Can anyone confirm if Difficulty affects Experience?

[Roguer]

I came across this guide that indicated, in bold, that difficulty level has an impact on the amount of experience you get. Specifically, it indicates Explorer provides additional experience for discovering locations.

Reference:
https://guides.gamepressure.com/originalsinII/guide.asp?ID=37397

Previously, everything I read indicated that Difficulty did not affect experience, only HP, Accuracy, and enemy abilities / AI. This guide was a surprise to me, and not a good one. I'm not a fan of difficulty based on being lower level, which could cost me abilities and make the game less fun. Since i'm playing mostly for story, and the fun of using abilities, I'm wondering if I'm selling myself short by playing Classic instead of Explorer. It's still early in the game for me.

On a related note, the same page has a listing of XP to level, which I've found is not accurate. So that makes me question the guide as a whole, and wonder if it's simply incorrect or outdated.

*confused*
Wonder if anyone can confirm whether or not experience gain is a factor in the difficulty setting.

[Pyromus]

I have never played on explorer mode, so this is 100% speculative.

Based on the phrasing on that link, and my own experience with 7-8 completed playthoughs of mostly tactician, I think explorer mode is the only mode that has any different experience. I know for a fact that classic, tactician, and honor mode give the same xp for the same kills and quests. Based on the wording of that page, it seems explorer mode may give slightly higher xp amounts for exploration xp, which is still an available source of xp on other modes.

Considering the game is balanced around classic difficulty, I would say this bump up in xp on explorer, which is the game's easy mode, is not in any way going to hinder your game. Now, if you want to feel like an OP monster who destroys foes with ease, then yeah, that xp bump and exlporer difficulty will help, but you are by no means going to feel like your xp is being nerfed by having the stnadard amount.

[Hobocop]

The XP numbers themselves are unaffected by difficulty setting, and exploration bonuses are rewarded regardless of difficulty setting, though I've never seen bonus XP based on revealing the whole map.

Additionally, there's other inaccuracies in that guide, such as being unable to save manually in Honour Mode (you can, you just can't have more than one save file).

[Roguer]

Thx guys, this helps.
My goal of not losing xp was based on the assumption that I gain abilities (and thus depth of play) via experience, which I didn't want to lose. Sounds like this shouldn't be a fear.

[eom]

you rly don't gain abilities that way

you get a few source abilities thru game progression, an the rest from skillbooks
you'll have access to higher lvl skillbooks as you level, but there's no missing out -- traders just don't offer high tier stuff in ft joy when you're lvl 2, etc

[GatyKahn]

Exp is always the same.

Skillbooks are locked behind levels. You won't lose out on skills if you don't gain the level in the first act. Act 2 will also have all the skills etc etc.