Missing contacts/arcs

Hey guys, I just bought the game and I'm rushing here to ask this question while the game updates, because I've been lurking on the forums and what I've read has been kind of alarming.

I'm a completionist, and I really like to immerse myself in the game. I'm also very much a solo player. I'll group, but I spend most of my time on my own. That said, I've read that you can miss out on a great deal of the content in the game by outlevelling it. This is startling for me.. I don't care about rewards, I just want to see and do everything. Is this true?

Yes and no. If you play through content (especially on teams) you will generally out-level it before you complete every mission offered in a particular level range.

However, there are ways around this. One option is to turn of gaining XP every so often (it's in options somewhere). Content in the game is (mostly) broken into groups of 5 levels (i.e. 1-4, 5-9, 10-14 etc.) turning off XP when you're at the top of each level range will potentially allow you to run through every possible mission in that range (for convenience I recommend turning it off when you've gained 90% of the XP needed to hit the next level bracket simply to reduce the amount of time you'll need to spend running radio missions after finishing the real missions).

The other option is to use Flashbacks. Once you get to level 24 you can gain access to Ourborus which will allow you to go "back in time" and redo missions that you missed the first time around, reducing your effective level to the range suitable for the mission. However, this doesn't allow you to access all missions in the game. It allows you to run all Story Arcs and all Badge missions (except for Safeguard/Mayhem missions) but doesn't allow you to access all of the stand-alone missions contacts have.

The third option is to level up one character and then when he's done start a new character and run different contacts. That way you can run all the contacts and experience a wider selection of powers.

Now personally I'd recommend the second option, level up by doing missions and when you get to higher levels use Ourborus to go back and do the story arcs that you missed. You don't see all of the standalone missions but honestly it's not a huge loss. The majority of them are just fill in the blank style missions so you aren't really missing anything plot-wise.