http://alaktorn.wrvids.com/Ys_VI_Experience_Calculator.php (Thanks a lot to my friend Julian who helped me reverse-engineer the formula and code the calculator.)
First of all, I’m still working on collecting the data and I have no idea how to call the enemies. Can we come up with names for all of them? I don’t think there are official ones except for bosses, right?
Here’s how Experience works: enemies have a base level and base experience value (this is in red in my calculator), and a formula is applied to the value to determine your experience. Base experience is usually base level with a 5 stuck at the end (ferret enemies base lvl = 1, base exp = 15), with a few special enemies having a × 4 multiplier (Geis, bombs) and oddly the bugs/spiders give slightly lower exp than expected (base lvl = 8, exp = 79). “bonus” is the Starlight Medal, if equipped = 1.5, otherwise 1.0 (no change). The formula (in pseudocode) is this: if Adol’s lvl ≤ base lvl then floor(base EXP × bonus × 1.2 ^ min(base lvl − Adol’s lvl, 3)) else floor(base EXP × bonus ÷ 2 ^ (Adol’s lvl − base lvl)) end min() is a PHP function that picks the smallest number within the parenthesis, basically what this means is that the number can’t be bigger than 3, you’ll notice that after incrementing 3 times the number is unchanging in the calculator. If your level is higher than the enemy’s base level the second formula is used and heavy experience scaling begins (basically the value halves with each higher level).
I started grabbing the “to next level” values too but idk about a formula for them yet: lvl1 150 lvl2 455 lvl3 760 lvl4 1065 lvl5 1370 lvl6 1676 lvl7 1980 = + 305 lvl8 2286 = + 306 lvl9 2591 = + 305 lvl10 2895 = + 304 lvl11 3201 = + 306 lvl12 3506 lvl13 3811 lvl14 4116 lvl15 4421 = + 305
lvl44 13269 lvl45 13573 = + 304 lvl46 13879 = + 306 lvl47 14184 lvl48 14489 lvl49 14794 lvl50 15099 = + 305
I don't have any proof like you do, but I assumed this and other Falcom games that used the scaled EXP system worked like Ys II Eternal on up. Or at least very similar to it.
As best I can tell, the way it works in Ys II is if you're below the level of the enemy, you get 2x its listed value. If you're the same level as the enemy, or 1 above, then you get the listed value. Any levels after that, it seems to go to 1/2 the value, then 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc. (usually rounding down the values, if needed) until you only receive 1 EXP, or you can't level any higher.
I don’t know about other games but this one works like I’ve said. You’re welcome to try and find a value that my calculator gets wrong.
Hi there! According to the formula you provided, the "Ferret" should have a Level 1 XP yield of 18 if one were to somehow have the Starlight Medal equipped at Level 1. Your calculator yields "22", which I don't think is quite right...
^Not sure where you’re getting “18” from, and I did test through hacking that the Ferret gives 22 EXP with it equipped at level 1.
Since Adol is level 1, and the Ferret’s base level (shown in red) is 1, it uses the first formula: if Adol’s lvl ≤ base lvl then floor(base EXP × bonus × 1.2 ^ min(base lvl − Adol’s lvl, 3))
The order of operations here ends up being kinda “Japanese”, from right to left. Base lvl − Adol’s lvl will be 0, which is lower than 3, so the whole parenthesis solves as a 0. 1.2 to the power of 0 equals 1. Bonus being 1.5 × 1 equals 1.5. Base EXP being 15, the whole thing solves as 15 × 1.5 = 22.5, floored to 22.
Ah ha! I had the Starlight Medal as being 1.25. That's where my calculations were going wrong. Thanks!
Kind of made a new discovery. Minions during boss fights seem to follow a slightly different formula without flooring, so you get decimal EXP values. I’ve seen this with Zonplas’s spawned fireflies and on Nightmare with the “circle vines” outside Ruins of Lost Time during the mini Gaposdhala boss fight. The latter have given me variable decimal EXP while I was at the same level… the current formula would give 5.625 EXP (22.5 base) at lvl24 but I just got 5.60157 and 5.60156 (61040.20312 → 61045.80469 → 61051.40625). I think the variance is always just .00001. Pretty weird…
Edit: Omg, the pixies in Ernst’s fight can be “killed” twice if you attack quickly enough as they die, for example with Livart’s magic you’re always gonna get 2× EXP when killing one of them. Sometimes if you keep mashing as they’re dying you’ll get 2× EXP.
The Ark gives no EXP.
It turns out that Gaposasura and Deadollon are weird bosses and the only ones that give different EXP values on Hard/Nightmare. I’ve had Gaposasura’s Hard/Nightmare EXP values on my site this whole time! I’ve changed them to the Normal values now.
https://isu.fandom.com/wiki/Ys_VI:_The_Ark_of_Napishtim/Enemies_%2526_Bosses This wiki has pretty good info on all stats of all enemies, which is how I ended up noticing this thing.
