Retainers, leveling past lvl 60

[Angelhearth]

I'm leveling my retainers with Quick Exploration [QE]. They have had the same gear since lvl 1 and have gotten good exp all the way up to lvl 60. But once they passed lvl 60 they have gotten about 1.3 million per exploration. Is this something new with the last patch, where retainers were given a set exp per level? Do I need to give them jobs and increase their gear? I have never leveled retainers from 1 before, I've always just bought the upgrade to 70. And the leveling from 70 to 80 has, after the last patch, seemed to be 7 QE's per level, which is way more than 1.3 million.

[Kirika-]

Quick Exploration exp reward is variable depending on basically the thing(s) they return, as in higher level/rarity item(s) collected = higher exp.
As the ability to have a higher percentage of getting higher grade item(s) is directly tied to the IL of the retainer's gear, and secondarily based off the primary retainer job stat (which then allows access to higher payout percentage explorations), improving your retainer's gear will greatly increase the chance of higher exp exploration runs.

[Angelhearth]

Quick Exploration exp reward is variable depending on basically the thing(s) they return, as in higher level/rarity item(s) collected = higher exp.
As the ability to have a higher percentage of getting higher grade item(s) is directly tied to the IL of the retainer's gear, and secondarily based off the primary retainer job stat (which then allows access to higher payout percentage explorations), improving your retainer's gear will greatly increase the chance of higher exp exploration runs.

You obviously didn't get the changes in the last patch. They now get exp relevant to their level, nothing more was said. Having leveled them after the last patch I know that all 9 retainers (same alt) gets exactly the same exp for every QE they performe. If that relevant exp is dependent on gear is what I'm asking about.

[Jojoya]

You obviously didn't get the changes in the last patch. They now get exp relevant to their level, nothing more was said. Having leveled them after the last patch I know that all 9 retainers (same alt) gets exactly the same exp for every QE they performe. If that relevant exp is dependent on gear is what I'm asking about.

XP isn't dependent on gear but your chance for the "bonus" seems to be. Probably going to take a bit more time for players to gather data to confirm.

[Angelhearth]

XP isn't dependent on gear but your chance for the "bonus" seems to be. Probably going to take a bit more time for players to gather data to confirm.

EXP gained from explorations increases with total EXP for level, it's just that in the early 60's it's so small increments I didn't notice any increase. After I hit 65 I started noticing it and understood I just hadn't noticed the small increments.

As to the return from QE's. This seems to have been adjusted at least twice after 5.45, so it's hard to say. Neither am I sure how good armor you need to get to the highest tier. I dress them up in Neo-Ishgardian HQ, to be on the safe side, but I'm not sure that's enough anymore.