Hireling experience oddities; v1.10s

[Crystalion]

the tentative findings here, in case anyone wants to double check it or flesh it out...

First, some "known" basics:

A hireling shares experience from you and your minions' kills (I haven't tested to see if they get xp any time that you would, e.g. from a party kill). If the hireling doesn't do the kill him/herself then their xp share gets chopped in third.

I rather imagine the code just takes the info for the xp it wants to give you and also calls (other party members) and hirelings, so that kills are just one uniform happy family, but I've not tested or read for this.

Hirelings ?do/don't? get the +50% xp bonus from shrines (I didn't test this, but I'm sure it is "known" and I will edit it in here later if I get the chance to test it or someone else reliably reports it).

Hirelings don't gain xp when they are dead.

the calculation order could be really really evil, and apply all bonuses pre-cap and all penalties post-cap--again, something to test for

Misc. additions and corrections to the above from some quick testing...

Hirelings don't lose xp when they die (in nm/hell).

Hirelings do not get a bonus when you are under the influence of an xp shrine.

Hirelings do not get a bonus from having other people in the party (on site).

Hirelings get a players X bonus, but this (as expected) is pre-cap (so it is often of no benefit).

Hirelings get diluted for xp by the clvl vs. mlvl stuff *before* the cap (this is favorable).

Hirelings do not get party experience (i.e. no xp for kills not made by you, your minions, or hireling--presumably you'll get xp for MvM deaths for confused/attracted/converted monsters but the details of this need testing).

...

So, in summary, to level up the hireling "you" (not a party) will have to do it, and Players X will often be of no help, nor will touching xp shrines. No biggee if the hireling croaks (no xp loss) other than the time and cash lost to resurrect them.

A big win, potentially, is fighting way above the hireling even though they will get nerfed for their xp, because the cap is already a nerf (and in favorable calculation order). The win comes from the fact that what you really need to do is kill 192 (xp cap) monsters as quickly as possible, so having latitude (players 1; mlvl much > than hireling level) offers efficiencies in terms of where you can go to reap huge numbers of enemies.

Let's look at an extreme example, using numbers from the original post...

Hire a level 3 normal act 1 Rogue, and go visit the Zombie Garden (Pindle area). The cap per kill is:
D = (3 * L**2 + 5 * L + 2) * P; Cap = D/64
D = (3 * 9 + 5 * 3 + 2) * 100
D = 4400; Cap = 4400/64; Cap = 68 xp per kill; 22 xp per kill you make (/3 penalty).

Theoretically, below level 25, the hireling will get only 5% xp for being very low level relative to the mlvl of the monster killed (this too needs testing). In theory, though, 10,718 xp for a Prowling Dead kill will dilute to 500+ xp, which is way above the cap still.

Clearly then, *if* you can find and kill lower level masses of monsters faster, the hireling xp cap is the key thing you're fighting (64 monsters by hireling, or 192 by you, per level up), and you should go for the slaughterfest option. This means classes and methods of rapid monster slaughter are the way to go, if you know you want to play level catch up for a newly hired hand. Monster Density and fast travel time are a big plus also (as has been the case in the Great Race thread discussion).

edit: for grins, consider the case again of hell Prowling Dead, level 83 and worth 50,900 xp, and ask the question (ignoring lvl vs mlvl dilution for the moment) when the cap is high enough (100 base fire rogue) to allow full xp?

50,900 * 64 ? >= ((3 * L**2 + 5 * L + 2) * P)
50,900 * 64 / 100 - 2 ? >= 3 * L**2 + 5 * L
since I don't really need to be precise I'll approximate this by
509 * 64 ?= 3 * L**2 which approximates to level 104.

What this tells us is that the cap pretty much rules the xp curve for the whole life cycle of the hireling. Calculation order tells us that unless we can kill 3x faster than the hireling (often the case though), it is probably efficient to let them do the kills (in other words, twinks/assists of the hireling can help bigtime).

The only exception to this rule of thumb would be to avoid the penalty of fighting monsters substantially *below* the hireling's level (because low xp combined with dilution penalty lvl vs. mlvl will put you below the cap per kill).

This whole exercise suggests to me that when players complained about the broken Hireling never levels up problem they made a fix (hireling xp scale is kinder at high levels than the player's scale) that helps by the late 20s but made/left the cap thing as body count = all that matters. Rather strange and probably unintended--consider that the 100..140 exp/lvl penalty factor for different hirelings has no effect whatsoever under typical conditions (of the cap always being hit, thus number of kills matters, which is always the same 64..192, but no difference is made by the "penalty").

edit: hireling also doesn't get xp when you get xp for looting your own corpse (nm/hell). I think they also don't share in the xp when you get your boost from the Ancients (IIRC).