PRAETOR, STOP THIS CRAZY THING!: Leveling too quickly for Praetoria's arcs

[AspieAnarchy]

All I want to do is be able to take a character who's committed to one of the 4 Praetorian Factions and make my way through the respective full chain of mission arcs, from levels 1-20, without needing to rely overmuch on turning off XP (I should be able to at least do all the missions with XP on, is that so unreasonable an expectation?) or latecoming bandaids like Ourobouros...but I am having the darnedest time doing so.

 

E.G.: I presently have a Crusader who just reached 17th-level after completing Vagabond's arc; aside from missing out on completing Jackhammer's arc due to gaining 1 too many levels a hair too soon, it's been able to hit the full Crusader opus so far - but now, I cannot even be introduced to Wardog.

 

What do I do?

 

I'm not as concerned about this current character - maybe I'll start over, maybe I'll lump it with Ouroboros later - but I want to know how to avoid this problem with future Praetorian characters.

Edited October 14, 2022 by AspieAnarchy

[Astralock]

The simple answer is (although I know you don't want to hear it), that you need to turn off XP.  There's no other way, save for running story arcs via Ouroboros Flashback.  Specifically, turn off XP at levels seven, thirteen, and eighteen.  Seriously, those are your two only options.  Definitely be sure that you are not using any XP boosts.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Astralock

[AspieAnarchy]

6 minutes ago, Astralock said:

The simple answer is (although I know you don't want to hear it), that you need to turn off XP.  There's no other way, save for running story arcs via Ouroboros Flashback.  Specifically, turn off XP at levels seven, thirteen, and eighteen.  Seriously, those are your two only options.  Definitely be sure that you are not using any XP boosts.

 

Certainly, I know better than to use XP boosts - but if those are "seriously" my two only options, surely you can understand why I thought it reasonable to expect more/other options? That was piss-poor design if what you say is true, something you'd definitely think playtesters could've and would've spotted and wished to see solved.

 

Thanks for the specific levels - but for how long do I do so then?

[Lines]

I've long been an advocate of increasing the max level ranges of all the existing Praetorian arcs to 30.

 

In the meantime, if you have a base with a crystal of ice and fire, you can run flashbacks to do the arcs in sequence before leaving Prae. Since Prae zones all got base portals recently, this can be done quite easily.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Lines

[Apogee]

You can level up to 10, 15, and 20 and still do all of the arcs just fine.  The extra levels come in handy.

[Gulbasaur]

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

What do I do?

As someone who regularly runs story content at lower levels, the answer is usually this:

/macro_image "DayJob_XPBoost" "XP Toggle" "option_toggle noxp"

Copy and paste it into your chat bar and press enter.

XP scaling in this game is almost totally unrelated to how you actually play content if you're doing story arcs. At low levels, you probably get too much XP. It sort of evens out by level 35ish. I'd argue that at from level 40 onwards, you probably get slightly too little. 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Gulbasaur

[Frozen Burn]

2 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

 

Certainly, I know better than to use XP boosts - but if those are "seriously" my two only options, surely you can understand why I thought it reasonable to expect more/other options? That was piss-poor design if what you say is true, something you'd definitely think playtesters could've and would've spotted and wished to see solved.

 

Thanks for the specific levels - but for how long do I do so then?

 

If i recall correctly during live, there was an XP-curve adjustments across all of CoX for the lower levels sometime after Going Rogue came out.  So that adjustment not only made all the CoH and CoV lower level content go quicker, but also the Praetorian content too, which then made us all need to turn off XP every now and then so we don't out-level contacts.

 

And you can level to 10, 15, and then turn off XP as needed.  You can also lvl to 20, turn off xp, and finish up, if you wanted.  But I would suggest turning off again at lvl 19 instead so you don't get the mish to Primal mixed in with your other contacts/content - just makes it easier, imo.  

[Snarky]

All goldside content is available through ouro.  every bit.  but yes, stopping experience is the time honored way completionist ocd types have solved this issue.

[Glacier Peak]

Suggestion: Add to the P2W vendor the following: 0.5, 0.25, and 0.10 XP Rate temporary powers. 

[Shred Monkey]

I've done the full suite of arcs on 1 toon for both sides by turning off xp.  As far as other options, I guess you could die a bunch of times so you're getting 1/2 xp.  but that seems silly when there's a way to just turn of xp.

 

[Astralock]

6 hours ago, Apogee said:

You can level up to 10, 15, and 20 and still do all of the arcs just fine.  The extra levels come in handy.

 

Not entirely true.  Some contacts in Nova Praetoria will stop talking to you at level 8, Imperial City at level 15, and Neutropolis at level 19.  It's funky that way.  So you're much better off turning XP off at levels 7, 13/14, and 18 just to be on the safe side.  13/14 is a little funky in that once you ding level 14, you may start to get offered Neutropolis story arcs, so there's risk that if you ding level 14 and aren't careful, you may start going down the Neutropolis path before you finish Imperial City, but you'll still get missions from Imperial City contacts.  Just need to be really careful.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Astralock

[InvaderStych]

This is an old guide, but I was able to follow it long ago, while turning off XP at appropriate times, to successfully run all Goldside arcs on a single toon in a single run.  You have to be real careful about timing the XP gates and order of operations.  Someone, sorry that I have forgotten whom, has updated things a bit to make it easier, but the OG guide does work if one is very careful.

 

 

My run was from a Loyalist start.  Eventually I might do it again with a Resistance start, but it is a big time commitment to solo through it all.

 

Yes - it was not a great design choice with respect to level gating on Goldside - but that choice was made long, long ago during Retail.  The best we've got is the work-around or Oro.  I prefer the work-around personally.

 

Are the Undercover operations available when doing them in Oro?  Those are the most interesting part, but iirc one must start in the Goldside tutorial to access them.

[Belldark]

1 hour ago, Glacier Peak said:

Suggestion: Add to the P2W vendor the following: 0.5, 0.25, and 0.10 XP Rate temporary powers. 

This. I  wish we had that again there are so many story arcs i wish i could do and i hate having to turn off my exp all the time.

 

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, Belldark said:

This. I  wish we had that again there are so many story arcs i wish i could do and i hate having to turn off my exp all the time.

I mean there used to be a way to do it - get enough Debt to slow down level progression (or back during the old legacy days, so much debt you may never be able to level!).

[Belldark]

Yea i remember but there was a way before but you got more inf if you lowered the exp you got.  I wished that they kept the lowered exp but took off the extra inf you got.

[Zhym]

8 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

(I should be able to at least do all the missions with XP on, is that so unreasonable an expectation?)

It's not an unreasonable expectation, but it's not one that's going to be satisfied in Praetoria.  The Praetorian content wasn't really written with the idea that players would do all the content on both the Loyalist and Resistance side—rather, it seems to have been designed for replayability, with players able to choose different paths each time through.  And that was with Retail's much slower level progression.  Add in the faster level gains in Homecoming, and I've had to pause XP just to do all the contacts in one faction (e.g., Loyalist Power), much less all the missions in all four factions.

 

Note that although you can do the missions through Ouro, you won't always have the option to check in with the contact for your "true" alignment that way.  As you probably know, many of the Praetorian missions prompt you to call either Calvin Scott (Resistance) or Provost Marchand (Loyalist) when you're working undercover with the opposite faction.  If your character isn't of Praetorian origin, you can't do either of these in Ouro missions.  If you started life as a Praetorian, you'll always have your "true" alignment contact available, even in Ouro—but you have to go to them in person (you can't call them because while you're in FB, they won't show up in your contacts).  But the opposite alignment contact will never be available in Ouro missions.  And at some point Calvin Scott disappears from Praetoria, even in Flashback missions, so my Praetorian Resistance character wasn't able to contact him for secret instructions, either.  (To be clear, though, Calvin Scott is available as a contact in the arc for which he's the main contact; he just doesn't appear on the map otherwise).

 

tl;dr: You can do all the Praetorian content through Ouroboros, but you won't have all the options in that content that you have if you run it as you level.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Zhym

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

What do I do?

 

I would suggest using the wiki to see when the level range of the contact, not using an x# XP, and setting the difficulty to flat.

When you get to the level of or before the last level of your contact. Lock the XP at that point. By that time you should have all the powers you need to take on the end of the arc. 

 

It's more less what I'm doing over here with the Hero origin contacts ::

 

 

 

Yeah, it isn't always a lot of fun running on flat difficulty, so sometime I handicap my characters.

The blaster I'm running through the Magic Origins is a fire/martial arts. I've been pretty much running that character  IB (innocent bystander) mode with no blast powers and only the martial arts powers unless I get into a really bad situation. When it does come to that point,

I go through the power-up/transformation/変身 costume emote and tray flip to the superhero powers trays with the blaster powers and martial arts powers in them. But I try to avoid that as much as possible with that character.

 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by UltraAlt

[Glacier Peak]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember even seeing Debt accumulate before Level 10. And isn't the xp-required-per-level from Levels 1 to 10 incredibly low? Something like....

 

[Zhym]

27 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember even seeing Debt accumulate before Level 10. And isn't the xp-required-per-level from Levels 1 to 10 incredibly low?

Correct on both counts.  I wonder if there's anywhere that archives what the level progression looked like in Issue 18, when Preatoria rolled out.

 

ETA: Looking at Paragon Wiki, the level progression seems to have been the same since 2004.  So what makes leveling go so much faster now?

Edited October 14, 2022 by Zhym

[Templarstone]

1 hour ago, Astralock said:

 

Not entirely true.  Some contacts in Nova Praetoria will stop talking to you at level 8, Imperial City at level 15, and Neutropolis at level 19.  It's funky that way.  So you're much better off turning XP off at levels 7, 13/14, and 18 just to be on the safe side.  13/14 is a little funky in that once you ding level 14, you may start to get offered Neutropolis story arcs, so there's risk that if you ding level 14 and aren't careful, you may start going down the Neutropolis path before you finish Imperial City, but you'll still get missions from Imperial City contacts.  Just need to be really careful.

^^^ definitely follow this advice it was first worked out in this thread

and then was written out as a complete guide here 

 

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Apparition's_Complete_Guide_to_Praetoria

 

The author has taken a bit of a break from gaming but it is still your best bet for full completion of Praetoria. Coming from someone who watched them restart character after character as the updated process was being formed 

 

[Oubliette_Red]

9 hours ago, AspieAnarchy said:

All I want to do is be able to take a character who's committed to one of the 4 Praetorian Factions and make my way through the respective full chain of mission arcs, from levels 1-20, without needing to rely overmuch on turning off XP (I should be able to at least do all the missions with XP on, is that so unreasonable an expectation?) or latecoming bandaids like Ourobouros...but I am having the darnedest time doing so.

 

E.G.: I presently have a Crusader who just reached 17th-level after completing Vagabond's arc; aside from missing out on completing Jackhammer's arc due to gaining 1 too many levels a hair too soon, it's been able to hit the full Crusader opus so far - but now, I cannot even be introduced to Wardog.

 

What do I do?

 

I'm not as concerned about this current character - maybe I'll start over, maybe I'll lump it with Ouroboros later - but I want to know how to avoid this problem with future Praetorian characters.

 

This has been an annoyance since Legacy days. In Blue/Redside content, if you have at least started the arc you can continue it to completion regardless of outleveling it while playing. Only on Goldside do the contacts put you on ignore once you dinged past their level, especially annoying if you only had their final mission to complete.

 

[Apogee]

2 hours ago, Astralock said:

 

Not entirely true.  Some contacts in Nova Praetoria will stop talking to you at level 8, Imperial City at level 15, and Neutropolis at level 19.  It's funky that way.  So you're much better off turning XP off at levels 7, 13/14, and 18 just to be on the safe side.  13/14 is a little funky in that once you ding level 14, you may start to get offered Neutropolis story arcs, so there's risk that if you ding level 14 and aren't careful, you may start going down the Neutropolis path before you finish Imperial City, but you'll still get missions from Imperial City contacts.  Just need to be really careful.

I have done the 1-20 Praetorian arcs on over 30 characters and never had a problem.  There are other reasons aside from level that will cause contacts to stop talking, usually based on your given alignment at the time or if the contact was killed during a previous arc.  You are more than welcome to turn off xp at earlier levels but in my experience having the extra attacks and slots is beneficial.  Also note, you do not need to be introduced to a contact.  As long as your alignment is correct you can walk up and introduce yourself just fine.  This actually makes it easier in Neutropolis as talking with Calvin Scott can have you take his mission arc out of order which can really screw up the Crusader arc for those trying to get the badge.

[Glacier Peak]

2 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Live treated level 20 like some sort of magic number. You get your capes. You're still useless on high level teams, but you feel good about it. 

 

Level 20 on Homecoming is NOT a magic number, and there's no reason Praetorian level ranges should be beholden to that. Increase the range to 30. Maybe not 40. Going by personal experience, I stop soloing around the mid 30s. 

Yeah I think it is somewhere around Level 33 or 34 that I can feel the xp required to level spike noticeably. 

[AspieAnarchy]

4 hours ago, Astralock said:

So you're much better off turning XP off at levels 7, 13/14, and 18 just to be on the safe side.

 

To reiterate:

For how long do you keep it off once you reach those levels?

 

If you've answered this, I'm afraid I cannot spot it.

 

Obviously, I have to turn XP back on at some point after reaching level 7,

otherwise I'll never reach level 13!

 

[InvaderStych]

16 minutes ago, AspieAnarchy said:

For how long do you keep it off once you reach those levels?

 

In a nutshell? Stay at the locked level until you're done with each zone.  Locking them a level or two early as indicated in Apparition's guide is the safest route. 

 

Thanks to @Templarstone for posting the updated guide. I had forgotten it was Apparition that wrote it.