Hidden EXP Nerf? Looks that way....

[Cabulus]

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.....

[SnoesieQ]

Yikes.

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.

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.

[Xill]

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.

[Aaramis]

Would really like to hear from the devs on whether or not this is intended.

I have no interest in playing EQ2 if it is going to emulate Aion's levelling curve.

[Kosh]

What's the big secret?

Please tell us if a change in the rate of XP gained has been made.

[Cabulus]

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.

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.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

[Jesdyr]

Just buy some XP potions and it will be fine .......

[Kenazeer]

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.

[Murdo]

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.

[Chunkaliscious]

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.

[scrapiron7]

Hmm.. that would be very dirty of SOE

[Kenrod]

Malakus@Crushbone wrote:

Hmm.. that would be very dirty of SOE

But surprising? Nah.

[Helrazor]

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.

[Lhunara]

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.

[Sserak]

Played since Launch.

If this is true. I will cancel.

You better hope eq2x works because you are destroying your loyal customer base very quickly.

[Barx]

Lhunara@Guk wrote:

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.

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).

[convict]

Sserak wrote:

Played since Launch.

If this is true. I will cancel.

You better hope eq2x works because you are destroying your loyal customer base very quickly.

Mine, my wife, and our 2 kids have all canceled. 5 Days left.

[Waters]

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.

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.

When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.

[Vinyard]

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?

[Kerri]

thx for the answer

[Kenazeer]

Waters wrote:

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.

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.

When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.

Thank you for looking into it.

Also, thank you for subtley acknowledging that you do read the forums. Come back again soon!!

[Hellswrath]

This would be quite the counterproductive change...  Hopefully this really was a mistake and they will be fixing the code.

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.

Edit: Of course, there is an answer while I write.   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.

[Te'ana]

Waters wrote:

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.

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.

When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.

Thank you for checking this out.

[Rothgar]

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.

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.

We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.

[Jesdyr]

Rothgar wrote:

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.

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.

We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.

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 ?

[Alenna]

Rothgar wrote:

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.

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.

We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.

good to see you have been on top of things ty for the information.

[Cabulus]

Waters wrote:

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.

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.

When we finish investigating, we'll post more information.

Thank you for the update.  I look forward to hearing what the problem was and when a solution will be implemented.

[Kenazeer]

Rothgar wrote:

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.

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.

We are continuing to look for the source of the problem and will post more asap.

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.

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.

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...

In order for us to take off these tinfoil caps you need to explain:

What the unintended stacking mechanic was.

When it was identified.

What was changed.

[Jeal]

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)

[Gargamel]

The only thing I can think of is perhaps XP boosts applied to current xp gain and not to 'base' xp gain.

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%.

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%)

Still if thats the case then its not so much an exploit, as they are redefining xp modifications and would apply to all cases.

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.

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.