Let's Talk About Today's XP Changes and What They Mean For AFKers/Quitters

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

As we noted in this week’s Battleplan, today we’re making some adjustments to how you’ll earn Character XP in Battleborn. There are two changes that will be coming online today, and we’ll go over both right here.

For starters, we’re increasing the base gain rate for Character XP. This rate will have some variance based on how active you are in a given match and how long the match lasts. So, your participation in matches will have a big impact on how much XP you walk away with, win or lose.

We’ve also made a decision to increase the “win bonus” XP amount. This means that when you win a match, you’ll get a bigger chunk of character XP as a bonus. With these two changes, all players will experience a shorter ramp for leveling up their Battleborn, but they’ll level up even faster if players are consistently winning.

Earlier we mentioned that your participation in matches has a big impact on how much XP you earn. Let’s look at an example of that in play: Say you’re in a match and things aren’t going your way from the very beginning; you’re thinking about surrendering early and trying to find a new match. If you surrender early in a match, you and your team will be awarded very little XP (let’s say around 16XP for example) while your opponents will gain much more (let’s say around 66XP). That’s also not including the fact that the game won’t queue you into a new match until the one you left has ended. So by quitting early, you’re not only handing them the match, you’re also handing them a pile of XP that could have been yours and ensuring that it takes you longer to level than if you had just stayed in the game. However, if you stick it out you’ll not only have the chance to turn the tide and win the match (earning the big bonus XP for victory) but you’ll earn a significantly larger pool of XP by participating in a longer match.

Tl;dr: Leaving matches will actually slow your leveling progress, especially after the adjustments today. However, being a good player, sticking through matches and playing each round to completion will allow you to level your Battleborn faster than before.

What do you think of these new changes? We’d love to hear your feedback!

29 Likes
New Surrender Rule is Good, Misses the Point
The failure of this game is all GBX's fault
#2

I like this. I like this very much.

I’m pretty sure a lot of people have been asking for something like this for quite awhile.

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#3

Interesting. Very interesting. Speaking for myself and only myself I can say that at this point in time I like it. We’re all going to have to see how this plays out.

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#4

If I’m understanding this right does that mean when the opponent surrenders after a long match I won’t be given a pitiful amount of exp not worth any effort lol?
Cause if so that’s good, one of the worst things about the scoring system to me was how little exp you got if your opponent surrendered.

1 Like
#5

I think it’s a great idea to reward players who finish matches rather than punish those who leave early. Surrendering should lower your XP reward and outright quitting should completely negate it, so I approve of these changes. One suggestion, though: you may want to see about increasing the reward for teams who are being stomped by the competition. Say if one team has ten or more kills/assists over the other, the losing team will get a bigger XP and credit reward if they stick around until the match is over, either via time or objective completion (both sentries down, 500 points in Meltdown, all capture points captured). I only suggest this because there are quite a few players out there who should only be matched up against equal caliber players because they’ll just roll over anybody else and end a match in ten minutes or less because they’ve killed the entire enemy team.

10 Likes
#6

Cool cool, but what about those people who play consistently, don’t abandon their games and such, and are rank 100 with every character they care to level at 15? Is there every going to be anything about a prestige system or even earning exp towards more rewards? The game is so repetitive at this point and the only thing left is skin/taunt collecting and given the abysmal rates of loot packs is not worth it.

2 Likes
#7

It’s been discussed internally, but I assume would take a patch and more time to implement.

#8

I love this, thank you.

#9

Giving players the ability to continue progressing past the criteria you mentioned is something we’d love to do and are discussing. Time will tell what form those discussions take, if any, but it’s definitely on our radar.

9 Likes
#10

There’s a certain irony in increasing the rate at which we hit the cap that we’ve been wanting increased.

#11

While they seem good in theory I worry about how they will relate in practice. So far I very rarely surrendered in PvP because even if I was losing it was worthwhile because I would still get full xp on my character, because xp seemed to be based on time in match. However if there is a bigger win bonus amount especially if there is extra xp given if you are doing well it seems that the best decision would be to surrender right away if you don’t think you can win the game. It also seems to encourage steamrolling the other group.

Not only that, but if you are given more xp for participation, depending on how it calculates that it could strongly disincentive people from playing certain roles. For example if you are given bonus xp based on your kills it would make less people want to play support roles. I am also curious how this will effect PvE xp gain if at all.

2 Likes
#12

I like it. Feels like it should’ve been present from the start.

Now we just need a prestige system of some kind. Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase.

#13

I like!

PvE only, over 800 hours, so my feelings are in that direction.
If a team gets a success on Helio and it took 66 minutes, gosh they deserve something good. :wink:

1 Like
#14

Now only if it was still double xp weekend we could really see how fast you could level battleborn up from a lower lv ( I’m thinking 1-5/6 ). Alas I love the change though, cause it promotes good players who try and be their for their teammates. Now they are being rewarded for sticking it through till the end. Only issue I see are some jerks or buttholes ( Idk if I can curse or not xD ) that are playing a mastered character/CR 15 Battleborn, still wind up leaving just to be trolls and/or they aren’t the person with the highest score…I think the one fix us story players/vets want is for the Story to automatically scale with what players are in that mission at that time. What I mean by that is, say someone DC’s ( steam has been having some issues as of late ) but not on purpose, the other players/player has to deal with the 1-man down difficulty that can put a hamper on the mission and might make more players Rage Quit the mission…Hmm. Sorry for the slight rant and big post… just thoughts flying out xD. -Polar

#15

Just because we make one change today doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about other changes and issues.

We are working on some things for the future that make it more interesting to come back and play regularly, and have discussed ideas like prestige systems and the like.

No time frame on this, but it is something we intend on improving.

10 Likes
#16

Based on what I’m reading, this news is next to irrelevant to PvE.

Unless I read something wrong or missed something, I would like someone to clarify for me.

1 Like
#17

love the change, now make sure we aren’t q’ing up to be farmed by premades or people with much higher skill and experience. Being in matches where you feel you never had a chance to win is a major buzzkill.

2 Likes
#18

So instead of fixing the underlying problem (terrible matchmaking creating horribly loopsided matches over and over again) you focus on punishing those having such an awful time that they rather decline playing their part in the ensuing massacre.

Sorry, but my most valuable commodity is my time. Im not gonna stick with a washout game just so I earn a wee bit more xp while the premade that is trampling over me gets a helluva xp (do they even have an use for it anyway?)

This change isnt bad on itself, but it sadly misses the mark by a thousand miles. Even with lowered xp, I still dont see any reason not to bail out from the rage-inducing games that your mm provides on daily basis, if just for my own sanity.

Stop thinking of creative ways to punish leavers,and instead try to fix the reasons why most people leave not just matches, but the game entirely, have you seen steam stats lately?. If people were having fun playing your game, they wouldnt quit.

6 Likes
#19

Did you see what Jythri just said?

3 Likes
#20

I did. But Im commenting on what Im seeing now. When (if?) all that future changes happen, I’ll comment on them