How does experience and leveling work?

[Your_Humble_Dissenter]

While I am aware things give you less experience as you level up, I am curious if you also get a proportional amount of bonus experience from going to later game areas early and fighting the stronger enemies there. The reason this is bothering me is I would like to explore some of the later areas early to get stuff but I am afraid I will end up loosing out on experience and become under leveled in the long run.

[Randomizer]

You can get more experience for going into what Jeff considered harder area, but most also have harder to hit creations. It tends to balance out with some areas giving little to no experience and others giving lots.

 

The biggest thing you can do is avoid getting experience from reading a Codex or using a creation canister for the first time if you aren't planning to make that creation since they always give each 25 XP. They can add up to about 500 XP that you can use at the end.

[alhoon]

On a similar vein: Does a level (at normal difficulty) towards the end matters significantly for a Shaper?
For example, as a Shaper in GF5, I saw no serious change in my power with the last 2-3 levels or so. It was all about the creations. However in this game the Shaper's level is important for control of creations and it's level is basically two levels because of the skill points. 

[Randomizer]

A level depends on where you assign skill points. Increasing a shaping skill to give a level to the creations or increasing essence mastery to have more or higher tier creations may make a difference.

[Your_Humble_Dissenter]

16 hours ago, Randomizer said:

You can get more experience for going into what Jeff considered harder area, but most also have harder to hit creations. It tends to balance out with some areas giving little to no experience and others giving lots.

 

The biggest thing you can do is avoid getting experience from reading a Codex or using a creation canister for the first time if you aren't planning to make that creation since they always give each 25 XP. They can add up to about 500 XP that you can use at the end.

So I can go to harder areas without having to worry about getting less XP overall? Cool.

[Mechalibur]

I actually took notes on how much xp you get from monsters based on the level difference. Didn't think they'd be useful, but glad I did now:

 

0 - 20xp
-1 - 14xp
-2 - 10xp
-3 - 4xp
-4 - 2xp
-5 - 1xp
-6 - 0xp
+1 - 22xp
+2 - 24xp
+3 - 26xp
+4 - 28xp
+5 - 30xp

 

The penalty for being a higher level is much harsher than the bonus for being a lower level, so for pure xp optimization, it's probably best to keep killing these around your level and avoid enemies that are too high of a level.

 

I believe locks and quest rewards use a similar system/scaling.

[kuo]

@Randomizer Digging this back up, I saw your thread where you got level 21.

 

I'm nearing the end and only have a few xp sources left: the codexes/canisters, The Geneforge, Shaper/Inner Crypt, Spirit City, the Front Gate, and The Great Temple. There might be a few other level 15+ enemies scattered around the map, but not many. What level were you around this point? I am currently level 17 but I don't think this is quite enough to even bring me to 20. Do you think I'm just being pessimistic or I failed to optimize earlier?

 

One notable thing is that I missed out on a bunch of leadership / mechanics but at this point I think I'm too high level to get xp from those.

Edited March 21, 2021 by kuo

[Randomizer]

Using and destroying the Geneforge give almost a level each in experience and bring me from level 18 to 20. The Inner Shaper Crypt is usually about half  level in experience, but the outer is barely anything. Spirit City, the Great Temple, and the Front Gate aren't much at that point.

 

Going back to do the Codexes and canisters gives about 500 experience and was what pushed me to 21 the one time I tried it. Before I was 420 XP hot of level 21 in my best game because I used them when I found them.