Seems like XP balance is out of whack

[PrimeJunta]

If you only need to do 25% of the side content to hit level cap though, that's low. I was hoping it'd be aimed at something like level 9 with no side content, level 12 at 75+% side content, with the last 25% of side content "redundant" XP-wise (but still providing stuff like cool gear).

[mdrgp]

I don't know how that could be solved though without either (1) making side content effectively mandatory because if you don't do it you'll be underleveled in the endgame, (2) making side content so unrewarding in XP it stops being much fun, or (3) level scaling. Pick your poison.

All of those are horrible and worse than the current situation.

 

Honestly I don't get it. They are side quests. You do not need to do them. A lot of them would have very good RP-reasons to not be even tackled. Story wise you have absolutely no reason to do any of them. A lot of quests only reward you with money or most of the time subpar items compared to what you have found till that point. Very few have actual good items.

 

You have the choice to do only some of them. No one is forcing you to do all of of them. Why make a change that would make the game worse for everyone when the current system is capable of pleasing everyone. The first playthrough ends up being easy because you did everything because you didn't expect to end up overleveled. But now you know the quests, you know the information about the world behind them. If you feel that they give too much xp ignore them. Only certain quests affect the endings, do only those if you want to get the best ending for that thing.

[View619]

Yeah, the most efficient method of handling this is going to be tuning xp gained from side content. But I doubt you'll see a mod for that and it's probably a low/non priority on the list of post-release tasks. The best option that you can hope for, IMO, is a mod that increases the amount of experience required to level so that you're forced to do all side-content in order to hit the level cap. 

[abelhabel]

I did the first 8 bounties and then all party members were level 12. This was in act two I think.

 

I didn't really mind that I didn't get more experience because it was so fun to do combat and quests, but there are definitely room for balance here. I think the xp system is fantastic and that it ties into learning about the monsters is genial so I would rather see that quest experience get balanced rather xp you get for killing monsters. The bounties probably gives too much experience and they could change that to give you gear or information instead.

[Emerwyn]

I think the issue with the XP is that you're given too much freedom to roam and not enough content is locked behind milestones.

 

This is a tricky subject, because a lot of people are very vocal about how sandboxy gameplay is the best thing since bread came sliced, but here you face the consequences: having too much freedom isn't good either.

 

The way I'd have done it is gating more content/quest clusters behind main quest milestones so you can't do what I did, that is, reaching level 10 while still being in Act I. Some things just flat out need to be toned up, though. I expected the Endless Paths to be the definitive dungeon of definitive difficulty and I cleared it out at level 8. 

 

That said, I haven't found these problems to be a game-ruining for me. The bounty quests keep being kind of fun and somewhat challenging all along, and the crit path becomes more demanding past dyrwood (again, speaking of Path of the Damned, hard and below might as well be a walk in the park for all I know).

 

Perhaps the bounty quests should reward unique items/crafting materials instead of so much XP, though. Something they can definitely take feedback for and fix in the sequel and DLCs.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Emerwyn

[Rubarack]

IMO having to complete only "over half" the side content to hit level cap is indicative of a problem. As is having players hit Dyrford at level 10. That sort of thing does ruin the experience.

 

I don't know how that could be solved though without either (1) making side content effectively mandatory because if you don't do it you'll be underleveled in the endgame, (2) making side content so unrewarding in XP it stops being much fun, or (3) level scaling. Pick your poison.

3) Definitely 3. There are loads of ways to have level scaling work subtly in the background so it doesn't undermine the experience of levelling up, but means the challenge is always between strict bands.

 

I suppose you could also do xp scaling, where sidequests have a rolling debuff to experience gained based in how many you do. This is a variant of 2) but using smoke and mirrors to hide the effect. Do some sidequests and you're a level up on where you would be without, and on par with expectations. Do them all and you're 1 level up, the latter side-quests giving almost no xp. But if you're a completionist you'll do them anyway. A trick I'm fond of in Encounters when people insist on xp is the xp for doing sidequests being enough to get players 5% short of the next level (unless I get the feeling players want to trivialise the content). That way there's a subtle frustration at not quite hitting that level but players arestill gaining xp (and players who miss the odd session are still on par power wise)

[Spivo]

Increase xp req to lvl/decrease xp rewards = people complaining they have to do everything in the game to reach cap.

 

Increase main quest xp+decrease side quest xp = people complaining about how meaningless doing side quests are, and how they should be more rewarding.

 

Increase level cap = people complain the game is even more easy.

 

Doing anything regarding in-game balance = people finding something wrong and complaining.

 

 

I think it's really great to allow players the two choices:

1) do main quests and complete game

2) if 1 is to hard, do side quests to get higher level so you can complete the game

 

Imo, best solution would be to make an extra achievement: "complete game on expert without doing side quests"

But realisticly, people would likely complain about this as well.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Spivo

[Atheosis]

If you only need to do 25% of the side content to hit level cap though, that's low. I was hoping it'd be aimed at something like level 9 with no side content, level 12 at 75+% side content, with the last 25% of side content "redundant" XP-wise (but still providing stuff like cool gear).

 

There's no way you'll hit the cap if you only do 25% of side content.

[Emerwyn]

Increase xp req to lvl/decrease xp rewards = people complaining they have to do everything in the game to reach cap.

 

Increase main quest xp+decrease side quest xp = people complaining about how meaningless doing side quests are, and how they should be more rewarding.

 

Increase level cap = people complain the game is even more easy.

 

Doing anything regarding in-game balance = people finding something wrong and complaining.

 

 

I think it's really great to allow players the two choices:

1) do main quests and complete game

2) if 1 is to hard, do side quests to get higher level so you can complete the game

 

Imo, best solution would be to make an extra achievement: "complete game on expert without doing side quests"

But realisticly, people would likely complain about this as well.

 

Sad but true. Complaining is the most widespread sport in social media.

 

And developers are condemned to listening to whiners because after all, whiners somehow also whined their way around getting paid for whatever job they do, and the developers need that money to survive.

 

Whineocracy, the government system of the internet.

[mdrgp]

Honestly you guys are trying to fix something that is intended in the game and is not broken. The current system works.

You guys just treat side quest as mandatory for some reason.
All IE games had this. You did all the quests you will be overleveld and reach the level cap way before the ending. I think that only in IWD2 I didn't reach the level cap but at the same time I was almost constantly ahead of the curve despite the lower xp gained from the monsters.

 

You need to do 60-70% of the side quests to get to the level cap. You can ignore them.  You also have the option of just not leveling up.

 

Every "solution" posted here just creates more problems.

 

The game is too easy? Ramp up the difficulty. Still too easy? Get a smaller party. Still too easy? Don't level up, put your own milestones. Don't level up above 5 in Act 1. 8 in Act 2. 10 in Act 3. Still too easy.
No resting. Level 1 only. Triple Crown Solo. Do that and enter the Halls of cRPG legends.

[Caerdon]

The game needs to have three* XP modifiers that can be used to adjust (by simple multiplication) the amount of XP you get.

 

Main_guest_XP affects XP you gain from the critical path main quest, nothing else

 

Other_XP affects everything else: side quests, bestiary, exploring etc.

 

Global_XP affects all XP

 

Now, you simply adjust Main_guest_XP and Other_XP so that roughly 60%-70% of all XP comes from the main quest. Then you adjust Global_XP so that you need to complete 95%-100% of the game to reach level cap.

 

Voilà!

 

(*: Two is technically enough, but with three you'll make it simpler and end up with nicer values.)

[Odd Hermit]

I'd like 1-2 harder enemies sprinkled across encounters based on your level.

 

Not level scaling enemies, just scaled up encounters if you out-level things. They already kinda do this from normal -> hard -> PotD, if they added it based on level that'd be a solution that doesn't mess with anyone's experience too much - you could still gun through the main quest or do lots of side quest.

[Evange]

I don't see this as an issue. If you go around exploring and doing all the side quests naturally you'll outpace the main questline. It's like going on a sabbatical; definitely you will be more enriched and better equipped to deal with your main goals and tasks.

[GrinningReaper659]

I think the best way to deal with this would be to either severely lower the XP rewards of side content only to the point that max level will be reached only when all or nearly all content is completed (again, we're not reducing the level reached by those not doing side content, this will just slow down how quickly those who do side content will hit max level); or to slow XP progression significantly starting at level 8 (or whichever level you reach by doing all main storyline content and no side content). I'm not that far in now, but I am a "completionist" I suppose and will be trying to see everything the story has to offer. I'll be a bit disappointed if the challenge disappears because I'm over-leveled halfway through the game. Either of the two solutions I mentioned should fix the issue without affecting in any way those who want to do only the main storyline content.

 

Seeing as this doesn't negatively affect those that just play the main quest-line, hopefully one of these solutions will be implemented in an official patch at some point.

[PIP-Clownboy]

 

Every "solution" posted here just creates more problems.

 

The game is too easy? Ramp up the difficulty. Still too easy? Get a smaller party. Still too easy? Don't level up, put your own milestones. Don't level up above 5 in Act 1. 8 in Act 2. 10 in Act 3. Still too easy.

No resting. Level 1 only. Triple Crown Solo. Do that and enter the Halls of cRPG legends.

 

That's what I basically did. Kicked immortal deflection Eder and had Kana/Gina share tanking duties. Still pretty easy overall but was definitely taking more total party damage. 

 

Fighter deflection tanks are just too good even in POTD. 

Edited April 6, 2015 by PIP-Clownboy

[Ohioastro]

There are more than the macho crowd playing this game.  Newer players, for example, frequently rely on over-leveling more difficult encounters to defeat them.  I hit the level cap (on hard) in Act III, close to the end. I did most of the side quests, some of the bounties, and about 2/3 of the massive stronghold dungeon.  I don't think that I would have hit level 13 by the end.

 

Fouling up the main quest / side quest balance has all sorts of consequence above and beyond the people bragging about how good they are at the game and how easy it is.   Acceptable solutions have to preserve the current "easy/normal/hard" balance; it's fine to tune up POTD.

 

If people really want a "tougher" experience to boast about, pump up the levels of the foes in POTD and be done with it.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Ohioastro

[vril]

I believe the reason it is balanced as it is now is that they did not want to require a player to complete all content to be able to have a party at high enough level to complete the end.  I do not see any problems with it.

[vril]

If people really want a "tougher" experience to boast about, pump up the levels of the foes in POTD and be done with it.

 

Completely agree, people should probably state what difficulty they're playing on when commentating about changes in this game.  It reminds me of some people complaining about Crusader Kings 2 being too easy but they're save scumming, if they played on Ironman, then they would see it's much more punishing.

[Ninjerk]

If an XP change were to happen, solo players would, I think, still need to be able to reach level 4 by the time they head to Caed Nua (Act 1 is significantly harder than Act 2 so far as I've seen because there is so little available experience).

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Yeah, too much XP is locked up in side quests; I just saw someone complain that they can't beat the boss at level seven. I wonder how they were able to get there that quickly, but obviously they could. It seems a bit mean for the game to let you get that far only to say "whoops, looks like you'll be needing to reload (we hope you didn't overwrite that save!) and get a few more levels."

 

What level should you be when you get to level 7? I'm on level 6 of Od Nua, with level 5 characters, over 20K of copper, nearly finished the stronghold (about 5 upgrades to go) and playing on Hard. Oh and I haven't finished Act 1 as yet.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Hiro Protagonist II

[mdrgp]

I think the best way to deal with this would be to either severely lower the XP rewards of side content only to the point that max level will be reached only when all or nearly all content is completed (again, we're not reducing the level reached by those not doing side content, this will just slow down how quickly those who do side content will hit max level); or to slow XP progression significantly starting at level 8 (or whichever level you reach by doing all main storyline content and no side content). I'm not that far in now, but I am a "completionist" I suppose and will be trying to see everything the story has to offer. I'll be a bit disappointed if the challenge disappears because I'm over-leveled halfway through the game. Either of the two solutions I mentioned should fix the issue without affecting in any way those who want to do only the main storyline content.

 

Seeing as this doesn't negatively affect those that just play the main quest-line, hopefully one of these solutions will be implemented in an official patch at some point.

And someone who likes to roleplay and not do all the quests would also like to reach the max level and will be a bit disappointed if the game is too challenging for him. Or some players just won't bother doing them all. The developers have intended from the start that people who do all the content will reach max level before the end.

This happened in all the IE games. In BG2 if you did all the quests in Amn and the stronghold ones you would breeze trough the rest of the game till almost at the end because some quests should have been done in Act 5 when you return to Amn. Of course certain quests were a bit hard, especially Kangaxx or the Twisted Rune but even without cheesing the game it was still doable with some strategies and luck

 

If the game is too easy play with a smaller party. You can just rotate companion to do their quests s you can see everything.

If the XP is changed to fit most solutions here it would force everyone to do everything.

 

Some people are completionists, myself included. Honestly I redid a small part of the game three times to do the quests of all factions. I understand how it is, to have a need to do everything. But not everyone is like that. Again some people roleplaying won't do some quests for a large number of roleplaying related reasons. To prevent roleplaying in an Role Playing Game is just dumb.

 

Current system makes everyone happy, just that completionists need to employ certain self imposed challenges some of which range from minor ,like playing with a party of 5 instead of 6, to major, like not leveling up, if the game isn't challenging enough even on Path of the Dammed. Why put everyone on a disadvantage forcing them to play with a full party even on lower difficulties just because they need to do 95% content of the game to reach the max level.

What if they don't like other party members? What if they like to play with a smaller party?

[Gallenger]

I did top out fairly early, but I did literally every quest I could find lol.  I saved the endless paths for last, and it was still somewhat challenging even for a max level party.

 

I think it may've been the warden's bounties because I saved all of those for last too and just did all them right in a row and gained levels 10-12 lol if I recall properly. 

[Tigranes]

There are more than the macho crowd playing this game.  Newer players, for example, frequently rely on over-leveling more difficult encounters to defeat them.  I hit the level cap (on hard) in Act III, close to the end. I did most of the side quests, some of the bounties, and about 2/3 of the massive stronghold dungeon.  I don't think that I would have hit level 13 by the end.

 

Fouling up the main quest / side quest balance has all sorts of consequence above and beyond the people bragging about how good they are at the game and how easy it is.   Acceptable solutions have to preserve the current "easy/normal/hard" balance; it's fine to tune up POTD.

 

If people really want a "tougher" experience to boast about, pump up the levels of the foes in POTD and be done with it.

 

Yep. That's why overall reduction should be a mod. The 'default' balance is pretty much fine.

[GreyFox]

And here I thought objective based XP was supposed to be easy to manage and balance...I guess only in combat XP games can you reach max level before the end of the game.......oh wait.

[GrinningReaper659]

 

I think the best way to deal with this would be to either severely lower the XP rewards of side content only to the point that max level will be reached only when all or nearly all content is completed (again, we're not reducing the level reached by those not doing side content, this will just slow down how quickly those who do side content will hit max level); or to slow XP progression significantly starting at level 8 (or whichever level you reach by doing all main storyline content and no side content). I'm not that far in now, but I am a "completionist" I suppose and will be trying to see everything the story has to offer. I'll be a bit disappointed if the challenge disappears because I'm over-leveled halfway through the game. Either of the two solutions I mentioned should fix the issue without affecting in any way those who want to do only the main storyline content.

 

Seeing as this doesn't negatively affect those that just play the main quest-line, hopefully one of these solutions will be implemented in an official patch at some point.

And someone who likes to roleplay and not do all the quests would also like to reach the max level and will be a bit disappointed if the game is too challenging for him. Or some players just won't bother doing them all. The developers have intended from the start that people who do all the content will reach max level before the end.

This happened in all the IE games. In BG2 if you did all the quests in Amn and the stronghold ones you would breeze trough the rest of the game till almost at the end because some quests should have been done in Act 5 when you return to Amn. Of course certain quests were a bit hard, especially Kangaxx or the Twisted Rune but even without cheesing the game it was still doable with some strategies and luck

 

If the game is too easy play with a smaller party. You can just rotate companion to do their quests s you can see everything.

If the XP is changed to fit most solutions here it would force everyone to do everything.

 

Some people are completionists, myself included. Honestly I redid a small part of the game three times to do the quests of all factions. I understand how it is, to have a need to do everything. But not everyone is like that. Again some people roleplaying won't do some quests for a large number of roleplaying related reasons. To prevent roleplaying in an Role Playing Game is just dumb.

 

Current system makes everyone happy, just that completionists need to employ certain self imposed challenges some of which range from minor ,like playing with a party of 5 instead of 6, to major, like not leveling up, if the game isn't challenging enough even on Path of the Dammed. Why put everyone on a disadvantage forcing them to play with a full party even on lower difficulties just because they need to do 95% content of the game to reach the max level.

What if they don't like other party members? What if they like to play with a smaller party?

 

 

Did you read what I wrote at all? Both solutions I proposed would not at all affect those who do only the main story stuff only. I know how it worked in the IE games. I don't see how any of what you said is an argument against the solutions I presented (which you quoted). Neither of them would "force everyone to do everything" as you put it because it doesn't matter at all to those who choose not to do any side-quests. The only difference that would be made by my two suggestions would be to slow the rate at which those who do choose to do everything reach the level cap.

 

The only legitimate complaint you made is about how it will affect those who do some, but not all, of the side content. It's true that their progression would be somewhat affected by the side content giving less XP or higher levels progressing more slowly.

 

I feel that there's a big motivation here of people that don't want to do all the quests but want to make damn sure that nobody out there is getting to a higher level than them, which is why full completion or near full completion bringing you to the level cap is so unnerving to some of you. Either way, I'm fine with it being a mod; please forget that I ever suggested otherwise since people are apparently adamant to not see any official changes made to XP progression.