Upgraded to patch 1.29
had a great new idea for a wizard, started over.
Got part way through the prelude, to the part where you meet Pavel and he joins up as your henchman ? And there's a tough goblin just on the other side of the door past him ?

Yah know, with just a few reloads I could figure out the whole xp business right then and there. So I did.

Tough Goblin Test

XP (play=player, sum=summoned monster, fam=familiar, hench=henchman)
---
20 Play (a level 1 mage all alone, that was a tough fight !)
16 Play+Sum
16 Play+Fam
16 Play+Hench
13 Play+Sum+Hench
11 Play+Sum+Hench+Fam

So the system is simply how many helpers you got, no matter what the xp. Right ?

Well, not really. My Cleric leveled twice in Peninsula, and twice again in beggars nest. At level 7, he did the docks and didn't level even once, obviously the act only gets so tough, and then you're wasting your time solo'ing when you could have been taking it easy with one helper.

On the low end, too many helpers, and the game goes easy on you, which means you're not only getting merely 55% of the xp available (11/20 is 55%), but because the game is giving you a break , there are fewer monsters and their worth less xp...the double wammy is a killer.

Read it and weep.

The way I look at it, the game was designed for you to be travelling with some sort of aid (henchman, summoned, familiar, you pick), and this theory compliments the level restriction. If you solo an entire game, you'll level quicker, but have a harder time getting through prob. the first half of the game. On the other hand, you can have some sort of companion to travel with, level slower, have decent battles, and have a moderate difficulty setting. I guess what I'm getting at is there really is no reason to go off and play without some sort of help, in the long run you get everything decent in a good game if you play it at a moderate level.

Oh, and the monster occurence rate is really complicated. It's not that you get less experience because you fight less monsters with more help, but the fact that those monsters give less experience as you reach a higher level, and that doesn't include the distrubution of points for each person/thing attending the battle. A goblin at level 1 will give you around 50-100 exp. depending on the difficulty to you as the player, but at level 10 you'll be lucky to get 10 exp. for that same goblin. If all things were given the same challenge rating throughout your level ascension, a dragon would be as feared as a dire rat. Go figure [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 03-13-2003, 11:25 PM: Message edited by: Nanobyte ]