Is leveling slow or is it just me?

[FarceMajeure]

I've barely been able to budge my level 25 and level 36 character in spite of putting a lot of time into it. Hours of doing missions, dozens of missions, with the XP boost of not playing for a while for the same frustration, and it's not enough to get from 36, to 37. I only got like 3 bubbles filled on the level after a lot of grinding. Am I missing something that's throttling my progress, or is this how it always was in the original recipe?

[starro]

Yeah it can be a grind.  Maybe try teaming or increasing team size/difficulty to spice it up.

[Marine X]

The leveling pace slows down dramatically after you pass 20 and continues to slow as it takes more and more XP to hit the next level. If you are at -1 x 0 ( or 1 ) you will get the least XP for your efforts, may be worth nudging it up and see how it goes, you can always turn it back down. Patrol XP helps but if you really want a boost you should check out the START Vendor who has several XP Boosts available. 

[FarceMajeure]

That might have been intentional in the pay to play days, making players invest as much time as possible in their product, but why keep it that way with this indie version? It's a bit repetitive to beat up the same mobsters dozens of times and find the flashy object to click on. Spending 20+ hours in game to progress from one level to the next and to know that the next 14 levels are going to take increasingly more time is a bit much.

[Glacier Peak]

55 minutes ago, FarceMajeure said:

That might have been intentional in the pay to play days, making players invest as much time as possible in their product, but why keep it that way with this indie version? It's a bit repetitive to beat up the same mobsters dozens of times and find the flashy object to click on. Spending 20+ hours in game to progress from one level to the next and to know that the next 14 levels are going to take increasingly more time is a bit much.

Getting to level 50 was the goal in the retail version. Here it doesn't matter. We can play the game how we want. If you need xp, join a team or start one and run content together. Grab double xp boosts for more or join a farm if you're not interested in the content available at your current level range. 

[Wavicle]

If you use the START vendor Temp Power XP buffs, and get Exploration Badges in between missions to refill Patrol XP then levelling should remain pretty quick unless you are playing a toon with very low damage output.

[lemming]

Do the weekly task force, it gives a bunch of bonus XP at the end of the TF.

[Harlequin565]

Just checking my latest 50 and they have spent 18 hours in-game - no farming. My 1st 50 back in 200? took 499 hours. So this is by far a huge improvement on live.

 

Some tips (you mention xp boost but I'm not sure which one):

The WST as Lemming suggested will give you pretty much a full level for finishing it. Most TFs will give you a level whilst doing it (unless it's a speedy Numina). The ITF can give you 3+ levels even when it's not the WST but unfortunately most folks want 50s these days. Nowt to stop you running your own though!

Patrol XP - rotate round your alts to use up patrol xp on them.

Double XP / 0 Inf Buff. Keep this on at all times.

Run TFs even when they're not the WST. The merits will get you good inf which makes up for the lack of inf from the xp buff.

Team content is much faster xp than solo.

Re: Missions, story arcs give a large XP bonus on completion (as well as merits). Doing paper missions solo is possibly the worst way to earn xp. Starting a story arc (use the "find contact" tab) then recruiting a team to run it with you is a double win as you do it quick, get lots of xp, and get the bonus at the end. With a team of 8 you can almost certainly up the difficulty to +2 and probably go higher for more xp.

 

My usual MO: DFB to level 8+, Posi I, Posi II, Synapse, Faultline Story Arcs (@21), Yin TF, Citadel TF, Croatoa Story Arcs (@30), Manti TF, Numina. I try and answer all calls to Katie Hannon TFs (there's a whole level in the 1st mission), Hess, & Moonfire along the way level permitting. When 35+ I'll try and get on all ITFs that allow <50s on them. I'll join Maria Jenkins or Tina Mackintyre PUGs in PI from about L40+. The AVs in those missions are nice XP. Also at 40 I'll join KM Market Crash TFs because they give good XP too. Even a speed TF will give you a level if it's the WST.

 

Hope that helps. Don't get despondent, but do embrace the team. It can be a lot of fun which makes the levelling process go much quicker if you're enjoying yourself. If you're worried about it, just tell the team you've been playing solo mostly and don't know what to do. I've yet to come across anyone that wasn't super helpful.

[Riverdusk]

My characters typically take 30 to 40 hours to hit 50 and that is pretty casual play and with a lot of soloing and typically not cranking the difficulty up too much.  The closest I ever come to power leveling is sometimes joining a level 50+ PI radio team for a bit.   I tend to do that when I hit the 40's (and after doing Tina and MJ's arcs) as the 40's do tend to sometimes drag a bit.

 

That is an average over many many alts that I have.  Doesn't seem overly long of a time to me.  I do usually have the x2 xp booster going though.

 

If you are actually taking 20+ hours for one level, I think there is definitely something else going on. 

[Captain Fabulous]

This is what happens when people become accustomed to earning farming XP or level 54x8 XP, they become frustrated at what is the "normal" rate of earning XP.

[PoptartsNinja]

CoH's leveling curve is weird, and could probably use a bit of normalization. Every level takes roughly 2x the experience as the previous level from Level 1 to Level 40 (the original level cap). IIRC, If the original devs had kept the exponential growth from 40-50, it would've taken as much experience going from level 49-50 as it would've taken to go from level 1 to level 49; so the level 41-50 experience curve is softened.

That means the game does have a bit of a dead spot from about level 36-41 where it takes significantly more effort to level; but once you hit 42 you're on the home stretch and the levels will start coming more quickly again.

[GM Crumpet]

The double XP boost from the START vendor helps, though it cuts inf earned to zero. Which sounds terrible but I did an experiment once and the sale of one orange salvage on the auction house raises more inf than the inf gain by levelling from 1 to 20 under normal conditions. 

 

Check you don't actually have XP turned off in the settings. Hours of grinding should get you plenty of levels, and completing story arcs gets you good XP and merits. 

[UltraAlt]

On 3/8/2025 at 11:55 AM, FarceMajeure said:

I've barely been able to budge my level 25 and level 36 character in spite of putting a lot of time into it. Hours of doing missions, dozens of missions, with the XP boost of not playing for a while for the same frustration, and it's not enough to get from 36, to 37. I only got like 3 bubbles filled on the level after a lot of grinding.

 

On 3/8/2025 at 1:37 PM, starro said:

Maybe try teaming or increasing team size/difficulty to spice it up.

 

On 3/8/2025 at 10:56 PM, lemming said:

Do the weekly task force, it gives a bunch of bonus XP at the end of the TF.

 

Teaming makes leveling quicker and more fun as far as I'm concerned.

 

Don't want to get involved with anything long and you only have a set amount of time to play? 

Recruit on the /lfg channel. There is almost always at least a couple of other players running around at any given play range that are looking for something to do. Recruit for team doing content that you want to do.

 

On 3/8/2025 at 2:02 PM, Marine X said:

Patrol XP helps but if you really want a boost you should check out the START Vendor who has several XP Boosts available. 

 

If you are going to use one of the START xp boosts, use the x2 XP boost. You can get 8 hours worth at a time.

Remember though, if you use one of the xp boosts,  your character doesn't gain any infl while it is active.

 

On 3/8/2025 at 2:52 PM, FarceMajeure said:

That might have been intentional in the pay to play days, making players invest as much time as possible in their product, but why keep it that way with this indie version? It's a bit repetitive to beat up the same mobsters dozens of times and find the flashy object to click on. Spending 20+ hours in game to progress from one level to the next and to know that the next 14 levels are going to take increasingly more time is a bit much.

 

I'm assuming that you haven't turned off XP gain for some reason. It is in the options menu.

 

If you are fighting grays, you aren't going to get much xp from them. This can happen due to out leveling missions/contact or your notoriety settings

In regard to a contact, this can easily happen if you have opened a story arc (you'll see a little book on the contact listing). Once a story arc is open, the contact will continue to give you missions even if you have outleveled them. Hopefully, you haven't outleveled the contact so much that you can't use notoriety to level-up the enemies so that they are no longer grey.

 

In regard to notoriety (see the little bubble on the right side of the chat line? click on that and then click on the notoriety setting), you can adjust the level and size of spawns.

If you are heading or around level 20 and can fully slot with SOs, then a non-controller/defender in most cases can handle +2 difficulty and probably up to 2 team size. I would probably stay with around +1 or +2 and 1 team size if on a controller or defender.

The higher the level of the threat against you the more xp you get.

 

You can reset the difficulty level of a mission by going out of a mission,

then picking another mission or logging to the character screen and then back in again

and then changing the notoriety.

 

You also might want to try running police scanner (talk to a detective) or newspaper (I guess Mikey the Ear is the first contact that will provide one on the villain side) missions. These give the option to pick one of 3 missions and then you can pick to do a special mission to protect a bank (hero) or a mayhem mission (villain). These are generally shorter missions then the door missions that you will get from higher level content.

 

Now I'm not one to do this myself, but, if you really feel like you are stuck at some point leveling, then look for people that are recruiting for level 50 teams (mostly police scanner ones in PI would be a good bet) that will take characters any level. You'll get more mission because you are on a team, because you are sidekicked up to near level 50, and the enemy mob level and size is generally going to be large proportionally than you are able to fight on your own.

 

You really have to decide if the goal is to play the content or to try to level up as fast as possible.

 

[Psamanthe]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

If you are fighting grays, you aren't going to get much xp from them. This can happen due to out leveling missions/contact or your notoriety settings

In regard to a contact, this can easily happen if you have opened a story arc (you'll see a little book on the contact listing). Once a story arc is open, the contact will continue to give you missions even if you have outleveled them. Hopefully, you haven't outleveled the contact so much that you can't use notoriety to level-up the enemies so that they are no longer grey.

 

That is an excellent point, I'll add to that.  The con system is a good topic to go over on Homecoming Wiki.  https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Con_System

 

As much as possible, grey, green and blue mobs is a sign to move on from an area.  The XP will be reduced, and it will take a long time to add to your bubbles.  There's a dark grey that is -4 or less combat level to your character.  When dark grey mobs are defeated you won't gain any XP or inf, no matter how many you defeat.

 

Also, an area with nothing but red and purple enemies (fuchsia really) is a sign you might be dancing with danger a little too much.  XP is amazing but unless you're with a team the debt isn't worth it. 

 

Giant Monsters always con purple and can land in any zone (Winter, it's practically guaranteed.)  Never solo a Giant Monster unless you're Level 50 and you made a build that focuses on defense and have a lot of resources to manage it (Inspirations, Temp Powers, and Incarnate powers.) Or, again, you're with a team or league ready to whittle it down bit by bit.  (Always join a team or league if one forms to fight a giant monster! The XP and merit/aether reward isn't assured if you're not on the team and taking pot shots at it hoping to damage it enough to matter.)

 

The sweet spot when leveling is white, yellow, and orange, with some reds on occasion.  If that's too much to remember at first, warm colors (yellows, reds and oranges) have XP, cooler colors (greens, blues, grey) have less.  Purple is bad to solo.  Well, maybe an occasional purple if you have lots of inspirations and you got a small team with you.  Or a hospital close by. 

 

It takes a while to get used to. But the more missions you do the easier it is to 'feel an area out' in a way.

Edited yesterday at 02:04 PM by Psamanthe
Spelling, grammar, repeating myself... typical of me.