Experience in DIfficulty

[MoThug666]

Do you get more experience and level up sooner by putting the game on dificult setting or is it the same as normal. sorry if a noobie question but i just got the gaame and arent playing it till a patch is out and want to know how i should start. If ther is no experience difference i might as well play it on normal. Ty in advance for anwser

[Jambo]

no, I don't believe so, but I could be wrong. On a similar note, the amount of experience points you receive decreases as your level increases. I noticed this first in KotOR 1 when slaughtering Desert Wraids and again in the hidden tomb on Korriban doing the Hssiss trick. The Hssiss Lizards went from 450 to 375 to 300. I imagine that if you were feeling ballsy enough, you could hold back level-ups early on in the game so each kill gets you more experience points. So, in a way, yes, the more difficult the game is, the more experience points you get, but not in the way of the difficulty setting.

[Darth Frog]

AFAICS the difficulty setting has very little influence on the amount of XP.

 

The only difference that I remember was with opening locks and disarming/recovering mines, because the DC of these actions can depend on the current difficulty setting and so you could get a marginally higher amount of XP on 'difficult'. But the amount is minuscule, nothing to write home about and certainly nothing to sacrifice enjoyment of the very first play-through for - you can always munchkin during later play-throughs. If you come back here once you have beaten the game then I can give you a long list how to maximize XP, but first you go and sniff the roses.

 

As a general rule the game will adapt enemies to your level the moment you enter an area for the first time; afterwards the enemies in that area are fixed. The amount of XP that you get from a 'fixed' enemy decreases with level (just having enough XP for the level is sufficient, even if you have not 'taken' the level). So the absolute worst thing you can do is enter an area, leave, and come back when you are several levels higher - in this case the enemies will be absolute pushovers and yield pitiful amounts of XP.

 

Quest XP is fixed but for some strange reason the XP for things like picking locks and recovering mines *increases* with level, except for one saw-tooth drop when the game switches from the fast progression on lower levels to slower progression on higher levels. The drop is roughly around level 6 but I forgot the specifics.

 

Having Kreia in your party can automatically increase your XP gain by a small factor, due to Kreia's Mentor ability. The factor is on the order of 5%, less at lower levels and more at higher levels, but in any case nothing to write home about. Apparently it does not affect XP from combat, which is the major XP source anyway.

 

For your first play-through you should forget about munchkinology and simply set difficulty such that it maximizes your enjoyment. If you have played RPGs before (which you seem to have) then set it to 'difficult' which translates to 'moderately easy'.

[Darth Frog]

The Hssiss Lizards went from 450 to 375 to 300. I imagine that if you were feeling ballsy enough, you could hold back level-ups early on in the game so each kill gets you more experience points.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Combat XP decreases even if you defer the level-up, so there is nothing to be gained from holding levels with regard to combat XP. This can easily be seen if you cross a level-up threshold during combat - one enemy will yield, say, 300 XP, the next one to fall yields 200 XP.

 

However, at certain points the game will adjust the stats of your enemies and so this is actually a saw-tooth pattern and not a monotonically decreasing curve. Similar to the wraids on Tattooine in KotOR I. If you went there at low level then you got 'plain' wraids or desert wraids, for something like 40 XP apiece. If you went there at a level one higher then suddenly you got Hulak wraids instead for something like 500 XP apiece, with XP decreasing for higher levels.

 

Strangely enough, this is different with the XP that you get for using Security and/or Demolition skills. In this case the game looks at your 'taken' level, not at your XP. The XP for Security/Demolition increases with level except for a discontinuity somewhere around level 6 (give or take one, I forgot the specifics) where the XP is lower than on the next lower and on the next higher level. So you could hold level 6 until you are ready for level 7 and then take both levels at the same time.