Encouraging play through low level content.

[Greycat]

2 minutes ago, Uun said:

I don't remember when this got changed back on live, but the leveling pace used to be a lot slower.

<snip for brevity>

Yes. Many things changed. Among the things that changed:

- More content, as mentioned.

- Sidekicking changes. (Say it with me. "You are getting too far from your mentor.  Your mentor is too far away! You are back in range of your mentor. You are getting too far from your mentor. Your mentor is too far away!" ... I can't help it, I'm superjumping just at the edge of mentor range!)

- No debt under L10.

- Half debt in missions.

- Debt cap changes.

- Patrol XP

 

Among other things.  I mean, we KNOW it sped up well before shutdown on live. We've had the "Disable XP" option for a *long* time specifically because of it.

 

And yeah. When my first 50 was an elec/elec blaster back in i3? I *really* got to hate debt in the 30s specifically because of that content gap in the 35-40 range. I think I ran out early in level 38.

[Uun]

37 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Yes. Many things changed. Among the things that changed:

Aside from these, I'm fairly certain they increased the amount of XP received per mob defeated.

[MTeague]

2 minutes ago, Uun said:

Aside from these, I'm fairly certain they increased the amount of XP received per mob defeated.

I'd believe it.  I usually find myself disabling XP to make sure I can clear a couple story arcs in each level range on the way up, as well as do enough radio/paper missions for the Safeguard/Mayhem in each level range.  yea, I know, I *could* do them later, but I like experiencing my character at different stages of power as they develop. 

[Uun]

Did a little digging in the patch notes. This is what I found:

 

2/12/2008:  Enemy XP values (and Influence/Infamy dropped) have been increased across nearly all levels. The size of the increase directly relates to datamined leveling speeds for characters, so levels where characters have found themselves ‘stuck’ or ‘slowed’ will have enemies of that level’s XP increased more than other levels. Enemy Levels with the greatest increase in XP rates are: 13 to 20, and 36 to 50. Other levels have had smaller, but still significant, XP and Influence adjustments. This may mean that characters will find it impossible to do ‘all’ the content of a given level range before outleveling it.

 http://web.archive.org/web/20121003093848/http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/game_updates/issue_11/xp_curve_smoothing_qa.php

 

9/15/2009:  To go along with our new changes to sidekicking and exemplaring, we've made some adjustments to the experience awarded from minions, lieutenants and bosses in the level 5 to 24 range. In short these enemies are on average receiving a 20% experience and influence increase. This will slightly speed up the pace at which heroes and villains advance through the 5 to 24 range.

 

So it appears that xp rewards were buffed at least twice.

[Doc_Scorpion]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

I recently formed a team to do Stephanie Peebles arc, and by the time we finished it I had out-leveled Long Jack's arc.

This is exactly the situation that XP locks were invented for.