AE Question

I have just come back after a very long vacation and I was wondering about the AE missions. When I complete one I dont get a completion bonus like you do in regular missions. Am I doing something wrong or do you not get the bonus in AE missions?

So I would think if I'm needing to level I would need to do the regular missions?

It is possible to build an AE mission that completes in less than 30 seconds- probably under 10. For some reason they thought completion bonuses were a bad idea.

Another thing that's probably new to you: patrol XP. While you're logged off your characters are burning debt and accumulating patrol XP- up to a level worth- that gets added onto regular XP. (I think World of Competition has a similar thing- "Being Rested" maybe?) You get a 50% bonus to XP from your patrol XP, which you also do not get in AE missions.

On the other hand, people made myriads* of farms and exploit missions in the AE, and some of those loopholes have not been closed [last I saw] so if you really want to farm your way to Hero of the City you can do it.

AE missions are extremely variable in difficulty, in reward and in storytelling skill. You can avoid some of those because they have descriptions like "Beat up the druk bimbo lol" but it's very easy for someone to make up a mission and not realize that players will have eight to ten Web Grenades on them at all times, to give a personal peeve. Or that their Elite Boss based on their favorite character is a 1-shotting maniac.

There is a whole forum full of people reviewing story arcs, so you CAN find stuff that's not horrible- some of it is better than most of the Dev-built content- but it's not casual to find, and it may be significantly harder than what you're used to.

* in the technical sense; 1 myriad = 10,000

Thank you guys just one quick question. To level when I cant find a group should I do AE missions or regular missions (radio and quest)?

That's up to you. I hardly ever do AE stuff for rewards, just for the quality stories.

Welcome home, AllStar

I do a mix, enough radios/papers to do the safeguard.mayhems and get the badges, some story arcs, a bit of AE to get me some tickets or when I cant be shagged sorting & selling, or if I cant face the same ol' contact arc again.

If you are using AE for content then you are going to slow your leveling speed.

Well written stories that are dialog heavy are going to take longer to run than paper/radio missions.

Just actually reading the intro's and dialog in a good AE arc is going cut into your xp/min.

Then you have to take a look at the time that you spent earning 0 xp either looking for a good arc or playing a bad arc and deciding it is time to go back and look for better content.

So Radio/Paper missions are going to probably be better for leveling when you cant find a group to run with.

All that being said the AE has a ton of great content that is worth slowing down and playing if you have the time. AE also have a lot of junk that no one should be subjected to ever. Luckily for all of us the folks in the AE forum have been pointing out the diamonds in the rough. Take a peak in there sometime and see if anything catches your interest