Understanding how Cartel XP Boosts work for Subs

[Rehneu]

Speaking of xp boosts has anyone tested the character legacy xp buffs to see if the work? I bought all warzone legacy perks but it seems like I generally get the same xp bonus without the perks. Anyone tested it?

 

I might also be able to do this as I have some characters with the xp perks and some without. It might be a bit more difficult as I believe the xp scales to the characters level. Will see what I can dig up on these as well over the next couple of days.

[Rehneu]

Tried to verify the Legacy unlocks for the xp boost regarding warzones. This one is going to be very difficult to get some hard data on as there is no set amount of xp to base it on and can change from warzone to warzone. I will say however, that I did a warzone with only the 6% increase and then with the tier 3 increase to grant 18% and saw a big difference in xp gain. The exact amount, I have no idea if it is indeed the full 18% or not.

 

Either way, at first and quick glance, it seems to be working.

[Sziroten]

THE PROBLEM

Last night I was turning in missions on Belsavis, and noticed that the mission window claimed it was worth 15112 experience. Upon turn-in, though, I only received 15867 xp.

 

Oh no! That's only 5% more, which sounds like the Guild bonus! Are XP boosts broken?

 

So I waited for the current XP boost to expire and checked the window again. Now it said about 12540, which is significantly less. So — alright, the Mission Reward window already calculates your Cartel XP boost when it displays the number, but doesn't pre-calculate your Guild XP boost.

 

But wait. If approximately 12540 is the baseline, then 15112 is only ... 20% more XP.

 

So, it seems my 25% XP boost is only contributing a 20% XP boost. False advertising??

 

~~~

 

THE SOLUTION?

Before coming to the forums to indignantly rage, I decided to hit Google and dug up this thread, which contains — in addition to a predictable post from Andryah — a useful post from one LangyMD.

 

Essentially, LangyMD claims (in a more diplomatic manner) that we are all stupid and bad at math, and that the XP Boosts function as-advertised. He eventually gives up, after patiently trying to explain the situation like a college professor trying to teach matrix multiplication to preschoolers.

 

This intrigued me, because I am both stupid and bad at math! So, because LangyMD seems smart, and I know I'm not-smart, I tried to parse through his confusing argument and understand what he meant.

 

~~~

 

THE MATH

LangyMD claims that all Subs have a baseline +20% XP gain over F2P. This makes the F2P baseline, as a reference frame, 100% — the "default" XP amount from any given source.

 

LangyMD further claims that the XP Boost is an additive buff to your final XP multiplier, and is not simply multiplied on top of your final XP amount after other multipliers are calculated.

 

It means that your final XP multiplier looks like this for each situation:

F2P, no boost                        100%
F2P, with Cartel boost           100 + 25 = 125%
Sub, no boost                       100 + 20 = 120%
Sub, with Cartel boost          100 + 20 + 25 = 145%

 

So, F2P using the Cartel boost would, literally, gain 25% more XP — period. Sub is a little more complicated.

 

~~~

 

THE CONCLUSION

So, are you getting your money's worth from a Cartel XP Boost as Sub? Yes, and no.

 

Yes, you are getting +25% added to your XP multiplier. But you are not getting 25% more than you would without the Boost active — at least, not in the intuitive sense you probably assume when you read "Increases experience gained from all sources by 25%" on your purchase.

 

The problem is that Sub already has 120% as the baseline rate. So increasing this additively to 145% is not a 25% increase over your baseline — it's about 20.8% more, with your last 4.2% swallowed in the noise. That's non-trivial; about 16% of your expected purchase value isn't actually being received.

 

However, is the Cartel item lying? Is it actually false advertising? Well, at a technical level, "probably not". It does increase all experience gained by 25% — over the default / F2P baseline. Conceptually, BioWare could play semantic games and argue that the Cartel Boost is added first, and then your +20% Sub bonus after that.

 

Since there's no fine print warning you where or when the +25% calculation is added in, this probably falls under the umbrella of "buyer beware whenever dealing with corporations or MMO developers".

 

But if you see any anomalous numbers, you can fall back to the understanding that Cartel XP Boosts will only increase final gained XP by about 20.8% over the Sub baseline, not 25%.

 

Put another way (again, this is relative to each plan's baseline):

• With a Boost active, F2P gains 1 extra level for every 4 levels earned
  
• With a Boost active, Sub gains 1 extra level for every 5 levels earned
  

 

Remember that's a crude simplification, and would only be truly accurate if XP-to-level were completely linear from 1-55 (it is absolutely not). But it does help illustrate the relative (relative. Not absolute) differences between the Boosts for each plan.

 

~~~

 

Should you be upset? Is this good? Bad?

 

I don't know. You're still gaining ~20.8% more XP over Sub's already-inflated baseline, which is still a huge boost.

 

Then again, if you bought a carton of 1 dozen eggs and discovered it only contained 10 eggs, you would probably be annoyed — but hey, they're still eggs, they still feed you, and in the correct number space you could consider it "one dozen" if you simply changed the definition of what 12 means.

 

 

Thanks for posting this.... and I'm kinda suprised but also not really surprised. It's just another "oversight" for no reason or the result of a bad decision.

 

Am I correct by saying that 25% should consider the bonus you are already getting and add 25% to that total or am I completely out?

[SithInitiate]

this may be a stupid question.. but what about rested xp. i see the cartel xp packs being added in.. but not rested xp, which, if understand correctly, is NOT given to preferred/f2p players (hence why i sub). wouldnt the rested xp factor in as well?

[Rehneu]

this may be a stupid question.. but what about rested xp. i see the cartel xp packs being added in.. but not rested xp, which, if understand correctly, is NOT given to preferred/f2p players (hence why i sub). wouldnt the rested xp factor in as well?

 

I personally have not even tried to look at this just yet. This is something I too was wondering about and brought this up in the thread I have running about the bug related to the xp boost from the cartel market.

 

I will add something regarding my somewhat findings related to the war zones and the xp gain. IF, big if there, that is abiding by the same set of rules related to the other missions and xp gains, to whereas the guild bonus of 5% is calculated after everything else has cleared, then with war zones, the guild bonus is NOT being added in. What is being displayed at the end of the match is in fact what is being given with both chat box dialog and fly up text. Unlike conventional missions where the guild bonus is added in after and the higher xp gain is displayed in both chat box and fly up.

[Rehneu]

Thanks for posting this.... and I'm kinda suprised but also not really surprised. It's just another "oversight" for no reason or the result of a bad decision.

 

Am I correct by saying that 25% should consider the bonus you are already getting and add 25% to that total or am I completely out?

 

Is this in regards to the 20% bonus that subscribers get? If so, it seems that the 20% is not really a bonus. What I have found so far is that F2P and subscribers gain the same rate of xp to x level. Once the F2P hits said level, their xp rate drops by about 20% bringing them down to 80% the standard rate gain. The subscribers stay at the full 100% rate gain thus the thoughts that subscribers get a 20% bonus.

 

Now, the 25% xp boost from the cartel packs are indeed figured into the mission totals themselves and are displayed as such in your mission log. The new addition to that information being shown, has helped greatly in figuring out if we are indeed getting the bonus like we should. As shown above in my example, we are not getting the full 25% as it turns out that we are only getting 20.01% from the xp buff.

 

So in the mission log, a subscriber would see 100% xp reward and then an additional 20.01% once they apply the buff. Afterwards, if you are in a guild, you will then gain another 5% of which is not factored into said numbers until after the completion/acceptance of mission rewards. This extra 5% gain will be reflected with the xp fly up and chat box dialog.

 

Makes sense? If that answered your question.

[MSchuyler]

Because as someone who has already played every class through to Level 50, playing an alt (or three) through the same planet content for (*counts*) the 5th, 6th, and 7th times in one faction has about as much appeal as watching paint dry. I'm using XP boosts so supplement the quests I /do/ do, so I don't have to do every single little sidequest on every single planet just to stay at level like I had to do with two of my solo alts.

 

You assume that anyone trying to burn through the content is going to complain about being bored that much faster. I am plenty not bored at endgame. But I /am/ bored by the shared content leveling quests that have zero challenge to me as a player.

 

OK, so you have a special place where you're not bored, endgame. But otherwise you ARE bored because you are doing the same thing over and over and over again just to get there--again. Is it fair to say you are impatient to get there, so an XP boost helps you get through faster? I'm guessing that you are not fond of the Steve Jobs quote, "The journey is the reward." For folks like you the journey is in the way. So yeah, you are getting bored faster, and you've just expressed it. My guess is endgame is getting pretty familiar to you about now.....

 

That seems a perfectly legitimate use of an XP boost, but for players who have not gone through the system it would seem an unearned boost, kind of like a "90 day wonder" (an inexperienced person who goes to OCS and becomes an officer in 90 days.) It puzzles me why people in this situation would want to do this. But as long as you're not saying, "Press the spacebar! Press the spacebar!" I'm cool with it. It's essentially you against the game anyway, alone, and you can experience it any way you want to.

[Omisri]

The way I gathered it would work is the following:

 

If you were given 10,000 for completing a quest this would equal (if F2p is indeed %100... but then again it wouldn't matter if it wasn't, there is still a %20 difference):

 

10,000 (Base)

+ 2,000 (sub 20% of base)

+ 500 (guild buff % of base)

+ 2,500 (cartel buff % from base).

Leaving you with 15,000.

 

Rather than

12,000 (base + %20 sub)

+ 600 (guild buff based on base + sub)

+ 3000 (cartel buff based on base + sub)

which would of given you 17,600

Edited June 2, 2013 by Omisri

[Ultramecha]

Tried to verify the Legacy unlocks for the xp boost regarding warzones. This one is going to be very difficult to get some hard data on as there is no set amount of xp to base it on and can change from warzone to warzone. I will say however, that I did a warzone with only the 6% increase and then with the tier 3 increase to grant 18% and saw a big difference in xp gain. The exact amount, I have no idea if it is indeed the full 18% or not.

 

Either way, at first and quick glance, it seems to be working.

 

Thanks for looking into it

[Vandicus]

OK here is the skinny on some individual testing I have been doing. A mission, pre-xp buff, that grants 9412 xp for the completion was used to verify my findings from last night. The mission that was used is called "The Master Stratagem" of which is an IA class quest. During the mission, I applied the +25% xp buff and watched my mission log. The mission log now shows the xp reward being 11,295. This is a total of 20.01% increase from the original 9,412 xp that was being granted before the buff.

 

If the xp buff was to grant the full 25% that it is being advertised to do, the same mission would then grant 11,765 xp. This is a difference of 470 xp. This is also pre-guild bonus of 5% as that is factored into the scenario after the completion of the missions and is not included into the mission log stats.

 

So, the amount that it is granting is much lower then the previously thought 20.8%. The buff is currently only working partially and not as intended/advertised.

 

XP buffs are multiplicative not additive. Unless something has changed, I'm assuming this is the same xp discrepancy that people have been bringing up since f2p launch.

 

f2p is 100%

sub is 120%

sub with 25% xp bonus is 145%

 

So since you are a sub the base xp for that mission is 9412/1.2=7843.33(repeating)

With the boost your xp should be 7843.33(repeating)*1.45=11372.83333(repeating)

 

The slight difference between 11295 and 11372.83333 is due to rounding.

[Rehneu]

XP buffs are multiplicative not additive. Unless something has changed, I'm assuming this is the same xp discrepancy that people have been bringing up since f2p launch.

 

f2p is 100%

sub is 120%

sub with 25% xp bonus is 145%

 

So since you are a sub the base xp for that mission is 9412/1.2=7843.33(repeating)

With the boost your xp should be 7843.33(repeating)*1.45=11372.83333(repeating)

 

The slight difference between 11295 and 11372.83333 is due to rounding.

 

I see what you did there with the math however, my figures were not rounded and were 100% matching the system messages regarding the xp gain in the example I presented above. The issue is, that the way you have it outlined is no longer correct. This has indeed changed. This is part of the issue we are trying to nail down. The XP boost is either bugged or, they have changed the percentage of xp that is gained. I believe it is both. I have already found that it is indeed being calculated not at a 25% gain, but at a 20.01% gain. The last part you mentioned is no longer valid.

 

Your math is sound and what you are saying does make sense but it is not being granted that way currently.

 

The biggest obstacle I am having in this is, that if it is coded the way you say as well as outlined in the original posting of the thread, then the math within the code would be dead on each and every time. This is not taking place.

 

Just trying to understand the entire thing as it does not add up.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Rehneu

[Trimaxion]

@OP

If what you say is the case then this:

 

"Increases experience gained from all sources by 25%" on your purchase."

 

would be a lie since it wouldn't be adding on 25% to your sub bonus, nor (possibly) would it be adding 25% to your guild bonus and these are sources of XP.

 

It Ought to be a 25% addition to the final amount of XP with all bonuses and alterations completed since this would add 25% to all sources.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Trimaxion

[SW_display_name]

The slight difference between 11295 and 11372.83333 is due to rounding.

That's honestly a suspiciously large difference to just write off to "rounding". It's much more likely our formulas are still incorrect.

 

I think it's becoming increasingly clear that we still just don't completely understand what's going on here. This isn't entirely unsurprising since, honestly, the amount of available data so far is very poor in terms of density.

 

The basic idea of the "120 + 25" hypothesis gets us into the crude general area of what results are seen in-game, but I think there's still pieces missing. I wish I had a better head for numbers, because I really want to unravel what's going on here.

 

The mission that was used is called "The Master Stratagem" of which is an IA class quest. During the mission, I applied the +25% xp buff and watched my mission log. The mission log now shows the xp reward being 11,295. This is a total of 20.01% increase from the original 9,412 xp that was being granted before the buff.

Question. This is a Class Mission. Does that character have any of the "Improved Class Mission Experience" Legacy boosts purchased?

 

Also, were you looking at the final "Mission Complete" pop-up, or using the new Mission Rewards preview in the Mission Log? All previous data on this was gathered using the Mission Complete window (necessarily, since the in-log preview didn't exist yet).

Edited June 4, 2013 by SW_display_name

[Purple_Hydra]

Ok, where I am coming from here, is that I was playing SWTOR back when it was first released. What you people fail to realize, is that this game WASN'T originally Free to Play. SWTOR was originally subscription-only when it first came out (like WoW is now). This means that the baseline for experience points IS NOT for free to play users. The baseline experience points for this game IS 100% FOR SUBS. If, by the original poster's logic, subs have a 20% advantage over free to play, then free to play members earn experience at a reduced rate of 80%! When this game went free to play, Bioware took the standard sub (which, again, you had to sub to play originally , there was no f2p), and restricted base perms that they had (xp, medic probes, credit caps, no bank access, etc), which included reducing the xp from the amount it was originally to conform to the free to play option. When this went Free to play, bioware didn't give the original players (all of which were subs) more, they just took away various things for free to play members.