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Author Topic: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP  (Read 1158 times)

Maffa

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[action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« on: August 13, 2020, 11:43:46 AM »
Name:
Evard's XP Bug

Where:
experienced on Barovia - Ascent to pass with group of ogres but cant rule out other instances

When:
Attacking enemies within YOUR FOV but outside THEIRS

What:
Enemies stay in place and die, you see them die, they are logged as dead, but there is no XP earning log. Enemies do earn XP normally because if I kill them any other way i do get XP.

See attached video

Moreover it seemed on the firest time i experienced this that my "party members" got XP but not me.

Recreate:
follow the very same steps in the video

Ideas:
No idea whatsoever
« Last Edit: August 13, 2020, 12:11:36 PM by Maffa »


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Phantasia

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2020, 01:48:55 PM »
Even still if you could gain XP for them, at your level of Wizard/Sorcerer you could be out of their XP-giving range. That's the most logical thing going on here.

Second, you stepped back, fully taking them out of your line of sight and re-entering it but partially out of line of sight. That could have done it, and is the second most likely scenario. You have to keep them in your line of sight partially or fully at all times.



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tylernwn

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2020, 02:54:05 PM »
You confirmed that you get xp from 'ogre mages'? They are very low level and you could easily be too high to get xp from them. I don't think I've ever gotten xp from them.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2020, 03:06:25 PM »
It happened to every ogre i found, mage high mage berzeker skull crusher etc. If i stand much closer to the AoE i do get XP, but if im away even a little then i dont.

I think for some reason the "XP awarding" range is shorter than my "sight" range, dunno if when using this specific spell or other cos i dont have any other area damage persistent spells like incendiary cloud or others so i cant check. Im a bit bummed i cant "frag" a room (open, toss, close) in order to get XP cos the way i understood it i need to see the light going out of their eyes in order to get the XP (is it right? can anyone confirm the mechanic of it?), but yeah i tried it several times with different mobs and i suppose it was all the same.


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SardineTheAncestor

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2020, 03:18:29 PM »
Yeah, to my understanding you must watch them die. You can be standing right on top of an NPC, but if you are blinded and cannot see them at the moment of their death, you will not get any XP.
Insatisfait permanent, c'est ça l'apanage du champion.

zDark Shadowz

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2020, 05:23:54 PM »
You can see this kind of behaviour when killing scorpions near swarms of scorpion chieftains. No XP if they and you are too far away from the others.

It could be the CR, and distance is reducing XP to the point you arent receiving enough to provoke the message

Ogres are pretty bad XP at lvl 7 so it wouldn't surprise me.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2020, 04:21:15 AM »
You can see this kind of behaviour when killing scorpions near swarms of scorpion chieftains. No XP if they and you are too far away from the others.

It could be the CR, and distance is reducing XP to the point you arent receiving enough to provoke the message

Ogres are pretty bad XP at lvl 7 so it wouldn't surprise me.
I know it's OT, but i find this visual range requirement baffling... can you please explain to me the rationale? There are plenty of ways of harming people in a delayed/progressive ways such as poison or traps and robbing people of their hard earned xp at first glance looks terribly unjust...

(i replied to him but please anyone with an answer feel free to teach me)
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 06:40:56 AM by Maffa »


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tylernwn

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2020, 01:54:10 PM »
I know it's OT, but i find this visual range requirement baffling... can you please explain to me the rationale? There are plenty of ways of harming people in a delayed/progressive ways such as poison or traps and robbing people of their hard earned xp at first glance looks terribly unjust...

(i replied to him but please anyone with an answer feel free to teach me)

This is probably for technical, code, and performance reasons. Not in world reasons. Remember this is still a game that has to run on your computer and everyone else's. So there is probably a limit on how far away the game/server can check for an actor, before it wastes too much cpu processing power and causes massive lag for everyone.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 02:03:58 PM by tylernwn »

SardineTheAncestor

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2020, 04:23:20 PM »
I think it's just the way it was programmed. We don't have the party function here, and if you aren't partied, by default, you get no XP even if something level 40 dies right next to your level 2, if someone else landed the killing blow.

LoS XP encourages parties to stay together, engage combat together, and remain in battle until it is finished if they are to gain experience. It's not perfect, but I don't see devs modifying the system so that wizards can even more easily drop AOEs on the ground and just walk away as enemies stand still without any reaction to their health dropping. I also understand you want to play the way you like to, just like everyone else, but you don't actually need to walk out of line of sight to execute your strategy with full efficiency.
Insatisfait permanent, c'est ça l'apanage du champion.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2020, 04:26:52 PM »
but we are talking about MY OWN spell... i cast the spell, at least I should reap the rewards..?


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SardineTheAncestor

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2020, 04:33:23 PM »
Yes. With the stipulation that you must be in line of sight of the enemies who are being killed by it. I know this for a fact because people who are blinded are not capable of receiving XP in combat, and if someone is a corridor behind the party in combat, they will get nothing, even if they are 30 feet away or less.
Insatisfait permanent, c'est ça l'apanage du champion.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2020, 04:38:46 PM »
what i dont understand is if this is a wanted feature or a unriddable glitch


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Yesper

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2020, 05:14:15 PM »
Unless it has recently changed, I believe spells cast with durations and traps set by players that kill creatures will grant experience to the player that casted/placed them, regardless of where they are IG. I am leaning towards the ogres simply NOT granting the character xp because they are too high of a level. I'd like to verify that the player can still receive xp for them.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2020, 05:54:48 PM »
i do think i still get xp for ogre mages, expecially if they are bunched up in group. there were 3 of them.


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EO

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #14 on: August 14, 2020, 05:57:24 PM »
i do think i still get xp for ogre mages, expecially if they are bunched up in group. there were 3 of them.

The simplest thing is to test it yourself. Doesn’t matter if they’re grouped or not since you get XP per monster.

Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #15 on: August 14, 2020, 06:10:55 PM »
I just killed 5 giant skeletons on the first floor of alhoun with the tentacles. I havent got a single XP.  Some i saw dying some i didnt. At least this proves that even if you cast your spell your wont get any xp.


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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #16 on: August 14, 2020, 06:46:59 PM »
I just killed 5 giant skeletons on the first floor of alhoun with the tentacles. I havent got a single XP.  Some i saw dying some i didnt. At least this proves that even if you cast your spell your wont get any xp.

Once again, you need a baseline to compare; ie: if you kill those same giant skeletons with any other spells or in melee, with the same character, do you get XP?

MJ_Johansson

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #17 on: August 14, 2020, 07:27:15 PM »
Giant Skeletons are generally low XP regardless, I doubt you'd get XP for those. Try a higher scale monster.
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Maffa

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #18 on: August 15, 2020, 03:47:22 AM »
I just killed 5 giant skeletons on the first floor of alhoun with the tentacles. I havent got a single XP.  Some i saw dying some i didnt. At least this proves that even if you cast your spell your wont get any xp.

Once again, you need a baseline to compare; ie: if you kill those same giant skeletons with any other spells or in melee, with the same character, do you get XP?

thats not an easy task to complete now is it? Im a mage, got 50HP im made of wet cardboard and down there there are like 6-7 of those and each toss fireballs like confetti. If there's a test server where i can try stuff safely I'd like to do it.

Nevertheless, if im reading this correctly, the ogre mage encounter i shot the video about should have been quite a task to complete because be being of lvl 10 and them having CR8 each is considered an overpowering encounter. Cant' find the CR for fireball tossing Giant Skeletons but there were may of them, and in any case i had a party around me at diofferent distances between me and them (fear of the fireballs) so i cant have a clean test result nevertheless.

Is it possible to know if the line of sight requirement to gain XP is also valid for your own spells? Because if it is not i can try more things (simply toss the spell and run like hell), but if i have to stay and stare things are quite more difficult to test.


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Rifkin

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Re: [action] Evard's Black Tentacles do not award any XP
« Reply #19 on: August 18, 2020, 03:04:21 PM »
It's intentional that they leave the XP system as vague as possible. While I could see that in the action server it shouldn't matter, since the Roleplay server IS  the same module, you can't be told how it works because it could be abused in the RP server.

For what it's worth, if you really want to experiment there are several ways you could go about doing it. The best way would be to find something that is not a threat to your character but still gives XP and test with that creature. Failing that, you could always make a new character and buy some kind of aoe damage scroll or item (caltrops?) and test with low level creatures.

From what's been said here, there are a few things players have indeed figured out, mainly those being:

  • you need to be the right level to gain XP
  • (if you are not the one who is dealing the killing blow) you need to be able to see the creature, being out of line-of-sight will prevent you from gaining XP

Knowing those two things, you should be able to experiment and figure out whatever else you want to know. (And to determine if there is a bug with Evards. I would wager there isn't however.)