Side Quests should rhave increased XP rewards to be efficient for alt jobs

I find it rather disappointing that the one time side quests in this game have a pretty poor XP reward and thus become a poor choice when levelling up additional DoW/DoM jobs.

I understand roulette spamming, Bozja/Zadnor, Palace of the Dead and various other activities have their place as the most efficient and effective ways to level extra jobs but I enjoy questing and would like that choice to do the side quests while also levelling efficiently at the same time.

I've done the Endwalker MSQ and while I'm currently working on DoH/DoL levelling, I'm not too far away from having that complete and being ready to level some alt jobs. I'd rather not spam dungeons or Bozja but would instead prefer to quest in order to clear those map markers while levelling at a similar pace to over options.

This isn't an indirect call for other methods to be slowed down because levelling taking any considerable amount of time more than once is just terrible quality of life and design. I've done my tour of duty in completing the MSQ and getting my main job to 90, I'd now like to have the freedom to level my big list of secondary jobs as I wish and the many side quest markers on my map is the preferred choice.

They've already said they plan on doing this. As it is, some side quests are at least comparable to grinding dungeons. At very least, they're worth doing for a bit of extra xp while waiting in queue.

Honestly, I don't know what the current XP-scaling logic is for the quests that supposedly scale to your level, but I feel like the scaling would make more sense if you did something like... I dunno:

qX(v) = ((10 - (v / 2)) / 100) * X(v + 1)

Where X(n) is the amount of XP required to reach that level from the level before it, v is the character's current level (as an offset within the expansion, so right now 80 would be 0 and 90 would be 10), and qX(n) is the amount of XP a scaled quest would give at level n.

So, basically, at 80, a side quest would give you 10% of the XP to reach level 81, meaning ten of the XP-scaled quests would get you there. At level 89, though, a side-quest would give you only roughly 5% of the XP to reach level 90, meaning you'd need about twenty of the XP-scaled quests to get from 89 to 90.

It would make side-quests viable to level a couple of alt-jobs, it would make them flexible enough to be used to level at different level ranges within an expansion, but running roulettes would still be more efficient. That said, I'm sure they've got more numbers on player quests and XP generation than I've got, so this is just spitballing an idea. But it feels like defining the XP for those quests as a percentage of the XP to get to the next level is a more viable (and flexible) method than just "base quest XP * <whatever>" or something.

That said, as it is now I did still manage to level one job to 90 mostly through side-quests and a few fates, and one or two roulettes... but I also had a food buff and a 15% FC XP buff going the entire time, for a grand total constant of 18% or more bonus XP at all times. (The "or more" being when the alt job fell behind the one I was leveling entirely through MSQ, so became subject to the armory bonus, or the places where rested XP was consumed.) That's not necessarily practical for everyone, nor is it sustainable indefinitely.

Why should something that generally takes 1-2 minutes to complete reward more XP than it currently does?

An Avatar Trust run through a EW dungeon rewards about 30% of level for a 30-40 minute run (roughly 1% of a level per minute) Side quests are rewarding 2-2.5% of a level.

When it comes to time efficiency, the side quests are the same if not slightly better. They don't need to be adjusted.

If you want greater XP rewards, then you have roulettes and direct dungeon queues. FATE farming groups are also very time efficient right now. You get more XP for being willing to play with others. That's honestly the way it should be in a MMO.

You might be thinking that trying to get all jobs leveled is an overwhelming task but the game isn't designed around players leveling every job. Doing so is an option for those with more time on their hands.

I've been some some sidequests for mostly lore, and yeah, the exp from them is piss poor.

Strangely, FATEs are too - though I've been grinding them for gems, they are just terrible exp.

SE wants to funnel people super hard into dungeons and roulettes, I guess.

Side quests EXP is certainly a bit too low, yeah. A max-rank Pixe quest gives you 330k EXP at lv80+, which is x2 of what a side quest offers.



Also, I read that if you only do MSQ, you won't have enough exp to continue due to oversight. They plan to fix this soon.


Personally, I think MSQ exp in EW should be 700k EXP/quest, and side quests should be at least 350k. Better than doing a non-bonus EXP FATE.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Why should something that generally takes 1-2 minutes to complete reward more XP than it currently does?

An Avatar Trust run through a EW dungeon rewards about 30% of level for a 30-40 minute run (roughly 1% of a level per minute) Side quests are rewarding 2-2.5% of a level.

When it comes to time efficiency, the side quests are the same if not slightly better. They don't need to be adjusted.

If you want greater XP rewards, then you have roulettes and direct dungeon queues. FATE farming groups are also very time efficient right now. You get more XP for being willing to play with others. That's honestly the way it should be in a MMO.

You might be thinking that trying to get all jobs leveled is an overwhelming task but the game isn't designed around players leveling every job. Doing so is an option for those with more time on their hands.

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The sidequests can justify the enhanced reward because they can only be completed once. I don't think sidequests need to have a reward comparable to the MSQ, but players that want to do sidequests should get a better one-time reward than the repeatable options (ex, fates.)

Some sidequests are very quick, regardless of only being able to be completed once, I don't think they all justify being increased.
But they are all a uniform exp reward, they could probably do with being split into tiers. Quests that take you to one location and back in 40s just give you the 150k exp, then the multiple location ones give you 200k, and the more important sidequests with proper cutscenes give 300k.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Some sidequests are very quick, regardless of only being able to be completed once, I don't think they all justify being increased.
But they are all a uniform exp reward, they could probably do with being split into tiers. Quests that take you to one location and back in 40s just give you the 150k exp, then the multiple location ones give you 200k, and the more important sidequests with proper cutscenes give 300k.

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see but thats the problem, even in the most optimistic of circumstances , when a quest gives you 150k exp you might aswell join a fate group, lots of fates won't take longer than a minute either and offer you 190k-240k~ depending on level with a chance getting 400k or more experience with some bonusses/bigger fates

yes, you will do closer to 1 fate per 5 minutes than one per minute obviously but it's also not like you just jump into a single quest hub, take 10 quests all taking a minute each and than are done in 10 (+2 for the initial time investment) minutes. not to mention even "regular" fating is like half the speed of going into zadnor.

Edit: furthermore, as someone else pointed out, if you just skip through all the text and try to "speedrun" quests than theres no reason to actually do quests instead of anything else, realistically actually reading through them is pretty much the only reason to do them so even that 40 second walking simulator will take you 2 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I've been some some sidequests for mostly lore, and yeah, the exp from them is piss poor.

Strangely, FATEs are too - though I've been grinding them for gems, they are just terrible exp.

SE wants to funnel people super hard into dungeons and roulettes, I guess.

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I think the FATE XP is fine so long as you join a group. You can speed through the relatively quick, and the XP to Effort ratio is fantastic. You can basically go half afk and watch youtube or something.

Better solution: Just greatly reduce the MSQ exp and then reduce the required per level from 81-90 by the same total.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I've been some some sidequests for mostly lore, and yeah, the exp from them is piss poor.

Strangely, FATEs are too - though I've been grinding them for gems, they are just terrible exp.

SE wants to funnel people super hard into dungeons and roulettes, I guess.

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Well, yeah. The game's health hinges on keeping the roulettes packed so people have short queues.

That said, it does suck that I have done zero sidequests this expansion without an aethercurrent riding on them, because the XP is abysmal. I would like a reason to do the quests other than "roll the dice to see if this one had a good writer."

Right now the only way on God's earth anyone would think sidequests are an efficient use of time is if they're skipping all the cutscenes and speed-clicking through the quest text. If I wanted to do that, cutscenes would not be my method of choice for leveling a job.

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Originally Posted by kejakalope

Well, yeah. The game's health hinges on keeping the roulettes packed so people have short queues.

That said, it does suck that I have done zero sidequests this expansion without an aethercurrent riding on them, because the XP is abysmal. I would like a reason to do the quests other than "roll the dice to see if this one had a good writer."

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That argument works for fates, I guess.

But not so much for sidequests. They are one time only; once done, they're done. So even the most avid sidequest aficionado will still end up queuing for roulettes.

They should.

Make it easier to level jobs on the side would be great

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Originally Posted by Akiudo

see but thats the problem, even in the most optimistic of circumstances , when a quest gives you 150k exp you might aswell join a fate group, lots of fates won't take longer than a minute either and offer you 190k-240k~ depending on level with a chance getting 400k or more experience with some bonusses/bigger fates

yes, you will do closer to 1 fate per 5 minutes than one per minute obviously but it's also not like you just jump into a single quest hub, take 10 quests all taking a minute each and than are done in 10 (+2 for the initial time investment) minutes. not to mention even "regular" fating is like half the speed of going into zadnor.

Edit: furthermore, as someone else pointed out, if you just skip through all the text and try to "speedrun" quests than theres no reason to actually do quests instead of anything else, realistically actually reading through them is pretty much the only reason to do them so even that 40 second walking simulator will take you 2 minutes.

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I don't see why quests should hive more exp than FATEs. And if quests were a more efficient way to gain exp, nearly everyone would just skip through them to get them over with, instead of playing them for their own sake. People may well be pressured into skipping through sidequests to level up quick, missing out on the story.

Just my humble opinion, but I think sidequests should be the absolute juiciest thing outside of MSQ for xp. Even if super fast, I think they should give closer to double what the current beast tribe reward is. Something like a full level per zone I feel is reasonable (we are only talking a total of 6 levels).

My reasons are pretty simple:
1) You can only do them once, unlike beast tribes, roulettes etc.
2) I would think the devs would encourage us to do the sidequests. Personally I didn’t do 90% of sidequests until shadowbringers, and my only goal was to clean up my map so I could see new quests pop up easier. There are some good stories in there, but I was not motivated to do them when I had better options for xp.
3) Kinda the same as 2, but it would help the player base have a better understanding of lore and goings on by engaging the story instead of the same exact beast quest they’ve done all week.

Regarding skipping the story to speed run, yeah…but people do that regardless of the xp, I honestly sped through the Ruby Sea because I was just uninterested in the area and had been deep into shadowbringers by that point.

For me I guess better to encourage more people to do the zone quests and allow people to get good xp and skip than not do them.

If a few of those people came for the xp, but got invested in the story, that’s a win.

This game is primarily an RPG, so having normal quests give this low XP is odd. Some of them have rather lengthy cutscenes, too, which makes me scratch my head; they obviously spent a lot of time and effort creating something nobody does because it's such a low reward activity.
They shouldn't ignore the way the human brain is wired; doing side quests when you could do a roulette feels like a "waste of time".
Doing them while queued for a roulette is difficult, because the queue can pop in the middle of a cutscene, which you can not watch in NG+, because side quest, and throwing away the queue spot is a) a waste again and b) leads to a penalty strike, so you can't commit to quests and roulette at the same time, and if given the choice, roulettes are more rewarding to such a degree that it's very unlikely anyone would ever choose the quest over the roulette.
FATEs have a similar problem: if you beam to a roulette in the middle of a FATE, your share of progress is lost.
Now we also have escort quests, so you can't just do a FATE on your way between quest objectives either.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

I don't see why quests should hive more exp than FATEs.

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1. they are limited in their quantity.
2. they require at least a little more personal interaction compared to fates which mostly can be done by joining a group, flying to the fate and pressing a single AoE.
3. Even fates are FAR from the best time->Experience rate unless you count zadnor.

this also isn't necessarely about turning side quests into the best way to gain experience (which is when people would actually be encouraged to rush through them if they want to level), right now however they are pretty much the worst while taking a comparatively large amount of work, and yes, all things considered this even includes the "40 second walking simulator" side quests.

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Originally Posted by Momo_Kozuki

Side quests EXP is certainly a bit too low, yeah. A max-rank Pixe quest gives you 330k EXP at lv80+, which is x2 of what a side quest offers.



Also, I read that if you only do MSQ, you won't have enough exp to continue due to oversight. They plan to fix this soon.


Personally, I think MSQ exp in EW should be 700k EXP/quest, and side quests should be at least 350k. Better than doing a non-bonus EXP FATE.

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Did Endwalker, only did MSQ, aethercurrent quests and role quest, every dungeon and Trial on the way only once and I was level blocked only once at level 89 MSQ because I missed a fifth of my Exp to level up. Did a single Trust dungeon to catch up and continue the MSQ.
In comparsion with that:
In HW I completed every single sidequest and run dungeons multiple times because I was stopped by a red MSQ marker multiple times.
SB was no problem with leveling because Raubahn Ex sent me farming FATES while I waited for the queue to subside, so I effectively started SB at level 65.
In ShB I had to run the 75 dungeon multiple times to catch up with the MSQ level while I already ran every dungeon twice to keep up with the MSQ and not have to deal with sidequests beside aethercurrents.

In conclusion, they hit the pacing of MSQ Exp pretty well this time, not perfect but way better then every other expansion before. Maybe a raise of ~10% should make any other source of Exp unneeded for MSQ progression.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Why should something that generally takes 1-2 minutes to complete reward more XP than it currently does?

An Avatar Trust run through a EW dungeon rewards about 30% of level for a 30-40 minute run (roughly 1% of a level per minute) Side quests are rewarding 2-2.5% of a level.

When it comes to time efficiency, the side quests are the same if not slightly better. They don't need to be adjusted.

If you want greater XP rewards, then you have roulettes and direct dungeon queues. FATE farming groups are also very time efficient right now. You get more XP for being willing to play with others. That's honestly the way it should be in a MMO.

You might be thinking that trying to get all jobs leveled is an overwhelming task but the game isn't designed around players leveling every job. Doing so is an option for those with more time on their hands.

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I'd like to level every job solely so I have that option. It's a long term goal but so is clearing the map of side quests. Ideally I'd like to kill two birds with one stone and progress both of those goals at the same time.

I don't particularly see why side quests, a one time activity, can't have a greater XP reward in comparison to things like FATEs or roulettes that you can endlessly farm. I appreciate that the roulette system is ultimately designed to keep more players running older dungeons so players of all levels/progress have people to queue with for MSQ dungeons etc but I should also have the choice to effectively level how I see fit.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Why should something that generally takes 1-2 minutes to complete reward more XP than it currently does?

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-Side quests do not take 1-2 minutes. Only the shortest ones do. Many are longer.

-Side quests are in limited supply, unlike roulettes, fates and other content.

-Side quests take developer time. If they're unpopular and very few players do them because they're so exp inefficient then that's unnecessarily wasted developer resources every expansion.

-The developers disagree with you that MMO's should only be played with others, which is why they created Trusts and plenty of other solo content. Playing with others should be a choice, with alternatives existing when you just want to relax quietly yourself.

They absolutely should be adjusted, especially since there is no harm in doing so (being limited supply means they can't damage roulette queues) and plenty of benefit (a nice change of pace from the usual grinds).

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

-Side quests do not take 1-2 minutes. Only the shortest ones do. Many are longer.

-Side quests are in limited supply, unlike roulettes, fates and other content.

-Side quests take developer time. If they're unpopular and very few players do them because they're so exp inefficient then that's unnecessarily wasted developer resources every expansion.

-The developers disagree with you that MMO's should only be played with others, which is why they created Trusts and plenty of other solo content. Playing with others should be a choice, with alternatives existing when you just want to relax quietly yourself.

They absolutely should be adjusted, especially since there is no harm in doing so (being limited supply means they can't damage roulette queues) and plenty of benefit (a nice change of pace from the usual grinds).

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Given that they're one time quests, the XP rate should probably match the beast tribes... at least for people that have completed the MSQ anyway.

Just apply the Armoury Bonus and other bonuses to side quests and that will probably be good enough. Actually makes no sense that the Armoury Bonus does not work on side quests.

I hope this happens sooner rather than later...

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Why should something that generally takes 1-2 minutes to complete reward more XP than it currently does?

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Since side quests are a one-and-done deal, it wouldn't be a bad thing for them to give a fair amount of XP. Something akin to doing all of a zone's side quests equals the same XP as doing the MSQ through that area would be nice. That way we can fairly quickly and easily level an alt job before switching to FATEs/Roulettes/whathaveyou for all the others. I won't lie, getting my 2nd battle job to 90 is feeling a bit more tedious than I'd like. I've been spamming FATEs like nobody's business to get the bicolor gemstones for crafting and XP isn't bad; especially with FC groups. However, the thought of getting the 3rd, let alone all of the others, to 90 is daunting to say the least.

The EXP is not good, but it's not the reason why I don't do side quest, not the main reason anyway. The real issue is we can only track 5 quests at the time. I had tried to do side quest before, part to level but mainly for completion but quickly gave up on the idea.

Each hub had over a dozen of side quests, I would be fine if I can track all of the them at the same time and do all of them at once. But right now depending on your luck (aka the order you picked the quests and their place on the tracking list), you can end up with a lot of back tracking which get frustrated realllllyyyy fast. Too many time after I finish a set of 5, turn them in just to see I'm being sent back to the same area I just left, of which I could have do them at the same time had they were tracked together.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

The EXP is not good, but it's not the reason why I don't do side quest, not the main reason anyway. The real issue is we can only track 5 quests at the time. I had tried to do side quest before, part to level but mainly for completion but quickly gave up on the idea.

Each hub had over a dozen of side quests, I would be fine if I can track all of the them at the same time and do all of them at once. But right now depending on your luck (aka the order you picked the quests and their place on the tracking list), you can end up with a lot of back tracking which get frustrated realllllyyyy fast. Too many time after I finish a set of 5, turn them in just to see I'm being sent back to the same area I just left, of which I could have do them at the same time had they were tracked together.

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That's a fair point. I imagine there's a mod on PC that fixes it... even if it's of no use to me playing on PS5.

Apparently every side quest in Endwalker will only get you from 80-86. They could triple the EXP and you wouldn't even get 2 classes from 80-90. There is no danger of an exp buff killing roulettes.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

Each hub had over a dozen of side quests, I would be fine if I can track all of the them at the same time and do all of them at once. But right now depending on your luck (aka the order you picked the quests and their place on the tracking list), you can end up with a lot of back tracking which get frustrated realllllyyyy fast. Too many time after I finish a set of 5, turn them in just to see I'm being sent back to the same area I just left, of which I could have do them at the same time had they were tracked together.

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While it isn't a proper solution, when you get a quest where the icon turns into the 'green this is the last thing you have to do' icon, you can go into your journal and set the quest to not show up on the list. The quest complete icon will still appear on your map, so if you happen to pass one, you can hand it in, however it does also allow you to track 5 quests that still have objectives.