XP Cheesing

[Echo]

I'm a bit disappointed in the 'old school' approach to earning XP purely via an individual's actions. This encourages cheesing self/ally target abilities that really janks the flow of gameplay if you want to try and stay levelled.

I thought the FFTA 2 system of all participants earning a base amount of 60XP per mission completion(+/- depending on level) was much better at meaning you didn't have to resort to this.

It would be nice to have some kind of shared XP system even if it's not this exactly.

[Allusir]

I disagree. Sure you could "cheese" it, but this method has inate problems:
#1 it still takes time, and I have found killing blows against enemies to give the most xp
#2 if you cheese it, sure your level is higher, but you didn't gain more ability points needed to level up the classes, which is by far more useful. I'm clearing missions over and over agian trying to unlock new classes and spells. If I were to "cheese" it, the time it would take me to get the skills I want would be so very much more.....

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

Originally posted by Allusir:

I disagree. Sure you could "cheese" it, but this method has inate problems:
#1 it still takes time, and I have found killing blows against enemies to give the most xp
#2 if you cheese it, sure your level is higher, but you didn't gain more ability points needed to level up the classes, which is by far more useful. I'm clearing missions over and over agian trying to unlock new classes and spells. If I were to "cheese" it, the time it would take me to get the skills I want would be so very much more.....

killing blows give ~20-30xp. spamming defend every turn yields 10-20xp every turn. sitting 5 characters in a cross and attacking each other every turn with mass heals in between yields 10-20xp per turn with higher numbers being more common.

that being said, cheesing is unecesary as far as ive seen so far. first boss sits at almost 600 hp and can hit a level 7 party for ~ 1/3 of their health per turn if their bunched up, but that same party can be hitting him for 50-100 damage per attack. but spamming an otherwise useless skill when you couldnt do anything else is still a good idea.

[Allusir]

Oh my... I am very over leveled. I got so excited by the job wheel that by the time I got to that boss I had a few characters at level 14-15....

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

Originally posted by Allusir:

Oh my... I am very over leveled. I got so excited by the job wheel that by the time I got to that boss I had a few characters at level 14-15....

ill bet that fight took you less than 2 rounds. i tend to stick to one job till i master it then move on.

[Scorpiova]

I prefer the more traditional system - the characters actually performing actions to get exp. In my opinion a character sitting back and watching the battle and barely doing anything, and getting exp for that, is the real cheesing.

Shared exp systems just make the game "easy" for players who don't know how to manage support classes and level them appropriately.

[6 Eyes Studio]

@echo:
It's true you can 'cheese' EXP if you want to, but only if you want to. Some people are into that. It's not needed in any way. We're using a system to what you describe for the AP gains though. Basically, the way things work:

All encounters have a min and max level range. The enemies will be generated roughly at a level matching yours (with random variance and some maps also have special +/-X adjustments, etc). If you're below the EXP range (that's very rare overall the way we're tuning things), the enemies will be higher level than you and if you're above the max, they'll be lower level.

Because of that, gaining a few extra levels might not have a big noticeable impact, which helps you "play at your pace" without pulling ahead or behind. If you're really struggling though, you could grind a bit and pass the max level and get a big advantage. It's all up to you and your playstyle.

Another reason to allow for XP cheesing if people want to, is the way our stats growth system works: you earn stats for your currently selected main class, so it's nice to be able to "grind exp" in a specific class efficiently if you're the type of person that wants to min/max their stats.

The AP is on a separate system, where you'll earn a specific amount at the end of the encounter. This is in part so it IS harder to cheese the AP, since AP gains are much "powerful" than EXP gains (the enemies don't scale their AP with your AP basically, just their level with yours). There will be ways to speed up AP gains (special enemies that give a large AP bonus upon being killed) in future levels to limit AP grinding, but all in all, AP is the main limiter more than EXP.

I hope that answers your concerns :)

[Chad "The King" ThunderCuck]

its hard to cheese ap because you can only gain a max of ~140 or so unless you change it in the config file, and ap gains seem to decrease the closer to that limit you get, since i changed my max ap to 10k and im getting ~4k per fight for the class each character in battle is on, around 1k for people out of battle and some of the other classes being used.

[Conan The Librarian]

Yeah, "Cheesing exp" isn't really an issue in this game given that enemies tend to scale in level with you (to a point of course, there are level caps on certain things). I like to look at things like any given game that lets you grind: it's a choice! If you WANT to take the time to grind, get "overleveled" per se, and make the overall difficulty easier...allright, you can do that. Do you want to do a "least amount of exp challenge" (like people who play Final Fantasy 1?) Allright, go ahead and try to do the game with zero patrols. It's just a flexible system for people to choose, I like it.