Should COs, Tickets and Enemies Give Out More EXP?

[the_importer_]

First up, this happened today:



Being the 3rd time now that I've level capped all the classes, I can say for a fact that it was a pain in the ass having to get over 50m EXP for each classes with only Bonus Keys and "A World Engulfed in Shadows" to get any sort of worthwhile EXP in the process. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that we still have 15 levels to go for each class before the assumed final Lv100 cap. Considering that we'll get 2 or 3 more episodes with 2 or 3 new classes in the next 4 years, capping all of them will be a nightmare if SEGA doesn't add more ways to get significant EXP.

Putting aside Bonus Keys and "A World Engulfed in Shadows", I did the 4 featured quests every day with:
-Daily Triboost
-Premium Triboost
-Premium Drink
-75% EXP Boost
-100% EXP Boost (when I had some)
-4% Team Boost (when it was activated)
-25% Triboost with 3 NPCs
-Did most of the featured quests' COs

Adding this to the fact that I did all of Kressida and Franka's COs every week (support partners), this barely gave me half a level. The only reason I managed to get these 9 classes to Lv85 within 8 weeks was by getting 2 levels with "A World Engulfed in Shadows" per class. The rest, I got with Bonus Keys, half of them using meseta (and 10 SG per day for a 2nd shot) and using:

-150% EXP Boost
-125% Triboost
-Daily Triboost
-Premium Triboost
-Premium Drink
-4% Team Boost (when it was activated)

Now that you've seen the dedication it took to get 9 classes to Lv85, would you agree that SEGA try to give us more EXP with COs, EXP Tickets and Enemies? That or guaranteeing a Bonus Key everyday if you do all of the Featured Quests (2 of you're premium)?

[Ceresa]

Have you tried actually gearing and learning the classes and playing them in relevant content...?

In the past 4 weeks I've gained 235 class cubes solely from chasing 14s in forest and the occasional dragon and loser. That's roughly 470 million exp with another 40-50m of bonus key xp towards techer 80>85.

Exp seems pretty fine.

[ArcaneTechs]

take the grind out of the game gotcha (Hans etc client orders giving more exp would be great)

[Dark Mits]

Congratulations on reaching lvl85 on every class!

Disclaimer: All of the following are my opinion, not only for PSO2 but for every PvE online game

No, we do not need more exp. The "ideal' situation would be to earn exp at such rate so that a player who actively tries to max every class, should reach the cap for all of them right before the servers go down for maintenance to apply an even newer level cap. For PSO2 I think they mentioned that they may release lvl90 within the year. This means that players should aim to reach lvl85 in a new class every 3 weeks (or so).


Regarding exp sources and how they should be "balanced":

1) There should not be a single quest or type of quest that is the "best" source for more than 1 of the 3 important things in a game (Experience, Equipment, Currency). If a player can get the most exp (or close to the most exp) and the best equipment in a single quest, then other content existing in the game is devalued. This is why I believe that EQs should give the best Equipment, but should give very low exp for the time investment compared to other sources.

2)If a developer does not want players to burn out running the same content all the time, they must make sure that players do not feel like they do not progress if they do not run the "optimal" quest, or limit how often and how many times it can be run. The 4th Daily Featured quest goes against this because the exp from it is of an order higher than any other available source that isn't a Gold Bonus Key, and it is spammable. Which is why I consider Bonus Keys to be "good" design on this issue: They are limited, and they are a good source for exp alone; they are bad for equipment, they are bad for meseta.

3) Performing actions or selecting paths in a quest that are not of the "go go go" mentality should almost always provide rewards that outscale the possible rewards of "go go go". This is where PSO2 is entirely the opposite; outright ignoring everything and running to the end point provides in 99% of cases the best result in exp, meseta and equipment. It is highly advised to ignore everything in a Free Field or ARKS Quest and run to the end point because of this. At least to me, that's bad game design. It seems that the PSO2 design team also acknowledges this, because they have been designing every new quest since EP3 with gates, where you have to exterminate everything to proceed.

4) Now where do Client Orders fit here? Client orders should encourage spending time in a quest. And they do. Take for example the revised COs for the old Free Fields: 30k for 60 enemies, 30k for 70 enemies. That's like saying that the first 70 enemies in the quest give 857exp extra each. This is 3x-5x the exp they give without any boosts other than 50% daily and 40% party. It's an incentive to both take the CO, and to spend time in the quest to get those 70 enemies. The fact that players still prefer to "go go go" is not because the COs give few exp, it's because the 4th Daily FQ is just too good to pass up.

However, COs that are not "farmable" should provide better rewards. Girard's COs should give a lot more than what they currently do, because outside of events with extremely high propability of a rare enemy appearing, it's almost never worth your time to go to pick these COs. Not only that, they have a cooldown of 6 days 22 hours, unlike Hans's who have only 22 hours. Same for Lottie's, same for that dude with the weather. I'd argue that Franca's orders should also be updated (the old one's give 5k-10k exp, while the newer ones 30k+), because you have to stop and collect drops, which also means that you have to manage space if you only have a backpack of 50 like us Free players.

5) Tickets are another source of exp. Through PSO2es and normal PSO2 play, I get around 87 tickets per month. Let's average it to 3 per day. That's 45k exp per day just for logging in. It seems pretty generous to me.

[XrosBlader821]

because you have to stop and collect drops, which also means that you have to manage space if you only have a backpack of 50 like us Free players

Or you just tell your support partner to do the collecting for you. With Material storage costing SG this is even more manageable on free accounts than ever before.

[Saffran]

Girard COs can be done with EX quests as they have 100% spawn rate. Outside of some oddball enemy, of course. I do agree that they should give more, considering they have such a cooldown.

As for the original poster and question, some tweaking could be done. The Engulfed quest is so broken it's not even funny. It does help to level up, and arguably it was made for us to level up, but it's still so much better than any other option that I do think it's a problem.

Dark Mits made a lot of points that I can agree with, but the bottom line is, spread the rewards out. Otherwise the hamsters will run the exact same wheels all the time and ignore every other one. (same problem with skill trees and play styles actually. I think I'm starting to see a pattern...)

[FantasyHeaven]

No the leveling could take forever for all I care.

[Kondibon]

The "ideal' situation would be to earn exp at such rate so that a player who actively tries to max every class, should reach the cap for all of them right before the servers go down for maintenance to apply an even newer level cap.

I disagree entirely. The level cap should be an achievable goal with enough time to actually experience content at it (which, honestly it has been for active players so I don't see too much of a problem here). Of course I also disagree with constantly increasing the level caps in games and prefer gear based progression, vertical or horizontal, at end game, so eh.

I agree with everything else except the 60/70 mob COs and the tickets. The exp you get from those is a drop in the bucket compared to how much you get just grinding.

Dark Mits made a lot of points that I can agree with, but the bottom line is, spread the rewards out. Otherwise the hamsters will run the exact same wheels all the time and ignore every other one. (same problem with skill trees and play styles actually. I think I'm starting to see a pattern...)

I think this is one of the biggest problems with the game. People flock to the most recent content because it's the most rewarding. I've been playing a few other games lately and it feels like PSO2 is comparatively devoid of progression outside of very specific content. I like to get on and just play, but getting on and just playing instead of grinding a specific quest over and over means I'm not actually making any progress towards my goals.

[Dark Mits]

I disagree entirely. The level cap should be an achievable goal with enough time to actually experience content at it (which, honestly it has been for active players so I don't see too much of a problem here).

I agree with this, but for a player's desired class and subclass. For example, I agree that players should be able to reach the level cap of their preferred class/subclass combo in less than 5 weeks, and then work with parallel/vertical gear progression as you state.

My point about it needing until the next level cap release refers to capping all the classes. This is not something that a casual player should be working on towards actively, but rather passively and in their free time. A power player who focuses on it should of course reach it a lot quicklier. But the game should not be designed around such playstyle.

[Kondibon]

I agree with this, but for a player's desired class and subclass. For example, I agree that players should be able to reach the level cap of their preferred class/subclass combo in less than 5 weeks, and then work with parallel/vertical gear progression as you state.

My point about it needing until the next level cap release refers to capping all the classes. This is not something that a casual player should be working on towards actively, but rather passively and in their free time. A power player who focuses on it should of course reach it a lot quicklier. But the game should not be designed around such playstyle.

I personally feel all the long term power play min-maxing stuff should be relegated to gear/affixing. Getting all your classes to cap doesn't need to be a "hardcore" thing when there's plenty of other long term goals. Leveling in this game at the point we're at is just a means to get more SP and the level 85 skills, some of which, like the Te, and Gu ones feel weird to even have gated that way because of how much they they can change the gameplay up. If those skills didn't require level 85 I don't think I would care as much.