Expand Praetoria’s Level Bands

[Chris24601]

This is pretty self-explanatory. Even with the slight bump in level bands Homecoming added, you still have to turn off your XP bar to run more than one faction’s arc set (i.e. Warden, Crusader, Loyalty or Power) and possibly even during that single arc if you end up with any significant patrol XP in the process without out-leveling the ending moral choice.

 

True story; I ran as a Warden, got a full boat of patrol XP due to Altitis and when I came back that was enough to ding me up to 11 before I got Dr. Arvin’s moral choice mission… which, because it’s a separate arc, meant I had out leveled and could only come back after leaving Praetoria to unlock Oroboros.

 

The same happens in Imperial. You come in with a quarter of one bar of XP into level 10, run just the Warden arcs and if I had had any patrol XP going in I would have out-leveled Seer 1381’s moral choice too.

 

I really started to notice the issue after the change to the exploration badges adding proportional patrol XP rather than fixed (and tiny after you have a few levels under you) regular XP and how many exploration badges in Praetoria you can run into without even trying.

 

So, I’d like to suggest the level bands be expanded enough that a single-faction run through won’t need to disable earning XP just to actually finish out a single arc.

 

Say… Nova 1-12, Imperial 8-18, Neutropolis 14-24 (keep the exit missions at 20 for those who do get it without out leveling things) would probably do it.

 

You’d still need to turn off XP to run multiple arcs, but this suggestion is more to smooth things out for normal players than making completionist runs the standard.

 

It also means you don’t have to adjust First/Night Ward levels since First Ward already runs up through level 29.

 

Anyway, that’s my suggestion.

[Kakuyon]

I think this would be a great idea but I still don't think it solves the overall problem that you lose contacts because you leveled up to much... it feels like a punishment for playing the game, contacts(Especially story arc's) shouldn't have level cut off's... i mean when you enter mission zones it scales to your level anyway(at least from my experience I think), I keep having this problem with all of my praetorian's but it honestly doesn't seem like anybody really cares, the advice I always get is just "shoulda turned your XP off" or "just go to Oroboros".... I mean yea I guess I could go to Oroboros but then I lose out on being a resistance or loyalist and can't go back... and more so the immersion of going through the story itself, and again and people always argue this it seems, but turning off your experience "Is a punishment"... I'm stopping myself from gaining new powers or increasing my slots simply just so I don't get kicked out of honestly one of my favorite zones, oh and the kicker of if you're trying to follow a path but get sidetracked because you wanna play double agent cuz you think it might be fun to only come back and find you locked yourself out of the path cuz the quest giver was removed because of what happened in the last story arc you sidetracked on without looking it up... that's really bitten me in the butt recently and I really don't wanna start it all over again since I spent two days gaining "no exp" just to follow the traitor stories and well... it didn't feel like I was having as much fun as when I was gaining new powers when I was leveling, Powers that would have helped in certain missions when they have a lot of strong enemies. I mostly played solo and now that contact's mission I was hoping to do isn't even showing up in the Pillar thingy(my attempts at a Praetorian solution since I refuse to leave praetoria just because I can't access Oroboros), tho I have never used the pillar before, I can see the missions I've completed, but not sure how to make him appear cuz he ain't in the world no more and I can't  even start it(Dr . Steffard btw).

It's not just Praetoria tho, Rouge isles and Paragon can be like that too... you're playing along and suddenly you're cut off halfway and told "move onto the next zone now champ, nothing else for ya here bucko" but... my badges? my enchantments and cool temp powers? my immersion and completionist self?!... it sucks.

Bumping could be nice, or just getting rid of the level cap for contacts... not the level requirement, or even giving Praetorians access to Oroboros would be nice... but i know it's asking a lot of this beautiful but old game, the fact she's still kicking around is a miracle all on it's own, and to have a huge community it still has is saying what a mistake the original owners made when they first shut 'er down, I know I rambled a bit here, especially in an old post from June so not expecting any feedback, just agreeing something should be changed tho again know it's asking a lot.

Praetorians are People/Robots/Aliens/Mutants/and so on too!

[Rudra]

33 minutes ago, Kakuyon said:

. i mean when you enter mission zones it scales to your level anyway(at least from my experience I think),

Zones don't scale to your level. Neither do mission maps. Contacts give missions at your level as long as you are in their level range. As long as you are a valid level for the contact, the mission will be at a valid level for you. Once you out-level a contact though, even if you have a mission from them, the mission will not scale up to your level. If you simply level up but are within the contact's range and you already have a mission from the contact, the mission is still a lower level than your new level even if you have not started the mission yet despite having it.

 

33 minutes ago, Kakuyon said:

but turning off your experience "Is a punishment"...

Turning off xp is not a punishment and I am sorry you feel that it is. In order to do more content than the game is set to give you for your side, you will need to turn off xp to stay in range. At the really low levels, you may need to turn off xp to not out-level your contact simply because HC gives more xp than Live did. And in Praetoria, since the mobs are more difficult than in blue side or red side, you run into an even higher xp reward which exacerbates the concern. So turning off xp isn't a punishment, it is a tool to be able to do more content in a given level range than would normally be possible.

 

33 minutes ago, Kakuyon said:

I mostly played solo and now that contact's mission I was hoping to do isn't even showing up in the Pillar thingy(my attempts at a Praetorian solution since I refuse to leave praetoria just because I can't access Oroboros), tho I have never used the pillar before, I can see the missions I've completed, but not sure how to make him appear cuz he ain't in the world no more and I can't  even start it(Dr . Steffard btw).

If you have a personal base, you can place a Crystal of Fire and Ice in your base and access Ouroboros functionality even without going to Ouroboros as long as your character is at least level 15. Dr. Steffard's arc is in the 15-19 range in the crystal (because his max level for content is 15, not 14) as the "Self Restraint (Imperial Warden Ch. 3" entry.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Rudra
Edited to correct "Restrain" to "Restraint". And again to correct "in your level range" to "at your level".

[Chris24601]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

 So turning off xp isn't a punishment

Not a punishment perhaps, but it should also not be required to turn it off just to not out level the moral choice at the end of a normal single faction playthrough just because you accidentally got too much patrol XP.

Which, as a reminder, is the ask… smooth out the level bands enough that you don’t have to resort to turning off XP just to do a complete single faction playthrough.

 

You’ll also note I don’t think it takes a radical shift. 1-12 for Nova, 8-18 for Imp and 14-24 for Neutropolis. Keep the exit missions at 20.