The case of the missing EXP event....

So, how many times has this happened to you?

e-Games announces a 2x or 3x EXP event. You're looking to level up your character, so you buy a training rosary, log-in your character and start looking for a party.

After what seems like hours of trying to look for a party, so finally get to join one. Unfortunately, you're only a temporary member since one of the permanent members was disconnected (which is a normal thing when it comes to playing RAN Online nowadays). After a while the disconnected player doesn't seem to be returning, so you're told that you're now a permanent member. You put on your training rosary and lure for all your worth (or cast buffs if you're a support shaman). When the the mobs have all been killed, and as the dust fades from the battlefield...

You get perhaps half a percent (or some other other amount which is significantly less than you expected). Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.

Half a percent? With a 3x/2x event? And with a training rosary?

What gives?

Sooner or later some other player figures out that the EXP event doesn't seem to be active. One may shout out: "GM bakit walang 2x/3x?. More bold types may try to PM a GM. Then an announcement will appear: "The 3x/2x event is active. Please make sure you are playing at a map appropriate for your character's level. Anyone spreading false information will be chatblocked." or words to that effect.

You just bite your lip and continue playing. What else can you do? You're already wearing the rosary, so you might as well use it.

Does this sound familiar to you?

This has happened to me a number of times already, but it was only the events yesterday which compelled me to make a blog post. I don't really bother with the e-Games forums anymore, the forum moderators tend to lock unsavory threads or move them to some other category where the thread will never see the light of day again.

When I use a one day training rosary with a 3x/2x event active and a level 80-100+ character, I typically get anywhere from 6 to 10 levels by the time the rosary expires. No, I don't actually play for 24 hours straight, I play on/off during the entire time the rosary is active, and I usually manage to use up to 12 hours of the rosary actually leveling up. And for a 80-100+ character, you typically level them up at the trading hole or the carpark.

Yesterday, for some reason, the EXP event didn't seem to be active during the hours I was playing. A 2x EXP event was scheduled during the morning, so I put on a rosary at around 8 AM, but my 90+ character was getting only around half a percent or so per lure, and this was at the wrestler and baldie spots at the carpark. I stopped playing about a little more than four hours later, managing only one level up.

At around 1 PM I tried again. Even though the 3x EXP event was supposed to be active, I only managed to level up once in about five hours of play. I tried again later in the evening, but I still got abysmal EXP despite the supposed EXP event and my training rosary.

Then an emergency server maintenance was announced, I think it was about 9 PM. I logged out, and logged back in after about twenty minutes. Now the EXP I was getting was huge (4-6% per lure), and in the couple of hours left before 12 midnight, I managed to level up twice. And this EXP was earned mostly by killing mostly skating masters, not wrestlers or baldies, which I have killing earlier in the day.

A 90+ character with a rosary will probably level up at a rate of once every three hours or so without an EXP event, assuming a good party and a good spot. With a 3x EXP event, the same character will probably level up once every hour or so. Unfortunately, it was already late in the evening when the EXP really started pouring in.

The end result? In about 11 hours of playing, I managed to level up only four times.

This is definitely not how it should be, especially with an EXP event ongoing, since I have a number of characters and I'm quite familiar with the rate that different character levels gain experience. I was expecting to earn about six, perhaps seven levels out of the 1 day rosary I purchased. I got only four.

And the breakdown?

First four hours - 1 level. (Morning, supposedly 2x, lots of mobs.)

Next five hours - 1 level. (Afternoon, supposedly 3x, not that many mobs due to several nearby parties competing for the lures.)

Next two hours or so after emergency maintenance - 2 levels. (Late evening, obviously active 3x, lots of mobs.)

I don't mean to nitpick, but the obvious explanation is that just because e-Games announces an EXP event, it doesn't necessarily mean that the EXP event is actually active. It is my theory that when the server gets overloaded and starts spitting out players (which happens every several hours or so, when Strife makes it to the top of the server list) the EXP event somehow gets deactivated. Or maybe the GMs just forget to activate the EXP event. I don't know. Perhaps you have better theories.

The funny thing is that the GMs rarely admit that there is a problem with the EXP events, even at times when it is painfully obvious that the EXP event isn't active. They seem to forget that as regular players, we know very well how much EXP our characters should be getting when there is an EXP event. Occasionally a GM comes out clean and announces: "The 2x/3x event has been reactivated." but such occurrences seem to be few and far in between.

Am I the only one noticing this?

I only wish that when e-Games schedules an EXP event, they actually activate it instead of making us feel stupid.

Hey, we waste hours on this game. Why the heck should we level up in maps where the mobs don't suit our character level?

Oh well. Just another rant in the long list of criticisms against e-Games.