Samuel_Tow

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Doesn't it just make more sense to key in some macros..? It's simple enough to change costumes, unless you're using the menu...

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That's pretty much the answer. In terms of utility, costumes can already be swapped around like Halloween costume toggles, except they can't be "turned off." Put a bunch of macros for /cc 0 to /cc 4 and use then.

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I don't think this is a bad idea. Statesman's idiotic reason for making you wait until 14 in the first place never made sense. However, it would basically eliminate many of the advantages of characters like Kheldian and Kinetics (which get an in set travel power). It would also lessen the value of rewards like the Mayhem/Safeguard temps.

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From a carrot-on-a-stick standpoint, I can see his reasoning. Unfortunately, I never agreed with the guy on most of the stupid limitations he felt obligated to impose, and this is one of them. ESPECIALLY in this medium of super heroes, for whom a super way to travel is often the FIRST manifestation of their power, it just makes sense to start out with one. I'm not averse to BETTER versions of it becoming open later, but it just seems silly that every hero starts out jogging all over the place when some heroes' whole shtick used to be that they could fly.

Legacy mechanics make this next to impossible, but I still support it regardless.

Back to topic:

The reasons why Vehicles (that's what you want to search for) are not and probably will never be part of the game are many, but a few stand out.

One is animations. How do you, say, use Golden Dragonfly while riding a vehicle? Either you need some fancy new animation, which can run up to hundreds if we look at how many we have in total, or some kind of limitation and "dismounting." For a bike that could possibly work, but if a system for bikes is implemented, it would have to cover more than just simple bikes.

Movement is another. Character can turn in place, run sideways, jump and cling to ledges, all without needing to pitch. Note how even when going up a steep slope, your character remains vertical. That's OK for something with as small a footprint as a humanoid, but for a larger bike, it would need to tilt, which the engine cannot do. And that's before we consider strafing, jumping and riding through water.

Terrain is another still. Not only is it not feasible to take bikes over all the places we can go on foot (like, say, up fire escapes) but a bike is larger than a humanoid and should theoretically not fit in many places. Indoor environments tend to be a good example, especially caves and Oranbega, but there are simpler examples, too, like the many tight-quarters, trash-filled back alleys where even people on foot tend to get stuck a lot.

There's also mounting and dismounting. While a WoW-borrowed "pops into existence under your butt" mechanic wouldn't be too far-fetched, it would be horribly ugly. The developers have a history of not green-lighting things unless they have at least some level of refinement in them, wings and custom weapons being good examples of that.

It's a cool idea and heavens knows it's been suggested probably over a hundred times, but it's been shot down by the developers themselves in the past.

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Apparently whenever I post I am looking to be insulted according to these dudes. They should know that if I were looking to be insulted i'd say..."This game sucks and anyone that plays it is probably a cootie head."

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To avoid repeating myself, your inability to let inane comments drop off the thread is what's making them recur. My mother always said that the worst thing you can do to someone trying to get a rise out of you is to ignore them. And you know... She was right. People aren't going to hound you if you keep on topic and simply not address non-constructive, belligerent posts. They'll have nothing to hound you for.

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If you come to the forums looking to be insulted, you will be insulted

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And who exactly are YOU to determine whether or not someone *needs* insulting, "Mr. All-knowing SUBJECTIVE Opinion?"

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I should have phrased that differently. If you come here looking to be insulted, you will find something to be insulted by, even when one isn't actually present. I meant to say that people who look to be insulted will take offence at exceedingly small things, not that there will be people to insult them because they deserve it.

And it's true. Whenever someone comes to the forums ready to proclaim they suck and everyone is mean, their self-fulfilling prophecy fulfils itself. They post, someone responds with something genuinely stupid, they take offence and bite back, more people join in, and before you know it, you're stuck in a shitstorm without an umbrella. I don't even have to read a thread to know what's going to happen, I've seen it just that many times.

The moral of the story is to ignore people who say stupid things (either forum ignore or just don't read their posts) and just keep on topic. Of the many threads I've seen where people try to do that, I've only seen a handful fail, and the people responsible for most of those have been banned long ago.

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Fitness. I actually suggest Hurdle, Health, Stamina, which is what I have on my Tanker, Power Cat (along with CJ which Xanta already has). It feels very SOLID to not run too fast, but have those extremely powerful jumps. And Health and Stamina are very appropriate for her, too.

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You know, when I go out of my way to not name "her," it really does count as a spoiler when you do

Still, though, I'm not sure I agree I like her moving slowly. Yes, she's big and heavy, but I really don't think any female character in this game can be big or heavy enough to merit a booming stomp. I reserve the "super heavyweight" category for people like Tyler or Zik for whom direct application of blunt force trauma is the preferred weapon. I like to think of Xanta as someone who combines extreme strength with a good degree of mobility to differentiate her from the more simple-minded, crude Trolls. Well, in more ways than just gender.

Still, though, Fitness it is

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Or go with Leadership. Yeah, another toggle, I know... but more of the "harder to hit" and "hits harder" fits, too, doesn't it?

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Just leave the toggles off when you get tired or are solo. It's easy enough to justify them as inspiring and being inspired by your teammates when on good teams, and when you get tired it's hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm.

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I'm afraid the very concept of inspiring or being inspired doesn't apply to this one. She isn't exactly a "hulk smash" type of berserker, but she's still more of a ruthless, brutal warrior than an inspiration. Kind of like an Orc in a more classical MMO. Amusingly, she started life as an orc in Lineage 2 But just as an orc would be more about flipping out and killing stuff than inspiring allies, so she is usually the big woman with the sword who takes rockets to the face as a matter of course. Just don't think it can work.

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And besides. If she's been dragging around a big honking sword for 40 levels, she's probably pretty fit.

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... honestly, other than ceremonial swords, most swords really aren't that heavy. And they're balanced to make use much easier, typically with the balance point at the hilt. Claymores, I see a weight (doing some quick searches) of about 5 lb. Broadswords, 2-4 lb. One link.
Now, USING it... that I can see. >.<

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Well, unless you're super-strong and deliberately use an intentionally over-heavy sword. I mean geez! Plus, Broadsword attacks all look like they have a couple of tons behind them. The first thing I noticed when I returned to this character was that the way she swings that huge thing around is VERY impressive. I know it's identical to Axe and Mace, but the sword just has so much more apparent mass that it feels like she's swinging around a railroad track

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Edited to agree with the Geko. Fitness fits the concept very well. See, I told you I'd take Stamina when it fit

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well, like others i'll say fighting or fitness for mechanics, but definitely presence for fun!!
you ever tried the presence pool? it's sweet. people will tell you the taunt is meh, it's to short of a duration, the fears aren't high mag yadda yadda yadda..........
whatever! it's so much fun screaming at baddies that i giggle every time, it is pure win from a thematic standpoint.

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Yeah, I'm going to miss the yell of awesome I have used Presence on a Brute, so I know what it does, and it really is a lot of fun, but it just doesn't really fit the concept. I already have a roar in Unstoppable, and that ought to be good enough. Plus, she's kind of cute, even though she's as big as a house

Presence I had not even considered, and it's not a bad idea, actually. However, I tend to be very selective of who I give Presence to, as in I tend to see it as something more than just plain being scary. You may be scary, but brave people and mindless monsters would still not be moved. Something like a really horrible monster or a cosmic terror, however, is going to instil fear on a whole other level. I have it planned, for instance, for my creepy little psychic girl who's not just plain scary, she's nightmare-inducing for a variety of REALLY messed-up reasons.

So with Presence out of the question and Fighting debunked, I guess Fitness is all I'm left with. Since that will be redundant with Conserve Power, I guess I'll just respec out of it. I never liked it, anyway. Never found a good, consistent use for it. So I guess I'm making a chunky a woman. Why not?

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After Power leveling, I tend to play the game. I don't know what prohibts yall?
I can PL to 50 and then exempt down with my wikkid kool purple sets and play 1 to 50

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Surprisingly, losing powers I had sucks MORE than not having the powers to begin with.

Please forgive the badly-formed question and let me explain. I have a character, a Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper, whose story depicts her as a female of the Trolls, but born, rather than transformed by Superadine. Yes, I'm aware that, like Dwarves, Trolls don't appear to HAVE women to "come up" with a child, but that's easily handwaved in that we just don't know about any. This characters' entire shtick can be summed up as "super strength and sword" at least when it comes to modus operandi, which is easily emulated by Invulnerability and Broadsword. However... I've run out of powers from those sets.

Currently at 41 and sporting Conserve Energy, this Troll Girl is in need of three (or possibly even four) extra powers before she hits 50. And I don't know what to take. So, I'm bringing this question to you - if you were a super-strong, muscular 7-foot tall green woman with a 5-foot-long giant sword, what power would YOU like to have?

I'm currently looking over several options. One, the obvious, is simply taking Fighting and grabbing powers from there. After all, she's supposed to be tough, so taking Tough seems like the obvious choice. I'd need to take either Boxing or Kick, but that's not out of character either, as she's supposed to be super strong. But... Mechanically, I hate this idea. Tough means another toggle, and not a cheap one at that, and while I love the idea of LITERALLY kicking [censored], that would put my giant sword away, which is... Well, impractical, but more than that just plain weird on a character who doesn't put her sword away even when she's walking through town (I like the sword running animation). Plus, the "toughness" is already well-described by Invulnerability through things like, oh... Temporary Invulnerability, Resist Physical Damage, Unyielding, UNSTOPPABLE! Does it really need more? And especially to Smashing and Lethal damage?

The other option is going Epic and picking up Body Mastery. An obvious choice as... She has a very strong body, except... Well, shooting laser beams out of your eyes and energy out of your hands aren't exactly things that naturally follow from being strong. In the slightest. What's more, even Focused Accuracy isn't really justified, as she has no reason to be accurate. She is as close to a Brute as a hero can get, so I don't really see accuracy as an integral perk. Which leaves just Conserve Power, which I have, and... What else?

The final option is Fitness, and I say final because I don't have it or feel it is necessary. I wouldn't have run out of Broadsword and Invulnerability powers otherwise. Fitness, however, is a good choice in this case, because it demonstrates the other side of super-strong invulnerability - the strength to keep on going and maintain this level of physical toughness. Swift and Hurdle would be marginally difficult to explain - a character this big would naturally move faster with a larger stride, and she already has Combat Jumping. Health is beyond easy - she's a Troll! Stamina... Well, that should go without saying. That is, however, four powers to three slots left empty. I guess I COULD just respec out of Conserve Power and grab Swift, Hurdle, Health and Stamina and end up with a Broadsword/Invulnerability/Fitness Scrapper, but... Well, actually, I'm not seeing too many downsides to this. The easy one to spot is that it leads to a bland character, to a point. Where others can throw shurkens or summon squealing tentacles, she can... Run a little faster and... Jump a little higher and... Go a little further. Good meta-game bonuses, absolutely agreed but... Not very interesting conceptually.

And that's pretty much all I can see. All the other stuff doesn't really fit or forward the given concept. So, what would YOU pick?

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Ok, let's take this ball and run with it. What build is "highly functional" without Stamina? On what AT? And don't say regen; tell us something new. After all, the canon argument is that no one needs Stamina; one of the real thigh-slappers I remember was that people who picked up Fitness are "greedy."

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That depends entirely on what you perceive to be a "highly functional build." I tend to view "highly functional" as something which functions exceedingly well under normal circumstances, which is even con enemies, using all powers provided to you (including Rest) and moving at a good pace. I'm not sure why that is, but it seems that many people perceive normal circumstances to be constant running, non-stop attacks, fighting enemies as high level as possible and never having to worry about health or energy to any significant extent.

The former is exceptionally easy to attain - slot powers for endurance reduction, especially those which cost little but recharge VERY quickly and double-slot those the cost of which approach a fifth of your endurance bar. Carry blues, rest, pick your attacks, slow down. It's not just doable, it's very easy, but it's just not enough for some people. I happen to believe that if you want exceptional performance, you pay the price, and part of that price is Stamina. It's unpleasant, but it comes with the territory.

As for what you can make that doesn't need Stamina, I'd say anything with a damage focus. This means Scrappers (including Scrappers OTHER than Regenration and Willpower), Blasters, Brutes, Masterminds, Stalkers and, from the looks of it, Dominators some day soon. Scrappers and Brutes tend to be easy because you can afford to slow down, Blasters tend to be fairly simple because you can kill really, really quickly, and Masterminds because they're just plain overpowered. Oh, and Stalkers, because they, again, can kill pretty quickly AND can slow down as necessary.

I could share builds if you're interested. Of the five 50s I have right now only a Stone/Stone Brute has Stamina, and this was given to him long after he reached 50 for lack of a Stone-based Patron pool. The others, an Energy/Energy Brute, Ar/Dev/Munitions Blaster, Energy/Energy/Force Blaster and Katana/SR Scrapper, all do without, with the Scrapper running Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, Evasion, Combat Jumping and Focused Accuracy, all without Stamina and, for the most part, even without Conserve Power, which is done more often than it's up.

It's easily doable. It's all a question of what you actually want to do.

I would like to start by saying that this is an EXTREMELY minor bug, but its nevertheless pretty evident, because it's displayed all the time. Here's what it is:

A female character with a right-handed weapon out and movement speed buffs active will take her first couple of steps when she starts running slower than she should. This occurs EVERY time she starts running and is 100% reproducable. It's minor and occurs rarely, but is very evident when your character just happens to have those two conditions active constantly. The running speed itself does not slow, but the speed at which the model takes steps does, causing her to appear to "slide" along the ground as her run speed does not match her movement speed.

Context:

The character I have mostly observed this on is an as-of-this-post level 41 Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper, female and very tall. I don't have a slider location, but her height in her costume file is 21 out of 25 (-25 being the shortest and +25 being the tallest with 0 being "middle"), so call it four 9/10ths of the way to the right. Her current weapon of choice is the Legacy Broadsword, but this has manifested identically with the Rularuu Sword as well, so it appears to be weapon-model-independent. Others female weapon users of mine have also demonstrated this, but this one is so tall her slow running animation is more eye-catching. My movement speed buff of choice is plain old Sprint.

Further details:

To be precise, what appears to happen is that the character will initiate her running animation with the speed with which it would play if she didn't have any movement speed buffs, which is slower, so she takes the first couple of steps slower than she should. Furthermore, "the first couple of steps" is actually one full cycle of running animation - left leg to right leg to loop back. One loop is slow, and then the next loop called is normal speed, which remains true until I stop running, at which point running again shows the first cycle slowed down.

It's a minor bug, but it is quite evident, and it gives an interesting insight into how the system handles movement and perhaps part of the reason why we don't have walking - movement speed to movement animation speed synchronisation does not appear to be a simple matter.

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Fixed the stupid title.

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To put it in those terms while I can appreciate chaotic villains most of mine end up being the Lawful Evil/Neutral variety such as assassins or evil scientists.

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I've always maintained that "evil" (as well as "heroism") isn't really about what a person DOES, but rather about who a person IS. A person can spend the majority of their time petting kittens and kissing babies and lobbying for world peace, yet still be a blackheart monster on the inside who turns everything he touches rotten below the surface. I mean, hell! I've only seen a few instances of him, and I still know that Lex Luthor doesn't go around beating people up and saying mean things that make children cry

So, I agree with the quote in general terms - I don't want only Chaotic Evil characters to be the true villains because they DO the most evil. I want Neutral Evil and even Lawful Evil to be just as bad. A system to accommodate this would have to track not just the final results of an action, but the kind of person that is required to initiate it. And that could be hard.

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Here we go with the unintelligent insults. Your very first reply to this thread is an insult...Thank You for proving my point.

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If you come to the forums looking to be insulted, you will be insulted, most often inadvertently by people who didn't have that in mind at all. If you take the stance that everyone is mean and nasty and nothing ever gets done, you're going to aggravate people with otherwise noble intentions and not win yourself any friends. It's what's known as a self-fulfilling prophecy - accuse the community of enough wrongdoing and even people who weren't even going to post will come down on you. And they would be right to.

One has to remember that, on an online forum, a big ego is nothing more than one giant Achilles' heel. If you blow up every time something irks you or somebody rubs you the wrong way, you'll never get anything constructive accomplished. Post what you feel, stay constructive, ignore those who insult you and make use of the "Report" button.

No-one can hurt you over the 'net (and few and nuts enough to come hunt you in person), so there's really no reason to get into drawn-out fights. The worst thing that can happen is for you to drown your own thread in endless squabbles and derail to unrecoverably, and that would be your own fault. The worst other people can do is drop a snarky one-liner and move on, which should, in theory at least, make no difference to anyone whatsoever.

It always bugs me when people start complaining about how nasty the forums have always been (even if they HAVE been nasty as of late) when, for the most part, it's the result of THEM getting into fights. Here no-one can touch you or confront you unless you get into a fight, and what few tools there ARE to harass you are all petitionable.

I hardly see the "moral compass" mechanic as something unique to BioWare, as Karma mechanics of various types have existed for years and years and years. While I don't remember if it had an exact numeric measurement, the original Fallout had a very strong dependence on "reputation" with the various cities.

That said, one would hope that whatever Karma mechanic NCNC... Paragon Studios pick, it won't be as... Petty as most of these have been. Most of the time these systems allow a good guy to be good in a generally consistent manner: have principles, do good, don't give into evil. Evil characters, however, aren't so much evil as schizophrenic or compulsive or, more commonly, just plain idiots. Evil on your typical Karma meter is achieved by being a jerk as often as possible, assuming that a character who says mean things and kicks puppies a thousand times is as bad as someone who, say, imposes genocide on an entire species. Evil tends to mean more "jerk" than... Well, "evil."

One can hope that whatever Karma mechanic they come up with will put as much value on ideological good and evil as it will on common acts of benevolence or cruelty, and would also differentiate between malice and evil vision.

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The more self-righteousness preaching I hear in these discussions, the more I want to powerlevel. Its having the opposite effect of the intended.

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Not everyone is as contrary, though.

On topic, I've always held an opinion that people can do whatever they damn please, as long as they don't make a big mess out of it. We've seen hideous exploits, (beneficially) broken mechanics and stupid design decisions stay in the game for years when only a handful of people bother with them. Endemic problems tend to linger, because they don't actually bother much of anyone. When it becomes epidemic, however, and we've all seen what that looks like, things tend to happen. "Should" new players powerlevel? From a purely practical standpoint, no, because it runs the risk of turning into a problem, which is bad both for the people who powerlevel as their roads are closed and bad for those who don't as their game is negatively altered, to say nothing of the flamewars that no-one benefits from.

From a philosophical standpoint, my answer remains no. The reason here is rather simple - starting a game at the "end" misses the point of what a game actually is. I'm not one to preach to veterans who've been to 50 multiple times. They know enough to pick and choose where to start and end. But a new player is literally missing the entire game doing so, and this is bad not just in the physical amount of content skipped, but in striding over what I find is a very important step in getting into a game long-term - getting familiar and "into" the game itself.

It's somewhat easy to refer to some people who are "into" a game as opposed to those who are not. Not having delved into a game, it is often very hard to care about the game. That's part of why so many good single-player games fall into a black pit. "OK, I'm done. What else can I play?" Getting through the game once, or at least getting sufficiently far into it, is something I find is integral to truly appreciating a game. Obviously not everyone is going to want to get into every game they play, but we shouldn't really encourage new people to skip.

To me, it's kind of like renting a good, complicated movie with interesting plot and great characters because you heard there was a cool shootout at around 90 minutes in. Sure, if that's all you care about, go ahead, but I'd say it's missing the point. If you've watched the movie and that one scene is all you care about, then by all means, indulge. But not having seen the movie at all is, in my opinion, a loss.

I'm certainly not going to bible-beat a new player for wanting to powerlevel (even if I refuse to help), but I still feel it's a bad idea, and an especially bad way to start a game.

I thought about it, but no, probably not. Over the past five years, I've gotten VERY good at keeping my villains ideologically evil to the point where, even when they are sympathetic, they are never in danger of "turning." Even if a self-professed world ruler may end up helping the heroes out of the goodness of his heart, that still doesn't mean he'll stop trying to rule the world because power is all people understand and whatever heroes achieve will not last anyway, to strike a nameless example.

I might run the risk taking some of my villains close to the middle, however, depending on how Always Chaotic Evil the game will expect villains to be. I hope whatever system we get is a little more classy than portraying evil people chronic jerkasses who say and do mean things for no reason at all, and that characters can have class AND still be evil at the same time.

I'm surprised I'm so excited, given that we know virtually nothing about this expansion, aside from side-switching and possibly plain old opening all ATs to both (all three?) sides. One can probably infer more (at least five more) regular ATs, which would mean at least ONE of my long-standing suggestions has a chance of making it through. And most likely handguns for SOMEONE.

I'm very excited, however, because I'm seeing an expansion pack and I'm seeing the game and the company move forward. That's always, always good news. I'm also VERY happy to see game shift focus away from Lord Recluse for five minutes. Yes, I know we're switching from one alternate Statesman to another one, but I always found Tyrant to be a much more interesting villain, anyway. The "I live in garbage and dress in black" caricature that was Recluse has always felt forced, and a nice, clean dictatorship would be a cool change of pace.

Overall, I can't wait. I'm not sure I can deal with pre-orders, as I would have to order cross-continent, but I'm hoping there will be a digital purchase somewhere along the line. I'm excited, and that's something which surprises me

Modified summons is a must, but I'm not sure assault would be very wise without some kind of added protection or at least higher hit points. The catch 22 is that, an AT with henchmen effectively has a larger pool of hit points, so the character himself needs to have less. Forcing such a character in melee could be... Dangerous without protection.

This isn't really a complete idea, though. It just seems like an interesting take on what a hero with many allies behind him would be like. A villain would stay back and support, but wouldn't a hero go out and lead? It's a question of balance after that.

Unless we're opening up all ATs for both sides (a move I would support wholeheartedly), I don't think one-AT trades are a very good idea. Still, if a trade had to be made, I'd ask for Blasters to be transferred over to villain-side. Villains lack good, consistent, out-the-door damage over a wider area. Very, very much so. Yes, Stalkers kind of make that up, they their output is closer to that of Scrappers. The sheer destruction that... Oh, Aim + Build Up + Fireball + Fire Breath + Rain of Fire can bring forth is just out of any villain's league. And yes, Corruptors have Blaster sets, but they have just slightly above Defender damage with them.

That said, I don't think an AT trade is the best that can be done. Personally, if heroes were to be given a summon-centric AT, I'd call that the Commander and flip a few things around. For instance, Masterminds are evil, so their primary power is the help of others and their secondary power is staying back and supporting. Well, Commanders would be good, so their primary power would be leading by example, so I'd give them either a fully ranged primary, a mix of melee and defence primary, or a control primary. Summons, for them, would be only a secondary, with powers coming significantly later. So, while a Mastermind makes a career of hiding behind his followers, the Commander would make a career of leading from the front lines. Balance is obviously and issue, but I'd like to see the focus put on the Commanders' own powers, rather than on the powers of his allies.

However, I'm not up to the task of thinking up a brand new AT to offer as trade at this time, so let's leave what villains get in return as undecided.

A cap on "how fast" would be difficult to put even with an overall estimate of how long one "should" take from 1 to 50. 4/5, a good 80% of the total experience a character will gain for its entire career, is found in the 40-50 range. Levelling speed, too, varies wildly, with level 1-2 often taking just 10-15 minutes (if you skip the tutorial) while level 49-50 could easily run into 10-20 hours if you're not very efficient, and more if you're a solo support AT. Any system that tries to enforce a "time per level" metric is bound to fail. Even if it designated a different amount of time, it still only succeeds in crimping levelling, not controlling it, and even then it crimps it only at level-up.

I suspect a better system would be one correlates experience earned with time played, and I've found that a simple quadratic function does this reasonably well. If we want to have "normal" levelling from 1 to 50 take 50 hours and base numbers off that, I'd put it as something like:

expected_time = 50*(current_experience/experience_to_50)^2

At zero experience, the expected time would obviously be zero. At, say, 23,400 experience, or enough to level up to 20, the time expected would be 2.98, call it 3 hours. It sounds more than just fair. Presumably, if you took less than three hours to 23,400 experience, the game would cut off experience gains until you "made up the time." However, as anyone can tell at a cursory glance, this is a stupid system, because an experience-capped character is forced to essentially wait around and do nothing, meaning people can just let the character stay logged into a mission and go to work.

I spent some time thinking up a system of "diminishing returns," just a fun mental exercise the other day, however, that could solve at least part of the problem. This system would assume an "average" time to level 50, which I'd say is around 150 hours, and a "minimum" time to level 50, which I'd put at 50 hours. As long as the time played stays above the average, nothing happens, but when the time played begins exceed the average, then the closer it comes to the minimum time, the greater the diminishing of the experience gained. A flat increase would be silly, however, as it would punish too much for too little, so again a quadratic function might serve the purpose. Essentially, it would diminish next to nothing for the most part, but would increase rapidly the closer people got to the absolute minimum.

Unfortunately, the whole idea is far too unworkable and impossible for me to bother to formulate actual equations and draw up graphs. It can be balanced and adjusted, even on a very gentle sliding scale, but the point remains that an experience cap is not something I can ever imagine in this game. If anything comes of it, then maybe I'll hit the books and come up with something more useful.

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What would the cap be? How hard would it be to reach it? Could a fire/kin doing Battle Maiden reach the cap? What about teams doing speed runs on the ITF? More details please.

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Well, one could presume the developers have some idea of how long 1-50 "should" take. Jack said in one interview that when they made the original game, they "planned" for it to take around 200 hours, and when they made 40-50, they planned for it to take about as long. That would give you around 8 hours per level, which is a lot because levelling has been made faster and that was said to be a lowball estimate.

Most people used to say they got their 50s in 150-200 hours, however, so let's put 150 that as the estimate. That would give us 3 hours per level. Of course, levels don't all take the same time, as levelling from 1 to 2 can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes, for instance. So that would mean we'd need to come up with a function that defines how much of that time frame each level would take. I wouldn't want to hazard a guess, as I don't have my maths cap on tonight.

Once we have that, we have a certain outside speed of levelling, X experience points per hour, or even per minute or second. It doesn't matter for the moment. Once you go above that, your speed incurs you a decrease in gains. A proportional decrease would be the simplest, but I'd personally pick a quadratic decrease with a very smooth curve. That would be very low in the beginning, but scale sharply as you approached whatever upper limit there was at which point gains would drop to zero.

To make this work, coding aside, all we'd really need is a estimate on how long it "should" take from 1 to 50, a function of distribution and starting and ending caps on where we want to bound the decrease. It's not complicated to calculate, may or may not be complicated to code, but will probably piss off just about everybody on principle alone.

It'll be a lot of fun if they institute a diminishing returns system for experience where, if you exceed a certain threshold, you begin to earn reduced gains. I am neither sarcastic nor joking.