[Bug?] XP for battles in quests very low on XP

from Elemental Forums

It's something I've been noticing for a while: whenever I fight a group of monsters that are wandering the map, versus a group of monsters that are part of a quest spawn, the XP reward is massively different. I haven't taken many screenshots previously because I wasn't totally sure. Last night I picked up the "Hero's Tomb" quest, where you return a Helm to a gravesite, only when you get there it's a fight with a Clambercoil dragon. My Sov is a death archmage with Savant and massively high spell mastery, so dragon dies in one turn (could have done it with manablast, but haven't finished that quest in this playthrough). My army is my Sov, an Umberdroth, and five hirelings with the Bard skill, plus one of the hirelings is a commander with Trainer 1-4. Should equal, what, 90% XP bonus. Oh, and of course I'm Altarian blood 10%, and I have Potential 15%, Knowledge 25%, Brilliant 10%, and Tutelage 25%. So total XP bonus is in the neighborhood of +175% of normal for my Sov. Imagine my disappointment when I ended up with a measly 63 XP gain for my Sov.

I tried doing it without my hirelings (in case it was somehow still splitting the XP for them even though it isn't supposed to), just my sov to cast Kill and the Umberdroth to soak some damage up. Ended with 42 XP.

Just for comparison, I found the nearest group of randomly wandering enemies I could find. Was a group led by a lvl 12 Cindercorpse, and 3 groups of lvl 2 skellies. Same group of Sov, umberdroth and 5 hirelings. Sov gained 118 XP for the fight.

So a random group of weak skeletons is worth twice the experience as one of the biggest, meanest dragons in the land?

Is this a Bug, or did they nerf the quests that much on purpose? BTW, this wasn't from a quest map, not that it should make any difference.

6,959 views 7 replies
Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Not that erratic. I first noticed the problem when I was doing the quest, I think it was "Track the Garrote", where you have an encounter where the option is to "Pass by the Slags" or abandon the quest. When you pass by them they attack: it's a River Slag and 2 Slags. I was looking for a fairly large chunk of XP for the fight, but it was only like 100 or so per member of a group very similar to this one. The next turn in that game I fought a single Slag in its lair, ended with like 300 XP member. That's when I started paying attention. I'm searching my current map right now for another dragon to fight, preferably a Clambercoil one.

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Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

OP, you are not the first to report this. Some (older?) quest battles give very little xp, while others appear to give normal xp.

I can only assume the Devs at some point decided to lower battle xp in quests, probably for the reasons Primal mentions, but changed their minds later on.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I found a wandering Clambercoil dragon, killed it with same group of Sov, umberdroth and 5 hirelings... 1353 XP for my Sov. The only difference between the two fights was that one was part of a quest. The dragons were both lvl 24, I even killed them both with the same spell.

 

I get that the quest one also gives me the Ivory Helm, and it is a nice item, but i can get loot like that anywhere. For 21.47 times more XP I'd rather find a randomly wandering dragon than the quest on a map.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

It is annoying, but not consistent enough of an issue to ruin the game.