Info: Mob Level and Skill Gain

Xen

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As discussed in this thread and this thread, reportedly skill gains have been decreased on some mobs due to a lowering of their level (the "L##" in the mobs label).

It has been "debated" if this is true:

Uniqu3 said:
This thread gets an A+ for wild stabs in the dark

aridash said:
that. i thought it was a joke thread at first. and now we have a new skill theory too

il said:
yeah where is the proof and/or pics?

Nighthawk said:
I have noticed no skill gain change at all in the few k PED I've cycled on a dozen or so different mobs on Calypso since the VU... So no.

Magyar_Republic said:
Yeah. Another pointless complaint thread. Sadly this is the kind of shit that will be believed in 3 years. Not the truth.

Magyar_Republic said:
Desperate to paint MindArk as an evil, thieving corporation so they can feel better themselves about being 'unfairly robbed' of their hard earned money, these people will stop at nothing to justify their claims. If data comes in that contradicts their presumption, then "its only for some avatars" or "its not on the mob you tested on." Or maybe youre just "too ignorant to notice."

Its comical, really. Sometimes the only point in engaging these folks in discussion is to see how creative their replies can get as they try to twist logic and evidence to suit their own pre-existing conclusions.

Magyar_Republic said:
Youre wrong. Youre fucking wrong. Period.

Magyar_Republic said:
It's all a big exaggeration, a lie, a phantom. Do you have a right to do this? No, you dont.

Wow, eh?

---

So, even though I already tested this long ago (when mob levels appeared) to my own satisfaction, I did another test, and took screenshots of the results.

I did one hunt of 2 x Herman ASI - 8 R (until broken) on L4 Carabok Puny, and another hunt exactly the same except hunting L1 Caudatergus Puny + L1 Berycled Puny + L1 Tripudion Puny. Each hunt was 1100+ kills. Notice the mob level difference, 4 vs 1. That is essentially the only meaningful difference between the two hunts.

However, the skill gains for each hunt were a lot different.

L4 Carabok Puny Skill Gains

carabokskillgain.jpg


L1 Caud/Bery/Trip Puny Skill Gains

caudberytripskillgain.jpg


(note that the Combat Reflexes skill gain here is a mission reward)

As you can see, about 3X skillgain on the L4 vs L1.

Clearly mob level affects skill gain significantly. And since many mobs had a significant (20-40%) drop in mob level, this means a skill gain reduction, and not just Carabok.

From now on if anyone wants to dispute that mob levels affect skill gain or that there has been a skill gain reduction on many mobs this VU as a result of a reduction in mob levels, your post should come with accurate, legitimate testing, or don't bother.

Magyar_Republic said:
Point and game. I win.

Indeed. :handjob:
 
Very interesting. Thank you for the test and publishing.
 
No more skill farming on carabok?
No more massive skillgains on trip-puny for just a few pec?
The skillfarmers can't suck money out of the system (read: from depostors wallets) any more?

The sky is fall... wait, let me think about it for a sec, is it a good thing or a bad thing? :scratch2:
 
No more skill farming on carabok?
No more massive skillgains on trip-puny for just a few pec?
The skillfarmers can't suck money out of the system (read: from depostors wallets) any more?

The sky is fall... wait, let me think about it for a sec, is it a good thing or a bad thing? :scratch2:

It's not just about Carabok. You could say Carabok were unbalanced, fine. How about all the other mobs that had 10-15 levels removed? Were they all unbalanced? Were you getting way too much skill from aurli, kreltin, frescoquda?

Anyway, the primary purpose of this thread is to demonstrate how mob level relates to skill gain, thus the title of the thread.
 
Just out curiosity, I noticed that the L1 cuad's etc. gave ranged damage assessment while the carabok did not... Is this missing in your data or do carabok's not give that skill? :)
 
i noticed i got very little skills in arkadia but when i moved back to caly i got skills about twice faster.. and hunted around same mob lvl mobs
 
Just out curiosity, I noticed that the L1 cuad's etc. gave ranged damage assessment while the carabok did not... Is this missing in your data or do carabok's not give that skill? :)

RDA was unlocked while hunting the L1's (this obviously is not my avatar).
 
I went to Ark 2 days before VU14 to skill stuff i never touched before on Carabok. I finished 6 Caly TT fists and a psi blade ( roughly 107 PED total i think ) and my PF skill went from 200 to 1450 during that time. After VU with the same setup and cycling it went up from 1450 to 1835. Haven't measured in TT gain and the other gained skills, but that's the only comparison i have pre-post VU with the same setup on the same mob.
When i'm home in the evening i can calculate the difference in TT

Okay i used the Skill calc from entropedia, not sure if did it right:

used start value 1835 and chose the chipping out option down to 1450: Extracting, ESI needed: 3.34 PED, Final chip size: 3.01 PED

then i did it again to "chip" from 1450 down to 200 : Extracting, ESI needed: 5.95 PED, Final chip size: 5.35 PED

So after VU the skillgain is ~56% of what it used to be preVU if my calculation is right at least for the PF skil in my sample.

This is a huge difference. So either the Moblevels have also another meaning than just displaying the threat level, or they were not able to change the displayed level and lowered the mob attribute which caused the higher level and thus the mobs give less skills now.

I tend to believe it is the first option, but in fact the new lower skillgain on them is not a myth.
 
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Thank you for the clear proof.
 
Are you sure it's directly connected to the L numbers and not to regen/hp or other parameters that we do not see? There is a pretty big change in the L numbers of spiders and I've been doing a lot of them lately without seeing any change with this last VU. On spiders the L numbers changed a lot but the mob is still exactly the same.
 
Well done but.
As a hunter my greatest interest is in prof % gain of hit/dmg. While it can probably be figured out from your data I am not really interested in non-combat gains.

James
 
Nice one Xen, thanks.

As a hunter my greatest interest is in prof % gain of hit/dmg. While it can probably be figured out from your data I am not really interested in non-combat gains.

He has about 3 times the skill gain in the first test, and so will have gained three times the amount of hit/dmg.

How about all the other mobs that had 10-15 levels removed? Were they all unbalanced? Were you getting way too much skill from aurli, kreltin, frescoquda?

I was getting quite a bit more on Evis than the other mobs I was hunting at the time. But I quite like(d) that variety; there should be variety so we can make good and bad decisions. Otherwise we may as well play bingo.

Are you sure it's directly connected to the L numbers and not to regen/hp or other parameters that we do not see?

I was wondering about that initially, but there does seem to be evidence tying it to the L number.

Do you have data from your spiders?
 
Nice info, thanks. :) I guess I should have suspected these changes when Dev Note #5
came but I didn't. ;) :)
 
Are you sure it's directly connected to the L numbers and not to regen/hp or other parameters that we do not see? There is a pretty big change in the L numbers of spiders and I've been doing a lot of them lately without seeing any change with this last VU. On spiders the L numbers changed a lot but the mob is still exactly the same.

Like you said, the mobs seem to have remained unchanged. It appears that just the formula to determine the L number was changed to make regen much less of a factor. You aren't going to get 60% less skill on the spiders like on the carabok, the difference is going to be less, so you may not notice unless you could actually measure.
 
Are you sure it's directly connected to the L numbers and not to regen/hp or other parameters that we do not see? There is a pretty big change in the L numbers of spiders and I've been doing a lot of them lately without seeing any change with this last VU. On spiders the L numbers changed a lot but the mob is still exactly the same.

Agreed, this test doesn't show anything about L being directly tied to skill gains. To do that, you'd have to find two mobs with the same stats and different L numbers and do x hunts on those.

Obviously there will be some kind of indirect relation between L number and skill gains even if gains are based on the mob stats, since both the L number and the skill gains would then be based on the same foundation.



However, the OP only shows that Carabok gives more skill gains than Calypso punies. There are many possible conclusions to draw from the facts given:

- Skill gains are higher if L number is higher.
- Skill gains are higher if stats are higher (Carabok are faster, hit faster, seem to require higher evade level to avoid being hit, have higher regen, etc).
- Arkadian mobs gives more skills than Calypsian mobs.
- Carabok gives more skills than other mobs.
- Green mobs gives more skills than brown mobs.
etc



To sum it up: This thread, while showing that Carabok gives more skills than Calypso punies, proves nothing.



EDIT: I would also like to point out that Carabok giving less skills than before the VU does not constitute proof either, as it may simply have been rebalanced and that happened to coincide with the L number change.
 
Am I correct in thinking the higher the level of the mob the more skills I'll gain by hunting it? If true this would make more sense than the old system and gives more purpose to hunting the biggest mob you can and hence a reason to skill up and hunt big...
 
Like you said, the mobs seem to have remained unchanged. It appears that just the formula to determine the L number was changed to make regen much less of a factor. You aren't going to get 60% less skill on the spiders like on the carabok, the difference is going to be less, so you may not notice unless you could actually measure.

Could very well be. Since I have no data from before this VU on spiders I can't really do the math on it.

I have data from kreltins from before this VU so as soon as I get my last 650spiders down I will go up and do a run of 3-4000ped turnover and see how the TT gain in % is compared to what it was before.
 
- Skill gains are higher if stats are higher (Carabok are faster, hit faster, seem to require higher evade level to avoid being hit, have higher regen, etc).

Except that none of those "stats" changed from last VU to this one, yet the skill gain is over 50% less. So obviously it is not based on your "stats". They have the same speed, hit rate, evade requirement, regen, etc. The only thing that appears to have changed, and changed a lot, is the mob level number.

- Arkadian mobs gives more skills than Calypsian mobs.

Better notify Rocktropia and Cyrene then. Better do a test too if you want to use that hypothesis in this thread.

- Carabok gives more skills than other mobs.

There are no "magic skill mobs". I'm putting this in the "Green mobs gives more skills than brown mobs." category.
 
Except that none of those "stats" changed from last VU to this one, yet the skill gain is over 50% less. So obviously it is not based on your "stats". They have the same speed, hit rate, evade requirement, regen, etc. The only thing that appears to have changed, and changed a lot, is the mob level number.

Better notify Rocktropia and Cyrene then. Better do a test too if you want to use that hypothesis in this thread.

There are no "magic skill mobs". I'm putting this in the "Green mobs gives more skills than brown mobs." category.

As I said, those are possible conclusions of the test you presented in this thread, and not any serious theories. They are simply there to illustrate the point that your test, while proving that Carabok give more skills than Calypso punies, proves nothing more than that.

It proves no direct relation between L numbers and skill gains, at all.



That skill gain rate and L number changed on Carabok with the VU, while stats did not, also proves nothing (as I also pointed out in my post). The L number was changed to better reflect the actual danger of the mob, and skill gains were quite possibly changed on Carabok as well.

This still does not mean that "L number = skill gain rate".



Please read my entire post before commenting on it.
 
So does anyone else think these changes has something to do with the tweak of
tierprogress on UL-items?
 
As I said, those are possible conclusions of the test you presented in this thread, and not any serious theories. They are simply there to illustrate the point that your test, while proving that Carabok give more skills than Calypso punies, proves nothing more than that.

It proves no direct relation between L numbers and skill gains, at all.



That skill gain rate and L number changed on Carabok with the VU, while stats did not, also proves nothing (as I also pointed out in my post). The L number was changed to better reflect the actual danger of the mob, and skill gains were quite possibly changed on Carabok as well.

This still does not mean that "L number = skill gain rate".



Please read my entire post before commenting on it.

I read your entire post, and I demonstrated that your arguments were illogical, or lacked any testing, or were just ridiculous. Do you have any better ones? You did not "illustrate" anything. It seems that your argument in summary is just "you can't absolutely prove anything".

Simply repeating over and over "you've proved nothing" doesn't make it so. It just makes it look like you will go to your deathbed denying you were wrong, no matter what.
 
Has any one take a test on street kings at Rocktropia, lol have full shadow and Doa rj me -> no chance,, need a mod fapper now days.:lolup:
 
@Nighthawk
Well if you criticize comparing 2 different mobs in the test data, have a look at my small set of data ( at least a couple of hundered mobs killed there ). It compares the same mob pre and post VU.

Well you are right it does not prove that the moblevel and lowering it causes the drop in skillgains, but it clearly shows a significant drop between the pre and post VU runs. Too much difference there for statistical fluctuation

Since there were no noticeable changes except the displayed moblevel the assumption is not far fetched that lowering it caused the drop in skillgains.

I say i have no proof, that lowering the level changed something, but i clearly see skillgains changed.
 
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Xen, your test proves that Mob level is not the deciding factor for skill volume gain, or at least not the one with the most impact.
 
Xen, your test proves that Mob level is not the deciding factor for skill volume gain, or at least not the one with the most impact.

How so?

Between the two tests, mobs had same health, same gun used, same peds were spent, close to the same number of kills...

Additionally, several people have reported that compared to last VU skill gain is down over 50% on carabok while no one has reported any difference in attack speed, damage done, regen rate or any other attribute other than mob level.

So please explain your statement.
 
I read your entire post, and I demonstrated that your arguments were illogical, or lacked any testing, or were just ridiculous. Do you have any better ones? You did not "illustrate" anything. It seems that your argument in summary is just "you can't absolutely prove anything".

You demonstrated nothing, and you certainly did not comment on any of my arguments. In fact, you didn't even quote an argument, you quoted some examples related to one!

I am out of this thread, you're obviously not possible to discuss this with :laugh:
 
You demonstrated nothing, and you certainly did not comment on any of my arguments. In fact, you didn't even quote an argument, you quoted some examples related to one!

I am out of this thread, you're obviously not possible to discuss this with :laugh:

Whatever man. You have come hear with just denial, no logical arguments, just accusations, and no testing. I try to present something factual with evidence, you just say no no no, yet I am the one that is difficult to have a discussion with...

---

To others,

I am not saying I am 100% right. However, if you disagree, at least present a logical alternative, and preferably with some testing of your own. Just making statements like "you're wrong" is not helpful.
 
Because Xen, what you are basically saying i that a L4 mob gives 3 times as much skills as a L1 mob per se.

If you think about it for just an moment you realize that this is not true and never was true. Everyone who ever tested skill gains in an even remotely "scientific"* manner knows it isn't.

How much more skills would a level 12 mob give then? Again 3 times as much as the level 4, 12 times as much as the level1? Even if not linear, we would know that. Quite some people test skill gains all the time.

Why does Daspletor give only 60% of the skill volume compared to say Argonaut then? They sure do have an higher mob level. Lack of kill bonus due to high HP accounts for most of that, but if what you claim would be true then the massive higher level (if linear or whatever) should more then make up for it, it doesn't.

Or another example, find another L4 mob with least HP possible and see if you will ever get the same volume then from Carabok. You won't.

So unless you stick with the claim (and i really doubt you will) that a level 4 mob per se gives 3 times as much skill volume then a level 1 mob, you have proven with your test one thing: That Carabok had an "skill bonus" attached (one of the biggest i have ever seen tho) by MA, like they did in the past with other mobs at times (even if you think it is a myth).

* As in testing skill TT volume gained per x amount of active damage costs.

Edit: Just to be clear, i am not saying there is no connection whatsoever between mob level and skill gain. I am saying Carabok is the worst example you could have come up with to substantiate your claim.
 
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Xen why do you bother trying to show something to blind people?

Clearly mob level affects skill gain significantly. And since many mobs had a significant (20-40%) drop in mob level, this means a skill gain reduction, and not just Carabok.

From now on if anyone wants to dispute that mob levels affect skill gain or that there has been a skill gain reduction on many mobs this VU as a result of a reduction in mob levels, your post should come with accurate, legitimate testing, or don't bother.
 
Whatever man. You have come hear with just denial, no logical arguments, just accusations, and no testing. I try to present something factual with evidence, you just say no no no, yet I am the one that is difficult to have a discussion with...

I have not said that your actual test is wrong. You may even be correct about mob level and skill gains being directly related.

However, you have not even commented on my arguments, you have commented on some examples I used to support my single argument: Your test is not enough to prove your thesis.



Your argument is:
- Carabok has L4 and Caly Puny has L1.
- Carabok gives more skills than Caly Puny.
- Therefore, a higher L means a higher skill gain rate.

In the same way, someone else could argue:
- Carabok has faster regeneration and attack speed than a Caly Puny.
- Carabok gives more skills than Caly Puny.
- Therefore, a mob with faster regeneration and attack speed gives more skills.

Or even:
- Carabok is green and Caly Punies are brown.
- Carabok gives more skills than Caly Puny.
- Therefore, a green mob gives more skills than a brown one.



No, I am not saying that a green mob does give more skills. I am, however, saying that this theory could be supported in the exact same way as your theory.

The "green mobs give more skills" theory is obviously wrong, while your theory may be correct. However, more testing is needed to actually prove it.



What seems the most logical to me is that skill gain rate and L numbers are indirectly related (which would also be supported by your test), since both are based directly on the actual stats of the mob.
 
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