Combat XP Needs a Rework

[maestro]

Getting to Combat Level 10 is absolutely ridiculous.

I have at least half each of the Slayer achievements done (and a couple are done).
I've been to the skull caverns several times, getting to floor 20+ (and once to floor 50).
I've even done a monster musk run of 100-115 in the Mines.
I even bought a Combat XP Book.

And I am *STILL* not level 10.

So, I look it up on the wiki to try and figure out WTF is going on, and no wonder.

These XP tables make no fricken sense whatsoever.

How is it that a Lava Bat gives 15XP and a Pepper Rex only gives 7 when the latter has 5x as much health and does 2x the damage, and its attack is far harder to dodge?

Why do do the lowly cave fly, you know those flying bugs around Floor 15, give more XP than a Pepper Rex? Or heck for that matter, it gives more XP than a Skeleton or a Metal Head (Cave Flies give 10, Skeletons 8, and Metal heads 6).

[Little Horn]

Haven't read it all, but Tabasco is in the wrong, lol.
Combat does take too much of a time to level up from 9 to 10. Could've been nice if it were faster

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Anzaman:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

If that's ALL you're doing, then yeah.

It mostly gets down to multiplayer scaling problem. There are only so many sources of Foraging experience available - where as Fishing, Farming, Mining and Combat are basically limitless.

The way that it is set up, though, is that it only takes a few seconds here, and there, to level it and you will get it about the same time the CC is finished.

Once again, you are not looking at this correctly.

The xp per minute of combat >>>>>>> foraging. This is easy to see if you just compare what a full day attempting to forage looks like and a day attempting to grind combat looks like.

Most of my foraging XP came from just grabbing what was in my way as I was walking, which only takes a second here-and-there, and some runs to the Secret Woods to grab hardwood, of which you need probably 300+ to build most of your stuff.

And again, it got to 10 about the same time as I completed my natural objectives the game throws at you: finishing the CC, repairing willy's boat (I actually had foraging 10 before this, but not by a huge margin), getting your level 2 house, and building some of the farm equipment. I didn't even build a horse stable.

Contrast this to a skull cavern dive a galaxy sword and 2 speed buffs: you're regularly killing monsters who come towards you. If you line the enemies up, you can even multi-kill, i.e. if you break a large purple slime into 4 small purple slimes and you pin them to a wall, that's 4 x 20xp. Same with serpents where you often kill 2 at a time, or mummies which you can often bomb 2-4 at a time.

But yet, it's still taking you past the CC completion, and past getting basic farm equipment, unlike the other skills.

I suppose, maybe basing the skills to get to 10 time on the CC might not be what you'd agree to, but if it works for the other skills, it should work for Combat too.

You keep going "get a galaxy sword go to skull cave" over and over and over again, but you're talking about what could be considered "post-game" content. Extra stuff you do that you don't need to, if you label the CC and getting all the equipment on your farm set up as "Endgame".

In the course of getting the CC done, and all the major stuff built on your farm is, I would argue, the buildup to "Endgame", or what used to be Endgame before Ginger Island was a thing. This was the point in the game where you had completed most objectives the game threw at you pre-Ginger Island.

And getting those all of the skills to 10 save foraging was usually pretty easily; the skills were completed before you were done with the CC. And I still wager that by the time you get enough hardwood to get everything built, you will have foraging 10.

Except for, again, Combat.

If you only go into the mine enough to get to 120 to finish all the buildings, house upgrades, 30 or so Q sprinklers, and other relevant farm equipment, you're not going to have Level 10.

Even if you go into the Skull Cavern enough to get the iridium needed to upgrade all of your tools, you still won't have Combat 10 if you're not using some sort of Freeze Time mod, because the game makes you prioritize running fast. Heck, you said it yourself, speed-run the Skull Caves to get to 100+ so you can get more mystic stones and iridium nodes to appear and NOT fight stuff at all, even.

Doing that will give you the iridium you need to upgrade all of your tools without killing much of anything in the SC in the first place, and if you ain't killing anything, then you ain't getting any XP for Combat, the very thing you were ridiculing me for when I was trying to get a shard to drop earlier.

But yet you back up and go "but if you keep running the SC you'll have Level 10!"

.... what exactly are you running the SC -for- if you have all the iridium you need already, other than for money and other Post-CC stuff?

(Also making a side note here, that arriving at, and running the Skull Cavern before finishing the CC doesn't count, as you're still farming for materials you don't really need because at that point, you already have everything you need except for some seasonal stuff that won't spawn until their seasons arrive)

So we're back to, again, all skills except Combat and Foraging easily reach 10 before you finish the CC and/or arrive at your first Winter, and Foraging isn't far behind.

Your argument goes "but but but spend all of your time in mine and SC and do nothing else!" is kinda pointing out the fact that yes, Combat is the slowest to level. The only reason you get it early is because you prioritize it over everything else and min-max Combat XP gains, blah blah.

You don't have to min-max Fishing to get it to 10 in Spring.
You don't have to min-max Farming to get it done before the CC is done.
You don't have to min-max Mining to get it done by the time you arrive at Winter and get the CC done, if you're going for enough materials to build the basic stuff.

And heck, you can get Level 10 in all of those skills, with lazy casual play, all at the same time without prioritizing any of them unless you want to claim that jogging over to the woods for a minute or two per game day is "prioritizing". Not like, I don't know, spending entire game days devoted to the Skull Cavern to get Combat levelled.

Fishing requires entire days devoted to it, but fewer days in general. Less than a dozen, even.

But yet, you DO have to min-max Combat to get it to 10 in any reasonable time frame. You basically have to speed-run getting to, unlocking it, and being able to run down to Floor 100+ as early as possible to see those "Summer Combat 10" runs. The very definition of min-max play, trying to maximize gains as much as possible.

You said it yourself, these are "Videos that show an OPTIMIZED run".

You have to OPTIMIZE your play to get Combat to 10 that early.

But yet you can just lazily play and get all the other skills to 10 by the time you finish the CC and/or reach Winter.

:D you see the irony here right? :D

No irony at all.

Tabasco is talking about spamming SC for Combat XP as early in the game as possible.

I'm talking about Foraging like you level it gradually over time, only spending a few seconds here, or a secret woods level there instead of doing secret woods ONLY.

You won't get Combat 10 by just making casual trips to the mine for what materials you need to get the equipment and buildings on your farm set up, unless you're going for like 100 Q sprinklers or something. I'd wager that most players do like 20-30 of them, given that any more and it's difficult to be able to set the whole thing up in 1 day.

You only get Combat 10 when you repeatedly run what was back before Ginger Island, "Endgame" which was the Skull Cavern. Note that the Skull Cavern is endless (or almost endless, there is a bottom floor but you'll never see it outside of cheats), and it's endless because it was designed to be Endgame.

[Anzaman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Anzaman:

It mostly gets down to multiplayer scaling problem. There are only so many sources of Foraging experience available - where as Fishing, Farming, Mining and Combat are basically limitless.

The way that it is set up, though, is that it only takes a few seconds here, and there, to level it and you will get it about the same time the CC is finished.

Mm - meanwhile day #1 winter, CC completed. My foraging sits at 5, since co-op partner has taken all of the Hardwood days.

Every other skill at 10.

Meanwhile 1.6 changelog be like;

• "You can now have up to 8 players on PC."
  
• "Harvesting forage crops from wild seeds now give much less foraging experience,"

"Have fun guys, see how many trees that grow once in Season there are."

1 tree is 13 experience.
1 Iron node is 12 experience.

Iron is very abundant, takes like two swings to break even in mid game and respawns instantly. Single Diamond node is same amount of experience as all of Secret Woods hardwood combined.

[Crater]

We're reaching diamond levels of density here.

I just spelled out to you a fair comparison between farming foraging xp vs. farming combat xp. You harp on my use of galaxy sword is somehow wrong because it's "end game" well 1) so is your whining to unlock mastery, which is MORE end game than the galaxy sword and 2) the entire point of my post was to compare xp/minute fairly. I gave both the foraging and the combat a high (but not end game) build. If the combat scenario I gave you was end game it would have things like the napalm ring, 100+ mega bombs, etc.

You adding details about the foraging is neither here nor there, those are minute in comparison to the scenario I described. By your own numbers you said it would take 60 + days. That proves my point that foraging is undeniably the slowest thing to level *if you care to speed level the skills*

"I suppose, maybe basing the skills to get to 10 time on the CC might not be what you'd agree to, but if it works for the other skills, it should work for Combat too."

This is factually wrong, it DOES line up, unless you avoided it too much, which you clearly have if your foraging outpaced your combat.

As a fun test here is what I did: this is a SC run in spring with the galaxy sword.

Combat (level 4) -- need 448 more xp to next level and 13,298 more xp to max

The next day:

Combat (level 6) -- need 735 more xp to next level and 10,935 more xp to max

That's 2363 xp in one day. If it takes 15,000 to reach max level, how the hell is your earlier post where you whined about "well if you can get fishing up that quick why can't you get combat up that quick?". It's FAR more comparable to fishing than foraging is. If you chopped 100 trees in a day it would give you 1300xp. Please tell me how foraging keeps pace?

And for the fifth time: the min maxing strat overall in these vids *ignore* combat in favour of deeper mining - that they happen to reach high combat by end of spring counts against your point. You keep reframing this as "I shouldn't need to min max" - again, for the fith time: they AREN'T min maxing combat, but somehow you can't keep pace while trying to grind combat - and that point the problem is probably not the game but the way you're playing.

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Anzaman:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

The way that it is set up, though, is that it only takes a few seconds here, and there, to level it and you will get it about the same time the CC is finished.

Mm - meanwhile day #1 winter, CC completed. My foraging sits at 5, since co-op partner has taken all of the Hardwood days.

Every other skill at 10.

Meanwhile 1.6 changelog be like;

• "You can now have up to 8 players on PC."
  
• "Harvesting forage crops from wild seeds now give much less foraging experience,"

"Have fun guys, see how many trees that grow once in Season there are."

1 tree is 13 experience.
1 Iron node is 12 experience.

Iron is very abundant, takes like two swings to break even in mid game and respawns instantly. Single Diamond node is same amount of experience as all of Secret Woods hardwood combined.

You're talking about Multiplayer. I'm talking about Singleplayer.

That's not really a fair comparison.

Obviously, a skill with limited spawns is going to impact multiplayer.

Yes, I am admitting that Foraging is limited spawns, but despite that, it still manages to get to 9 and almost 10 by the time Winter rolls around.

And if you were that concerned, maybe ask to trade places with your partner so that you can more evenly distribute the XP? But even despite not touching the Secret Woods at all, you still have 5.

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

We're reaching diamond levels of density here.

I just spelled out to you a fair comparison between farming foraging xp vs. farming combat xp. You harp on my use of galaxy sword is somehow wrong because it's "end game" well 1) so is your whining to unlock mastery, which is MORE end game than the galaxy sword and 2) the entire point of my post was to compare xp/minute fairly. I gave both the foraging and the combat a high (but not end game) build. If the combat scenario I gave you was end game it would have things like the napalm ring, 100+ mega bombs, etc.

You adding details about the foraging is neither here nor there, those are minute in comparison to the scenario I described. By your own numbers you said it would take 60 + days. That proves my point that foraging is undeniably the slowest thing to level *if you care to speed level the skills*

"I suppose, maybe basing the skills to get to 10 time on the CC might not be what you'd agree to, but if it works for the other skills, it should work for Combat too."

This is factually wrong, it DOES line up, unless you avoided it too much, which you clearly have if your foraging outpaced your combat.

As a fun test here is what I did: this is a SC run in spring with the galaxy sword.

Combat (level 4) -- need 448 more xp to next level and 13,298 more xp to max

The next day:

Combat (level 6) -- need 735 more xp to next level and 10,935 more xp to max

That's 2363 xp in one day. If it takes 15,000 to reach max level, how the hell is your earlier post where you whined about "well if you can get fishing up that quick why can't you get combat up that quick?". It's FAR more comparable to fishing than foraging is. If you chopped 100 trees in a day it would give you 1300xp. Please tell me how foraging keeps pace?

And for the fifth time: the min maxing strat overall in these vids *ignore* combat in favour of deeper mining - that they happen to reach high combat by end of spring counts against your point. You keep reframing this as "I shouldn't need to min max" - again, for the fith time: they AREN'T min maxing combat, but somehow you can't keep pace while trying to grind combat - and that point the problem is probably not the game but the way you're playing.

I was talking about arriving at Endgame, being READY for Endgame, IE, have all the skills on 10 at the arrival of Endgame.

You're talking about diving into Endgame (the SC itself) to level Combat.

You're saying in order to have combat early, you gotta speed run the SC to get down to 100+ to get more Mystic Stones to (hopefully!) get a Prismatic Shard, and then get the Galaxy sword, and then go back into the SC even though you already have all the iridium you'll need from doing the previous step, and THEN go level Combat.

Meanwhile, all the other skills are 10 by the time you arrive at endgame, without doing any endgame activities.

You could compare this to JRPGs that ask you to defeat the hardest boss in the game, for the best weapon in the game.

If you were capable of killing the hardest enemy in the game, then WTF do you need the best weapon for, again?

Kinda same thing here. If you can get to Floor 100 of the SC, then WTF are you still doing in there? You already have everything you need.

Try doing a save and get to Floor 120 of the mines (plus a couple extra runs for, oh, 300 of each ore and 150-200 coal), and then get enough iridium to upgrade all the tools, and get 1 prismatic shard, and tell me what your Combat level is at that point. Something tells me that it ain't gonna be anywhere near 10.

[Crater]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

We're reaching diamond levels of density here.

I just spelled out to you a fair comparison between farming foraging xp vs. farming combat xp. You harp on my use of galaxy sword is somehow wrong because it's "end game" well 1) so is your whining to unlock mastery, which is MORE end game than the galaxy sword and 2) the entire point of my post was to compare xp/minute fairly. I gave both the foraging and the combat a high (but not end game) build. If the combat scenario I gave you was end game it would have things like the napalm ring, 100+ mega bombs, etc.

You adding details about the foraging is neither here nor there, those are minute in comparison to the scenario I described. By your own numbers you said it would take 60 + days. That proves my point that foraging is undeniably the slowest thing to level *if you care to speed level the skills*

"I suppose, maybe basing the skills to get to 10 time on the CC might not be what you'd agree to, but if it works for the other skills, it should work for Combat too."

This is factually wrong, it DOES line up, unless you avoided it too much, which you clearly have if your foraging outpaced your combat.

As a fun test here is what I did: this is a SC run in spring with the galaxy sword.

Combat (level 4) -- need 448 more xp to next level and 13,298 more xp to max

The next day:

Combat (level 6) -- need 735 more xp to next level and 10,935 more xp to max

That's 2363 xp in one day. If it takes 15,000 to reach max level, how the hell is your earlier post where you whined about "well if you can get fishing up that quick why can't you get combat up that quick?". It's FAR more comparable to fishing than foraging is. If you chopped 100 trees in a day it would give you 1300xp. Please tell me how foraging keeps pace?

And for the fifth time: the min maxing strat overall in these vids *ignore* combat in favour of deeper mining - that they happen to reach high combat by end of spring counts against your point. You keep reframing this as "I shouldn't need to min max" - again, for the fith time: they AREN'T min maxing combat, but somehow you can't keep pace while trying to grind combat - and that point the problem is probably not the game but the way you're playing.

I was talking about arriving at Endgame, being READY for Endgame, IE, have all the skills on 10 at the arrival of Endgame.

You're talking about diving into Endgame (the SC itself) to level Combat.

You're saying in order to have combat early, you gotta speed run the SC to get down to 100+ to get more Mystic Stones to (hopefully!) get a Prismatic Shard, and then get the Galaxy sword, and then go back into the SC even though you already have all the iridium you'll need from doing the previous step, and THEN go level Combat.

Meanwhile, all the other skills are 10 by the time you arrive at endgame, without doing any endgame activities.

I'm saying if you are trying to level combat vs level foraging, one of them the game itself functionally caps your xp per day, and not the other. Is that simple enough? So if your concern was "I want the end game perk unlocks" - then **AS A GAME MECHANIC** foraging needs wayyyyyyyyy more rebalancing than combat. Because, again, foraging xp is bottlenecked in a way the others aren't.

[EleventhStar]

.... what exactly are you running the SC -for- if you have all the iridium you need already, other than for money and other Post-CC stuff?

money isn't a trivial thing. you do pretty much everything in the game for money.

skull cave is also much better for copper/iron/gold than the regular mines, and there are important items in the treasure boxes.

with all the stuff in the game nowadays i'd say CC is pretty midgame. grandpa shrine/island is late game and perfection is endgame.


honestly i also just can't wrap my head around you saying you think only being in the mines for 30 sprinklers/tools/few machines is more then enough, but then somehow think spending half the day running around the map for forage for seasons on end isn't an insane amount of effort by comparison, whether you do it gradually or not.

even going to the secret woods on your horse and then desert toteming takes like 1-2 hours best case scenario.

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

I'm saying if you are trying to level combat vs level foraging, one of them the game itself functionally caps your xp per day, and not the other. Is that simple enough? So if your concern was "I want the end game perk unlocks" - then **AS A GAME MECHANIC** foraging needs wayyyyyyyyy more rebalancing than combat. Because, again, foraging xp is bottlenecked in a way the others aren't.

But yet despite said bottleneck, it still ends up at 9 to almost 10 by the time you arrive at that point where you have all the Pre-Endgame goals done, lol.

And don't get me wrong, I do think Foraging is a little slow. But Combat is worse because you're forced to do Endgame or exploit Infested Floors to have a chance of maxing it.

[Crater]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

I'm saying if you are trying to level combat vs level foraging, one of them the game itself functionally caps your xp per day, and not the other. Is that simple enough? So if your concern was "I want the end game perk unlocks" - then **AS A GAME MECHANIC** foraging needs wayyyyyyyyy more rebalancing than combat. Because, again, foraging xp is bottlenecked in a way the others aren't.

But yet despite said bottleneck, it still ends up at 9 to almost 10 by the time you arrive at that point where you have all the Pre-Endgame goals done, lol.

And don't get me wrong, I do think Foraging is a little slow. But Combat is worse because you're forced to do Endgame or exploit Infested Floors to have a chance of maxing it.

That's what I and others have been telling you for 4+ pages now in this thread, that if your foraging is outpacing combat the issue isn't the combat it's you not doing the combat right.

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von EleventhStar:

.... what exactly are you running the SC -for- if you have all the iridium you need already, other than for money and other Post-CC stuff?

money isn't a trivial thing. you do pretty much everything in the game for money.

skull cave is also much better for copper/iron/gold than the regular mines, and there are important items in the treasure boxes.

with all the stuff in the game nowadays i'd say CC is pretty midgame. grandpa shrine/island is late game and perfection is endgame.


honestly i also just can't wrap my head around you saying you think only being in the mines for 30 sprinklers/tools/few machines is more then enough, but then somehow think spending half the day running around the map for forage for seasons on end isn't an insane amount of effort by comparison, whether you do it gradually or not.

even going to the secret woods on your horse and then desert toteming takes like 1-2 hours best case scenario.

But yet you're dumping entire game-days repeatedly going into the SC to bash around some mother slimes, lol.

As for the money, nothing beats Fishing. If you want money, you go fishing.

So, if you do these speed run to 100 runs that Tabasco keeps talking about, you'll get the "important items" that you need more as like than not, well before getting Combat 10.

[maestro]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

That's what I and others have been telling you for 4+ pages now in this thread, that if your foraging is outpacing combat the issue isn't the combat it's you not doing the combat right.

I'm aware.

You keep saying to do Combat "Right", you must speedrun the SC to 100, get a Prismatic Shard, and then mass murder mother slimes.

That's the "Right" way to do Combat, according to you.

Somehow, killing everything in your way as you go down to Floor 120 in the mines just ain't good enough, even if you do it multiple times, which is only reinforcing the point that Combat XP is kind of wonk, that it requires you to do what was once Endgame to get it on 10.

But yet strangely enough, getting 10 on farming, you can do that any way you please and it WILL be 10 before the CC is done.

Fishing? Even if you fish nothing but carp and bass, it will be 10 by the time CC is done.

Mining? So long as you go after the materials you need and don't buy ores from Clint, you will probably get almost 10 by the time the CC is done.

That just leaves Foraging and Combat. Just doing what you need to do in the course of building your farm won't get Combat on 10. No, you have to make repeated trips to the endless dungeon for the express purpose of leveling it.

As for foraging, yes it's slow and if you want to make another thread talking about how foraging needs reworked, hey, have at it. You won't get any naysaying from me. It does seem a bit slow. But again. It gets to almost 10 by the time the CC is done, if you go get the hardwood you need for building everything, and you're not passing up the flowers laying on the ground.

[Crater]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tabasco:

That's what I and others have been telling you for 4+ pages now in this thread, that if your foraging is outpacing combat the issue isn't the combat it's you not doing the combat right.

I'm aware.

You keep saying to do Combat "Right", you must speedrun the SC to 100, get a Prismatic Shard, and then mass murder mother slimes.

That's the "Right" way to do Combat, according to you.

Somehow, killing everything in your way as you go down to Floor 120 in the mines just ain't good enough, even if you do it multiple times, which is only reinforcing the point that Combat XP is kind of wonk, that it requires you to do what was once Endgame to get it on 10.

But yet strangely enough, getting 10 on farming, you can do that any way you please and it WILL be 10 before the CC is done.

Fishing? Even if you fish nothing but carp and bass, it will be 10 by the time CC is done.

Mining? So long as you go after the materials you need and don't buy ores from Clint, you will probably get almost 10 by the time the CC is done.

That just leaves Foraging and Combat. Just doing what you need to do in the course of building your farm won't get Combat on 10. No, you have to make repeated trips to the endless dungeon for the express purpose of leveling it.

No, getting to 100 for the gsword is one way. There are other ways. And now you're being intentionally dense because literally in this thread you yourself said you got a shard from another source so....??

I didn't say it's to specifically kill slimes. I gave you numbers. I gave you videos, honestly what the hell do you want? 2300+ xp in combat in a day, which is exactly on pace to your earlier demand of "why isn't combat leveling pace similar to fishing". Again - wayyyyyyyy more similar than foraging.

Now you've created a new arbitrary standard of "it has to be by the time cc is done". We've been over this: if you're going to complain about the pace of leveling, you don't measure the calendar date, you measure *time spent on activity vs xp earned*. If you measure time spent on activity, which takes longer? Foraging or combat?

[Anzaman]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

You're talking about Multiplayer. I'm talking about Singleplayer.

And if you were that concerned, maybe ask to trade places with your partner so that you can more evenly distribute the XP? But even despite not touching the Secret Woods at all, you still have 5.

Mhm, tho you replied on my post talking about it being multiplayer problem.

And overall level 5 is 2,150 total exp out of the required 15,000. They got their Foraging just to 10, in middle of first winter - so it's not like it was that fast even by themselves hoarding basically all of the foraging sources to themselves. I was mostly dealing with our mineral side to keep farm expansion going.

And the situation would just get worse and worse with each player added to the mix.

Previously wild seeds were viable method to boost up the lacking Foraging experience, but now they are down to 2 experience a pop. Went from 7 down to 2 in single swoop.

[EleventhStar]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von maestro:

But yet you're dumping entire game-days repeatedly going into the SC to bash around some mother slimes, lol.

As for the money, nothing beats Fishing. If you want money, you go fishing.

fishing is only good money until you unlock the skull cave (or even strawberries if you can get enough sprinklers). selling iridium bars for 1500 a pop is significantly better. and having sheds full of kegs or other machines is better than that again.

the hardest part by far is your first few skull caverns run, but after that they become self sufficient in terms of materials you use.

So, if you do these speed run to 100 runs that Tabasco keeps talking about, you'll get the "important items" that you need more as like than not, well before getting Combat 10.

i'm honestly starting to wonder how you even got mining level 10 :D

you really gotto come up with some plan/strat to get yourself that galaxy sword earlier man. your life will be so much easier.