Special XP ramp ups

[Techwright]

In days of yore we used to have Double XP weekends.  Now we have S.T.A.R.T. to get that anytime.  There are still, however, faster routes up the XP ladder especially combined with S.T.A.R.T. double XP.  Farming of course, but Task/Strike Force is another.

 

I'd like to suggest, whether in rotation with the Task/Strike Forces or something like quarterly, that contact missions have an occasional week where their XP is ramped up enough that contact missions become an interesting alternative to running the same cycle of TFs to advance quickly.  Hypothetically, this will reduce burn out on TFs (possibly the game even) and introduce/re-introduce players to mission work.  (I'm not really going to try to contrast it with farming.  Farmers gonna farm pretty much regardless.)

 

Perhaps something could be considered for street clearing as well?

[Rudra]

I oppose this. It is already ridiculously fast and easy to level up in this game. Without needing to farm. Like you said, you used to have to wait for Double XP Weekend back on Live to get double normal XP, but now you can get double XP whenever you want. And it seems like mobs already had their XP boosted from Live while the game was hidden away and limited to just a few players back in secret server days. So while this is selfish, I do not want to blunder into contacts randomly giving me more XP for their missions/arcs than I already get.

 

And as was stated on other threads about boosting street sweeping XP, the current set up is to encourage players to do the content the devs spent so much time and effort developing. So it is very unlikely that street sweeping is going to get boosted for XP.

 

Edited July 1 by Rudra
Edited to replace first sentence.

[Greycat]

Man, it's already a pain not to outlevel stuff given the various XP bumps.

 

If the goal is to encourage seeing content? Make mini-chains of contacts. They do exist, in ways, with contacts handling certain groups or origins, and some interlinking stories (such as superdyne trade, or the Tsoo trying to sabotage other gangs) for instance. If there were a badge/reward for finishing those... sure. The idea's already in place when you finish some zone story chains, such as Faultline or Croatoa. Do all the mission contacts, there's extra merits (and I *think* XP? Too early for me to remember.)

 

But just generically "XP boost for this contact!" this week? Meh. People will just zerg without really caring why, or ignore it because X mission set is too long.

[Akisan]

So... can we get half (or quarter) XP weekends instead then?  So we don't have to mess with stopping our XP while running arcs?

 

Levelling speed is kind of a thorny issue, so it may be better to offer a non-XP related reason to run regular contact missions (or equivalent Ouro flashbacks) - something like higher recipe/salvage drop rates (either from enemies or from the mission completion bonus), brainstorm ideas granted on mission completion, higher inf. rates, or even a (small) chance for a super pack to drop as part of the mission bonus (like PA occasionally does).  Heck, I'd even take Legacy Salvage dropping, if only because it fleshes out the lore of the villain groups.

[ZacKing]

6 hours ago, Techwright said:

Hypothetically, this will reduce burn out on TFs (possibly the game even) and introduce/re-introduce players to mission work.

 

TF missions are "mission work".  There's fundamentally no difference between what we're tasked to do for a story contact versus a TF contact.  Go somewhere, defeat stuff, talk to someone, etc.  Rinse and repeat.

[ZacKing]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

Meh. People will just zerg without really caring why, or ignore it because X mission set is too long.

 

^ This exactly.

[CrusaderDroid]

What, the double exp in Reunion and the double exp from the vendor isn't enough?

 

The Mapserver event showed us really fast what happens when people level up too fast: they have no idea how to play their character and end up being dead weight for awhile. Base exp may be too slow, but going all in on tons of exp bonuses means people won't learn how to play their character. That's bad for everyone involved.

 

I think the existing set if you play on Reunion is good enough - you can outlevel really long arcs if you aren't careful, but you get plenty of time to learn your powers as you go.