Suggestion: A S.T.A.R.T. power to *reduce* EXP gains?

[ZorkNemesis]

I play primarily on Indomitible which, until further notice, has double exp active.  This isn't usually a problem, I run the 100% xp boost most of the time anyway, but one thing I did notice is that Praetorian content doesn't agree with exp boosts too well.  If you like to play through the story arcs naturally anything that increases your exp gains can mess that up and lock you out of missions if you're not careful (I won't even increase mission difficulty other than solo bosses in Praetoria for this reason).  This has also shown to be a possible issue with Villains as well as it can easily lock one out of the Atlas Park Mayhem Mission if you want Invader organically as well. Now i'm aware there's an option to shut exp off entirely already but that's a bit of a hassle to have to manually toggle when I get too close to leveling just from normal progression.

 

What if, on shards with passive exp boosts active, S.T.A.R.T. had an option to disable that bonus so you would earn the base exp values instead?  This way if one wanted to they could play through Praetoria or other content without fear of becoming locked out from leveling too quickly, especially in the 1-15 ranges.  It would be convienent to not have to worry about going to fast for level-sensitive content.  And for people who still want to go fast, you don't have to take it and still benefit from the double, or triple, boosts if desired.

[Lunar Ronin]

I'm leveling a Praetorian completionist character currently in Imperial City on the Indomitable shard as well.  Yeah, the double XP boost is a bit of a hassle.  I'm just watching my XP like a hawk and very, very carefully disabling it every few levels.  I still wouldn't say no to a half-XP power however.

[Parabola]

I'd like a 50% and 25% xp option regardless of the double xp status of the server. Even baseline xp rates are too fast for completionist runs. I'm not sure how they could be made to work with patrol xp though, it might need to be disabled.

[golstat2003]

Sure! Sounds like a good idea to address a complaint folks have had in the past!

[Sunsette]

As long as it doesn't work at 50 or with XP shut off (to avoid L49 farm abuse) having it increase inf gains might be a good idea too -- give the newbies more ability to afford enhancements for themselves and make mistakes before they've figured out how to game an AH with salvage and insps as a newbie. Though it's not a hill I'd die on, I don't think it's critical -- just an idle thought.

Edited March 2 by Sunsette

[Glacier Peak]

The real trick is to load up a brand new character on Indomitable (1.0x), have them log out for 10 days for a full bar of patrol XP (1.0x), log back in and purchase the Double XP boost from the S.T.A.R.T vendor (1.0x) and then join a team and defeat the Avatar Seed of Hamidon floating in First Ward (0.25x). That's 3.25x XP! 

 

Seriously though, I support this suggestion. 

Edited March 2 by Glacier Peak
Mix up

[Rudra]

11 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

The real trick is to load up a brand new character on Indomitable (1.0x), have them log out for 10 days for a full bar of patrol XP (1.0x), log back in and purchase the Double XP boost from the S.T.A.R.T vendor (1.0x) and then join a team and defeat the Avatar of Hamidon floating in First Ward (0.25x). That's 3.25x XP! 

 

Seriously though, I support this suggestion. 

Seed of Hamidon. You only fight Avatars of Hamidon in the Number 6 arc and the Underground iTrial.

[golstat2003]

44 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Seed of Hamidon. You only fight Avatars of Hamidon in the Number 6 arc and the Underground iTrial.

 

They really do need to finish the Praetorian Hamidon storyline one of these days. 🙂 

[Parabola]

7 hours ago, Sunsette said:

As long as it doesn't work at 50 or with XP shut off (to avoid L49 farm abuse) having it increase inf gains might be a good idea too -- give the newbies more ability to afford enhancements for themselves and make mistakes before they've figured out how to game an AH with salvage and insps as a newbie. Though it's not a hill I'd die on, I don't think it's critical -- just an idle thought.

I don't think it would be necessary to increase inf gain and it would probably make it a less appealing idea to the devs for the kind of reason you mention. If you slow down levelling you gain more resources per level just with normal inf, merit and drop rates.

 

When I've tried completionist runs I've always been impressed by how much stuff you accumulate. Having to sell off full enhancement trays at lv9 is a novel experience, the do's aren't worth much but it adds up against your limited expenditure at that level. Later of course you get loads of recipes to craft and convert, and loads of salvage and merits to do it with.

[Sunsette]

I don't think I ever came close to having an overstuffed enhancement bar in my completionist gold runs. Never tried completionist red or blue, though.

 

But yeah, not hard pushing for it for the general reasons you list.

[speczero]

You can turn experience on and off whenever you want in the settings, doesn't this work well enough?

[Lunar Ronin]

41 minutes ago, speczero said:

You can turn experience on and off whenever you want in the settings, doesn't this work well enough?

 

It mostly does, but as I said above you need to watch it like a hawk and be very, very careful, especially at lower levels.  There's no real urgent need for this as a result, it would be just a nice-to-have.

[Amur]

I would love this option. Often I outlevel content without realizing it.

[Parabola]

16 hours ago, speczero said:

You can turn experience on and off whenever you want in the settings, doesn't this work well enough?

As Lunar Ronin mentions you have to be very careful with turning xp on and off. In addition I find the stop start process a little unsatisfying; I like the feeling of progress, I just want it to happen more slowly. Having said which even with a 25% xp option (also disabling patrol xp) I suspect I'd still need to switch to no xp periodically. It might be a bit more walk, walk, walk, stop than sprint, stop, stop, stop, though.

[gameboy1234]

On 2/29/2024 at 11:56 PM, Parabola said:

I'd like a 50% and 25% xp option regardless of the double xp status of the server. Even baseline xp rates are too fast for completionist runs. I'm not sure how they could be made to work with patrol xp though, it might need to be disabled.

 

Yup.  While you can argue "turn off XP" is a solution, it's actually pretty hard to monitor this constantly and turn it off when needed.  Some ways to manage XP other than "turn it off" would help a lot.

 

I'd go so far as to reduce base XP to about 50% of current values for everyone.  Then increase the XP boosters to compensate.  So new folks and those who want can experience gameplay at a slower rate.  Experienced players can use XP booster to get the old (current, and higher) xp rates for that fast leveling.

 

 

[lemming]

Better than turning off XP or slowing it down would be an option to say "I do not want to go past level X"

 

Or the ability to do any contacts missions that you have outleveled and being set to their max level like how Mayhem & Safeguards work via the two repeating contacts.