Level limit for loot and experience?

pareidolon

Can someone clarify what exactly are the rules for getting loot and levels from lower-level mobs or group instances? I understand there are other discussions about this, but I've read answers from 3 to 6 levels. Does it differ by situation? Is it progressive (eg. I get 10% experience from an enemy 5 levels below me) or absolute? And does it also apply to quests? Thanks for any information. I do know one thing from observation, that hide scrap drops seem to be unaffected.

Ysne58

I'm pretty sure it's 5 levels, except for medium armor ingredients, and I think it applies to both lower and higher levels than the player

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

@Ysne58 is right, on all counts.

@pareidolon you won't have experienced it yet and may not do, but the +/- 5 levels is the reason if and when you reach VR10 and are in the final zone of leveling before Craglorn you'll see swarms of VR14s slaughtering the VR9/VR10 mobs you need to quest on, they're grinding XP on mobs they can lay waste with AoE while still getting the same XP as if the mobs were +5 levels above.

It does happen in lower-level zones, pre-VR levels, but it's less common since there's no real reason to grind XP when normal questing will get you there, some people though don't like questing, and as Ysne58 mentioned, the fact that leather Provisioning mats drop from mobs (that can drop them) no matter how much higher you are than they) farming leather while grinding XP is an incentive to do it.

It's a crass XP scheme IMO and encourages anti-social aspects like this, many MMOs of course scale XP every +/- 1 level to discourage this.

Ysne58

I do think it's a stupid system. I'd prefer scaling but would be happy with 1 exp for mobs outside that range. I outlevel content way too quickly with that +10% exp even without doing mage, fighter and world quests.I'm saving those because they scale.

SantaOrc

I am level 48 and just finished Rift (mobs are 42?). With at least 5 Story/Guild quests still missing.
Didn't do any dungeons twice etc. The fighting while leveling is incredibly boring, getting way to much xp while doing it and beeing higher level than your questmobs benefits this.

I finish all my quests when they are green or grey :-/