We’ve done a pretty significant rebalance to how you earn Pilot XP. Why, you ask? A few months back, when we removed the XP cap that prevented L20 players from gaining more than a flat, arbitrary amount of XP per enemy killed, players started gaining ranks much faster than expected (about 10x faster!) We removed the cap because it was preventing people from benefiting from XP events and XP consumables, which didn’t seem fair, but we didn’t realize at the time how enormous the impact would be. So we looked at the data, updated our models, and rebalanced progression. The result:
- Decreased daily XP bonus events from 2x XP to 1.5x XP
- Changed the equation for calculating pilot ranks. This mostly impacts ranks 90 to 200 (makes them require more XP).
- Reduced the XP awarded by Kai and White Spider; they were strangely out of line relative to all other bosses.
- Changed the following pilot skills:
- Paladin 1A changed to: +51-55% Max Armor, -90% Steam Regen
- Paladin 1B changed to: +26-35% Max Steam, -90% Health Regen
- Engine 1B changed to: When 3+ nearby, +11-15% XP
- Armor 4A changed to: When 2+ nearby, +11-15% XP, +10% Damage Received
- Added a soft cap for enemy XP. It should never exceed 40k now. But unlike the old cap that everyone disliked, this new soft cap will still permit XP boosts from events and consumable bonuses, which could take you over 40k. Quests that explicitly give more than 40k XP will still work properly, too. (Note: there isn’t anything intentionally giving more than 40k XP in the game, so this change is really just there to protect us from accidentally making a mistake in the future. Exploit-prevention!)
Note: our XP equation changes will NOT cause any of you to lose pilot ranks. You will remain where you are. If you’ve already made a lot of progress, it will simply make reaching the next rank take a lot longer, that’s all.
Other changes this week:
Bug fixes:
- Fixed crafting recipes changing your active quest when you put materials into them.
- Fixed getting spammed with crafting recipes (dis)appearing text.
- Fixed display of elemental gun damage numbers when multiple gun mounts are summarized
- Fixed inventory notification popup display of resistence stat modifications
- Fixed inventory notification tier display for consumables
- Fixed a case where item notification poups could overlap when spawned quickly
- Other minor bugfixes we’re too lazy to type up
UI changes:
- Rate limit rally-to-me emote
- Renamed T0-T10 items with misleading names (ie. made you think they were weaker than items below them.)
- Flyups that help new players understand when they are ineffectively attacking shielded or resistant enemies