A Treatise on EverQuest's Experience Calculations

[Torven]

I will be posting addendums when I encounter evidence worth documenting. I discovered this about charm recently:

Before the May 8 2001 (mid-Velious era) patch, charmed NPCs and their targets kept their hate lists on breaks. This resulted in probable corpse poofing and no experience gain if either the broken charm pet or the enchanter's target were not blurred prior to killing them.

Sony had coded their NPCs to not pursue each other after charm had broken even while maintaining each other on their hate lists. This is not the only circumstance a NPC will keep an entity on their hate list and not pursue, as Feign death is similar in that the feigned player is not actually removed from the hate list while the player is feigned, and the chance to wipe is done on standing up. (on Live servers the Extended Targets window shows the NPCs still having the player on their lists while feigned)

The evidence for this:

Casters Realm thread, "Charmed Pet EXP" (November 2000)

"I have charm soloed for over 20 levels. If your ex-pet does over 50% of the damage and is still alive when your target dies the corpses poofs. Always. Unless you blurred or mezzed it and got a blur off the mez.

Not to hard to test this if you really haven't seen it. Just invis, root your ex-pet, and nuke your target. This is assuming you have not blurred or mezzed the target. The corpse will poof and you get 0 exp."

"Alandrel is completely correct. If your charm breaks, your ex pet is an npc. If that npc has done 50% of the damage to the other monster, and you kill it, it poofs."

"The only way the creature your killing poofs is if the mob who did most of the damage is alive and NOT charmed at the time of death. A mob can break 10 times and as long as you have it charmed when whatever you are fighting finally goes down you will get the exp."

"Your pet, charmed or summoned, is acquiring kill credit as it damages the creature. When the creature dies, kill credit is determined.
If your pet gets the kill, then it takes half the experience and your group splits the rest.

If your pet was charmed and goes wild before the creature dies, then it keeps that kill to itself, counts as an NPC kill, and the body goes poof. I had that happen to Gullerback once. (It was a funny fight, 53 shaman, 49 paladin and me, 50 enchanter trying to kill Gullerback. Everyone was OOM, so the paladin was running in big circles, with Gullerback chasing him and my pet chasing Gullerback while the shaman and I medded. I had to recharm about five times.)"

https://web.archive.org/web/20010114...ML/002835.html


Casters Realm thread, "Igbert's Guide to Charm-Solo'ing" (February 2001)

Originally Posted by Igbert

"Poofs:

Poofs suck. That is, you blast a mob for final kill and it disappears!
No corpse, no xp. This happens because some other (non charmed) mob did more
damage than you and is still alive. Scenarios:

1. Your pet and target mob fight until almost both are completely dead.
Then charm breaks. They both wander off because they are both at a sliver
of health. They have both done 99% damage to each other. If you blast
EITHER, it will poof. If you blast both, the first will poof, the second
will not (because you killed the first who had the most credit for the
kill!). The answer? Recharm your pet, blast the second (or let your pet
kill it), then cast invis and blast your pet. You'll get both kills.
2. Both your pet and mob are rooted. A moment before the target mob dies,
your pet breaks charm. Because they are rooted next to each other, they
still fight. If the target mob dies then, it poofs. Recharm immediately if
possible.
3. Your pet fights some mob almost to the death then breaks charm and
chases you. Roots are resisted for awhile. By the time you get your pet
under control, you are halfway across the zone and have no idea where the
original target mob is. One battle later, you blast your own pet and he
poofs. The old target mob (across the zone somewhere) still did more damage
than you and got credit. The only solution here is to memblur your pet
a few times and hope it works.

Eventually, you'll lose a nice kill to a poof. Again, its part of the game,
just say "oh poop" and move on."

https://web.archive.org/web/20020527...c&f=9&t=003747

Interestingly the 500 range exp credit limit apparently did not apply to NPCs or didn't exist back then if Igbert's statement was accurate.


Sony Developer's Corner thread, "Charm Change" (May 9 2001)

"-Prior to the 5/8 patch when I recharmed a mob it immediately went back to it's target.

-Since the 5/8 patch I always either have to order the pet to attack the previous target, or take a hit.

-Is this intentional, or a bug?

Mercuria Cestlavie
55 Troubador, The Nameless"

Originally Posted by Absor

"That was intentional, and most certainly something we should have mentioned. Sorry about that.

Yes, when charm breaks and you re-charm the target, you will have to command it to attack again. We're changing this as part of something larger that is, basically, an exploit. The extra step of hitting the /pet attack macro is something that we had to do to make something else work right.

Sorry that I can't be more precise, but we're still working on it, and exploit fixes aren't always things we announce.

Alan"

https://web.archive.org/web/20010515...ML/000165.html


Bards complained about losing charm DPS from this change, so soon after Sony increased Bard charm to 3 ticks:

"- Increased duration on Bard Charm songs to 18 seconds from 12 seconds." (EQ Patch note, May 30 2001)


Casters Realm thread, "The New Charm and Kiting" (July 9 2001)

"Okay, it's official. I like the new charm.

The retargetting thing is a minor annoyance, but the other benefits- extended duration and the memory blur- far outweigh the drawbacks.

The memory blur is probably the greatest thing about the new charm. As has been suggested on this board already, when the charm wears off, the mob remains aggressive toward you, but the damage counter which keeps track of whichever thing did the most damage to it is reset. What this means is that you charm a mob, you sic it on a target until the target is nearly dead, then you finish the target yourself and you get the FULL xp"

https://web.archive.org/web/20010727...&f=74&t=000924


After the May 8 2001 patch, charm seemingly behaved as it does today in regards to hate lists. I presume the change was made to prevent faction wars, but faction wars were still possible until a 2004 fix.