leveling xp/AA pointsFollow

Originally it was stated by the developers that one regular level at 51 = one AA pt, but AA has been changed since then. Also, from my personal testing, it slightly different, and 50/50 all the way through level 51, resulted in either slightly less than one AA, or slight more, I forget which now, but it was about 20% difference, one way or the other (I think it was 20% less AA). Now, since the level cap was 75, AAs are gained equally at any level for the same con mob (assuming, same xp modifiers as well), and for even (white) cons, equal to what a level 70 would have gotten against a level 70 mob prior to the AA change.

What all this means is, that now AAs are equal at any level, versus the similar conning mobs, but compared to the old system, low level AA is hugely faster than it was, and AA above 70 is slightly slower than it used to be, but there never was the old system for 71+, so no one would have ever experience the old AA system.

If still not clear, prior to TSS (The Serpent's Spine) expansion, at max level (70), everyone now gets AAs at that rate for the same conning mobs, so what a 70 got versus a level 70 mob in the old system, a 51 gets versus a 51 level mob, and an 85 gets versus an 85 level mob.

Later, an addition AA XP bonus gradient was implemented, which gives huge bonus for low total AAs, and tapers off to no bonus at 1000 total AAs. So although a level 51 vs. 51 mob, and 85 vs. an 85 mob are the same AA xp per kill, if the total AAs are both 0, then they both get a huge AA bonus for having low total AAs. However, if the 51 has 0 total AAs, and the 85 has over 1000 total AAs, then the 85 will get no bonus, but the 51 will get a huge bonus.

I know it's somewhat complex, but hopefully my explanation was clear enough to make sense of it.

Yther Ore.

Edited, Jan 23rd 2010 4:24pm by Yther

In the old system. leveling from 50 to 51 = the same experience it took to get 1 AA. But it doesn't work that way now, and trying to equate 1AA to actual level experience doesn't really seem possible without alot of testing, especially with the bonus for low AA.

And level experience varies for each level. I'm not sure how it scales, but it's exponential for sure. Like as an example, but I don't think it's this steep in EQ, let's say it takes 100 xp pts to get from 1st level to 2nd, and 200 for 2nd to 3rd, and 400 for 3rd to 4th, and 800 from 4th to 5th, and so on. My guess is it's more like, 100, then 150, then, 225, etc. The level exp has been modified several times in the past, and I don't think any one has parsed the scaling as it is now, but there are some old, yet accurate parses of xp for the low levels in the original game levelinng system.

Also, it depends on how much xp you put into AA. Press V to bring up the AA window, and at 51 or higher you can adjust the amount of xp that goes toward AA. If you go 50/50, it'll vary by mob, and how many AA you have. With the new variables it's hard to give an estimate.

Only steadfast rule, is if you set your xp to 0% to AA (100% to regular), which is what it will be by default, you will get no AAs what so ever, and only regular leveling xp. If you keep it like this you will just keep leveling without getting any AAs. So you'll have 0 AAs, at 52, at 53, etc.

If you set your xp to 100% AA (0% to regular), you will not level at all, and only gain AAs. You can bank upto 30 AAs this way, or spend some as you gain them. But once you have 30 AAs banked, and do not spend any of those 30, yoand keep you xp 100% to AA, you will be getting no xp or AA, you have to spend of the banked ones to get below 30 again to start earning more. Anywya, you'll just keep getting AAs, as long as you keep the rate at 100% and will not level, assuming there are AA items to purchase.

Thus you can start or stop AAs, at any level, and vary the amount of your experience that goes into AAs.

With the new system, I don't know of any way of saying how much level xp makes up an AA. It's not much at low AAs for sure. At 77 on my War, with amost 1200 AAs (over the AA bonus point), at 80% into AA, 20% into reg, and Leadership AA on (20% off the top toward it), I get a little less than 1 AA per 1% of level, or a bit more than 1% of level per 1 AA. This is killing dark blues to yellows in Ashengate, which is currently a hot zone. How many kills does it take to get that much xp? About 10-12 kills for 1AA and 1% reg xp. At 0% AA, 100% reg, I got 0 AA, and about 1% or more per 2 kills.

Yther Ore.

Also you will gain more aa exp until 1k aas. Then it drops off a bit, but that change was made around '08 I believe.

On the EQ boards there is some debate about this. I will add the disclaimer, that no one has provided a link to a dev saying this changed.

For AA Exp
On the EQ boards, this is now referred to as a "grey check". If the mob is grey to the highest level in the group, then no one gets AA exp. If the mob cons green or higher to the highest level in the group, then each group member will get the AA exp based on what it cons to them individually.

For Level Exp
It still works as before, as long as you get exp while grouped with the higher level, you get your share of the exp no matter what the mob cons to the higher level.

For example, I PL my alts with my level 81 cleric. At level 54, my alts can groups with my cleric (level * 1.5 rule). So I buff up my cleric and using the Ward defensive proc and the Vow of Victory proc, I pull 20 mobs at a time in PoI/PoN. All of these mobs con grey to my cleric, but the alt gets some awesome exp.

The grey check has been around since they redid AAs, when TSS came out. I've never seen any dev comment on it, but it has been known by the player base since then. Leadership AA is also affected by this check, and emotes even tell you so (i.e. You gain Leadership experience).

Yther Ore.

Fair enough.

The example was implied as for regular exp only (since it was after the regular exp section), but I can see that someone could have read is as an example of either.

No one here said anything to that effect either.

The 'grey check' is just a consequence of what's been said a few times already: all members of a group earn AA xp based on how the mobs /con the the highest member of the group.

I don't know how it's figured, but from my experience it hasn't changed, other than the AA bonus for lower total AAs, since TSS release. I seem to get the same AA ratio between a PLer and PLee depending on the PLees level. In other words, the for the same mobs, the level of the toon being power leveled adjusts the amount AA / kill. And probably is based on con to the lower level toon, as it's pretty high ratio, until the mobs turn yellow, then starts dropping fast each level above that, until light blue, then slowing gets closer to 1:1. But compared to regular exp, it seems similar.

Just how it has seemed to be to me over the years. Of course with the low AA bonus, it can be much more than 10:1 now, depending on the variation between the two toons AA bonus.

Anyway, I figured it was the same type of group distribution as before, as adding multiple lower level powerleveled toons to the groups, drops the rate of each lower toon, but not by a large amount, where if it was totally just based on con, number of players in group shouldn't matter, nor their level, and 2 high levels with 1 lower level, cuts the lower levels in about 1/2 / kill.

Yther Ore.

Edited, Jan 29th 2010 10:02am by Yther

I was thinking about this over the weekend...

The difficulty in testing this is finding a high level toon and a lower level toon that meets the following requirements:

1. Most important - they both have roughly the same amount of AA. The scaling of the AA "bonus" is messed up.
2. There is a level difference large enough to have light blue/green mobs to the high level and white/yellow to the low level.

In my small army of toons, I might have the ability to test this.

Rogue - level 85 - 157 AA
Druid - level 66 - 119 AA

Their AA amount should be close enough that the scaling should me minimal, if anything. Now where to test this??

I need mobs that are about level 67-70.

The elementals in Paw are generally 66-71, with a few mobs lower (64?) and a few mobs higher (73?). Trash mobs hit for 700ish and named mobs hit for up to 1000ish, but they miss an awful lot.

I think you are missing something. A level 85 toon takes more aaxp to get 1 aa than a level 66.

In other words, the level 85 might require 1000 points of aaxp to get 1 full aa and the level 66 might require 500. So if a level 68 mob gives 100 aaxp to both toons, the lower level one will get 1 full aa point 2x as fast as the higher level toon.

I don't think this is testable, you'd have to be able to see the actual points given to each toon, not the % of a full.

Pinzarn quoted unnamed sources and he specifically said (twice) that no Dev had posted avbout this - making it an unfounded rumor rather than a fact about how AAxp works.

If it happens to fit your subjective experience, more power to you. Still just a rumor though (whether true or not), and not one invented here, which was my point.

Actually, I didn't quote any one; however, I did make refer to the Sony EQ Forums discussions. Trust me, if I quoted someone, they'd get the credit.

Second, rather than blindly believing the party line, since there are some discussions about unpublished changes to AA, it is worth mentioning since it could be true.

Based on my simple testing, I am now leaning to the "based on highest level in the group" is no longer true.