Looking Back at Resolve XP

[AM DERG]

I've always felt the process of levelling a hero from Seeker to Champion (0 to 6) was a bit too grindy for my tastes, and given that Darkest Dungeon is supposed to be a game about cutting losses, losing heroes and making sacrifices, an excessive grind is a huge black spot on the game in that regard - BUT before I can come to that conclusion, I think it's only fair we look at this objectively.

First off, let's cite the wiki here (and my experiences leave me no reason to doubt this information)

Apprentice Quests yield 2 XP for Short, 3 XP for Medium, and 4 XP for Long/Boss Quests
Veteran Quests likewise yield 4, 6 and 8 XP
Champion Quests yield 8, 12 and 16 XP

To reach level 1, a hero needs to have 2 XP
Level 2 requires 8 XP
Level 3 requires 14
Level 4 requires 24
Level 5 requires 36
And a Hero reaches the max level 6 at 48 XP

Keeping in mind that a hero is unable to take Apprentice Quests at level 3 and Veteran Quests at level 5, this means that, taking only Short Quests, assuming NO down time, you would require a hero to take 7 Apprentice Quests, 5.5 (6, rounded up) Veteran Quests, and 1.25 (2 rounded up) Veteran Quests - the important thing to note here is that, when levelling up, a hero takes approximately the same amount of time to go from level 0 to level 3 as they do to go from level 3 to level 6 - which makes sense, but the difference is that going from 0 to 3 crosses only one teir of missions, while going from 3 to 6 crosses two.

But let's speed things up instead. Let's instead take a hero on two long quests to get them to level 2 faster. That puts us at 8 XP even, and then let's drop that level 2 hero into a long Veteran Quest for a quick boost to level 3, putting us at 16 XP. Another long quest brings us to level 4 with 24 XP, and tagging along on two medium Champion quests at level 4 brings us right to level 5 and 6.

We cut corners, took risks, but that hero went from 0 to 6 in only 6 total quests versus the initial 15 short quests. Only 4 of those were long quests, by the way, and only 2 of the quests were underlevelled (one Long Veteran at level 2 and one Medium Champion at level 4).

Naturally, you can't do this with an entirely underlevelled party, and naturally, there is likely to be downtime in between unless you bring along some crackerjack jesters to keep the party in tact, but in general, it's not only doable but fairly reliable.

Now, let's factor in two things I didn't mention. First, there's the XP bonus awarded from the Darkest Dungeon - both from a success and a failure. Failing a mission in the Darkest Dungeon will boost the XP of the next expedition you send out, and heroes who return successfully offer a (30%?) XP boost to any party members accompanying them on quests. The other factor is the Ancestor's Portrait, a fairly handy late-game tool which gives a 50% XP boost to whomever holds it (at the cost of +10% stress damage).

Let's look at the effects of these buffs in turn. A Hero receiving 30% bonus XP accompanying a Champion of the Darkest Dungeon (this will have to be a Champion level quest barring very unusual circumstances) and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, 11 XP from a short quest, 16 from medium, and 21 from a long quest.
The Portrait works on all quests, and that boost XP gain from the original 2,3,4/4,6,8/8,12,16 to what is presumably 3,5,6/6,9,12/12,18,24 - the last of which is enough to jump a hero from level 4 to 6 instantly if you're willing enough to try it.
-Additionally, if you're willing to risk it, a newly recruited hero holding the Portrait gains a whopping 24 resolve XP on a long Champion quest, which is enough to rocket them to rank 4, and then again to rank 6 should they survive. (Credit: Phantasmal)

It's up to you to draw your own opinion from these numbers, but I think the end result/my opinion is this:

(Below this point is entirely my opinion)

People get the impression that the game is too grindy because they frequently field short quests. Getting a hero to rank 6, especially in the late game, is significantly easier than it is in the early game, but that still begs the question, is it still not short enough?

In my honest opinion, I'd say no. Even cutting the quest time down massively, skipping straight from level 4 to 6 (yes I've done this) doesn't quite change the fact that a hero fresh from the stagecoach won't be champion-level material for several missions because the champion-level window is so small. Heroes only spend level 5 and 6 in Champion, but they spend 0, 1 and 2, the slowest levels to go through all in low-level missions. I've heard the complaint about having to replay early game content over and over again, and even with the most efficient shortcuts to levelling, your heroes are mostly skipping the midgame content, not the early game content, which is the issue. I can skip level 5, but I can't skip level 1. Okay, I can take a level 0 character, XP boosted into a medium Veteran mission, but that might be pushing it, and skipping level 1 only puts my character in level 2, still slogging through early-game content.

So what do I suggest? Is there a simple solution? Actually, I think there might be.

The first would be to change % XP buffs to flat XP boosts, or rather, more specifically, to enable the player to bump up the amount of XP heroes receive from quests. I'd go as far as to recommend this be part of the Guild Hall (the Blacksmith has 3 upgrade trees, the Guild has only 2). The effect of this is greater on the lower-level quests, effectively cutting the time to raise a hero to Veteran staus by a reasonable margin while having little effect on the time to raise a hero to Champion status. The idea here is that once the player has fully explored the early game content, they naturally want to be playing more of the mid/late game content and less of the basic missions, which is a fair expectation.

The other option would be to take the XCom EU route of upgrading the Stagecoach to bring in heroes pre-levelled to rank 1 (and then to include pre-upgraded skills, and then equipment, perhaps?) This has a very minimal impact on the time it takes to level up a hero, but cuts down on both the cost, the hassle, and effectively saves a whole mission. Does it necessarily make the game too easy? Not at all. Does it make the grind slightly less exhausting? Probably.

Heck, I'll toss in another option - just put out a common/uncommon trinket which awards +1 resolve XP to the hero wearing it. A Portrait-lite if you would, since you can only ever have one Portrait.

The end result is, either way, I find myself in the late game with piles and piles of unspent Heirlooms, and still wasting 6-ish weeks trying to replace a hero that died on a quest which I felt was necessary to continue on the next major mission, even with extreme shortcutting. If Darkest Dungeon wants to push the notion that our lost heroes are easily replaceable, that's fine, but the game needs to make the replacement process a little less exhausting. I don't find myself disappointed because I lost a hero I liked, I find myself disappointed because replacing them will take several in game weeks, real world hours and will require heroes at multiple levels who stress at different rates to replace them. It should be an adventure, not a trip to the DMV.

[phantasmal]

Originally posted by The Actually for Real Krysto:

Regardless, this means that you always have the option to chuck 4 poor fools out of the stagecoach right into the Darkest Dungeon while your party destresses from one mission in order to bolster their XP for the next. Brutal? Yes. Efficient? Kinda. Free Achievement? You bet!

The party you send in has to be at least level 5 for you to get the XP buff. You can't just chuck in level 0 newbies for free XP.

Also, it takes only 2 weeks to train up a new level 6 hero, you are doing 'extreme shortcutting' wrong. Or rather, too safe.

[AM DERG]

Originally posted by phantasmal:

Originally posted by The Actually for Real Krysto:

Regardless, this means that you always have the option to chuck 4 poor fools out of the stagecoach right into the Darkest Dungeon while your party destresses from one mission in order to bolster their XP for the next. Brutal? Yes. Efficient? Kinda. Free Achievement? You bet!

The party you send in has to be at least level 5 for you to get the XP buff. You can't just chuck in level 0 newbies for free XP.

Also, it takes only 2 weeks to train up a new level 6 hero, you are doing 'extreme shortcutting' wrong. Or rather, too safe.

Thanks for the heads up - do you mind telling me what combination of boosts/quests you used to pull that off?

Regardless, it still feels that going to such extreme lengths is a tad unintuitive when it comes to re-progression of new heroes.

I'll update the OP accordingly.

[phantasmal]

2x Long Champion Dungeon runs with Ancestor's Portrait.

Well, the thing is DD doesn't want to make heroes easily replacable, it merely just gives you the chance to replace them if you lost someone. Otherwise there would be no reason to take care of your people if you can just get a new Lv5 hero from the coach right away, and no reason to ever have more than 4 person. Just because the heroes are replacable does not mean that you are supposed to have an easy time when you lose someone.
Having an upgrade that allows you to recruit higher level heroes would most likely remove any reason to take care of your people, why should you when you can just pull off a next batch of high level heroes from the coach, ready to tackle Champion dungeons. :/

[aardvarkpepper]

@phantasmal: As I read it the OP suggested allowing level 1 heroes to be brought in via Stagecoach, but that's the limit (level 1), no higher.

It's the same in X-COM: Enemy Unknown, you can upgrade the level of your recruits but only once.

As to 2 x Long Champion Dungeon runs with Ancestor's Portrait, as I see it that's aimed at raising just one or two heroes very quickly. If you're raising whole groups of heroes and going into that grind, then it's a different matter, and the OP's suggestions make more sense.

*Granted* the OP does mention raising just the one hero, so your replies were contextually correct. However, addressing resolve XP and grinding as a broader subject and considering the suggestions in light of raising groups of heroes rather than individual heroes, what are your thoughts?

[phantasmal]

Originally posted by aardvarkpepper:

@phantasmal: As I read it the OP suggested allowing level 1 heroes to be brought in via Stagecoach, but that's the limit (level 1), no higher.

I misunderstood OP then. But I don't really like the sound of that still.

Even if I want to raise an entire new party, powerleveling with Champ Long is still faster. It's guaranteed 8 weeks vs the 6+downtime+possible additional money grind.
If you want my opinion, I don't really consider raising an entire team to Lv6 "grinding", that's the core gameplay. And XP wise, I think lv3/4 heroes level up way too fast, the XP requirement should be raised. And the Mentor buff should be buffed so it's actually useful.

[AM DERG]

I was looking at the problem from two angles specifically:

Replacing one lost hero quickly, which can be done via aggressive power levelling.
And
Replacing several lost heroes over a period of time, assuming you do not wish to power level a single replacement.

Both are viable options, and I feel there's a lot of thought to be put into the matter, since the game is especially rough in the early phases where a hero levelled too quickly starts to clog up your roster, and in the late game where the same happend with low level heroes.

Generally, I feel like the primary focus here is to lessen the late-game grind, since replacing several heroes at once is slow, clunky and time consuming.

I think it's fair to say that once you've cleared all the bosses for a certain rank, it shouldn't be expected that a player trudge excessively through lower ranks still, though I wholly agree that purchasing a level 5 hero is out of the question and eliminates most of the threat of losing heroes.

I would go as far as to say that by the time you've cleared all of the Veteran Bosses, you should be saving reasonable amounts of time on getting heroes to Veteran level, and I'd go as far as to argue that once you've cleared all of the Champion bosses, you should be well on your way to finishing the game - losing heroes at this point is an expectation, so replacing them should be somewhat streamlined, though not excessively so.

The question I asked myself is - if I were to party wipe on this mission, "how long would it take me to replace the lost party?", relative to my position in the game state, and the answer, particularly in the end game, was almost universally "too long". I was throwing away heirlooms because I didn't need them anymore, and focused entirely on farming cash to cover the expenses of raising a new hero to rank 6 (which is quite a chunk of change, especially if you want to lock in a quirk or two at rank 0, which isn't a bad idea). It got me thinking that, even with all the upgrades and discounts, I was mostly just saving money, but I wasn't saving much time.

Frankly, I feel the Champion level is too narrow compared to the rest of the game - taking rank 5 heroes out gives me rank 6 heroes back, and taking rank 6 heroes is redundant and earns nothing.

That being said, I'll reaffirm my previous suggestion - expediting the levelling process is perhaps more important to the flow of gameplay than cheapening it. I'll also add one other suggestion: there should be a reward for rank 6 questing heroes - it doesn't have to be another level, but perhaps each successive "rank" attained beyond 6 randomly buffs the hero in some manner (+1 dodge, +1 ACC, +1% Prot, etc.) so that high level quests are still rewarding beyond simply tossing out gold and heirlooms.

[Tenmar]

Originally posted by phantasmal:

2x Long Champion Dungeon runs with Ancestor's Portrait.

Well, the thing is DD doesn't want to make heroes easily replacable, it merely just gives you the chance to replace them if you lost someone. Otherwise there would be no reason to take care of your people if you can just get a new Lv5 hero from the coach right away, and no reason to ever have more than 4 person. Just because the heroes are replacable does not mean that you are supposed to have an easy time when you lose someone.
Having an upgrade that allows you to recruit higher level heroes would most likely remove any reason to take care of your people, why should you when you can just pull off a next batch of high level heroes from the coach, ready to tackle Champion dungeons. :/

And I'd like to smack the developers for thinking that is even possible for the average player. 2 long champion level dungeon runs on the level 0. I'd like to see someone actually achieve this or figure out a way to even mitigate so much stress and damage that said hero would actually level up to 6 in that time frame.

I know there are ways to min/max here or exploit the mechanics of the game, but aside from the extreme. I don't see how it can be done.

[AM DERG]

On the bright side, it sounds like these concerns are being addressed in the next major content update, so for the most part I'll be reserving this discussion for whether or not the changes lend themselves to reducing the grind.

As for the question of doing 2 long champion quests, only one quest is done at level 0, the second has that hero shot straight to level 4, which is quite a bit more reasonable. I'm sure its possible if you play conservatively and your other heroes pick up a lot of the slack, but to say it would be easy or intuitive solution would be a blatant lie.