Sugguestion to Change spillover XP

[Whitelighter]

We all know how the spillover XP works, so I won't bother posting that. The problem I've found is specific to spillover from trade XP. First off I'll give you some basics so you have some understanding of what I'm talking about:

Progen Warrior (TL50/OL97)

Trade Route from Fenris to Somerled - lv5 trade good (Nanobots) - 1,000 trade xp per

Lv5 loot from (cl30-32) organic mobs - stacked to 38 peices - 1893 trade xp

Now I know it is very odd for a non-trade class to max TL first, but I was testing something else and found this problem. As you can see I planned on maxing my TL, and letting the spillover from that help level my CL/EL via loots, while I was actually leveling my CL. Figured the little boost from the spillover would be something worth testing.

However, there is a MASSIVE decline in trade xp rewarded from loot, and it was something I expected but not to this degree. This could/will really hurt the trade classes that typically max their TL for building skills, then focus on combat afterwards. All the looting they do while leveling combat, will reward them very little spillover XP to boost their CL/EL. This is something that needs to be discussed, looked into (possible bug maybe?), and if warranted - changed. I'm not sure what the numbers are with lv8/9 loot items but I'm sure its atleast a little better. But the issue is once you can hunt for loot that level typically the mobs are lv45+ (and usually 50+) so the boost to CL isn't an option to speed up leveling.

I haven't gotten to fully test this yet but here are some numbers I have gotten:

lv5 organic loot - 1 peice - 16 trade xp (@TL50, but it gets split into 7cl/7el xp)

lv5 trade route item - 1 item -1,000 xp (splits like it should, 500cl/500el)

***From Memory*** - Lv5 organic loot - 83 peices - gave me roughly 17,000 trade XP, trading to another player and not the vendor, at TL28 (seemed about right in relation to my levels)

What I gather from this is:

If you hunt and loot, the xp from the loot will be appropiate for your Trade Level

If you max your Trade Level, and plan on letting spillover XP boost your CL/EL, it doesn't work very well at all.

The most effeicent way to level is to focus exclusively on combat, which will keep your TL fairly close and let the spillover from combat boost EL/TL once you hit CL50 due to the fact that combat XP is not reduced.

To get the ball rolling with solutions I'll start with something simple:

We have a total of 50 trade levels, and 9 levels of loot in the game.

If each level of loot = 5 trade levels then

Each peice of loot should award .5% of a TL if it falls into the correct range

Example table:

graph lost its formatting but I'll fix it later, kid on my lap making it hard lol

TL

50| x

|

45| x

|

40| x

|

35| x

|

30| x

|

25| x

|

20| x

|

15| x

|

10| x

|

5 |x

|

__|___________________________________

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Loot Item Level

If you are TL10, and loot 20 peices of Lv2 loot you would gain 10% of a TL. Factor in killing speed at that level, drop chance of loot: you'd gain maybe 30-40% of a TL per hour.

If you are TL30, and loot those SAME 20 peices of Lv2 loot you would gain 2% of a TL. More or less diminishing returns kick in.

Would have to have some kind of reduction every X amount of TLs to keep it balanced, say at TL35 you get .2% per item or something

To prevent exploiting you could always cap it at no more than .5% of a TL per item, but it can be reduced. (No farming lv9 items to a TL10 for massive XP boosts)

Of course the .5% could be changed to a more fitting number if need be. It just works well for a starting point.

~*~*~*~ My thoughts on this ~*~*~*~

This is really wrong to any trader class, or anyone else that levels TL "first". While I know, and agree, that for balance XP from loot has to be reduced in relation to TL I believe the current reduction is too steep and needs changing. I've thought about the arguement that the trader classes could always just continue to run trade routes since it appears THAT xp isn't effected, but again that is kind of slapping them in the face to me. If that is the option for them, why even give them weapon slots? They wont need them.

Combat in any game will always be the most fun part to most players, and will have an advantage due to that. Just the way it is. But in the current form it is also the only viable option. With the dicussions concerning EL xp from mining, which hinders the ability to max EL and let spillover help the other too; I felt it should be known that TL suffers the same drawbacks and both need to be addressed.

[bondct]

i agree that trade xp from loot is still a little off on the low side even at even level... but I also look at it this way... there are 3 basic xp based classes... miner-explore trader-trade warrior-combat... so based on the class you choose I think you are also picking what will be your rollover... meaning if your a TT your rollover Trade xp from killing loot will kinda sux... imho what I would like to see is more xp from crafting or some kind of Trade based thing... other than just jobs/trade runs...

while i realize that presents with its own set of issues and problems... I really cant worry about that... personally I feel there is no perfect answer to anything so no matter what we do, its just a trade off (no pun intended, ok well yeah pun intended but thats not the point)

[Floss]

Getting this balanced is hard. In ST3, my spillover was from combat, as my TW was Cl 50 around OL125 or so. In ST4, my TT is spilling over trade, but at a MUCH faster rate than the TW was able to achieve. I can't speak to mining as that has zero appeal to me.

Bringing explore and combat spillover in line with trade would be nice. A warrior shoudl never be running trade jobs to cap combat xp, that's just so wrong =/

[seekeronos]

Mining seems slow, but done the right way can be reasonable. I made about four explore levels over the past two nights from only mining, and I think a couple-three trade levels as well (from refining or selling ores).

[dcwestby]

Yes, I have noticed on my JE that trade run xp seems rather small..

Havent yet tried trade runs much on JD, but I think the trade run xp is fairly high, not sure where it is in relation to a trader doing the same runs.

[Trapt]

Really what needs to happen is experience across the board needs balanced. I know in time, there will be missions that allow you to focus on exploration. We all know about the trade runs. Hopefully there will be combat missions as well so classes that can't easily kill fast enough to make grinding combat experience worth the time can do a few missions and get a nice dump of combat exp.

All classes have their strengths and weaknesses, but having any class having a big enough weakness to say "forget that I'm not going to play a class without negotiate, I won't good exp from trade runs" is wrong.

I think all classes should be able to use their strengths and level using that strength effectively and as evenly across the board as possible.

Warriors = Combat

Trader = Trade

Explorers = Exploration

Captain obvious would state that each "should" be able to level using their game given abilities evenly and effectively. Now finding out how to implement a system that will allow it is the fun part.