Is it just me, or is ShB quest exp really under-tuned?

So, as the title states, it seems to be really under-tuned compared to previous expansions. Where in, you could complete all the side quests + main quests and still level properly to continue main story line without having to do a roulette. I don't even remember having to do a roulette in SB or HW to continue the main story upon each of their initial releases.

This does not appear to be the case in some areas in ShB. As an example I just finished completing the quests in the left half of Rak'tika + 12 fates and it still isn't enough to finish the level to continue main story. I am at 17,835,584 of 19,750,000 exp.

Thoughts or similar experiences?

I have been hitting my head on the level requirement ceiling quite a bit more in SB2 than I ever have before, yes.

It isn't a huge deal to me though. I like that they've incentivized FATEs a bit more here, for instance.

I do not think so. did almost every single side quests, left a few when they amount got overwhelming, and I have been actively 3-4 levels above the MSQ - I did do roulettes though. I also did some FATEs as I went, enough to get me to level 2 in each area (for the mount movement speed). Sidequests give about as much as a regular FATE, might be worth waiting till you have flying to mass complete them.

Fates are pretty incentivized, full map exploration exp is decent as usual, and sightseeing log is okay. Sidequests are good if you want to do them, unless you plan to save them for another class. Daily queues, including the MSR give a LOT of exp overall and often go pretty fast due to Dancers/Gunbreakers causing us to roll 60 and under content frequently.

The only time I almost hit a level ceiling was in the Greatwoods, but the Temple dungeon got me 76 and a little bit in.

DO FATES! Rank 2 in each area gives you access to a region's riding map which greatly helps speed up travel. I haven't got Rank 3 anywhere yet, but I'm sure someone has. And I'm sure there's fun rewards at that rank too.

I haven't done more than a trial roulette really, but I've been clearing all of the sidequests. I've only run most of the dungeons once, just the first 2 twice, but I haven't hit any level blocks. Even turned in 25 or so sidequests on DRG to get it to 71.

I've been doing fates, but skipping the side quests for now, along with MSQ and some roulettes/repeat dungeons for friends and I've been having little issue with the level requirements.

I've done nothing more than Main Story, all Side Quests, required dungeons and trial and some fates along the way that were being done as I went to my quests and I've gotten to level 77 with no problem. I did not do extra dungeons or roulettes so no I would say the experience is just fine, it's not under tuned.

I did do an alliance this morning when I discovered healer is the Adventurer in Need for the most part now and I could use the clusters so I'll be doing that for the clusters and not necessarity for the experience although that is nice too. I plan on doing roulette/dungeons/fates as I level an alt role. I'm doing WHM now and I suspect RDM will be next.

Its pretty bad.

MSQ + every side quest in an area is somewhere between 50 and 60% of a level.

You either have to spam fates or dungeons to get through the msq, something I think I had to do twice in stormblood.

Almost 75 and just started on the forest zone so 3 zones to go plus upper half of Kholusia dunno if i will hit a block did all the msq and side , Dungeon/ trial once

So far I have found it okay, usually if I hit a level block, it takes one or 2 roulettes and I am at the level needed again.
It feels better than heavensward (those darn moogle quests)

Only block I hit was at 72, and I was just a smidgeon under it, so quickly got it with a FATE. Otherwise, I've been doing side quests, map exploration, and FATEs (minimum of 6 in each zone, though I did a bunch in Lakeland with a friend when he was getting his currents/FATEs too). Not a single roulette yet, though I did go back and do all three dungeons up to the Greatwood a second time to run with friends, so there's a bit of extra exp there.

Just hit 75 before Maint tonight and haven't been hit with level requirements locking out MSQ and I haven't done any quests beside Ones with + signs or MSQ.
Just doing Fates for movement speed and a few DRs. which I do anyway.

I normally save side quests for a 2nd job.


But 30k at 71 doesn't really seem worth my time.

Kinda the same in my experience. You run out of MSQ and have to do FATEs or side quests whatever to continue. Its always been that way with current content. Past content always gets adjusted up so you don't have to do anything but MSQ to level.
If you are seeing an adjustment then maybe its because they really want you to do FATEs this time around. You need to do a bunch to unlock the riding maps from the gem vendors

I haven't done a count to see, but it feels like a result of being given coffers instead of gear (I am quite happy we get coffers now, please don't take that away).

But in Heavensward and Stormblood, when the MSQ handed out gear, it did so with three separate quests, because there are so many gearsets and each job needed to have an option for gear available. While playing Stormblood with little or no sidequesting, I only hit two level gates. In Shadowbringers, I hit every single level gate. Had I more time, I'd go through the quest catalaog and do a comparison of the Stormblood and Shadowbringers MSQs to see if this is more than just a feeling.

I've done a good many Fates along the way and very few side quests. I'm saving those for other jobs. Between Fates and random roulette queues I'm not falling behind at all. I might actually be a level and a half higher than I should be for where I'm at.

yeah, i get lvl block but luckily its only 1 lvl block and usually i almost level up so its not a big deal anway.

they are indeed clearly trying to get us more into fate now

I've had zero issues hitting required levels. Since early access started, I've done:

• Zero roulettes for my main / job progressing SH with;
• No elite mark bills have been picked up, since they are actually a great source of EXP (lots of people forget this exists);
• No extra dungeons at all;
• Constant Heat of Battle II from FC buffs;
• Still have rested EXP;
• Kept my chocobo up (can reduce EXP gained*);
• Been in party with someone else (increases EXP, but also splits EXP gained*);
• Constantly run a food buff when killing things;
• No F.A.T.E.s;
• All side quests as they pop-up;
• Grabbed any vistas along the way and not going out of the way / purposely seeking them out;
• Obtained EXP from discovering a new location on only the main / job progressing MSQ;
• Ran trust an additional time on the first dungeon to see how Alisaie reacted (since someone told me for the first dungeon to do this); all others have been only once.

* = Pretty sure these only apply to mobs killed in the open world and does not effect quest EXP at all.

I'm actually ahead of the required level for MSQ, though unsure by how much. Maybe by half of an EXP bar? We've only done MSQ and new side quests.

I'm out leveling the MSQ something awful. I'm level 75 and just now hitting the level 72 quests, but I do my roulettes every day when I can. If you do JUST quests, you'll never make it. This game has a lot of exp alternatives, challenge log, roulettes, dungeon grind, FATEs...just have to be more flexible.

I had a ton of leftover Stormblood sidequests that I wanted to clear out while leveling dancer, and the amount of exp was pathetically small and overall it would have been much faster to spam FATEs or dungeons or HoH. Unless they went back and nerfed those then they've always been bad. They definitely don't give enough EXP in Shadowbringers either.

Ive literally gotten away with doing no sidequests, but did run each dungeon a few times, and did main scenario roullette each time it reset. 80 and doing 79 story quests. This is absolutely the lightest expansion on level locks, way more so than arr or hw

Be sure to do all the sidequests. I just finished second dungeon and haven't hit a wall at all.

I'm going to have to say no when peeps are already hitting level cap during early access. One thing that did take me by surprise though was I got several jobs to 71 thinking I would have some time to get them to 72 before the MSQ locks up, only to find out that there are just two lv 71 quests.

For me, all forms of exp outside roulettes and running the highest dungeon is nickels and dimes. I do it all as every little bit helps, but during the leveling stages, I've always felt myself clawing my way to that next dungeon unlock because I always consume most of the available resources for exp outside spamming FATEs. This has been true for HW, SB, and now ShB too.

I've had to dungeon farm a bit. Been level-locked a few times. I am not pausing to do FATEs; I mostly just do the MSQ and then the aether current quests so I can unlock flying - I save sidequests for other jobs for the EXP. However, this is the same thing I did for Stormblood, and I only got level-locked there once at level 69. So perhaps it is? It feels like it but I cannot say for certain.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I've had to dungeon farm a bit. Been level-locked a few times. I am not pausing to do FATEs; I mostly just do the MSQ and then the aether current quests so I can unlock flying - I save sidequests for other jobs for the EXP. However, this is the same thing I did for Stormblood, and I only got level-locked there once at level 69. So perhaps it is? It feels like it but I cannot say for certain.

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Stopping to do FATEs is absolutely worth it this time around since the gemstone vendors offer the riding map at rank 2.

I've hit the blocks too. Havent done all the sidequests as they pop up like I did in the other expansions though I'll admit. Only a few. I just run the dungeons until I level up. Maybe a roulette or two.

I wish it were designed in such a way that doing nothing but the MSQ would level one class to max level, side quests could advance 1-2 classes to max level and then the repeatable content could be used for additional classes.

yes i was really scraping bottom of the barrel in some of these quest
i also didn't have my level roulette to get a little boost

even the dungeon feel like that have Less EXP

I didn't mind it. Nothing that a dungeon or two didn't fix.

i did every secondary quest and generally 6 fate per area, until reach the 6th area (at this point i was 80 when i have finish my first dungeon 79) i didn't do any secondary quest passed this point (will use them for my sam hehe)

ahh true i did a few hunt and did get as many exploration point as possible, same for the exploration (half a million for this one by example)

No, the side quest experience is about the same as it was in SB, around 1-3% of your exp bar.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Stopping to do FATEs is absolutely worth it this time around since the gemstone vendors offer the riding map at rank 2.

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This. If you can spare the time do just six fates for this alone. It cuts SO much time out of traveling it's insane and gives you a good chunk of EXP too.

Never knew a lot of ppl struggle with their leveling.
I just get through MSQ, Side quests that give rewards(gears,food,aether current), Daily hunt, Bonus Fate(I don’t do normal Fate), 3 Roulette per day(trial,leveling,50-70) I don’t queue anything else.
Now I’m almost lvl 79 but my MSQ quest is still at lvl 77.
I don’t even rushing anything...

I saved all my Side quests for 2nd job. Doing all sides quest in SHB gets you 4 levels max. with no fates or dungeons. I would imagine it would give more with how many quests there are. took me a whole day to complete

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Originally Posted by Lanze

I saved all my Side quests for 2nd job. Doing all sides quest in SHB gets you 4 levels max. with no fates or dungeons. I would imagine it would give more with how many quests there are. took me a whole day to complete

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Add to that the armory bonus from having a previous job at max level

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Stopping to do FATEs is absolutely worth it this time around since the gemstone vendors offer the riding map at rank 2.

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Perhaps it is, but as someone who has farmed FATEs to heck and back, I’d honestly rather do the dungeons. At least they’re more engaging and I can get gear. I’ll worry about riding maps later since I tend to fly most of the time anyways.

In my personal opinion there are wayyy too many sidequests and they give far to little XP. I've done maybe 2 fates so far, and at level 74 I've had to do a couple roulettes to catchup. In my opinion merely doing the Sidequests and the MSQ should give you the necessary XP to continue from area to area, but as it is I have to do maybe 20 sidequests AND the MSQ AND faff about with something else (some fates or roulettes) and it feels like I'm just not being rewarded enough. I've just passed the Fae area and without spoiling anything I will say that the amount of sidequests that pop up at certain points in the story is ... overwhelming and disheartening. I think they could have been xp tuned up and volume down a bit.

I do agree that the MSQ itself should be enough to level one job to cap.
I mean, at this point we've got over a dozen jobs to level anyway.
Frankly, I also think that doing any dungeon at least from Lv50+ should award equal exp as well since they're all the same length and difficulty.
It keeps things varied and relevant. That would be my one main complaint with the game design. ... but eh.

Overall though, I'm leveling WHM and BRD together and not feeling to grindy about it at Lv73 so far.
I hop into every FATE that spawns in my direct path though and do all the quests.

"SB2".. I like it! Using that from now on. Good Job!

It is not under-tuned, it is that we were so used to all that exp buffs that went off at 70+. In the old times the road to 50 had a number of "waiting for level" steps.

If I remember correctly, the most notable was the 47-48 gap, and when 48 you run to 50 at light speed because the AV unlock.

I've never NOT had to do some extra dungeons or roulettes. In every expansion, I remember having to run at least and extra dungeon or two per level.