Light Blues and NPC Consider Color Effect on Exp Gains
The following applies to EverQuest prior to Serpent's Spine.
For the most part, consider colors have no bearing on the experience gained from a kill. I.e. killing a level 10 mob while at level 7 (when it's red) does NOT grant more experience points (I stress points, not exp gauge progress) than killing the same level 10 mob while at level 11. The experience gauge goes up more at level 7 from that kill because the experience required for that level is significantly less. Raw exp values used to be sent over the wire and if reds had awarded more than it would have been noticed by the ShowEQ guys.
Here is the results of an experiment somebody did in the late classic era (pre-Kunark) of a solo druid keeping track of how many kills he needed to level. The results did not indicate any sort of bonus exp for killing reds:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/0KuHXk_NRAoJ
There are two exceptions to con colors not mattering. One is light blue exp. (plus greens of course grant zero) The second is the high level kill bonus multiplier (MLM) that was put in just prior to PoP's launch; that will be covered in a later section.
Light blue cons were put into the game on November 7 2001. (very late Velious) This is the patch note:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Patch Note
- We have changed the way the /consider command works. We have added a
‘light blue’ area between green and blue. NPCs that used to /consider
green but gave experience will now /consider light blue, as well as
NPCs of slightly lower level than those greens. You will always get
experience for something that is light blue. You will not receive
experience for greens. At the same time, by including lower level NPCs
in the light blue /consider, we have increased the range of lower level
NPCs that will grant experience. This will be most noticeable for
characters of higher level.
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Prior to that, at higher levels green cons that were nearly blue could also grant experience. (it was probably no more than two levels) They were the light blues before light blues.
I don't know exactly how the light blue experience reduction worked. I have found two explanations for it. It's very possible both are true and Sony changed light blue exp mid-Luclin. It seems to be the case however that the light blue reduction was not equal for all light blues, and higher level light blues awarded more experience than lower level ones.
Explanation 1: Light blues granted 50% or 25% normal exp, with the lower level ones granting 25%.
"if you kill a high light blue, exp is 50% of that, if you kill a low light blue, its 25%." (01-12-2002)
This post is by Casey Webster, a ShowEQ developer at the time, therefore has high credibility.
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...ill-experience
"Green cons that give exp are divided into 2 groups, high and low depending which of the 2 green/light blue levels is closer to you. high gives 50% exp, and low gives 25%. So basically, if its light blue by 1 level, you only get half exp, if by 3 levels 25%" (Mar 12, 2002)
Casey Webster Usenet post:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/m9N5Q__WctAJ
"Level * level * ZEM * Class <- Blue or higher, lightblue are .5 or .25 times this" (03-14-2002)
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...?675-EXP-Chart
I found several older comments which stated that high level greens gave half or one quarter exp like light blues did, but didn't state where they got this information. ShowEQ was starting to become well-known in 2000 however. Here are two, but I've found more:
"If the creature was green to a player, that player may get no experience or 1/2 or 1/4 of their share if the creature was barely green." (April 2000)
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/A71gx4EkTfAJ
"When the rat turns high green it will give 1/2 the experience, in this example it will give 50 exp points. If you level again and it still gives experience it will give 1/4 the experience, in this example 25 exp points." (March 2001)
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/EeuCSNfUc1AJ
Explanation 2: Light blues granted 80%, then 60%, then 20% exp.
One of the ShowEQ threads that was discussing the hell level removal multipliers (HBM) and the high level bonus kill multipliers (MLM) had data from users who were getting precise experience values from kills in September 2002. The results showed the two highest level light blues granted 80% then 60% experience with the next two light blues granting 20%. Since Sony was making large changes to exp code at the time, including a very short-lived nerf to low dark blues, it wouldn't be surprising at all if they also changed the light blue returns.
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...-6-patch/page4
I've found several posts which stated that green con exp had some quirks. (to reiterate: green con exp was a thing up until the end of Velious before LBs)
I've seen a few comments suggesting that green exp did not work in groups, or with some members getting the exp and some not. Here's one:
"solo, both of us get exp from these guys since they're high green to both of us. But I've been finding that when grouped, we don't get exp for high greens. Anyway, we were doing this at lunch today and the Paladin would get exp for all of the greens, and the warrior would not."
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/TEUdnSfNOdEJ
The pet mitigation might have worked differently on it:
"when dealing with green mobs of any kind, if the pet outdamages the mage, the mage gets no exp. If the mage outdamages the pet, though, he gets the normal green exp, be it 50% or 25%."
https://web.archive.org/web/20010302...ld/showeq.html
The dark blue exp range shrank after level 60 when Planes of Power launched, but this didn't last. At level 60 dark blue was 15 levels wide and this was the case from Kunark until well after PoP. (changed in Serpent's Spine?) When PoP launched dark blue range at 61 was 13 levels wide, at 62 it was 11 levels wide, then it stayed at 10 levels wide at 63 up to 65. This range was expanded to 15 levels wide for all PoP levels on June 11th 2003.
I found a 2002 ShowEQ thread discussing con color ranges here:
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...-your-findings
The September 19 2006 (Serpent's Spine launch) patch changed the con colors in this way:
Green cons changed to gray.
Light blues changed to green.
Dark blues were split into dark blue and light blue.
Yellow cons changed to three levels instead of two.
These changes made sense due to the way the MLM works. See that section for details.
Elaboration on Zone Experience Modifiers
As mentioned previously, every zone has a 'ZEM' number. Sony used this as a way to make dangerous zones grant more experience or to entice players to go to underpopulated zones. Unfortunately they didn't put enough consideration into this, resulting in poor risk vs. reward when it comes to exp in many zones. ZEM values ranged from 75 to 100 in classic. In Luclin some lower level dungeons had large ZEM increases up to 160. 75 was common for outdoor zones.
Sony applied a ZEM override or floor (unsure which but some AK data suggests floor) for new players. The Stratics EXP calculator mentions this: "Varies based on zone and your level. For newbies it is 114 or 100." I can verify this from checking logs of players leveling and estimating their experience gains; they did seem to gain more experience than expected and in some cases 114 made the numbers fit well. However the margin of error for this is quite high due to the level variance of NPCs and the massive difference in exp per kill for each level of NPC at lower levels so I can't give estimates of what the ZEMs were other than the experience gains were much higher than a ZEM of 75 would grant. A Velious era newbie log with solo kills I parsed showed this at level 5 but not at level 8. I couldn't parse levels 6 and 7 because the log wasn't on when the character hit level 7.
Casey Webster was an early ShowEQ developer and he made this comment on March 12 2002:
"At lvl 6 and under, a "newbie" zem of 100 is applied to kills regardless of zone"
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/m9N5Q__WctAJ
This September 2000 Usenet post says it took 10 snakes for a Human Necromancer to reach level 2, or 20 snakes if the pet did all the damage. That would agree with a 114 ZEM:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/SjHmH-BxS14J
Sony also applied some kind of experience bonus for players levels 3 to 9 during Luclin. I doubt that it's another ZEM floor or override as I saw this in Al'Kabor logs of players in Paludal, so it looks like an additional multiplier. This bonus seemed to increase with levels up to level 9 then was gone at level 10. Absor mentions this newbie experience bonus in the "EverQuest Third Anniversary State of the Game part 2" post on 03-15-2002:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Absor
When starting a new character for the first time, it can take quite some time to get into that class' core abilities. In some cases, the style of gameplay needs to shift dramatically. That being the case, we've accelerated the rate at which people gain experience up to level ten.
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For a list of early PoP era ZEMs, see this:
https://wiki.takp.info/index.php/Current_ZEMs
TAKP's ZEM list is accurate for the time period as it was packet sniffed from Al'Kabor. Sony changed ZEMs several times over the years however, so the remainder of this section will outline and date all of the known ZEM changes.
Dolalin did a lot of sleuthing of ZEM changes up through Velious and I highly recommend reading his thread on it and this post in particular:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...0&postcount=24
Here are the patch notes, dev comments and ShowEQ user comments regarding ZEM changes that I've found:
May 25, 2000 (early Kunark) - Patch note
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Patch Note
Upon investigation, we discovered a deficiency with the amount of
experience being rewarded in many Kunark zones (mostly dungeons). The
affected zones have been updated, and adventurers should notice the
greater experience reward in return for the increased risk and
challenge associated with these zones.
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January 17, 2001 (early Velious) - From Producer's letter
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Producer's letter
As of the next patch, you will receive additional experience (per kill) in the following zones:
Droga increased by 12%
Nurga increased by 12%
Solusek's Eye (SolA) increased by 13%
Najena increased by 13%
Befallen increased by 13%
Paw increased by 13%
Permafrost increased by 13%
Kaesora increased by 18%
Qeynos Catacombs increased by 20%
Runnyeye increased by 20%
Kerra Ridge increased by 20%
The Hole increased by 25%
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January 2002 (early Luclin) - Comment on ShowEQ's forum:
"Most outdoor zones, ZEM is 75, most dungeons, 80. Then there were all the beefed up dungeons a year or so ago, they have values like 90, 92"
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...ill-experience
March 7 2002 (early to mid Luclin) - Comment on ShowEQ's forum:
"ZEM varies based on zone, but in general:
75 Outdoors
85 Indoors
100 Dungeons
Then VI Revamed some of the unused dungeons giving them a ZEM as high as 125 (KerraRidge)."
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...e-XP-Modifiers
March 12 2002 (early to mid Luclin) - Usenet comment by Casey Webster:
"ZEM is 75 for most outdoor zones, 80 for some dungeons, 85 for some others, and it maxes out at 100 for underused zones and some especially difficult ones"
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/7h7DhR63ZmwJ
Another March 12 2002 (early to mid Luclin) - Usenet comment by Casey Webster:
"some zems reached 100 as a result of the patch (the hole is an example), but no zones exceeded it. The only zone at 100 before that patch was Kedge i believe."
Note that he was likely referring to the early Velious patch from a year prior.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/m9N5Q__WctAJ
March 15 2002 (early to mid Luclin) - From EverQuest Third Anniversary State of the Game part 2 Absor post
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Absor
Experience gained in dungeons designed for players level 30 and under will be increased. For many people, there is nothing more satisfying in EverQuest than adventuring in dungeons. By giving people the tools to help them succeed earlier, and rewards to match, we hope that more players will discover why many people feel this way.
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March 19 2002 (early to mid Luclin) - Patch note:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Patch note
Raised the amount of experience gained in lower-level dungeons.
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August 6 2003 patch note mentions a nerf for city zones around the time of PoP launching:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Patch Note
- Experience in city zones updated – Some time around the release of
Planes of Power we reduced the experience gain in some city zones. The
experience gained from quests in those zone has been increased.
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June 11 2003 (about when the first guilds got into PoTime) - Sony nerfed PoP zone ZEMs when they increased the group experience bonuses:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Patch Note
Planes of Power zones had an increased experience award above and
beyond those of most other zones. Because of these new dramatic
improvements to group experience gains, we will be reducing the zone-
specific experience bonus for Planes of Power zones a bit. As long as
character is grouped with at least one other in these zones, they will
see an improvement in experience gain over the old system. The one down
side to the new system is that there will be a small decrease in
experience for those who do not group, and only for those who do so in
Planes of Power zones.
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The new ZEM for most PoP zones was apparently 119 after that patch. This thread lists a lot of ZEMs days later:
https://www.showeq.net/forums/showth...?3686-ZEM-list
Here's a 2004 post with more zones:
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.game...m/ZkseuNNwfaEJ