What is the highest level can you reach now?

[Grifman]

The "Meatmaker" patch dramatically increased the amount of XP required for levels in the upper 20's and 30's so that it is impossible to hit those higher levels. For example after Meatmaker, the XP required to reach level 30 is greater than that required to reach level 35 before the parch. In the patch notes, the developers said that they wanted to force more choices by limiting levels, and that level 25 should be practicable, or level 27 if you push it. So I'm wondering with the DLC's what level are people maxing out at. Wondering if maxing out charisma and using a trinket and pet even make that much of a difference given the huge increases. So what levels are people hitting now at the end of the game?

[Gray]

Im lvl 27 and I just entered the highway. Its going sloooow now so reading this explains alot. I farm no xp, I avoid if I can. But lockpicking and other skills help alot when lvling.

[Grifman]

Ok, thanks, that helps alot, knowing that I can probably at least reach level 27. But what do you mean "entering the highway"? I am confused by that.

[red255]

I don't know about that, but the game gives you flat CON per level, so like at a certain level you become durable enough to limit game challenge.

some guy in another topic talked about using animal husbandry to capture animals then kill them since get higher level after you capture then so they yield more XP.

[Grifman]

Originally posted by red255:

I don't know about that, but the game gives you flat CON per level, so like at a certain level you become durable enough to limit game challenge.

some guy in another topic talked about using animal husbandry to capture animals then kill them since get higher level after you capture then so they yield more XP.

Not really, health/armor don't really scale with the damage that is done.

As for killing pets, there's no way that is going to help given the huge increases in the level requirements above level 25 or so.

[Gray]

Originally posted by Grifman:

Ok, thanks, that helps alot, knowing that I can probably at least reach level 27. But what do you mean "entering the highway"? I am confused by that.

I meant the speedway my bad. Location at endgame afaik.

[Grifman]

Originally posted by Gray:

Originally posted by Grifman:

Ok, thanks, that helps alot, knowing that I can probably at least reach level 27. But what do you mean "entering the highway"? I am confused by that.

I meant the speedway my bad. Location at endgame afaik.

Thanks, so it looks like 27 is probably the limit. Did you play the DLC also?

[Icedfate]

when i talked about the "trick" about pets and using animals skill to tame them and then release them and kill them, i only mentioned it as a fun little quirk, not as a way to powerlevel.
animals normally only give 10 xp when you kill them, but if your characters are in the mid 20's and you have high skill in animals and you tame the animal and then release it, you can get somewheres between 75-90 xp for a kill.
yeah, you need thousands to level up and as i said that it's not really gonna make that much of a difference, but it adds up. sometimes you can see like 3 or 4 critters bunched together and if you take the time to tame and release, that"# almost 400 xp there. it all counts up.

i just beat the game on ranger difficulty and my whole team was level 26-27. the 27's were the high charismas and the 26's were the lows.
i didn't go out of my way to grind xp, but i did try to fight at every combat opportunity. i didn't "avoid" the random encounters on the map with survival skill.
i also tried to maximize the xp gains from using skills like lockpicking and mechanics. if there was a door that could be opened with a key, i tried to pick it before picking up the key, or if i already had the key, i'd drop it.
if there was a door that could be picked but also had a computer next to it that i could hack, i pick the door first, then hack the computer.

i also didn't touch either of the DLC(yet).
now, as for reaching level 30, i don't know how doable that would be. if i go do the dlc, will i be able to earn that much xp?
the soft cap does ask you to kinda plan out your builds, but it is possible to max out 3 skills on each character by level 22-23 if you save your skill books for that last level.
if you create a 7th custom character and leave them at home, you that make that max out barter, armor and weapons, leaving 13 other non combat skills for the main party. each character can definitely max out 1 weapon and 2 noncombat skills. you will need to make someone with high intelligence and probably poindexter so they can max 4 skills and that covers every skill in the game, the only hard part is deciding who does what skill.

i had a "skill monkey" with max int, max cha, and poindexter and that one had maxed out nerd stuff, level 9 on both hardass and engineer(with equipment to boost them to 10 if needed), level 9 automatic weapons (using the fire linkage smg i read so much about.), had level 8 weird science(to boost fire damage), and level 6 combat shooting on just that one character, at level 27

at level 27 my sniper had sneak 10, explosive 10, sniper 10, armor modding 9 (with 3 skill points saving up for level 28 i would have maxed armor modding and took the capstone perk, but then i just beat the game. i also would have maxed out armor modding if i had given my sniper the skill boom instead of giving the skill book to my mule at home who would have maxed out all the crafting skills eitehr way)

most of my chars had extra skill points left over, so my melee guy ended up with maxed lockpicking, maxed melee, maxed weird science and 7 on animal whisperer.
the extras left over points i mostly put on animal whisperer for everyone at least up to level 5, or explosives or weird science to increase damage output with those wepaon types.

as for health and armor, maybe it helps more on lower difficulty.
my melee character had the best armor, wearing the exoskeleton, had 51 armor maxed strength and speed. 595 con, 68% evasion, 90% fire 90% cold 60 60 energy and explosive resistances and

and in the end game, she could survive 2 attacks. . if she dodged, she would take no damage but if not, she loses half her hp in a single attack.
everyone else would basically just get 1 shotted by everything.
mainly that they all had 4 strenght and between 190-299 hp they all go down in a single attack.

oh yeah, my big guns person (i was using jodie for this) also has max strength and i put the
chitin armor on her and she has 63 armor and 580 hp but no evasion and she goes down in 2 hits.

so i had 2 tanks and 4 squishies on my team.

basically though, i was pretty much ending every fight before the enemies could get to me, as long as i initiate the fight and get the first turn i could take out all but a couple of the enemies usually because there's always like 2 enemies really far away and then the ones furthest away they waste actions closing the distance and then all my pets charged in and killed them

[Grifman]

I couldn't play putting barter and weapon/armor modding on characters you don't carry out into the world. That means when you find a new weapon mod or weapon, you have to wait to return to base to use it. And barter is even worse, you have to go back and bring them to the vendor to buy stuff, and that won't work for the roving vendor(s). I understand why people do this but it's too much of a hassle for me