ts very logical that the Level number is a product of variables. If the variables are changed the number will be changed
Variables are for example attack speed, attack strength, attack hit or misses, health, and so on
i guess its a lot of variables that they can change in a mob.
So they had to lower some stats to lower the level number.
In the end this results in a game wide Nerf to skills gained vs. ped cycled in hunting since 90-95% of the mobs in EU had their levels reduced. Whether you call this a Nerf or an "adjustment" or EU is "dynamic" is up to you but the fact remains that skills will be slower in hunting now for all players.
I don't think this is necessarily correct. I don't know about the <L10 mobs, but the main change in other mobs is that high regen mobs have become lower L number without any apparent change to their stats. What it looks like if the equation MA use to calculate mob level has been changed, with less weight assigned to mob regeneration (and possibly other things).
If you will look in percentages instead of numbers you will see why.
Carabok from 10-4 is 60% less
some other from 80 to 72 is around 10% less
and high level means a lot of stats to lower while its not mentionable. see formula thingie in earlier post.
Its not strange to think that sort of basic loot is also a variable. So they can have changed other variables in higher level mobs.
In argonaut young the eye oil is changed to muscle. Level is from 7 to 5.
edit: my explanation of this is just a theory, but a theory that is pretty much logical for all things we see.
The system is per mob, so comparing two mobs for proof is pretty pointless. We can only see a change, not proove it really with numbers.
Only way is to have good figures is from before update and after update on the same mob.
The system as i explained is pretty clever. Before L numbers we could not figure it out really. But Mindark gave us Level numbers. Thats the only connection we have for understanding the system.
imo the level is a sum of variables. so actually the answer. We just dont know the sum to get to that answer.
i think level number is a key in understanding the skillsystem. But its not directly connected to anything. its all indirect, but surely affecting skillgain.
This isn't a thread about the nerf, it's about getting our facts straight. And quoting made-up (and inaccurate) figures like the 90-95% one there doesn't help anyone.
How many mobs had their level Increased rather than decreased? I bet that % is understated if anything. There may only be 1-10 mobs and their maturities out of the hundreds in game that actually had their levels Increased rather than Decreased.
I really don't think anyone wants to fly around the entire universe though to check every maturity of every mob to see which ones increased and which decreased.
Why not just ask MA if there been any change in the system???
For 100 health-ish mobs I would suggest Foul Young (lvl 4 pre-patch) vs. Berycled Young (lvl 1 pre-patch) vs. Faucervix Young (lvl 5 pre-patch). These suggestions lead me to my next statements based on another quote and also stated in my original post.
Cryogenics: 2729 -> 2769 (0.61 ped)
Concentration: 2763 -> 2770
Power Catalyst: 3083 -> 3088
Wounding: 2789 -> 2794
Cryogenics: 2769 -> 2809 (0.65 ped)
Concentration: 2770 -> 2777
Power Catalyst: 3088 -> 3092
Wounding: 2794 -> 2800
Conducted same test as in OP except with Thieves on Rocktropia. The Thieves have 10 hp and the spawn was about 75% level 2 and 25% level 4. The purpose of this test was to show that not only Carabok give increased skills over the level 1 punies on Calypso, in other words show that Carabok are not really special, it's the mob level.
Ill repeat it once more
Mindark stated to ark dev team thet skillgain wasnt affected by changing moblevel.
Its clear that that statement is untrue.
Thats the real issue, not or nerfing is done or not
Conducted same test as in OP except with Thieves on Rocktropia. The Thieves have 10 hp and the spawn was about 75% level 2 and 25% level 4. The purpose of this test was to show that not only Carabok give increased skills over the level 1 punies on Calypso, in other words show that Carabok are not really special, it's the mob level. [see post for results]
Great stuff. It looks pretty conclusive from your results that mobs of the same HP but with different mob levels give more skill gain.
What we don't know at the moment is how it scales with HP and mob level. Also I guess we don't know whether mob level is the determining factor, or the properties of the mob that determine the mob level.
The big picture seems to be that skillgains on lower level mobs were decreased and most higher level mobs didn't change or went up. We can call it a nerf, or improvement depends to which player class we belong we either won or lost, or were unaffected.
It seems to be the pendulum effect, last year there was all this hullabaloo about the new player experience. Quite obviously this was the only reason why Carabok on Ark or Thief on Rock got their unusually high skillgain-per-pec properties. Now there's a problem with skillfarmers, and the pendulum moves back.
This part seems pretty clear and quite frankly, pretty fair. Skillgains should be proportional to the mob threat level, if things weren't properly balanced, then yes, go ahead and make it right.
We should forget the beginner-class mobs (Carabok/Thief) for now, and try to figure out what happened to the rest. Was the general balance affected? If so, yes, that would be indeed a serious nerf.
We need data.
Did the regen rates drop a lot of mobs that lost a lot of mob levels, like fresco, furor, kreltin, aurli, spiders, carabok, etc.? Anyone? I have not heard reports of that. If the regen rates did not all drop, then it wasn't mob attributes that caused the skill gain drop, it was a system wide mob level formula change.
Did the regen rates drop a lot of mobs that lost a lot of mob levels, like fresco, furor, kreltin, aurli, spiders, carabok, etc.? Anyone? I have not heard reports of that. If the regen rates did not all drop, then it wasn't mob attributes that caused the skill gain drop, it was a system wide mob level formula change.
So unless you still aren't convinced that mob level determines skill gain, it's not just small mobs where there is a drop in skill gain.
That's true, but at the moment we don't have a good handle on how much the bigger mobs that lost Lnum have been affected, because all the data so far is for low HP, low Lnum mobs.
Bit like trying to figure exact armor plate decay rates for back in pre-gold. That info's as good as gone, but more important, it's useless now.
Instead of trying to detrmine and lament any changes, (enough info seems fairly nicely documented above to point toward a recent skill gain change that corresponds to L# changes) may I suggest best action from here on is to just study and record current L# effects on skill gains. Perhaps find a useful formula?
Seems a bit more useful.
Had a scout around for some good mobs to test against in the higher HP category. Ideally I was looking for:
(i) two low regen mobs with same/similar HP and wildly different L#
or
(ii) two low regen mobs with same/similar L# and wildly different HP
You won't find either of those combinations.
thought I was at a stage where I could prove that MOB LEVEL was in fact a non-integer - simply rounded into an integer for display purposes.
On Arkadia post-nerf, the best two mobs to hunt for skill-gains per unit PED are Carabok Puny (still) and (lower end) Ostelok. Oratan are fairly good too if you're too embarrassed to be seen in Carabok country or if you want dodge. However... these happen to be just about the only three mobs on Arkadia with no grinding mission. Is that a coincidence I wonder..?