Level caps, xp and drops?

Lujan - Lost City

Ok, did a search on this but any search for level only shows a lot of guild threads and caps only show threads about capslock.So here's a few questions about levels.

Is there any xp penalty if you:

1. party with someone of a different level?
2. kill mobs of a different level?
3. are more than two in a party?

also,

Is level important for determining

1. the success of your crafting skills?
2. mob drop rates or drops in general?

Zoe - Heavens Tear

Exp penalty

1: Yes, if the level gap is too big. Be within 5 or so levels I'd say.

2: As long as your characters are in the same level range it does not really matter

3: You get more exp if you are in a large party.

Level importance

1: Not exactly, but your crafting skills level up and you can't harvest higher level materials until your character levels up.

2: Yes, being too high of a level compared to a monster/boss will drastically reduce the drop rate.

Avernus - Lost City

re: Exp Penalty 1

If you're in a three-member party, do you mean the difference between the highest level character and lowest level character, or does the highest level character have to be within five of the next highest level character?

In other words, would it be okay for a 5th-level, 10th-level and 15th-level character to party up? Or would it be optimal to have the characters within 2-3 levels of the party average?

Zoe - Heavens Tear

The 5 level thing is just a number I tossed out since I don't know exactly how it works but it is ALWAYS better to party with people close to your level. The higher level members kill exp for lower level players. Powerleveling is not possible in this game and if you try the lower level character will actually level SLOWER.

Just party with other people doing the same quest as you, they should be very close to your level so there won't be any problems.

seawolf

Lujan - Lost City wrote: »

Ok, did a search on this but any search for level only shows a lot of guild threads and caps only show threads about capslock.So here's a few questions about levels.

Is there any xp penalty if you:

1. party with someone of a different level?
2. kill mobs of a different level?
3. are more than two in a party?

Sort of but not really. I haven't really done any rigorous testing but in general the XP will scale with your level, no matter who is in your party if the mobs are lower level than the highest level in the party. So if you're level 70 killing level 90 mobs with a bunch of level 90, you'll get slightly less XP than they would but your percentage gain will be a lot higher than the level 90s because it takes much more XP to level at 90 than 70. You'll end up seeing this all the time later in AoE parties, such as spiders where the lurer can be almost any level.

XP generally scales with mob level too. It drops off if you outlevel the mob by a lot and you get slightly more XP if you kill mobs of higher level. However, if the mob outlevels you by 20+ levels , your damage drops by quite a bit.

Party XP is shared but there's a 20% gain per person, I think. I forget the exact numbers. Let's say you solo kill something for 1000 XP. If you're in a party of 2, both would get 600XP. Party of 4, all of you would get about 400. So that's why fishing parties at level 8x usually want full parties of 6.

Lujan - Lost City wrote: »

1. the success of your crafting skills?
2. mob drop rates or drops in general?

Crafting and level is pretty independent. The only time level really affects crafting is for the caps. You have to be level 50 to get level 4 crafting, 80 to get 6 and 99 to get 8, I think. All of those have the craft me a lot of these 2* items.

White named mobs/bosses and above have normal drop rates. First green (3-5 levels below you) has something like -30% rate. I forget 6-9 or 10. But 10+ below you is drastically reduced drop rate but will still drop. It's not that hard to test it yourself. I had a friend, level 9x, solo fb29 when bored and still got a gold mold to drop but it's super rare. All bosses with '?' as their level will drop at the same rate always (since they're treated as level 150).

Lujan - Lost City

Thanks for the answers but I think I have to clarify some things.

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

2: As long as your characters are in the same level range it does not really matter

So theoretically, if I can do any damage at all to the mob and manage to stay alive, I get full xp for it? For instance a mob 15 levels above me (this is just an example so bear with me)? Usually, there's some kind of xp-reduction for killing mobs of a much higher level as well as much lower levels.

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

3: You get more exp if you are in a large party.

Well, seeing as you kill more mob, yes but you don't get more per mob, do you?
(just nitpicking your post a bit)

seawolf wrote: »

XP generally scales with mob level too. It drops off if you outlevel the mob by a lot and you get slightly more XP if you kill mobs of higher level. However, if the mob outlevels you by 20+ levels , your damage drops by quite a bit.

Yes, of course you'll do less damage but if the reward is worth it, then why not.

Thanks for the good answers. I've played quite a few MMOs so I know how they work in general, I was just curious how PW works.

seawolf

As for optimal XP gain, I can't really tell you. Best way is just to test out an area that you think might work for 5-10 minutes and see XP per hour and repeat at other areas.

Note that flying mobs and water mobs give you bonus XP but they may or may not be slower to kill.

Sometimes higher levels mobs will give you more XP per hour. Sometimes, same or lower level mobs. It really varies, depending on party composition, class and level range. But yeah, it's possible to level on higher level mobs. There are too many variables to make a hard and fast rule but more XP per mob doesn't *always* mean more per hour if it takes you twice as long to kill a higher level mob. If you just go out there and try, it'll become obvious.