Matt516

On the contrary, the suggestion I started this post with (and continue to defend) is one that would allow the player to have plenty of extra exp without overleveling. That's the whole point. You disagree with what? The math? Or one of the two design goals I outlined? Because if you disagree with the design goals, that's fine and is just a difference of opinion. If you agree with the design goals (as in, you agree that PoE's "perfect" XP system would allow for both a constant proportion of optional/story XP as the series progresses, and you agree that the level gap between a total completionist and a total critical path player shouldn't widen as the series progresses) and disagree with the math, you're arguing contrary to reality. As I said and apparently have to keep saying - the current leveling curve is incapable of accomplishing those two goals no matter how well its balanced. So I'd really appreciate it if you'd clarify where you disagree (i.e. with my framing of the problem or my solution). Yeah it really is. You are talking about making level 8 the new level 12 basically and level 12 becomes all but impossible to reach with current xp totals in the game. It would take huge changes all over to make work. No. I'm not. At all. I'm talking about changing the functional form of the leveling curve, which is completely unrelated to the scaling of the leveling curve (i.e. which level in the new system would be equivalent to which level in the current system). The scaling can be adjusted however you want. You could easily have an exponential curve with the same lvl 12 requirement as in the current system. Granted, going to an exponential curve would be a bit drastic in the sense that it'd require a rebalance of the quest rewards in this game, so yes you are right in that sense. Fine - it is drastic. But there's nothing in my suggestion that dictates the scaling of anything. I just want the functional form changed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I feel that it's important to make a clarification... a lot of people seem to think that my proposed exponential curve is to fix the leveling rate in this game. It's not. Obsidian can make any number of specific balancing changes to fix the leveling rate in this game, and I expect they will. That's not what I'm on about, and some of the people arguing with me seem to think it is. The reason I'm proposing exponential is because by necessity, if the current quadratic leveling curve continues to be used in future installments of this series, either the proportion of optional to story XP must decrease or the level gap between people who do everything and people who only do the story must increase. One of those two things must happen. Again, this is pure mathematics. The exponential curve isn't about fixing PoE, it's about future-proofing it for PoE 2 and 3. Again: If the current quadratic leveling curve continues to be used in future installments of this series, either the proportion of optional to story XP must decrease or the level gap between people who do everything and people who only do the story must increase. One of those two things must happen. That is not an opinion, it is a result of mathematics. The only way to avoid this is to change the functional form of the leveling curve to exponential. And I'm about through arguing with people who refuse to address that statement and throw out objections that have nothing to do with it instead.... it's getting stressful. Please, for my sanity... if you're going to continue to argue against my suggestion, please address the bolded statement. Prove me wrong. That statement is the only thing I'm arguing for. I'm really not that concerned with the rate of level up in this game - that can be balanced any number of ways, and I don't particularly care which way Obsidian chooses. I'm concerned with the inherent limitations of the quadratic model as the levels get higher and higher. So again... my argument is contained entirely within the bolded statement. The bolded statement is a statement of fact (unless my math is wrong, in which case I'd love to have someone prove it). The only room for disagreement is in whether or not you think those two things I mentioned (one of which must happen) should be avoided. I know I may be coming across arrogant here, and if so I apologize... but I'm not stating opinions here, I'm stating mathematical conclusions. I don't know what else to say to convey that... Please. Read the bolded statement and answer/argue with that. That's all I'm trying to put forth, and it's a very simple (and easily falsifiable if incorrect) statement.

Also, are we absolutely certain that damage modifiers such as graze, crit, Might, two-handed style, abilities, modals, etc.... are we certain that these, when added together, multiply by the base weapon damage for a mundane weapon of that type? As in, weapon quality and/or damage enchants are just another modifier? The reason I ask is that when you enchant weapons, the base weapon damage on the info sheet changes. Also, is the modified damage on that info sheet just the damage per hit after all modifiers? Because if so, I think there's some stuff its leaving out. My Barbarian shows slightly higher damage on her 2H weapons in the inventory screen than is shown on their info screens. Maybe the modified damage on the weapon info sheet is only taking Might into account?

Questions: 1) Is the spreadsheet currently in need of an Accuracy table that calculates effective accuracy damage modifier for any value of ACC-DEF? 2) Does the spreadsheet currently take chance-to-connect (AKA to graze, hit, or crit) into account when calculating effective DPS? Because if not, it should. Proper way to do that would be either "Damage = Base * (Accuracy Modifier + Chance-to-Connect * (All other modifiers))", or to make things a little simpler, "Damage = Base * Chance-to-Connect * (Accuracy Modifier* + All other modifiers)", where the asterisked Accuracy Modifier in this case refers to the effective modifier on any attack that connects (otherwise known as the base accuracy modifier divided by the chance-to-connect). If the answer to either or both of the above is "no", let me know and I'd be happy to add them.

Watcher =/= Cipher. It's like... A Medium vs Prof X. One can talk to and see souls (often dead ones), while the other manipulates living minds to bend them to their will. Similar, but distinct within the lore.

I play with em all off - qualifiers for those options I have, options I don't have, and reputations of options. I like just - choosing whichever option seems in character at the time. My PC has like... 1 of every disposition now. But that's fine. ;P

I'm not even convinced it's wholly an actor problem - sounds more like the recording was either done wrong or not cleaned up afterwards. That kind of thing should be fixable (at least a bit) in post.

No thanks from me on this. I'd like the sibilance in the existing VO (mostly GM's and the female PCs) cleaned up first. After that, I still think I prefer VO to be used sparingly. Lets me read in peace. EDIT: Also the budget thing. I much prefer a sparingly VO'd game with oodles and oodles of text to a VO'd game with much less dialogue.

It depends. Your effective damage modifier for ACC goes up by about 5-7.5%, so in that way no. But if you're shooting at something where your accuracy is less than 15 more than their deflection, that 5 accuracy also increased your chance to connect by 5%, which means that all your other damage modifiers (Might, weapon quality, etc) went up in effective power.

For now, yes. It can only multiply the current XP required for each level by a factor. Perhaps in the future it will be discovered how to change the formula entirely. :D I'd repeat my caution in the dedicated thread for this mod though: Making changes to the XP thresholds A) without knowing exactly how much XP is available in the game and how it is distributed and B) without waiting for patch 1.05, where some XP tuning is likely to happen may not be the best idea. It's a single player game though, so whatever floats your boat.

Changing the XP curve to an exponential curve isn't that drastic, though it is certainly at the outer limits of feasibility. Which is why I also suggested a course of action to help ameliorate the issues with the quadratic curve if they do keep it for the future games - enforcing a set starting level for each installment of the series via autoleveling imported characters to the cap of the previous game. I would agree that trimming some excess XP (mostly from bounties) and buffing some later encounters is a very good idea. Again - I've come on a little strong in parts of this thread, but all I'm trying to argue is that if Obsidian wants to accomplish two design goals that I thought were goals they were targeting, the quadratic system can't work and the exponential system is the only one that will. Even with the autoleveling solution for future games, they're still going to need to reduce the relative importance of sidequest XP in the later installments if they don't want a massive level gap forming. That's just a consequence of the quadratic level curve, one way or the other.

@Zwei, I agree with a lot of your suggestions, but did have a few comments: 1) Trap/Lock XP shouldn't be reduced, it should be removed entirely. Shouldn't have been in the game in the first place. That reminds me, I need to go back to the tutorial dungeon and disarm all those traps! 2) The breakpoint for Deflection completely removing certain attack resolutions isn't every 30, it's every 50 (with the exception of misses which is the first 15). Resolution is 1-15 miss, 16-50 graze, 51-100 hit, 100+ crit (or something like that). Not quite sure where you got 30 from. 3) Interesting idea for Con change. Honestly, you could put that on top of the extra Endurance/HP and it still wouldn't be overpowered. Con is pretty weak right now. Maybe 1.5% to 2% flat reduction per Con, or something like that? 4) Monks aren't tanks - at all. They're dps, tanky-dps at the most. But not designed to tank in the slightest - they're actually worse tanks than barbarians, even. (I have one of each in my party ).

Fair enough. The "MATHEMATICS!" is correct, though only within a very specific scope (that I've tried to outline) and only for what I'm trying to say (which is that those two goals I outlined cannot be achieved with the current curve but can be with the exponential curve). But if Obsidian is careful, they can probably kinda sorta make it work. Like I said - enforcing a set starting level for each installment of the series via autoleveling on import (instead of letting imported characters come in with different amounts of XP and at different levels) will aid them greatly in being able to balance the XP gains in any given title. It'll just be more difficult for them than if they had used an exponential curve.

I stole it for my Barbarian. Great times. Go down, then pop up, pop Savage Defiance, and keep on swingin.

At all possible to change the formula, or just that modifier?

Let me know if you want any assistance in figuring out the best way to alter the lvl up requirements. I personally wouldn't advise it though - not without more information about exactly how the XP is distributed throughout the game, at least. Do you have a map of how much experience is in the game and when it can be acquired? That'd help a lot in rebalancing it. EDIT: Also, if I were you I'd wait until patch 1.05 before putting a lot of time into this. They have said there are "big" changes coming with that patch, including responses to "player feedback". I'd put a decent chance on there being some XP rebalancing in that patch.

Your analogies indicate to me that you don't understand what I'm talking about and are just saying random things in an effort to confuse the problem. That may or may not be true and I'll try not to make assumptions... but I will say this. Please read what I'm saying, understand it, and counter by pointing out where my math is wrong - or don't. I'm not making statements of opinion here. This: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76649-the-leveling-and-xp-curve-whats-wrong-and-the-only-way-to-fix-it/page-3?do=findComment&comment=1648467 is fact. Which is to say - if you agree with the two premises presented in the post above, the conclusion follows mathematically from them. Period. All this talk of de-valuing side content and such has nothing to do with the point I'm making. It's nonsense. Yes, an exponential system would make side content somewhat less relevant to determining your final level in the game - relative to the current system. But in reality, you can adjust the ratios and the coefficients in the exponential equation to make side content as valuable or not valuable as you want. You could come up with coefficients for the exponential equation that created a 10 level difference between the non-completionist and completionist playstyles if you wanted. I'm only proposing the form of the equation - the coefficients are calculated directly from 1) the desired ratio of side XP to story XP and 2) the desired level gap between a completionist and a non-completionist at the end of the game. The importance of side content is entirely tunable with an exponential functional form. And you would know this if you'd actually read what I'm saying. I don't mean to sound rude or dismissive and please forgive me if I do, but that's the truth. Your objections indicate to me that you haven't read and/or understood what I'm actually proposing and are instead knee-jerk reacting to what you think I'm proposing. One of the reasons I'm proposing the exponential system in the first place is that the quadratic (current) system must lead to either side content becoming less valuable or the level gap between those who do and don't complete it growing larger as the series goes on. It must. There's no way around that, it's dictated by the mathematics. The exponential system is in some ways the only way to save side content from irrelevancy. Again, please read the link above. Look at the two premises I put forth. If you disagree with one of those, fine. That means we have different preferences and argument is pointless - we can agree to disagree. If you don't disagree with either of those premises, then know that mathematically an exponential curve is the only way both of them can be satisfied. I cannot stress this enough - I'm not arguing for an exponential curve because I like it, I'm arguing for it because I like these two statements: 1) The ratio of optional XP to mandatory XP should be roughly the same no matter where in the game (or eventual series) one is... that is, if in Act I there is 10,000 critical path XP and 10,000 optional XP, and in Act III there is 50,000 critical path XP, there should be about 50,000 optional XP in Act III. If in Act VII (assuming PoE 2) there is 10,000,000 critical path XP, there should be about 10,000,000 optional XP. Specific numbers aren't important, just the concept. 2) The level difference between a completionist and non-completionist player should not grow significantly (if at all) with time. That is, if I do every single sidequest and Bobby only does the story quests, and I end up 2 levels ahead of Bobby at the end of PoE, I shouldn't be.. say.. 6 levels ahead of Bobby at the end of PoE 2 if we both follow the same pattern. And because the exponential curve is the only functional form for the leveling curve (that I've seen, anyway) that is capable of satisfying them. The quadratic (current) curve is literally incapable of satisfying either of those two. Fundamentally, mathematically incapable of doing so. That's not my opinion, that's math. Quick addendum: As I've noted in posts since the one I linked, if Obsidian were to autolevel imported characters in PoE 2 and 3 up to the level cap from the previous game, that would also (sort of) solve the problem by allowing them to band-aid it by carefully balancing the quest and side XP. But the issues with the quadratic system would remain.

I don't need actual data to know that the equation currently used to calculate the amount of XP for next level is fundamentally incapable of achieving both the design goals I outlined here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76649-the-leveling-and-xp-curve-whats-wrong-and-the-only-way-to-fix-it/?p=1648467 That's just a consequence (literally) of the laws of logic and mathematics. This is "mathematical possibility" talk, not "specific balance" talk.

Read this for a bit more elaboration re: "only way". I was a little hyperbolic in the OP, but given the premises I present in this post (and assuming no radical changes like doing away with XP altogether or adding in a D&D-esque scaling system), an exponential equation is the only way: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76649-the-leveling-and-xp-curve-whats-wrong-and-the-only-way-to-fix-it/?p=1648467 I should've qualified originally - obviously a completely new mechanic like encounter scaling could help fix the problem. I'm not looking at adding completely new mechanics, just at working within the framework we already have. And within that framework, my statement that an exponential equation is the only solution that achieves the two goals I mentioned in the linked post is correct. But obviously there are all manner of completely alternate systems that could work. An exponential system is the only equation that works within this framework - that of finite XP in the game, each quest having a set amount of XP, etc.

Yes, but the imbalance in XP isn't what matters - only the imbalance in level matters. With the same exponential formula the BG games used, you could have three times the amount of sidequest XP as story XP and still have no more than 2 levels difference between a total completionist and a completely critical path player. Ever. The reason severe imbalances in XP translates to severe imbalances in level is the quadratic level curve. Exponential simply doesn't have that problem. It allows for severe imbalances in XP to only translate to very slight differences in power. That's why I suggested it. Then you're just replacing XP with % content completion. Looks different, but is for all intents and purposes almost the same thing. With tons of sidequests with differing levels of difficulty, you'd have to weigh each one differently... and then you're basically just back to XP. Not to mention that doesn't solve issue with completionists overleveling unless you just don't give levels for sidequests at all. Which is something you can do with an XP system anyway. Like I said though - it certainly could work. But as I mentioned above it doesn't really offer much beyond an XP system and still runs into a lot of the same challenges. It's also very very different from the IE games, which would piss a lot of people off. And from where I'm sitting I see no chance that it will happen - I prefer to make suggestions I think actually have a chance of being implemented, that's all.

Yeah - as I realized a few posts ago, they can ensure that the game doesn't get progressively harder to balance in the sequels by simply autoleveling all imported characters to whatever the level cap was from the previous game. That would (mostly) do away with my main issue with the quadratic level curve, which is how fundamentally unsustainable it is in the long run. If they do that... I'll be happy. If they don't... I might have to make one character for actually doing all the sidequests and one for actually being challenged in the main quest. Because there's no way they can balance sequels properly for completionists if they let you start out a sequel already higher level than a non-completionist.

Doing away with XP entirely and just handing out levels? Not... reeeaaalllyyy..... But it'd be an even harder sell than changing the leveling curve. And does come with some additional problems (such as no granularity whatsoever - there's a lot more quests than levels, so not all quests would have a level reward. And if you start handing out fractions of levels you're basically just back to XP). It's not a system I'm opposed to, persay... I enjoyed Shadowrun: Dragonfall a ton, and it used a similar system. But that game actually didn't have levels, just Karma (skill points, attribute points, and abilities all rolled into one). So while there's nothing incredibly wrong with it or anything from a conceptual perspective... I don't think it'd work with PoE at all.

Yup - that's what I keep trying to get across, anyway. They can band-aid it for this game with rebalancing of certain things (Endless Paths and Bounties being the big ones) and it'll work fine. But if the series continues, and continues to use the same leveling curve, one of two things must happen: either the level gap between completionists and non-completionists continues to grow (making proper encounter balance harder and harder, and potentially even forcing them to have stuff like a minimum level when starting PoE 2 or 3)... or sidequest XP will get smaller and smaller until it's a pittance by PoE 3. Honestly, if you use a level cap for each game, and then have a minimum level when starting one of the sequels (with automatic scaling up if you import a character who is lower level), you can sort of partially band-aid indefinitely - though the level gap between the two groups will continue to rise simply by virtue of it being possible for people to start at different levels. It may be that that's what Obsidian intends to do. It'll make encounter balancing harder than it has to be, but I guess it does somewhat avoid the sequence-breaking exploits that are the only real weakness of the exponential level curve. I dunno. If I were Obsidian, I know what I'd do - but I'm an efficiency and balance junkie, so maybe they'd rather just make things harder for themselves/make the game less balanced. EDIT: I guess you could just have the minimum level for PoE 2 and 3 be whatever the level cap was for the previous game. That at least ensures everyone starts on the same foot, and means that each game is roughly the same difficulty to balance since you only have to consider possible level growth throughout that game alone. Obsidian devs, if any of you are reading - please make that happen for PoE 2 and 3 if the quadratic XP system is indeed set in stone (as I suspect it is). It's the only way your game doesn't get harder and harder to balance over time. Huh. Now that I've thought of that, that is an alternate solution that would actually act as an infinite band-aid (instead of a partial band-aid). So.. yup. If they keep quadratic level curve, they should make imported characters in the sequels automatically start at the level cap from the previous game. That's the only way you keep things from spiraling out of control.

I'd be happy to provide the info, but I would caution you against doing this. Implementing an exponential XP function without changing how the XP offered by various stuff in the game scales as you go through it... would actually make things worse. Because you'd get very very close to the level cap very early in the game and then take forever to get the final level. You can get around this by making creatures and quests and such award progressively more XP as the game progresses (which is what BG did), but currently PoE is not set up for that. So... although I'll give you the equations if you want it, just changing that formula won't fix things and will actually make them worse. The XP offered by the game has to scale up as you go in a similarly exponential way or the whole thing is borked. What it comes down to, looking at a quadratic (current system) vs exponential (BG, also my suggested system) curve, here are the tradeoffs: Pros of Exponential over Quadratic: It is possible to maintain the same ratio of optional to story XP at any arbitrarily high level without causing the level gap between completionists and non-completionists to widen over time (as in, through PoE 1 and 2 and 3). This makes balancing encounters for both groups of players (and everyone in between, which is where most of us fall) much easier. Underleveled Companions are quickly brought up to your level since the amount of XP it takes you to get to your next level is equal to the amount of XP it takes them to get up to your level (starting from lvl 1 and using the BG formula of 2^n). Would be slightly different if different coefficients were used, but it would be close. In the current (quadratic) system, if you were to pick up a low level adventurer it would take ages for them to be within a level of you. Like - a very long time. That's why they autoscale to your level and why non-active companions get some XP in the stronghold - otherwise they'd become obsolete very quickly. Pros of Quadratic over Exponential: In an exponential system, quests and creatures from late in the game are worth incredibly high amounts of XP compared to early game quests and creatures. This leads to issues with rapid accidental (or intentional) leveling if people complete content "out of order", as with Durlag's tower or the basilisks in BG1. They still end up at the same level by the end of the game, but it's a little easier to exploit sequence breaking. Maybe a bit more intuitive for some people?? Exponential isn't absolutely better - it does have the serious downside of making early game quests worth a pittance lategame and allowing potentially exploitable sequence breaking. If I had to guess, I'd say that's why they chose quadratic over exponential (if that much thought was put into it - hopefully there was... ). But as we're seeing, quadratic has a similar issue of overleveling in the midgame. This is band-aid-able for one game, but will lead to either an increasing level gap or less valuable sidequests as the series progresses. I'm interested to see what Obsidian does. The downsides of the quadratic system can be somewhat mitigated by just enforcing a strict level cap in each installment of the series, but that doesn't solve the problem entirely. I would love to hear a dev talk about why they decided to go with a quadratic curve instead of an exponential. Because this issue of balancing encounters for both completionists and non-completionists (the primary reason why this is even a problem) is not going to get better as the series progresses. It will get worse and worse (or they'll have to make sidequests nearly worthless late game - either way). EDIT - You asked for the formula... it's "Experience for level n = C*A^n" (or "Experience for next level after level n = C*A^(n+1)", to use their terminology - same thing). A is determined by what you want the maximum level gap between completionists and non-completionists to be, as well as what your average ratio of optional XP to story XP is. C is just a scaling constant. You can set it as needed to make sure the experience needed for level 12 is whatever you want it to be. But as I said - the game's XP rewards don't scale with this in mind, so you'd probably end up leveling extremely quickly at the beginning of the game. Could come up with a hybrid function, I guess - quadratic up to a point and then exponential. That'd be the thing to do for PoE if trying to mod in your own solution to overleveling. That'd be quite hard to do right, though.

If you mean xp requirements for each level, see here. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75906-seems-like-xp-balance-is-out-of-whack/page-7?do=findComment&comment=1648191 Many thanks, I'll start looking into that. If you figure out 1) how to mod that function and 2) how much total XP (both critical path and non-critical path) is actually in the game, I can tell you exactly what function to use and what coefficients to use to enforce any level difference between completionists and non-completionists you want. As well as scaling it so that completionists just barely get to 12 (if that's what you want). Hell, I can (probably?) give you pseudocode for a function that calculates all that on its own, given those parameters (so people using this mod can tune it to their liking). I probably wouldn't use it - for all my obsession over mechanics and math, I prefer to play the game (mostly) the way the devs intended it if possible - even if its silly at the moment.

@Atheosis - I want to apologize. I came on a little strong earlier. It's a bad habit I have where I know something to be true with certainty (usually something mathematical as those are often the only things you can know with certainty) and I project that certainty onto stuff that is not, in fact, certain or universal. Let me start over (sorta). @Everyone (including Atheosis): When tuning an RPG with an IE-esque XP system (finite amount of XP available in the game, levels are significantly important, etc.), there are three design variables to play with that are mathematically constrained to each other - that is, if you set any two, the third one must be a certain value. These three variables are: The ratio of "optional" XP to "mandatory" XP, the level difference between a "completionist" and a "non-completionist" player as a function of how far in the game they are, and the level curve formula (how much XP it takes to get to any given level). I've assumed two design goals in my argument that may not be universally agreed upon as good goals. If you agree with these two goals, then what I'm saying (that is, the functional form I am proposing for the XP curve) is mathematically and fundamentally correct, and the current system will never work, no matter how perfectly it's balanced. If you don't agree, there's ample room for disagreement but we just disagree on fundamental design goals so we'd end up agreeing to disagree (which is fine). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here are the two premises, the two design goals, upon which I based my OP. The argument I am making depends on these two things being agreed upon: 1) The ratio of optional XP to mandatory XP should be roughly the same no matter where in the game (or eventual series) one is... that is, if in Act I there is 10,000 critical path XP and 10,000 optional XP, and in Act III there is 50,000 critical path XP, there should be about 50,000 optional XP in Act III. If in Act VII (assuming PoE 2) there is 10,000,000 critical path XP, there should be about 10,000,000 optional XP. Specific numbers aren't important, just the concept. 2) The level difference between a completionist and non-completionist player should not grow significantly (if at all) with time. That is, if I do every single sidequest and Bobby only does the story quests, and I end up 2 levels ahead of Bobby at the end of PoE, I shouldn't be.. say.. 6 levels ahead of Bobby at the end of PoE 2 if we both follow the same pattern. These are the two premises I am assuming are true. My reasoning for 1 is that it just wouldn't make sense for sidequests to become more or less valuable relative to story quests as the series progresses. My reasoning for 2 is that the game is much easier to balance that way. If you agree with me in these two statements, my conclusion (what the leveling curve should be) is mathematically, ironclad, the only solution. Barring major changes like scaling XP rewards to current level, handing out levels instead of XP, that sort of thing. Either of which would work - but I'm arguing within the framework we have (the three variables outlined in the above paragraphs). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's the thing. If you agree with those two statements, then two of our three design variables are fixed. The third is absolutely and fundamentally specified by the math (and is a function of the form "XP_for_level_N = C*A^n"). The coefficient A is easily worked out by what actual values we set the first two variables at (for a 50/50 split between story/optional XP and 1 level difference, A is equal to 2 for example - I'd argue for something more like 50/50 and 2.5 levels difference, so the coefficient A would be closer to 0.758), and C doesn't matter as it's a scaling constant. So that's my amended argument. If you agree that sidequests should have the same relative XP value to story quests (overall) as the series progresses, and if you agree that the level difference between a completionist and a non-completionist should not grow (or shrink) as the series progresses... then my proposed change to the XP curve is the only solution. I'm not being arrogant here (I was earlier before I qualified my assumptions, but not here) - that's the math. From what you've said (Atheosis), it sounds like you'd maybe be ok with sidequest XP growing less and less valuable relative to story XP as the series progresses, or maybe with completionists getting progressively further ahead of non-completionists in levels as the series goes on. If so, that's fine. We can agree to disagree. But if you agree with my statements 1 and 2, you cannot argue for the current leveling curve to remain - or anything other than the exponential function I proposed (or another function that also fulfills conditions 1 and 2 - of which I can think of none). I cannot stress enough that that's not my opinion or a pet idea that I like because its mine - it's a mathematical truth on par with 2+2=4. The current leveling curve is fundamentally incompatible with design goals 1 and 2. Maybe the devs do not share one or both of those - I can't see why they wouldn't, though. EDIT: I wish I could link this post to the OP. It says what I was trying to say a bit better than I did in the OP. Stupid forum edit timer rules...