Request for a DEV

[BlackSpectre]

Hey guys, I'm not really sure if the forums are the right place to ask my favorite Devs for information to update the Wiki. If there is a better method, please let me know. 

 

Anyway, I'm looking for experience gain related data.

 

1. The amount of experience needed to gain each level.

2. The amount of base experience earned from defeating a minion, a lieutenant, a boss, and AV, giant Monster, etc. at each level.

 

And anything else I haven't mentioned but might bear on this topic. I know there have been many changes at Homecoming so the tables at the wiki are likely very outdated.

 

Thanks a bunch!

 

 

P.S. Here's the experience data we currently have at the wiki https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Experience

Edited March 7 by BlackSpectre

[Glacier Peak]

Oooh and maybe name the specific mobs that grant less XP than baseline. The Freakshow for example. 

[lemming]

On experience per level, that wouldn't be hard to check on beta since you can use the grant level to a char.  I can't right now, but it would be fast to knockout to check.  And I can double check patrol XP per exploration badge while I do that

 

On how much per, that will take more delving.

Edited March 7 by lemming

[Lockely]

Good idea asking for a dev to just dump the table.

@Super Atom did a test earlier in another topic and found the minions and lieuts granting higher XP than normal.

[AboveTheChemist]

2 hours ago, Lockely said:

did a test earlier in another topic and found the minions and lieuts granting higher XP than normal.

 

After some testing myself, I don't believe this is true.

 

I wasn't aware of this before, but each entity apparently has a 'Reward Scale' (RS) value that adjusts the amount of xp/inf they grant, presumably based on critter difficulty. This data is available on the individual entity pages on City of Data.

 

Starting with a fresh (no patrol xp) level 25 on Brainstorm, I defeated some level 25 lieutenants and minons in Croatoa, specifically Fir Bolg Soldiers and Guardians, each of which has a RS value of 1. They awarded 96xp/67inf and 320xp/384inf, respectively, which matches baseline values for level 25 critters of those ranks taken from the HC wiki page for Experience.

 

I then defeated a level 25 Tsoo Ancestor Spirit (LT rank) in Talos, whose RS value is 1.2. It awarded 384xp/461inf, which is indeed 1.2 times higher than the baseline of 320xp/384inf.

Next was a level 25 Tsoo Sorcerer (LT), RS value of 1.4. Awards were 448xp/538inf, which is baseline x 1.4.

Next was a level 25 Freakshow Stunner Chief (LT), RS value of 0.95. Awards were 304xp/365inf, which is baseline x 0.95.

Next were a pair of Freakshow minions (Freak Slammer and Enforcer Smasher), RS values of 0.95. Awards were 92xp/64inf, which is baseline x0.95 rounded up.

Then several level 25 Tsoo Green Ink Men (minions), RS value of 1.2. Awards were 116xp/81inf, which is baseline x 1.2 rounded up.

 

Still at level 25, I defeated some level 26 and 27 Freakshow minions and received slightly more XP than I expected. I then leveled up to 27 and defeated some level 27 Freakshow minions and received exactly the amount of XP I would expect at that level, given an RS value of 0.95 for those particular Freakshow critters. That leads me to believe that there is an additional modifier for defeating critters above ones level, but I couldn't find info on same with a cursory search.

 

I have no idea if the Reward Scale values were used on Live or not, but if so I don't see anything in the (admittedly small) dataset I gathered that leads me to think that XP awards are different on HC compared to Live.

 

 

 

[Lockely]

I'm happy to be wrong if the data proves otherwise, It's weird that it doesn't match up to the (albeit limited) testing done earlier, nor our collective experiences leveling on Live versus leveling via HC. Even without 2x XP, you regularly out-level contacts on HC in nearly every single zone and back on Live it would often require a significant amount of Paper/Radio missions between contacts because you would finish them and not gain enough levels for the next set. Leveling on Live required significant grinding that isn't really present on HC.

@Rudra also said it was "already known" that SCORE had increased XP and Inf rates back when the server was private to let people get up to where they were on Live a bit faster.

*Something* is different, seems like we need to do some testing to figure out where the incongruence is.

[Lunar Ronin]

The easiest way would be to test out between an OuroDev server which is based on the Issue 24 beta, and Homecoming.  But I'm pretty sure nothing has changed in regards to XP.

[lemming]

Ok, ran thru a character on beta:

Nothing needs to be modified to the XP on the chart on the wiki, though probably adding that it's 5,608,000 xp for each Vet Level.

 

For Patrol XP and exploration badges, under patrol shows how much an exploration badge is worth, and bubble % is how much of a bubble that is:

 

Level	Incremental	Cumaltive	Patrol	Bubble %
1	n/a	0	15	142
2	106	106	38	113
3	337	443	81	139
4	582	1,025	107	134
5	800	1,825	160	129
6	1,237	3,062	196	124
7	1,575	4,637	234	120
8	1,950	6,587	311	116
9	2,680	9,267	350	112
10	3,125	12,392	388	108
11	3,600	15,992	519	104
12	4,995	20,987	642	100
13	6,405	27,392	715	97
14	7,400	34,792	848	93
15	9,093	43,885	1,005	90
16	11,184	55,069	1,127	87
17	13,000	68,069	1,333	84
18	15,950	84,019	1,547	81
19	19,200	103,219	1,818	78
20	23,400	126,619	2,097	75
21	28,000	154,619	2,599	72
22	36,000	190,619	3,132	70
23	45,000	235,619	3,757	67
24	56,000	291,619	4,483	65
25	69,300	360,919	5,316	62
26	85,200	446,119	6,490	60
27	108,000	554,119	7,830	58
28	135,000	689,119	9,315	56
29	166,650	855,769	10,963	54
30	203,400	1,059,169	13,183	52
31	254,000	1,313,169	15,760	50
32	314,600	1,627,769	18,663	48
33	386,400	2,014,169	21,882	46
34	470,600	2,484,769	25,646	45
35	571,200	3,055,969	30,374	43
36	701,500	3,757,469	35,640	42
37	854,700	4,612,169	41,671	40
38	1,036,600	5,648,769	48,507	39
39	1,250,200	6,898,969	56,195	37
40	1,502,550	8,401,519	60,944	36
41	1,692,900	10,094,419	66,191	35
42	1,907,550	12,001,969	72,043	33
43	2,150,550	14,152,519	78,227	32
44	2,421,900	16,574,419	84,893	31
45	2,729,700	19,304,119	92,340	30
46	3,078,000	22,382,119	100,307	29
47	3,470,850	25,852,969	109,153	28
48	3,912,300	29,765,269	118,641	27
49	4,410,450	34,175,719	128,811	26
50	4,973,400	39,149,119	140,200	25
50+	5,608,000	n/a	140,200	25

 

[Jack Power]

So this isn't out of date?

 

//Jack

[Jacke]

11 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I have no idea if the Reward Scale values were used on Live or not, but if so I don't see anything in the (admittedly small) dataset I gathered that leads me to think that XP awards are different on HC compared to Live.

 

I prefer the term "pre-Shutdown", others call it "Retail".  Because we have Live Shards now, 5 of them.

 

I don't think there were recent changes just before Shutdown, but from my recollection, going back further, there were many tweaks to the Levelling XP, especially in the L40's, to smooth out progress.

 

 

11 hours ago, Lockely said:

@Rudra also said it was "already known" that SCORE had increased XP and Inf rates back when the server was private to let people get up to where they were on Live a bit faster.

 

From what I've heard, that's not likely at all.  I have heard that 2XP and lesser XP boosts were available.  There may have been some adjustments for some mobs, much as what was always happening pre-Shutdown and likely continues.

 

 

11 hours ago, Lockely said:

I'm happy to be wrong if the data proves otherwise, It's weird that it doesn't match up to the (albeit limited) testing done earlier, nor our collective experiences leveling on Live versus leveling via HC. Even without 2x XP, you regularly out-level contacts on HC in nearly every single zone and back on Live it would often require a significant amount of Paper/Radio missions between contacts because you would finish them and not gain enough levels for the next set. Leveling on Live required significant grinding that isn't really present on HC.

 

Grinding is the past of City and is still very much present.  And out-levelling contacts, I remember that from 2006.  This is not something new.  Out-levelling contacts has been a problem with City since long ago, only recently made easier to control with turning off XP.

 

Way back many years before Shutdown, I found @RedTomax's site, with lots of information on City, the contacts, the arcs, and the powers, including the original City of Data.  Best way to see it now is by this copy via the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140625145706/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/

 

@RedTomax, writing on how he gathered all that information, said he had to resort to massive accumulation of debt to avoid out-levelling contacts.

 

 

11 hours ago, Lockely said:

*Something* is different, seems like we need to do some testing to figure out where the incongruence is.

 

Besides the common feelings of nostalgia and connection to the past, there can also be strong feelings of new, different, sometimes in an unsettling way.  This can happen for all sorts of reasons.  That the game is changing, evolving, improving, that's always going on.  Yet wander through most zones and they've barely changed.  Then compare Atlas Park to Echo: Atlas Park and the sense of WTF looms.

 

There will always be these competing senses of good similarity to the past and good and not-so-good sense of change (as are our judgements of those changes as they happen).

 

If there's a change in the XP rates and levelling, that's going to need good data from the past as well as recently to be certain about.  Is it worth it, really?  Or is it better to just enjoy the game.

 

 

Edited March 7 by Jacke

[Lockely]

27 minutes ago, Jacke said:

If there's a change in the XP rates and levelling, that's going to need good data from the past as well as recently to be certain about.  Is it worth it, really?  Or is it better to just enjoy the game.

 

The issue initially cropped up as part of data gathering for the issue of enhancement slotting in the New Player Experience. @Super Atom did some combat testing and determined that Inf rates were not sustainable for the cost of slotting and maintaining vendor enhancements into a character as they leveled. (At levels 24->25 you can afford exactly 2 SOs on minion drop budget) In that same test, we saw what looked like a discrepancy with XP rates and what the wiki showed.

Is a whole table necessary? Well, yes, for analytical purposes to determine if other things need adjusted. It'd be nice to know the Inf drop calculation too.

[lemming]

9 hours ago, Jack Power said:

So this isn't out of date?

 

//Jack

The Experience Requirements is not out of date. 

 

"Experience Rewards Table" and "Experience Distribution and Team Bonuses" should probably be checked for accuracy.

[Jacke]

3 minutes ago, Lockely said:

The issue initially cropped up as part of data gathering for the issue of enhancement slotting in the New Player Experience. @Super Atom did some combat testing and determined that Inf rates were not sustainable for the cost of slotting and maintaining vendor enhancements into a character as they leveled. (At levels 24->25 you can afford exactly 2 SOs on minion drop budget) In that same test, we saw what looked like a discrepancy with XP rates and what the wiki showed.

Is a whole table necessary? Well, yes, for analytical purposes to determine if other things need adjusted. It'd be nice to know the Inf drop calculation too.

 

Research away!  If you want to spend time on figuring out these things, have at it.  Some new knowledge could come from it.

 

As for levelling not supporting the cost of adding SOs....  That one is also old.  In the recent era, I've done a bit of testing and determined that using the "Upgrade" button on the Enhancement display is slightly more expensive than buying the SOs and slotting them or using to upgrade (with a chance of failure at times).  But much more convenient.  Which is the theme of options for slotting during levelling:  a spectrum of options from inexpensive and time-consuming to expensive and convenient.

 

I remember reading advice long ago on how to get through the TO and DO levels.  That nearly the only TO worth slotting was Accuracy (especially before Beginner's Luck was added in Issue 12), rarely some of the others.  And most TOs should be sold for Influence to save for later.  (And Jack Emmert though players would stick with TOs into the L30s, which is why some stores sold them well into those levels.  Another example of how the original devs largely didn't understand numbers in RPGs period.)  Then it got more expensive once DOs were available, even though slotting got better.

 

Once SOs were available at L22, keeping that slotting up got very expensive, especially into the L30s and L40s.  I think that was part of the driver behind the changes to levelling done a long while ago across the late L30s and the L40s, to ease that burden and make that slog a bit easier.  But as in the past, as it is now.  To level toons and pay for the enhancements, it helps to have a L50 or another source of Influence.  Currently the devs say it's intended for players to convert and sell some of the loot they gain while levelling, like Reward Merits, to support their toons' levelling.

 

Once Invention was added to the game, it was one of the benefits of going with Common IOs: enhancements that didn't expire.  Also added in some other benefits, higher values at later Levels and of course, the massive complex improvement of IO sets.  Some players followed a minimal IO plan, example slotting some IOs at L22, then more at L32, then waited until L47 to slot L50 Common IOs and then IO sets.  Other slotted some sets as they levelled.  But crafting those IOs takes time, or costs buying them at the AH.  Again, another trade off of convenience and cost versus time.

 

Now we have come full circle.  SOs are available from L2 up.  But for levelling a toon, needs extra Influence to pay for those SOs.  As was always the case.

[Super Atom]

29 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Once SOs were available at L22, keeping that slotting up got very expensive, especially into the L30s and L40s.  I think that was part of the driver behind the changes to levelling done a long while ago across the late L30s and the L40s, to ease that burden and make that slog a bit easier.  But as in the past, as it is now.  To level toons and pay for the enhancements, it helps to have a L50 or another source of Influence.  Currently the devs say it's intended for players to convert and sell some of the loot they gain while levelling, like Reward Merits, to support their toons' levelling.

 

Most of this is known, the thread in question where the XP/Inf/Enhancement test was done was about lowering the cost of SO's to help new players, the test was done so because someone was insinuating that it did give you enough. Like you said, it has always been the case where It's not entirely possible for a fresh toon with no outside help or lucking out on drops to maintain their SO enhancements. We already saw the Homecoming team try to push more inf making methods for new players (The aether particle from TF's) into the game, so it just seemed like an easy win to just lower the cost of gear nobody cares about anyway. i digress though, this isn't the point of this thread. just thought I'd come clarify what was done and why.

 

As for the XP thing, you can easily just look at Paragon Wiki and Homecoming Wiki to see the XP rates haven't changed directly from live, but i assume other things have changed around it that make it faster overall, plus we got that patrol xp bargain sale now since the new update

[BlackSpectre]

11 hours ago, Super Atom said:

As for the XP thing, you can easily just look at Paragon Wiki and Homecoming Wiki to see the XP rates haven't changed directly from live, but i assume other things have changed around it that make it faster overall, plus we got that patrol xp bargain sale now since the new update

Therein lies the rub... everything in the Unofficial Homecoming Wiki is an exact copy of Paragon Wiki, except for those pages that have been updated. So when you look at Paragon Wiki and look at Homecoming wiki, more often than not you're looking at the exact same data.  Paragon Wiki was a colossal effort on the part of hundreds of players who created tens of thousands of pages. As far as I know, the Homecoming Wiki has about 15 players editing and updating it. It's a huge task to update everything, and there is really no way a small group of people can replicate what hundreds of people did in any sort of reasonable timeframe. The recent posts questioning XP gain bumped this Experience page up in priority. 

 

 So the data we start with is Paragon Wiki data. This Experience page does not appear to have been closely looked at since the Paragon Wiki days. Questions were raised about its validity, so I figured I'd just ask the devs if they have a handy XP table laying around.  But a sincere thank you to all of you who took it upon yourselves to go Beta and test out the XP data., especially @lemming and @AboveTheChemist.   Thank you. 🙂

 

 

 

[BlackSpectre]

On 3/6/2024 at 9:45 PM, AboveTheChemist said:

I wasn't aware of this before, but each entity apparently has a 'Reward Scale' (RS) value that adjusts the amount of xp/inf they grant, presumably based on critter difficulty. This data is available on the individual entity pages on City of Data.

...

That leads me to believe that there is an additional modifier for defeating critters above ones level, but I couldn't find info on same with a cursory search.

 

I have no idea if the Reward Scale values were used on Live or not, but if so I don't see anything in the (admittedly small) dataset I gathered that leads me to think that XP awards are different on HC compared to Live.

That's INTERESTING! I wasn't aware of a Reward Scale either, and there's no mention of it on the XP page... and really, there should be. 

 

I only found 2 references to "Reward Scale":

 

From Patch notes May 20, 2008:

Quote

High Level Family entities have had their reward scale lowered to be commensurate with the risk involved in the encounter. 

 https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Patch_Notes/2008-05-20

 

From Patch notes from Issue 27 Page 7:

Quote

Elite Paragon Protector variants that use psionic & radiation have had their reward scale decreased to match the Longbow Wardens that use identical power definitions.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Issue_27_Page_7

 

So the Reward Scale has been around since live as well as Issue 25+.

 

There's no mention of the conning system (difference in level between you and your target) )increasing or decreasing XP gain, but it makes sense. More danger, more difficulty = higher XP gain. Less difficulty means less XP. This is also not mentioned anywhere on the wiki. I wonder if the conning scale is consistent across all mobs and levels?

 

 

[BlackSpectre]

On 3/6/2024 at 11:19 PM, lemming said:

Nothing needs to be modified to the XP on the chart on the wiki, though probably adding that it's 5,608,000 xp for each Vet Level

A while back, I added the veteran level XP to the Veteran Levels  wiki page, and added a link to it on the Experience page.  But you know what? Why not put it on the Experience table? Couldn't hurt... 🙂

 

[AboveTheChemist]

6 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

There's no mention of the conning system (difference in level between you and your target) )increasing or decreasing XP gain, but it makes sense. More danger, more difficulty = higher XP gain. Less difficulty means less XP. This is also not mentioned anywhere on the wiki. I wonder if the conning scale is consistent across all mobs and levels?

 

I would assume it is consistent but I only collected a couple of data points for level-different kills so I couldn't say for sure without looking into it further. I thought about trying to back-calculate what the modifier might be, but it was 1 AM and the need for sleep took priority over the need to go down another rabbit hole!

 

What I am considering doing, if someone was thinking about more thorough checking of the critter XP table outside of the level 25 ballpark where I looked, is parsing the entity data from City of Data to try and find other mob groups (like the Fir Bolg) that have a reward scale of 1. Knowing those groups would allow a tester to effectively remove the reward scale variable from the calculation, and it would make testing a little easier. I already have some scripts to parse the entity data for vidiotmaps purposes, so it wouldn't be too much work to adjust them to get the reward scale info. And if I got the reward scale info for all the mob groups, I could turn it into a nice reward scale reference table for the wiki.

[lemming]

This is all from the downloaded source from ourodev, so take this as a reference, with probable changes.

 

On reward scale, in Source/Common/entity/entity.h

    F32                    fRewardScale;            // used by custom critters only for now, but could be re-appropriated
    F32                    fRewardScaleOverride;    // If this is between 0 and 1, use it instead of the villain def value
                                                //  to calculate reward scale.

So, looks like it was something added for AE initially, and then "re-appropriated"

 

Looks like all the definitions are in Source/Assets/BinDumps/client/VillainDef.def

Obviously, HC may have tweaked some of the numbers, but the SCORE version can be a basis.  Glancing, I saw numbers from 0 to 3.5

Looks like there's an override as well that can be set for story arcs and such.

 

And Source/MapServer/src/TeamReward.c  has some more behaviour to note such as XP caps, etc...

 

Off Topic, this comment:

 Gender                    name_gender;    // germans claim they need this in case a woman wants to be called 'spiderman'

 

 

 

[AboveTheChemist]

I put together a beta version of a reward scale spreadsheet on Google drive if anyone wants to take a look:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mN7b5TfAELPPBGxSkTQe0iHu27X01AgY92Ql2UHMex8/edit?usp=sharing

 

I tried to exclude some obvious entities (like base items and pets, and anything with a reward scale of zero) but there may still be some in there that are irrelevant. If you notice anything that probably doesn't belong in there just let me know. This data was parsed from the City of Data entity info.

 

I probably won't try to translate the reward scale data to the wiki any time soon. There can be some big reward scale variation even within NPC groups (like Vahzilok) and that makes it much more complicated to try to condense it into a single or small number of wiki tables.

 

I also pulled the XP reward data from the leaked i24 data files, and I do see some discrepancies with the experience data that is on the wiki. This is particularly true of the data below level 25. It may mean nothing, but I will do a little more data gathering to find out.

 

On an unrelated note, if anyone wants to gather any experience data on Brainstorm, I suggest sticking with just the beta QA quick kill and self buff powers, plus whatever you get at level 1 and any START powers you might want. As long as you don't train up, you can set your level to whatever you want, up or down, via the freebies menu. Once you train up to a certain level, you won't be able to go lower than that level again, so you keep more flexibility to change levels if you don't train. Of course, this approach may not be helpful outside of this particular testing scenario, but I think being able to rapidly change levels may be handy in this case.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

s long as you don't train up, you can set your level to whatever you want, up or down, via the freebies menu. Once you train up to a certain level, you won't be able to go lower than that level again, so you keep more flexibility to change levels if you don't train.

Dang! I just learned a handy thing! 😄   And thanks for making a chart

[BlackSpectre]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

There can be some big reward scale variation even within NPC groups (like Vahzilok) and that makes it much more complicated to try to condense it into a single or small number of wiki tables.

Wow. Only 5,488 lines of data! LOL

 

Yeah, this might be a case where linking an uneditable, read only spreadsheet to the wiki is a good idea. But we might be able to condense the data into some general categories to give a general, good idea of the Reward Scale situation.... maybe an average of reward scales per mob group?  Then we could link the spreadsheet for exact data if anyone wants to look.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9 by BlackSpectre

[AboveTheChemist]

Following up, I've updated the experience rewards table on the wiki at this link, and added an analogous inf table to the inf page on the wiki at this link, based on some extensive testing I did. BlackSpectre and I are looking into some other experience- and inf-related stuff, but more on that when we get some reliable numbers.

 

Edited March 17 by AboveTheChemist

[Glacier Peak]

3 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

Following up, I've updated the experience rewards table on the wiki at this link, and added an analogous inf table to the inf page on the wiki at this link, based on some extensive testing I did. BlackSpectre and I are looking into some other experience- and inf-related stuff, but more on that when we get some reliable numbers.

 

Godsend!! Thank you 

[Glacier Peak]

On 3/6/2024 at 6:10 PM, Glacier Peak said:

Oooh and maybe name the specific mobs that grant less XP than baseline. The Freakshow for example. 

@AboveTheChemist are there future edits with outlier mob types planned?