Zero XP for monks?

I made a low level monk. After struggling with slow levelling experience and having 1 STR forever (can't use much armor or implants), I decided that I would just bite the bullet and punch spiders until I got to 3 STR. I was not actually sure if PUNCHING or MELEE WEAPONS added to STR for monks, but I figured I would go test that out.

I wrote down how much EXP I had in all five skills. Keep in mind, I'm super-lowbie at the moment -- 4/9 rank.

423 xp in INT
426 xp in STR
260 xp in CON
567 xp in DEX
5296 xp in PSI

I spent about 3-4 minutes killing 20 bugs, spiders, roaches, sewer flies, sewer rat, etc, using only the ALT+H fists. Remember, I am only 4/9 rank. Super lowbie.

I checked my EXP gain for all five skills.

423 xp in INT
426 xp in STR
263 xp in CON
567 xp in DEX
5296 xp in PSI

After that 5 minutes of killing 20 bugs I gained 3 CON exp. That was it.

So I figure maybe fists just don't work or something. I equip the TL1 'Knuckles' (looks like brass knuckles). I killed 15 or 20 more bugs.

Same thing. No EXP gain at all, except for a few points in CON from getting hit once or twice.

I understand monks are supposed to gain their XP primarily thru PSI and using psi skills, but this must be a bug, right? I have a hard time believing this is working as intended.

I understand doing missions will give equal points across the board -- yes -- I understand that, and it's true for all characters. But, killing 20 enemies and getting zero, ZERO, ZERO!!!! xp seems like a glitch to me. With any other class, I would've got EXP for spending that time punching dozens of bugs, I am fairly certain.

Before version 2.2 was introduced, exp was nerfed over and over again from team play. I don't know what short sighted mental patient over at reaKKtor thought everything in Neocron was an exploit at the time, but after all was said and done, Neocron became some single player former shell of what it once was.

But all the exp nerfs waded over into single player as well... So now we are stucked with a system where my constructor has 98 in both int and dex, but 2 strength, 3 con and something like 6 psi.

What I am saying is, what you are experiencing isn't a bug. It's how the game is. Nothing much you can do about it at the lower levels....

Best thing you can do is run missions in your HQ.

So, as a monk, I could theoretically kill 25,000 mobs as described above, and, not counting the small xp gains to CON when I take damage, I would gain Zero XP in INT, STR, DEX and PSI?

.. :(
Well, that's silly. I'll support that this is changed.

There really should be no mmo where killing mobs gives you Zero XP (unless you are much higher rank than that mob, of course, but even then, I would argue that you should still receive a small amount)

I agree with you :)

Retail or test? Sounds like a bug, although Xp gain on minor stats (like str on a monk or psi on a spy) has a very low rate.

Retail. I'm still questioning whether what I am experiencing is 'class balance' or if my character is indeed bugged. Although, I do still gain a little bit of CON (when I get hit), so it's not like my character is completely XP locked.

This is my result after punching 20 sewer creatures. Note that I'm still getting the NC reward (i.e. it's not saying "pick on someone your own size!"). Note difference in credits in the two images.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6483/xpmonk.png
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6483/xpmonk.png

So is this normal? IF what I am experience is indeed working as intended/balancing, I would assume that if the balanced XP gain was so small, i.e., less than 1, that it would round up to 1, and not down to 0, else you get a situation like I have, where it is possible to kill 50 mobs within your combat rank window and gain absolutely zip. :O

Spies psi and monk dex don't level at all unless you use missions. Monk strength is slow yes always had been but I never crunched numbers on it. This is the same reason we made the brain port threads a couple of weeks ago about xp sharing and teams. To get these stats levelled better.

I can understand spies PSI not leveling if they are punching, or using melee/pistols/rifles/drones. But I don't understand monks getting zero (or infinitesimally small) XP for punching or using knives etc.

I've played on and off since NC1, and I've not really played monks, however, even concerning spies/PEs/tanks, I admit that I DON'T know that much about the game compared to other vets. I admit that I probably wouldn't have enough inside knowledge to truly balance the game.

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That said, shouldn't classes just gain XP based on what they are doing? Shouldn't any class gain PSI xp for using PSI? Shouldn't any class gain DEX or STR, if the weapon they are using is DEX or STR based?

The problem with the idea I have just given is that it would be hard to gain secondary skills, such as, a tank would never gain DEX, because he is always using STR-based weapons.

Therefore, couldn't it simply be that - you gain XP in your current activity:
- A tank using a STR cannon gains STR xp
- A tank using a DEX based weapon gains DEX xp
- A monk using a DEX based weapon gains DEX xp
- A monk using a PSI module gains PSI xp
- A spy using a PSI module gains PSI xp

But additionally, your other skills 'leech' some XP off of your current activity, based on how "primary" those other skills are:
- A monk using a PSI module gains PSI xp
. . . . but also gains "75%" xp in INT
. . . . and gains "15%" xp in DEX
. . . . and gains "10%" xp in STR

Something like that? I dunno. If it's true that a monk could get enough DEX to use a pistol, but then not gain DEX xp from using said pistol, that would be so weird. I am pretty sure this would fix the problem of having a spy with capped INT/DEX but low STR/CON/PSI etc.

http://forum.neocron.com/showthread....XP-Gain-change

This thread was one I made to try to get these things changed. Or at least bring attention to them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Izeo

[...]I decided that I would just bite the bullet and punch spiders[...]

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I am not sure if it is possible to gain XP at all using fists. Did you try it with other classes and professions too?

You could also try a melee weapon like a knife on your monk.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Forget My Name

[...]my constructor has 98 in both int and dex, but 2 strength, 3 con and something like 6 psi.

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On the other hand it makes sense that a char who is only constructing stuff does not earn PSI or CON. Where should the XP come from when building items? After all he is only sitting in his chamber building stuff. And at least there is the way over missions.

For non-trader chars there is a thread by Bill where Team XP were discussed for gaining XP in the secondary stats, he posted the link.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

On the other hand it makes sense that a char who is only constructing stuff does not earn PSI or CON. Where should the XP come from when building items? After all he is only sitting in his chamber building stuff. And at least there is the way over missions.

For non-trader chars there is a thread by Bill where Team XP were discussed for gaining XP in the secondary stats, he posted the link.

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He didn't mention it, but he leveled up droning. No one levels up construction, unless you don't mind sitting at your comp 24/7 for a year.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

I am not sure if it is possible to gain XP at all using fists.

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yes it is. i tried it. it just takes a long time. but punching spiders, dogs, plants or mutants seems less boring to me than delivering chems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Torg

...but punching spiders, dogs, plants......

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LOL!!! That got me :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

On the other hand it makes sense that a char who is only constructing stuff does not earn PSI or CON. Where should the XP come from when building items? After all he is only sitting in his chamber building stuff. And at least there is the way over missions.

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But it would still be nicer to gain SOME exp in your other skills for doing any skill. To be fair, it also doesn't make sense that a spy should gain PSI xp for buying a chemical from an NPC and giving it to another one, or a spy gaining PSI xp by punching 5 small spiders to death, or a monk gaining DEX xp for doing a research mission etc.

It's not entirely about making 100% logical sense, but more about making this not so awkward/frustrating for the player. It is pretty crappy to have one or two skills that don't level at all. Right now monks level via repairing and that's really crappy.

I still think missions should have their use, because they add to all skills at once, and sure, maybe missions can be looked at too.

But concerning skills alone, it would be nice if no matter what you did, you gained at least SOMETHING in your skills.

right. so maybe we should lower xp gain with 'problematic' activities like repping rhinoes, and add to non-mainskill-xp-gain for everything else. just a bit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Torg

right. so maybe we should lower xp gain with 'problematic' activities like repping rhinoes, and add to non-mainskill-xp-gain for everything else. just a bit.

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I think that the XP gain by repping a Rhino does not have to be changed, but there must be alternatives. It cannot be the only viable way for a monk to cap DEX.

However, driving and repping a Rhino is a legit way to level for a driver character.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ivan Eres

I think that the XP gain by repping a Rhino does not have to be changed, but there must be alternatives. It cannot be the only viable way for a monk to cap DEX.

However, driving and repping a Rhino is a legit way to level for a driver character.

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agreed. No need to touch drivers. Just give everyone else new ways to gain xp that doesn't involve missions.

That said, if you CAN indeed cap DEX after 2-3 hours by repairing, then it should be just as fast doing the other things too... personally I find that to be pretty DAMN short amount of time..........

If you're a monk yes. Because they cap at 35 dex. It's not a lot.

I don't understand peoples obsessions with levelling speeds. What do people think gives them the right to make things take longer? This is not a flame but a serious question. Many people have very limited time for pc games these days and repetitively carrying out the same boring task over and over is not going to appeal to anyone. If the devs start to listen to these people who want to make things longer then you will see the population decrease not increase. An unknown number of people stayed away from nc after titan formed up because they could not or would not start over again. Compare that to the amount of people who found the time to level when they heard the double xp weekend was on and you suddenly find the problem. For the game - like any game - to be successful you need to balance the reward of grinding with the boredom of it.

If there was oodles of other content to do alongside the grind then I would be more supportive but right now the good content requires high end ppu/tanks to be levelled. This is for PVE by the way and the only other good content is the PVP which requires capped/near capped to be anywhere near fun.

If anything the future of nc has to attract the casual gamer as much as the hardcore play all day every day player. Wow has recently found this out in its last few addons and taken steps to address it.

In my mind NC should follow suit.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should really ask themselves what they hope to achieve by making people quit again. Look how the server was 2-3 years ago compared with today. I would prefer todays nc over that in a heartbeat but lets not go making things harder here. Thats not what this entire thread is about. Its about making the effort of time spent equal to the reward for the player.

Hmm, i did a test and my monk (level 1 STR) could level strength with ALT+H or a STR 1 knife, so it was a different problem.

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Originally Posted by William Antrim

If you're a monk yes. Because they cap at 35 dex. It's not a lot. I don't understand peoples obsessions with levelling speeds.
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Anyone who thinks otherwise should really ask themselves what they hope to achieve by making people quit again.

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If you are going from, what I said in my last post, to saying that I am someone who has such a bogus idea that it would make people quit the game, I think that was a stretch.

The reason I said what I did (in my last post) is that I have had a monk for about a week now, and although I don't play every hour of every day, I've been doing a lot of boring recycling and boring missions and my DEX is like... level 4 or 5. Learning that other people are repairing a vehicle (probably while afk or semi-afk) and capping in 2-3 hours makes everything I've been doing feel like a waste of time and effort.

If someone can cap that fast clicking on a vehicle, then I should cap just as fast by doing missions and recycling which is Dex-based, too, like Repairing for crying out loud.

This way, it's fair and there wouldn't be one activity that is blatantly superior to the others.

No izeo. I wasn't pointing the finger at you. If you read the post it clearly says this is not a flame. The entire point of my post was to stop all of the "make things harder" chatter. I'm firmly supportive of your ideas and love the way you have been posting constructive ideas. I was trying to appeal to the devs to not jump on the ideas that got nc into the state it is in. Bad ideas gave us nc 2.2. Now with a relaunched nc and a community that is clearly getting older and therefore has less time to play I would like to see more done for the casual gamer who has less time to play. It was not anything personal. I think rhino repping is fine as it is. I just think that there should be other ways of levelling for different classes just as fast.

Even if they gave us super missions which took as long as epics but let you max out your lowest skill or something. That would be good. Tanks could go school and learn int. Spies could go to Hogwarts and learn magic even... Anything is better than the current nc state.