Experience penalty past level 100.

[idbeholdME 394]

Let's talk about this.

For those who don't know, this is the snippet from balance.txt responsible:

  ExpLS100 = 985,
  ExpLS125 = 980,
  ExpLS150 = 975,
  ExpLS175 = 970,

So, say you are level 157, you would multiply the experience you were supposed to get 58 times by 0.975. Meaning that from a 10K XP kill, you would get only 23.829% experience from that kill, so 2380.

At level 190, you would get only 6.25% of the original kill XP, so 625 from 10K.

As is obvious, it makes actually killing enemies pretty much pointless towards the end where levels take tens of millions of XP. Which is why usually most people who were gunning for 200 just started chain running easy, fast to complete, high star quests to grind out the last 20 or so levels, because quest XP is not subject to this over the board penalty.

 

And now, the reason for this topic is discussion.

1) Do you feel that the experience penalty is still relevant?  What do you think was the reason the developers implemented it? To counter the bonus XP from multiplayer? Or simply to pad the play time? Is this penalty still relevant in this day and age when multiplayer basically does not exist and it makes the top levels pretty much impossible to reach?

2) What would you feel would be a balanced XP penalty past level 100 for single player? The vanilla numbers are quite extreme. I've been pondering about this for a while, trying to come up with numbers that would make sense. The goal is to keep the penalty, but reduce its impact so that with some grinding, the player could reach at least level 150-175 in a reasonable time. Outright removing it would be bad as it would mitigate the value of mentor pots and XP gear, but the current numbers are simply too large for a solo player.

Currently, I've landed in the vicinity of something like this:

  ExpLS100 = 989,
  ExpLS125 = 986,
  ExpLS150 = 983,
  ExpLS175 = 980,

This would result in roughly a 1% XP loss per level up until very high levels. ~75% at level 124, ~50% at level 149, ~27.6% at level 174 and finally ~13.2% at level 199. The jumps at the breakpoints would be maintained, but not as drastic (75% at level 124 - 69% at level 125).

Alternative would be to just halve the experience loss at every point, so:

  ExpLS100 = 992,
  ExpLS125 = 990,
  ExpLS150 = 987,
  ExpLS175 = 985,

Which would end up being ~22% XP at level 199. Which would make killing enemies in the latest levels not as pointless.

As I've just dinged 98 on my Shadow Warrior, I have to make a decision what numbers to stick with, but wanted to ask the community's opinions on this.

 

EDIT:

Decided to only start with the penalty at level 150. There is no reason why the endgame grind should start at the mid-way point of the levelling. So went with:

  ExpLS100 = 1000,
  ExpLS125 = 1000,
  ExpLS150 = 991,
  ExpLS175 = 988,

It will result in a huge drop in XP at 150, but at that point, you are usually done with the character anyway with all but 1 skill mastered. Leaving the option for the endgame grind open. Especially for single player, it makes no sense as you can't even compensate with the multiplayer XP bonus.

UPDATE:

Decided to just greatly reduce the penalty until level 175. I only want there to be an actual late game grind. So I bumped the 150 numbers to 997 and gonna keep 175 at 988. Full XP from a kill at level 151 was 10235 (and that is an enemy that gives a lot of XP compared to others). After applying the ExpLS150 = 997, the XP dropped from 10235 to 9021. Starting to get near the end of the character development, I find this minor but still noticeable XP loss a reasonable price to pay for now getting 3 attribute points per level up.

Just for reference, if I kept the default numbers, I would currently be sitting at a massive 72.5% penalty. That 10235 would become 2813. An absolutely pathetic amount when a level up now requires 16.4 million XP. Already at this point, killing enemies would be doing basically nothing.

Edited April 22, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

I'll keep the default. I'm in no hurry  

[Hooyaah 2,820]

I see slower leveling as an opportunity to collect equipment for use on a next play-through. I don't consider it cheating to use armor, weapons, and jewelry acquired in previous games. I sometimes feel as if a lower level character levels a bit too quickly.

[idbeholdME 394]

Well, I'm now level 140 and even without penalty, it is still taking a while to level up at this point. Even with XP statues permanently prolonged by mentor potions (so double the normal XP), I still have to do 2-3 runs of Pig Fields/South-East Swamp to level up.

My main problem was that with the original numbers, you could very well finish Niobium difficulty, including all the quests, and end up at level 120-ish. Finishing Niob is when I consider the character done, so I barely ever got a character past 130.

And when with every additional level, you are more and more punished for actually killing enemies, to the point where the gained XP is pretty much irrelevant, the drive to play the character further simply disappears. And when the only way to level up becomes chain-spamming quick, high-starred quests because they are not affected by an arbitrary experience penalty, it honestly does not feel like good design to me.

I am OK with an endgame grind, but see zero sense in this grind starting at the half-way point.

Edited April 5, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

Wouldn't it be more elegant to apply the multiplayer bonuses to the singleplayer game, like simulating there were 3 - 5 player there so that the enemies also get stronger rather than manipulating the penalty level?
If you try that feel free to tell me, that would be a solution I would be interested in

[Androdion 884]

You can increase the global XP gain in balance.txt, though the main issue is that it's a big multiplier and it makes progression through early levels go at lightning speed, which feels like jumping stages. There isn't an elegant solution to what idbeholdME describes, which is something I've suffered from as well in the past.

I'm curious though, is it possible to revert the penalty past 100 from negative into positive? This would make the progression speedier past level 100 without affecting pre-100, which is fine by me, and a more elegant solution than just upping all gained XP.

@Flix?

[idbeholdME 394]

3 hours ago, Androdion said:

You can increase the global XP gain in balance.txt, though the main issue is that it's a big multiplier and it makes progression through early levels go at lightning speed, which feels like jumping stages. There isn't an elegant solution to what idbeholdME describes, which is something I've suffered from as well in the past.

I'm curious though, is it possible to revert the penalty past 100 from negative into positive? This would make the progression speedier past level 100 without affecting pre-100, which is fine by me, and a more elegant solution than just upping all gained XP.

@Flix?

I think you can just put a number higher than 1000 in the ExpLS lines. So if you do 1050 for ExpLS100, then every level will give you 5% more XP than the previous one.

Increasing the base XP is definitely a more brute force method. My main goal was to make characters past 125-ish not feel as sluggish to progress. You can already finish Niob at like level 110. Beating the hardest difficulty in ARPGs like these is usually when I stop playing that character. Meaning I barely ever brought a character past 125. Playing with arbitrary penalties always feels bleh to me. Hated it in Diablo, hated it in Sacred 1 and hate it here too. I'm not against some form of end-game grind, but being punished from level 100 when the cap is 200 feels a bit severe. Especially as these days, you can't compensate the XP loss with playing in multiplayer, which I think was the main reasoning behind the penalty in the first place.

Even with no XP loss, I've had to grind quite intensely with perma-statues (statue XP being kept by using Mentor Pots before it expires) to reach level 140 and could have finished Niob ages ago. With the vanilla penalties, you'd have to put in like 400 hours into a single character to ever hope to bring it to 200. With 175-200 mostly comprising of running the same quests over and over because XP from kills becomes meaningless.

 

Some findings about the penalties:

992 is roughly the point where the XP per kill stays the same between level-ups. Anything more and the XP from the same enemies starts dropping, anything less and the XP per kill will rise every level due to enemies increasing in level.

Edited April 6, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

I tested to create a Multiplayer Environment with the balance.txt; these are the values with 5 players in the game and increased difficulty; it's actually a bit too hard for me.

I think I'll go down to 2 or 3 players and less experience. Back in the good old times there were rarely more than 3 players in one game

 

  MP_experience = {1825,1150,1325,1550,1825},

  MP_damage = {1220,1050,1100,1160,1220},
  MP_lifeHP = {2650,1300,1650,2100,2650},
  MP_EShieldHP = {2650,1300,1650,2100,2650},
  MP_combatvalue = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},
  MP_armor = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},

  MP_intensity = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},

[idbeholdME 394]

Just small bump.

Ultimately decided to roll with no experience penalty until level 175. It still takes hundreds of hours to reach that point even with no penalty at all, playing a single character exclusively. The experience requirements still keep going up per level, noticeably so in the later levels.

I might put a slight penalty to XP at the level 175 point but I barely ever play past that point anyway.

On 4/9/2022 at 1:19 AM, Vishanka said:

I tested to create a Multiplayer Environment with the balance.txt; these are the values with 5 players in the game and increased difficulty; it's actually a bit too hard for me.

I think I'll go down to 2 or 3 players and less experience. Back in the good old times there were rarely more than 3 players in one game

 

  MP_experience = {1825,1150,1325,1550,1825},

  MP_damage = {1220,1050,1100,1160,1220},
  MP_lifeHP = {2650,1300,1650,2100,2650},
  MP_EShieldHP = {2650,1300,1650,2100,2650},
  MP_combatvalue = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},
  MP_armor = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},

  MP_intensity = {1460,1100,1210,1330,1460},

It is a good method of simulating the "players X" command from Diablo 2. I actually might utilize it as my late game characters usually start rolling over everything easily, so this will fairly increase the challenge in a way the original devs intended.

I also wonder, does this affect item drops in any way? Did more/better items drop back then in multiplayer with more people in the game? Or did it just bump the enemy stats?

Edited September 9, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

3 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Did more/better items drop back then in multiplayer with more people in the game? Or did it just bump the enemy stats?

AFAIK and pretty sure, just the stats. I remember I only liked servers with 2 or 3 people since it got too tedious after that (kill speed <> experience). Never saw anyone joining servers for drop rates and the entries don't indicate anything about drop rates either.

And there was also the problem with the level difference... we only joined servers but everyone stayed in their own favorite area alone, I rarely actually saw another player.

And there was the bug where a high level mob could randomly spawn and kill you 1hit...

I don't remember how the system worked if 2 players hit the same mob though, or which level the mobs had if the players had different levels... I guess the level was dependent on who entered the area first... but whose drop rate was taken into account... especially if one has perception and the other does not, I don't know.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Vishanka

[idbeholdME 394]

Changed my mind again, this time for the last time.

The final numbers I am going to stick with (this time for real  ) are:

ExpLS100 = 999,
ExpLS125 = 997,
ExpLS150 = 995,
ExpLS175 = 992,

Been running with these for a while and they feel quite fair. As I've been farming bosses quite intensely in the last few days, the levels can indeed go by a little too fast in the later stages with no penalty. This penalty is initially almost unnoticeable, but slowly ramping up to become pretty severe in the 150-200 segment. Currently at level 169, these numbers mean a 29.24% XP penalty from kills. At 175, it's going to become 45.3% penalty, ramping up to 54-55% by the final couple of levels.

Edited September 11, 2022 by idbeholdME