experience in AE missions

I asked this in the AE forum and I hate reposting things but I fear my original thread was not forward enough.


I found an AE arc that I really liked (LOLBAT it's one of the first ones when you go, I recommend checking it out if you haven't!) and it seemed to give out "standard" xp whereas some only give a %. If I understand correctly the % was a nerf to keep people from farming but if I'm looking for new missions to do how can I tell which ones will give normal xp versus the smaller percentage?

Any clarification on this is appreciated... I had a very negative opinion on AE missions (because of the xp nerf) until last night when my gf and I were playing and decided to check one out and aside from getting normal xp it was so much more intriguing than the standard missions that I've seen in the game IMO. Prior to last night I assumed all AE missions were probably boring and that most were probably an attempt to create a farm.

Edit: In my attempt at a more straightforward question I still rambled for two paragraphs...

TLDR: How can I tell which mobs will give me normal xp in AE?

Any mission with only standard enemies in it (i.e., any one with enemies that you'd find in the 'real' world of CoH) give standard XP. Any custom enemies with a full range of powers will give standard XP. It is only those enemies in the AE where they either have few powers, or do not have all basic ranks of enemies (minion, lieut, and boss) represented that will give reduced XP, AFAIK.

But I'm likely wrong.

the only way to tell if something is giving normal xp is to play the arc.

if you load into a map with a custom group that is ONLY minions or leutenants, or bosses, then automatically the xp will be 25% normal xp, if 2 of those 3 are present then the xp will be 75% of normal.

on a final note, try to see the average xp you get from killing a normal enemy and then compare it because if a custom enemy is less than standard/standard they will not give any xp and if they are standard/standard, they will give 75% of normal, if they are hard/hard or higher they will give normal xp

what im saying is the only way to find out is to play the arc and if its giving less xp, any of those things could be contributing to that.

XP is nerfed if enemy groups do not consist of minions, bosses and lieutenants.

Unfortunately, it is true that some of the Dev's Choices give less than full XP these days. I don't remember which one I tried- I think it was chosen before the XP nerf went in- but we were getting much less than standard XP. 25% sounds plausible.

LOLBAT was done by Scott Kurtz of the webcomic PvPonline.

The nice thing about AE missions, is that if you aren't enjoying it, you can drop it. It doesn't follow the normal mission rules that restrict how often you can drop a mission. You only risk a few minutes before you figure out that you aren't getting appropriate XP.

Unfortunately you get a lot of people who highly rate arcs that they can farm and downrate any arc that they feel isn't giving them enough xp regardless of how good the arc itself is. This results in some pretty terrible farms being ranked highly and some pretty good stories being griefed out of deserved spots. It's an unfortunate but not unexpected consequence of the rating system.

On the flip side, as previously mentioned, you have some people who blindly 5-star everything they play.