up from 10% to 20% per character, and we're increasing it to work with up to ten max level characters. (+200% bonus from the previous cap of 50%)</span></li></ul> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So that's a lot of details, but what does it mean to your experience gain now compared to last week?  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">After this week's hotfix, you will gain experience as fast, or slightly faster than you used to if you play exactly the same way. </span></strong></p></blockquote><p>Slight faster is bad. I would prefer slower.</p><p>I almost always have vitality. I sometimes mentor. There is no way to avoid bonus experience weekends except by not playing.</p><p>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up to spend more time at cap which is less fun.</p><p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which can not be avoided.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Thanks for the feedback and information on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It helped us narrow the problem down more quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">A few key points, if you don't read the whole post:</span></p><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">We don't plan to slow down the average player's experience gain at all.  This is true whether you use experience potions or not.</span></strong></li></ul></blockquote><p>That is a pity, but understandable.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Before today's game update, the experience gain rate was where we wanted it in most situations.  </span></li></ul></blockquote><p>It is faster than I would prefer.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Bonus experience weekends will give +100% experience in the future.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Mentoring bonuses were doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Potions (veteran rewards, LoN, and station cash) were all doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Max level character bonus is going up from 10% to 20% per character, and we're increasing it to work with up to ten max level characters. (+200% bonus from the previous cap of 50%)</span></li></ul><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So that's a lot of details, but what does it mean to your experience gain now compared to last week?  </span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">After this week's hotfix, you will gain experience as fast, or slightly faster than you used to if you play exactly the same way. </span></strong></p></blockquote><p>Slight faster is bad. I would prefer slower.</p><p>I almost always have vitality. I sometimes mentor. There is no way to avoid bonus experience weekends except by not playing.</p><p>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up to spend more time at cap which is less fun.</p><p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which can not be avoided.</p></blockquote><p>Please don't listen to this guy Devs. We appreciate the as fast or slightly faster exp.</p><p>To the poster, end game is where most people want to be. If you don't... turn off your exp.</p>

[EQPrime]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Slight faster is bad. I would prefer slower.</p><p>I almost always have vitality. I sometimes mentor. There is no way to avoid bonus experience weekends except by not playing.</p><p>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up to spend more time at cap which is less fun.</p><p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which can not be avoided.</p></blockquote><p>I'm pretty sure you are in the minority in regards to wanting to level more slowly.  There's an easy fix - just turn off combat experience.  You can also leave your slider set at 99% or whatever and level as slowly as you'd like.</p>

[Deson]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't listen to this guy Devs. We appreciate the as fast or slightly faster exp.</p><p>To the poster, end game is where most people want to be. If you don't... turn off your exp.</p></blockquote><p> They only want to be there because the rest of the game has been turned into a wasteland by inadvertent design decisions. XP rate, as much as I hate to admit it, is at least part of that.</p>

[Kizee]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Thanks for the feedback and information on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It helped us narrow the problem down more quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">A few key points, if you don't read the whole post:</span></p> <ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">We don't plan to slow down the average player's experience gain at all.  This is true whether you use experience potions or not.</span></strong></li></ul></blockquote><p>That is a pity, but understandable.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Before today's game update, the experience gain rate was where we wanted it in most situations.  </span></li></ul></blockquote><p>It is faster than I would prefer.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Bonus experience weekends will give +100% experience in the future.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Mentoring bonuses were doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Potions (veteran rewards, LoN, and station cash) were all doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Max level character bonus is going up from 10% to 20% per character, and we're increasing it to work with up to ten max level characters. (+200% bonus from the previous cap of 50%)</span></li></ul> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So that's a lot of details, but what does it mean to your experience gain now compared to last week?  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">After this week's hotfix, you will gain experience as fast, or slightly faster than you used to if you play exactly the same way. </span></strong></p></blockquote><p>Slight faster is bad. I would prefer slower.</p><p>I almost always have vitality. I sometimes mentor. There is no way to avoid bonus experience weekends except by not playing.</p><p>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up to spend more time at cap which is less fun.</p><p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which can not be avoided.</p></blockquote><p>Use the tools they put in for people like you then. Turn off the bonus exp or just turn off exp altogether. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Deson wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't listen to this guy Devs. We appreciate the as fast or slightly faster exp.</p><p>To the poster, end game is where most people want to be. If you don't... turn off your exp.</p></blockquote><p> They only want to be there because the rest of the game has been turned into a wasteland by inadvertent design decisions. XP rate, as much as I hate to admit it, is at least part of that.</p></blockquote><p>That doesn't make my statement any less true though. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Excellent!  Thank you for providing a light at the end of the 250 grindy tunnel!</span></p>

[Munu]

<p>I logged on my RaF account today to see exactly what was/is changing.</p><p>I have 3 lvl 90 characters on my account and have been using the RaF to grind aas on my lvl 80 SK.</p><p>When I hover over my xp bar stood right beside my RaF toon I see the following bonuses</p><p>"Vitality Bonus: you recieve double the amout of Xp"</p><p>No mention of bonuses for my 3 lvl 90 toons.</p><p>I understand how you want to change the RaF bonus, and it is now working as intended, so I didn't expect to see any RaF bonus and I wasn't mentored to her level.</p><p>So... I then mentored to her level (lvl5) to see if I could aquire the RaF bonus.</p><p>When I hovered over the xp bar I got these bonuses:</p><p>"Vitality Bonus: you recieve double the amout of Xp"</p><p>"You are earning 100% less XP due to being a mentor"</p><p>Still no metion of my 3 lvl 90 chars, still no mention of a RaF bonus.</p><p>Is this a display error? Or is it still broken in some way?</p><p>I agree that RaF was needing a fix and it sounds like you have made the correct fix, stopping the botting of it (myself included here) but keeping the real benifits for new players and their friends as intended. But atm either your xp bar isn't dislpaying the correct bonuses, or the correct bonuses aren't being applied to my account.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Now only to incorporate the</span> <strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">List of 30 Principles EverQuest Next Should Abide by</span></strong> <span style="color: #ff6600;">(see: link in my signature) in case the EQN team doesn't get it done...</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Also, thanks on this final inclusion and revamp to vitality, mega plus for the uncapped newblets abound! =P</span></p>

[Grumble69]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but vitality doesn't effect quest xp.  Sure, if a max level is grinding mobs for AA, having that vitality will make it go a little faster.  But with the overall changes you've made to xp, I don't think you're going to see many people trying to get their AA that route.  It's a nice token fix, but you're not getting at the root of the issue.  I'm hoping it's not going to take you guys until GU58 to figure this out.</p><p>We're not talking about some subtle adjustment.  You're grossly off the mark with regards to AA gain.  The only reason why people are grinding for AA is that they're so utterly exhausted repeating the same stinking quests from minimal gain.  It was a problem in TSO.  And became even bigger in SF.  Repeatedly doing missions for AA can be a little fun if you're doing it for one primary character.  It sucks hardcore though when you have to do it on your alts.</p><p>I'm not sure why this is such a hard concept to grasp.</p>

[Ragnaroeker1]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, is the current quest exp bugged? Just did a quest in Sundered Frontier (Feathers for Peace of Heart ) at level 83, and it gave me only 1% exp.</p><p>AA slider is at 0%</p></blockquote><p>We're still checking for a bug on this - examples like this one give us something to look at specifically, so thanks for posting it. </p><p>If anyone is seeing a situation where you feel like you're getting less experience today than you did last week, please post the details here or PM me with them.  Helpful info would be:</p><ul><li>Your level and how your AA slider is set</li><li>Info about the monster you killed or the quest you did, and what zone you were in</li><li>Whether you had vitality and any experience bonuses</li></ul><p>Thanks!</p></blockquote><p>Thanks for the answer.  I guess I'll have to change my plans on leveling my monk until something is confirmed.</p></blockquote><p>I have read this over many times. If I am comprehending what your questions actually boil down to... plain and simple...these questions are telling us that the application of any  XP bonus can possibly vary with the mobs, quests and zones we are adventuring in.  <></p><p>Okay, I know we are aware of how the con of quests, heroic instances, level and ^^^ status of mobs etc, come into play in XP gain.  (I will refer to these mechanics as "con variables".) So, how can that have changed to create a bug or glitch or whatever we are calliing it this week?  Am I missing something or is it possible you just implied the following:</p><p>In referencing your above post, the game has come to a point where it is left to chance and luck as to a player's reward for equal effort.  For example: If two groups can be the same level, in equally conned zones and all else being held statically equivalent, one group might recieve a better return on their investment.</p><p>Please someone prove me an idiot, I beg of you!</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>Ragnaroeker1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>...</cite>Okay, I know we are aware of how the con of quests, heroic instances, level and ^^^ status of mobs etc, come into play in XP gain.  (I will refer to these mechanics as "con variables".) So, how can that have changed to create a bug or glitch or whatever we are calliing it this week?  Am I missing something or is it possible you just implied the following:</p><p>In referencing your above post, the game has come to a point where it is left to chance and luck as to a player's reward for equal effort.  For example: If two groups can be the same level, in equally conned zones and all else being held statically equivalent, one group might recieve a better return on their investment.</p><p>Please someone prove me an idiot, I beg of you!</p></blockquote><p>Actually, a mob is worth X xp regardless of who kills it (except if its 'red' where they put in a 'punishment' variable).  So color, heroic, level, ^^^ do not matter for XP, its what that mob was tagged with by a developer.  While ^^^ 'should' be more than a ^, it isn't necessarily true.</p><p>So that mob in SoS is worth 100xp points no matter who kills it or how it 'cons'.  (Yes, I made up 100)</p>

[Ragnaroeker1]

<p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ragnaroeker1 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>...</cite>Okay, I know we are aware of how the con of quests, heroic instances, level and ^^^ status of mobs etc, come into play in XP gain.  (I will refer to these mechanics as "con variables".) So, how can that have changed to create a bug or glitch or whatever we are calliing it this week?  Am I missing something or is it possible you just implied the following:</p><p>In referencing your above post, the game has come to a point where it is left to chance and luck as to a player's reward for equal effort.  For example: If two groups can be the same level, in equally conned zones and all else being held statically equivalent, one group might recieve a better return on their investment.</p><p>Please someone prove me an idiot, I beg of you!</p></blockquote><p>Actually, a mob is worth X xp regardless of who kills it (except if its 'red' where they put in a 'punishment' variable).  So color, heroic, level, ^^^ do not matter for XP, its what that mob was tagged with by a developer.  While ^^^ 'should' be more than a ^, it isn't necessarily true.</p><p>So that mob in SoS is worth 100xp points no matter who kills it or how it 'cons'.  (Yes, I made up 100)</p></blockquote><p>Thank you so much. I think I should probably go ahead and admit that I should have stated "I know that we are all aware, except for me, ..."</p><p>I also would like to comment that I appreciate the responses from Waters, and I know I am sarcastic, not an excuse, just a fact.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>Further, the same applies to AA XP.  If a quest is worth "100" AA XP, it makes no difference whether you complete that quest gray or orange, you still get the 100 AA XP.</p><p>Now, how much (in percentage) of an AA point that 100 AA XP is worth varies greatly depending on whether you have 1 AA or 249 AA.  At 1 AA, that 100 AA XP might be 50% of an AA point, while at 249 AA, that 100 AA XP probably wouldn't even register.</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Thanks for the feedback and information on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>It helped us narrow the problem down more quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">A few key points, if you don't read the whole post:</span></p> <ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">We don't plan to slow down the average player's experience gain at all.  This is true whether you use experience potions or not.</span></strong></li></ul></blockquote><p>That is a pity, but understandable.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Before today's game update, the experience gain rate was where we wanted it in most situations.  </span></li></ul></blockquote><p>It is faster than I would prefer.</p><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Vitality is going to give +200% experience, up from 100%.</span><ul type="disc"><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Bonus experience weekends will give +100% experience in the future.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Mentoring bonuses were doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Potions (veteran rewards, LoN, and station cash) were all doubled.</span></li><li style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Max level character bonus is going up from 10% to 20% per character, and we're increasing it to work with up to ten max level characters. (+200% bonus from the previous cap of 50%)</span></li></ul> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So that's a lot of details, but what does it mean to your experience gain now compared to last week?  </span></p> <p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">After this week's hotfix, you will gain experience as fast, or slightly faster than you used to if you play exactly the same way. </span></strong></p></blockquote><p>Slight faster is bad. I would prefer slower.</p><p>I almost always have vitality. I sometimes mentor. There is no way to avoid bonus experience weekends except by not playing.</p><p>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up to spend more time at cap which is less fun.</p><p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which can not be avoided.</p></blockquote><p>can't be avoided? I"ve got 4 toons who are at 25 and have been doing level 15-25 quests without outleveling them. jsut slide the aa bar all the way to the right</p>

[Alvane]

<p>I read the OPs statements, and I think I understand, but I'm not seeing it in action. So, I presume it's still on a hot fix status.</p><p>Yesterday, a friend and I assisted me with some mob killing for quests in JW. The character of mine is an 81 defiler with 206AAs. His character is a 90 Pallly with 250AAs. He mentored me but there is such little difference between 81 and 90, however, the idea what to see what would happen.</p><p>I do not use potions or any add ons. In 3 hours of killing blues, whites and yellows (including heroic general, mega shark, names in Skyfire, etc), I gained 2 AAs and 3% Adventure XP. Oh, I set my AA slider to 40%, so only 40% of combat kills should have gone to AA.</p><p>I don't keep records about how much I earn in XP/AA with type mob, etc., but I do know something wasn't cricket. All quests I was doing gave faction and XP, but only a few actually gave AA (besides the starred names) upon turn in.</p><p>So, I'm assuming the 2AAs I earned against 3% XP with the slider set at 40% is one of the bugs that remain to be fixed since I am definately earning XP at a very very slow rate. My character is still a level 81 defiler but now has 208AAs.</p><p>Perhaps SoE adjusted things in order for peeps to gain AAs faster since the ratio at level 90 is 2.78AAs to 1XP. Or perhaps a hotfix is still in the offering. Idk.</p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Portree@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I logged on my RaF account today to see exactly what was/is changing.</p><p>I have 3 lvl 90 characters on my account and have been using the RaF to grind aas on my lvl 80 SK.</p><p>When I hover over my xp bar stood right beside my RaF toon I see the following bonuses</p><p>"Vitality Bonus: you recieve double the amout of Xp"</p><p>No mention of bonuses for my 3 lvl 90 toons.</p><p>So... I then mentored to her level (lvl5) to see if I could aquire the RaF bonus.</p><p>When I hovered over the xp bar I got these bonuses:</p><p>"Vitality Bonus: you recieve double the amout of Xp"</p><p>"You are earning 100% less XP due to being a mentor"</p><p>Still no metion of my 3 lvl 90 chars, still no mention of a RaF bonus.</p><p>Is this a display error? Or is it still broken in some way?</p><p>I agree that RaF was needing a fix and it sounds like you have made the correct fix, stopping the botting of it (myself included here) but keeping the real benifits for new players and their friends as intended. But atm either your xp bar isn't dislpaying the correct bonuses, or the correct bonuses aren't being applied to my account.</p></blockquote><p>I just double checked this on live servers, and got the correct RAF tooltip and max level character bonus tooltip when I hovered over the experience bar.  If you're using a UI mod, you could make sure that's updated.  You should also check to be sure your RAF account hasn't expired - I believe those last 90 days.</p><p>PM me if you continue to have this problem, and we'll see if we can figure it out.</p>

[Kardokis]

<p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>That's only true for power levelling, for me (and I hope most of the player base) the easiest way to earn AA is to play the game, it should also be the most fun way too or there is something seriously wrong.</p></blockquote><p>I'm beginning to think the AA slider was a really bad idea.  As much as I wanted it, all it seems to be doing is encouraging people to skip the game.  Looking at the original ways to earn it, they clearly wanted to reward you for going out and experiencing Norrath, not sitting in Firemyst Gully at level 70 cranking out AoEs until your AA is maxed.</p>

[Dreadpatch]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">With today’s game update, we’ve made a change to Recruit-a-Friend experience bonuses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>We should’ve included this in the update notes - it was an oversight that it wasn’t listed and I’m very sorry that happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">The goal for the Recruit-a-Friend program was for players to invite their friends, help them level up faster to play with their main characters, and to give the recruiter a bit of bonus experience as well.  If you were playing with your friend, you both gained three times normal experience.  </span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">In retrospect, we should've put a couple of rules on this - you and your friend's characters should be in roughly the same level range, even if you need to mentor down to their level to get the bonus.  You and your friend should also be in the same area, like you would be if you were playing the game together.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Unfortunately, we didn't put these limitations on the Recruit-a-Friend experience bonus, so some players recruited themselves, logged in a level one "friend" on a second computer, and left them parked at the zone line while they got triple experience on their main character.  </span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">Clearly not what we'd hoped for, and with the way the old experience calculation worked, giving triple experience on top of the other bonus made experience gain so easy it was silly - stacking bonuses could give up to 25 times normal experience in some situations.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">The new experience calculation still gives triple experience for killing a monster, but now killing a 100 point monster gives +300 bonus points.  It doesn't multiply all the other experience bonuses you have by three like it used to.  This is still a nice boost, and if you're playing with a friend it's certainly worth doing. </span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">I know many of you feel that earning AA experience is too slow, and that's why some players used the Recruit-a-Friend bonus to power up their main character.  We are taking a look at how you earn AA experience, and plan to improve that in the future.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">- Rich</span></p></p></blockquote><p>A cool way to earn additional aa at higher levels is to have new quests, zones with new names, and zones with new disco.  Something that we got none of with this GU.  I just figured I throw a new idea out there.</p>

[Alenna]

<p><cite>Kardokis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>That's only true for power levelling, for me (and I hope most of the player base) the easiest way to earn AA is to play the game, it should also be the most fun way too or there is something seriously wrong.</p></blockquote><p>I'm beginning to think<strong> the AA slider</strong> was a really bad idea.  As much as I wanted it, all it seems to be doing is encouraging people to skip the game.  Looking at the original ways to earn it, <strong>they clearly wanted to reward you for going out and experiencing Norrath</strong>, not sitting in Firemyst Gully at level 70 cranking out AoEs until your AA is maxed.</p></blockquote><p>Answering what I bolded That is how I'm using it  the AAs are just a bonus.</p>

[Keikoku]

<p>So... what's the actual formula when it comes to recruit a friend xp?  How's it all stack up?</p>

[bmg]

<p><cite>Kardokis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...I hope this isn't the only step to rectifying the fact that if you have a level 90 with low AA the easiest way to fix it was to simply re-roll them and attach an RAF to them.</p></blockquote><p>That's only true for power levelling, for me (and I hope most of the player base) the easiest way to earn AA is to play the game, it should also be the most fun way too or there is something seriously wrong.</p></blockquote><p>I'm beginning to think the AA slider was a really bad idea.  As much as I wanted it, all it seems to be doing is encouraging people to skip the game.  Looking at the original ways to earn it, they clearly wanted to reward you for going out and experiencing Norrath, not sitting in Firemyst Gully at level 70 cranking out AoEs until your AA is maxed.</p></blockquote><p>Do you not realize that some of us have "experienced" the game 6-7 times already?? When I leveled up my warlock to 80/200 just before SF I did it all again, several thousand quests and most of the zones. For the last 3 recent toons I've just used the "grinding" method. I can't face doing all the old content over again. Maybe in another year or so I'll feel like "experiencing" all the old content again, but I've done it all too darn many times already. You play the game the way you want to and I'll do the same.</p>

[TheSpin]

<p><cite>Haldaron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So... what's the actual formula when it comes to recruit a friend xp?  How's it all stack up?</p></blockquote><p>I think basically everything is determined seperately rather than cumulatively.</p><p>So if base is 1000 xp you get:</p><p>Base                        1000</p><p>Vitality (200%)      +2000 </p><p>Potion (110%)      +1100</p><p>RAF    (400%)       +4000</p><p>________________________</p><p>Total                       8100</p><p>Under the old system all of the + signs would be changed to multiplication signs.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Lenarr@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Do you not realize that some of us have "experienced" the game 6-7 times already?? When I leveled up my warlock to 80/200 just before SF I did it all again, several thousand quests and most of the zones. For the last 3 recent toons I've just used the "grinding" method. I can't face doing all the old content over again. Maybe in another year or so I'll feel like "experiencing" all the old content again, but I've done it all too darn many times already. You play the game the way you want to and I'll do the same.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I'm working on my 4th 90, and that was by questing the moldy old stuff yet again, "experiencing" the same old stuff like a broken record on groundhog day - now all I have left is the grind to get my AAs up.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I almost wish I had used the RAF bug to shortcut the tedium...</span></p>

[Grumble69]

<p><cite>Lenarr@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kardokis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm beginning to think the AA slider was a really bad idea.  As much as I wanted it, all it seems to be doing is encouraging people to skip the game.  Looking at the original ways to earn it, they clearly wanted to reward you for going out and experiencing Norrath, not sitting in Firemyst Gully at level 70 cranking out AoEs until your AA is maxed.</p></blockquote><p>Do you not realize that some of us have "experienced" the game 6-7 times already?? When I leveled up my warlock to 80/200 just before SF I did it all again, several thousand quests and most of the zones. For the last 3 recent toons I've just used the "grinding" method. I can't face doing all the old content over again. Maybe in another year or so I'll feel like "experiencing" all the old content again, but I've done it all too darn many times already. You play the game the way you want to and I'll do the same.</p></blockquote><p>QFE</p><p>You can do most of the major quest lines in ALL of the expansions and still end up very short of 250AAs.  One of my characters (not my main) is at around 83/165ish.  He hasn't done all of SF yet.  But still, we're talking about 85 freaking AAs to go.  The only way he is going to hit that 250 mark is going back and making sure that EVERY quest & named & zone has been done.</p><p>Two thoughts go through my mind at this point.  Neither of them are healthy for EQ2.  1) Man, maybe there is something to this afk botting thing.  If I left it on overnight, I might wake up and have 3-4 AAs.  And if I did that for about a month (which is still ridiculous), I could be at 250 <span style="text-decoration: underline;">for that character</span>.  Sheesh, even that sounds like work.  2) Maybe I ought to play some other game where the content is fresh and I can have fun.</p>

[Alvane]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You can do most of the major quest lines in ALL of the expansions and still end up very short of 250AAs.  One of my characters (not my main) is at around 83/165ish.  He hasn't done all of SF yet.  But still, we're talking about 85 freaking AAs to go.  The only way he is going to hit that 250 mark is going back and making sure that EVERY quest & named & zone has been done.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure about your claim. I have a 32 'zerker with 108AAs, and 81 defiler with 208AAs and it still has TSO to complete (only has done about 1/4 of quests to date) plus SF. I have a 66 bruiser with close to 190AAs that hasn't completed KoS, still has LP to work on, RoK, TSO and SF. I'm sure they will all have 250 AAs well before or just about at 90 adventure level.</p><p>And no, not every character does the same ol' quests as the first character I have that hit 90, etc. IE, the lvl 32 character is part of a group whose goal is to clear just about every dungeon in every tier. That character doesn't quest much at all. It just does the key quests in each zone. The Bruiser only does quests that offer things the character can utilize and skips others. The Defiler basically only works certain areas as a duo or group when the healer is needed. My other 3 characters do areas that haven't really be covered by the rest.</p><p>So, many things are "fresh" or being done first time or maybe second time. Each person has their own method and takes from the game what they want to enjoy it. Not everyone has characters that all rush to cap, then grind out AAs. I only have one character who basically "rushed" to cap with each expac, but never really ground out AAs.</p><p>None of my characters has ever used the chronomage and only mentors to help out a guildie to kill a mob or complete a quest. I guess it's all how one looks at it.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>I guess the spirit of my gripe is that I'm wanting my alts at 90/250 to do other end-game things.  I just do not have an interest in spending several months in the L1-89 world.  You have a creative way of addressing the issue.  I'm just saying I want to move ahead, sooner than later.</p>

[Esta]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"> </p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">This game update, we made a change to how we calculate experience, mainly to make experience gain more intuitive and consistent.  Briefly, the old method took the experience you received from killing a monster and multiplied it several times.  For instance, if you killed a monster worth 100 XP, it would take that 100 and multiply it if you were mentored.  It multiplied it again if you had vitality, and again if you had max level character bonuses, or a potion, or a server bonus experience weekend.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">In most cases, that was fine and we liked the amount of experience that it awarded.  It wasn't easy to explain though, because multiplying the experience at each step made it overly important to stack as many different bonuses as you could, regardless of how big those bonuses were individually.  It made it hard to predict how much experience bonus you'd really get from vitality or being mentored, because those bonuses varied a lot depending on how many other bonuses you were getting.</span></p><p style="mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: ">So with this game update, we changed the formula to take all the bonuses and add them up instead.  Say you killed that 100 point monster again - if you have vitality, you get an extra 200 points, essentially the same as killing that same monster twice more.  With an experience potion on, you can get another 100 points.  Being mentored adds in some more points, as do max level characters</span></p></p></blockquote><p>Thanks heaps for this post Waters, it has always confused me on how the various bonus experience has been calculated. I had always assumed that it was a cumlative not have a multipler effect. Which would appear I was incorrect!</p><p>It makes sense that 100% vitality and 55% potion bonus experience would be a total of 155% instead of the intial experience by calculated by 100% then that new total being calculated by another 55%.</p><p>I do get a bit confused regarding potions though, I generally have so many vet rewards potions I have no reason to buy a potion from the marketplace. I did however today decide to buy a potion from the marketplace and consumed it, I also then consumed a veteran reward potion (which appeared to overwrite the store brought potion).</p><p>However when my veteran reward potion wore off I appeared to be getting 100% bonus experience from potions still, so am I to assume that when different potions are activated that they don't overwrite each other but instead the most recently activated potion becomes "active" and any other potions are put on hold until the most recent potion wears off?</p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Estari wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I do get a bit confused regarding potions though, I generally have so many vet rewards potions I have no reason to buy a potion from the marketplace. I did however today decide to buy a potion from the marketplace and consumed it, I also then consumed a veteran reward potion (which appeared to overwrite the store brought potion).</p><p>However when my veteran reward potion wore off I appeared to be getting 100% bonus experience from potions still, so am I to assume that when different potions are activated that they don't overwrite each other but instead the most recently activated potion becomes "active" and any other potions are put on hold until the most recent potion wears off?</p></blockquote><p>Actually, since the veteran reward experience potions and the marketplace experience potions don't stack their benefits, I'll see if we can limit it so you can't drink another potion if the either one is still active.  I just tested it on live servers and the vet reward potion also lets you drink a new one before the previous one wears off - it's a shame to be able to accidently waste some of the duration.  We'll take a look at it and see about making it work better if possible.</p><p>- Rich</p>

[Shanak85]

<p>This would be wonderful for all types of exp potions, including the 5% berries from the trees from the druid ring events.  Imagine my anger when the 5% berry replaced my 55% exp potion, and I got no reimbursement from anyone, even though I got absolutely no use out of the 55% one.  Perhaps a confirmation window with a warning that this will happen.  I'm sure I'm not the only one this happened to.</p>

[Captain Apple Darkberry]

<p><cite>Alvane@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>You can do most of the major quest lines in ALL of the expansions and still end up very short of 250AAs.  One of my characters (not my main) is at around 83/165ish.  He hasn't done all of SF yet.  But still, we're talking about 85 freaking AAs to go.  The only way he is going to hit that 250 mark is going back and making sure that EVERY quest & named & zone has been done.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure about your claim. I have a 32 'zerker with 108AAs, and 81 defiler with 208AAs and it still has TSO to complete (only has done about 1/4 of quests to date) plus SF. I have a 66 bruiser with close to 190AAs that hasn't completed KoS, still has LP to work on, RoK, TSO and SF. I'm sure they will all have 250 AAs well before or just about at 90 adventure level.</p><p>And no, not every character does the same ol' quests as the first character I have that hit 90, etc. IE, the lvl 32 character is part of a group whose goal is to clear just about every dungeon in every tier. That character doesn't quest much at all. It just does the key quests in each zone. The Bruiser only does quests that offer things the character can utilize and skips others. The Defiler basically only works certain areas as a duo or group when the healer is needed. My other 3 characters do areas that haven't really be covered by the rest.</p><p>So, many things are "fresh" or being done first time or maybe second time. Each person has their own method and takes from the game what they want to enjoy it. Not everyone has characters that all rush to cap, then grind out AAs. I only have one character who basically "rushed" to cap with each expac, but never really ground out AAs.</p><p>None of my characters has ever used the chronomage and only mentors to help out a guildie to kill a mob or complete a quest. I guess it's all how one looks at it.</p></blockquote><p>Unless you are stating that you have never used the AA slider on those toons, which I highly doubt you truthfully can, then your argument is null and void as the AA slider helped you get those AAs just as much as questing the content did.</p><p>There is _not_ enough quests, especially in certain tiers, to support the proper (aka: non boring) advancement of AAs, especially when toward the top of the AA curve.</p>

[Keikoku]

<p>Here's a question, that's probably been posed several times... but why not just release an update to the UI that shows a numerical value for xp?  Percentages are all well, fine, and good, but it would be awesome to have something we can visually see, you know?  Since the percentages round up, there's no way for us to know exactly what we got.  I don't see this being a huge issue to do, either, since the numerical values are already stored(otherwise, how do they get the percentages).  Just change the output to show the actual numbers.  Even from a programming standpoint, this is the just about the simplest change you could ever make.</p>

[Terron]

<p><cite>Shimmer@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Use the tools they put in for people like you then. Turn off the bonus exp or just turn off exp altogether. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>I use what tools exists, but they do not cover everything.</p><p>How do I turn off the bonus xp from bonus xp weekends?</p><p>How do I turn off the increased xp rates that come with each level cap?</p><p>I did say I always turn of the bonus xp from maxed toons.</p><p>I have my AA slider at 50, but any more and I will be gaining AAs much too quickly.</p><p>I could turn off all xp, but I do want to level, ideally at about the same rate as when I started playing.</p>

[Terron]

<p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. <strong>I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up</strong> to spend more time at cap which is less fun.<p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which <strong>can not be avoided</strong>.</p></blockquote><p>Please don't listen to this guy Devs. We appreciate the as fast or slightly faster exp.</p><p>To the poster, end game is where most people want to be. If you don't... turn off your exp.</p></blockquote><p>Please do not listen to this guys, devs. Some of use do not like such fast xp gain and would like to be able to opt out of increases and not have them forced on us.</p><p>To the poster, your attitude is selfish. All I want is to be able to avoid any increased rates. Xp potions - no problem I don't use them - though I'd like to be able to get something from the vendor for them. Xp bonus for characters at max - no problem as I can disable it. It is the increases that can't be avoided that annoy me. I do not want to turn off xp, I like the process of levelling up. I would like to be able to set it to 1/2 or a third of the current rate.</p>

[urgthock]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Shimmer@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Use the tools they put in for people like you then. Turn off the bonus exp or just turn off exp altogether. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>I use what tools exists, but they do not cover everything. - <span style="color: #ff0000;">Sure they do if you put some thought into it</span></p><p>How do I turn off the bonus xp from bonus xp weekends? - <span style="color: #ff0000;">These are rare enough that they aren't really an issue</span></p><p>How do I turn off the increased xp rates that come with each level cap? - <span style="color: #ff0000;">See below</span></p><p>I did say I always turn of the bonus xp from maxed toons. - <span style="color: #ff0000;">Good, you are using the tools that are available to you</span></p><p>I have my AA slider at 50, but any more and I will be gaining AAs much too quickly. - <span style="color: #ff0000;">The Horror! (See below)</span></p><p>I could turn off all xp, but I do want to level, ideally at about the same rate as when I started playing. - <span style="color: #ff0000;">See below</span></p></blockquote><p>You know, liberal use of turning all experience on and off when needed/wanted can by itself accomplish exactly what you want. Leveling at a pace that you find acceptable. Leveling too fast? Turn off experience for a while. Want to level faster? Enable experience and adjust your slider, etc. It seems to me you are just being argumentative. But I'll bite. You apparently want an alternate method to level slower. No problem. Go to the chronomage and mentor down to whatever level you want. Now you have an experience penalty. See... there are tools for you to use, all it takes is some thought.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please do not listen to this guys, devs. Some of use do not like such fast xp gain and would like to be able to opt out of increases and not have them forced on us.</p><p>To the poster, your attitude is selfish. All I want is to be able to avoid any increased rates. Xp potions - no problem I don't use them - though I'd like to be able to get something from the vendor for them. Xp bonus for characters at max - no problem as I can disable it. It is the increases that can't be avoided that annoy me. I do not want to turn off xp, I like the process of levelling up. I would like to be able to set it to 1/2 or a third of the current rate.</p></blockquote><p>There should already be a right-click option on the XP bar to disable bonus experience.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>urgthock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Terron@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I do not use bonus xp potions and always turn of the max level character bonus. <strong>I do not want to lose out on the fun of levelling up</strong> to spend more time at cap which is less fun.<p>Please stop spoiling the game by adding things that make levelling faster which <strong>can not be avoided</strong>.</p></blockquote><p>Please don't listen to this guy Devs. We appreciate the as fast or slightly faster exp.</p><p>To the poster, end game is where most people want to be. If you don't... turn off your exp.</p></blockquote><p>Please do not listen to this guys, devs. Some of use do not like such fast xp gain and would like to be able to opt out of increases and not have them forced on us.</p><p>To the poster, your attitude is selfish. All I want is to be able to avoid any increased rates. Xp potions - no problem I don't use them - though I'd like to be able to get something from the vendor for them. Xp bonus for characters at max - no problem as I can disable it. It is the increases that can't be avoided that annoy me. I do not want to turn off xp, I like the process of levelling up. I would like to be able to set it to 1/2 or a third of the current rate.</p></blockquote><p>Right now there's just a switch to turn on/off xp.  I'm thinking we need a slider for this as well.  It makes for the ultimate customizable experience.  If Terron wants to crawl along on one character for the next 2 years, so be it.  He can just set his slider to 1/2 or 1/3rd.  For those of us that are sick of reliving all the pre-90 zones, we just slide it in the other direction to 3x. </p><p>Maybe you can tie the loot drop rewards to the setting.  For those like Terron who go along slower, he's got a higher chance on coin & exquisite drops.  And for those of us who want to speed along, that chance is reduced.  You'd have to figure out how to handle these settings in group play and whether to put restrictions to prevent excessive farming.  But I think the basic idea is there--reward the slower play for those that want to plod along; let those that want to zoom to the end game do so (at a slight penalty).</p><p>Nobodies playstyle infringes on the other person.  Everyone can be happy.  As it stands now, the designers have zero chance of coming up with leveling rate that's going to please everybody.  So why should they try?</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually, since the veteran reward experience potions and the marketplace experience potions don't stack their benefits, I'll see if we can limit it so you can't drink another potion if the either one is still active.  I just tested it on live servers and the vet reward potion also lets you drink a new one before the previous one wears off - it's a shame to be able to accidently waste some of the duration.  We'll take a look at it and see about making it work better if possible.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>So you are saying that if I bought a $10 potion and used it I get NOTHING for $10 with a vet potion up?  in a lot of cultures that would be considered stealing.  $10 for nothing.  I hope you are re-imbursing people.</p>

[Rijacki]

<p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually, since the veteran reward experience potions and the marketplace experience potions don't stack their benefits, I'll see if we can limit it so you can't drink another potion if the either one is still active.  I just tested it on live servers and the vet reward potion also lets you drink a new one before the previous one wears off - it's a shame to be able to accidently waste some of the duration.  We'll take a look at it and see about making it work better if possible.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>So you are saying that if I bought a $10 potion and used it I get NOTHING for $10 with a vet potion up?  in a lot of cultures that would be considered stealing.  $10 for nothing.  I hope you are re-imbursing people.</p></blockquote><p>That's why he is saying there should be a way to prevent you from using one while the other is up.</p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<p><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>CoLD MeTaL wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Actually, since the veteran reward experience potions and the marketplace experience potions don't stack their benefits, I'll see if we can limit it so you can't drink another potion if the either one is still active.  I just tested it on live servers and the vet reward potion also lets you drink a new one before the previous one wears off - it's a shame to be able to accidently waste some of the duration.  We'll take a look at it and see about making it work better if possible.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>So you are saying that if I bought a $10 potion and used it I get NOTHING for $10 with a vet potion up?  in a lot of cultures that would be considered stealing.  $10 for nothing.  I hope you are re-imbursing people.</p></blockquote><p>That's why he is saying there should be a way to prevent you from using one while the other is up.</p></blockquote><p>I probably don't have to point this out but will anyway, that should have been done BEFORE they were sold.  And will they be re-imbursed? of course not.</p>

[Barx]

<p>IIRC correctly it's worked like that long since GU57 (with vet & purchased XP pots being consumable but not actually stacking). Will they be reimbursed? Probably not en masse, but if you were a player that used a paid-for one and had it wasted I'd petition and ask for it to be restored (i.e. have them give you a new potion). At minimum that'd be the proper thing for SOE to do, replace them on request if they don't have a way of identifying all those that were wasted in a batch process.</p>

[Luthorian]

<p>I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it somewhere in the 14 pages of posts but all of the changes to "Fix" this bug are changes to vitality. Not to the default xp gain that is the problem. I love vitality but I seldom have it because I play pretty regularly.</p><p>The dev response saying that they want the leveling speed to be the same just doesn't seem to work out that way to me. If a mob gave 100 xp without vitality before the change, 50 xp after the change, then with post change vitality it will give 150. That is still less than the before the change xp with vitality that would have been of 200 xp. I don't know the exact numbers but if the change was more or less than half of the original then the gap would get smaller or greater. If 100 xp turned in to 10 xp then even after the fix and with vitality its still only 30 xp. Even less than before the change without vitality.</p><p>If i'm wrong please tell me, and explain the math to me.  I would much rather be wrong on this one than right.</p><p>P.S. I like forward advancement but for the folks that want to spin their wheels and go no where allow a 0xp option that stops your character from receiving any xp.  Then the folks who like to stay in one range can do so.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Luthorian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it somewhere in the 14 pages of posts but all of the changes to "Fix" this bug are changes to vitality. Not to the default xp gain that is the problem. I love vitality but I seldom have it because I play pretty regularly.</p><p>The dev response saying that they want the leveling speed to be the same just doesn't seem to work out that way to me. If a mob gave 100 xp without vitality before the change, 50 xp after the change, then with post change vitality it will give 150. That is still less than the before the change xp with vitality that would have been of 200 xp. I don't know the exact numbers but if the change was more or less than half of the original then the gap would get smaller or greater. If 100 xp turned in to 10 xp then even after the fix and with vitality its still only 30 xp. Even less than before the change without vitality.</p><p>If i'm wrong please tell me, and explain the math to me.  I would much rather be wrong on this one than right.</p><p>P.S. I like forward advancement but for the folks that want to spin their wheels and go no where allow a 0xp option that stops your character from receiving any xp.  Then the folks who like to stay in one range can do so.</p></blockquote><p>The base amount of XP that mobs gave was not changed.</p>

[Luthorian]

<p><cite>Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Luthorian wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it somewhere in the 14 pages of posts but all of the changes to "Fix" this bug are changes to vitality. Not to the default xp gain that is the problem. I love vitality but I seldom have it because I play pretty regularly.</p><p>The dev response saying that they want the leveling speed to be the same just doesn't seem to work out that way to me. If a mob gave 100 xp without vitality before the change, 50 xp after the change, then with post change vitality it will give 150. That is still less than the before the change xp with vitality that would have been of 200 xp. I don't know the exact numbers but if the change was more or less than half of the original then the gap would get smaller or greater. If 100 xp turned in to 10 xp then even after the fix and with vitality its still only 30 xp. Even less than before the change without vitality.</p><p>If i'm wrong please tell me, and explain the math to me.  I would much rather be wrong on this one than right.</p><p>P.S. I like forward advancement but for the folks that want to spin their wheels and go no where allow a 0xp option that stops your character from receiving any xp.  Then the folks who like to stay in one range can do so.</p></blockquote><p>The base amount of XP that mobs gave was not changed.</p></blockquote><p>Ok so the ammount of XP needed to level changed or what. Still confused.</p>

[Glenolas]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> As rothgar stated it was a BUG and unintended for RAF to multiply bonuses. At no point has anyone at soe called anyone who abused this BUG an exploiter.</p></blockquote><p>Scroll back up.  </p><p>Rothgar specifically called it an exploit.</p><p>"I just want to also chime in to say thata a change was made to fix an exploit situatioin in the XP gain when certain bonuses were stacked and this may be the root of the problem."</p><p>Somewhere back about page 2 on my page sizing.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>If players are using a prod to beat a slow donkey to get him to go faster, is it really the prod's fault?  I have a problem with calling this an exploit.</p>

[DuneWarrior]

<p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can you fix it so you still have Vitality at Levelcap ?</p></blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>Rich,</p><p>Any chance the above change can be pushed to have high priority? it is THE major reason for people to level lock toons etc. and to be frank its something that have been requested for ages. Now i noticed that it wasnt mentioned in this hotfix, nor was it mentioned in the Test update notes, so was hoping perhaps you could step in and mark it urgent for the dev team to actually dig into like they apparently have done with some of the less heavy Fan Faire suggestions/bugs etc. ?</p><p>Thanks</p><p>Edit: Because grammar is a ... pain sometimes <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Waters]

<p><cite>Zaktull@Najena wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Waters wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Alright, we looked into this today and will make it so you can accumulate and use vitality at level 90.</p><p>With the recent boost to vitality (from 100% bonus to 200%), this should make it faster to earn AA experience at max level.  After this change goes live, we'll keep an eye on it and see if any other improvements are needed.</p><p>This is likely to happen by game update 58, if not sooner, as Rothgar and the code team find a place for it in their schedule.</p><p>- Rich</p></blockquote><p>Rich,</p><p>Any chance the above change can be pushed to have high priority?</p></blockquote><p>This is a change we'd like to get done soon, so yes it's on the high priority list.  We hope to get it into the next game update or sooner, but don't have a planned date to give for it. </p>