can i disable the xp buff?

[triadne]

I'm not sure how you "messed up a quest" but you shouldn't ever have to delete a character to solve that. At worst you might have to restart the quest itself, but I'm not sure what would make you need to do that either.

The simplest way to not get the buff is to not pick a preferred server.

There are benefits to a preferred server though (IIRC free feather tokens for buying gear, and 15 days' free play time for reaching level 30), so a good way of managing the buff is to pick up a second class and switch between them. EXP for each class is earned separately and only goes to the class that you are set to when you complete the quest, so you can switch between them and do a lot of your quests on that second class to level it up instead of your main. You can even pick a crafting or gathering class for this, or a battle class you don't really want to play.

Oh that's really good!!! that might solve the problem completely!! so if I run back to new gridania and pick up archery (I never had any interest in ranged classes) then every time I hand in a quest, switch to archery... I will soon find that my quests and my lancer level are more equalised. brilliant!!! thank you, you've saved me!!! ^_^

with regards to that business with the messed up quest... there is a major problem with this game, where if you pick a story quest, you have to be really careful not to press any buttons. you can't select another player or inspect them. you can't reply to any messages in your message log. you can't do anything because if you do, the dialogue will advance whether you've read it or not, and you can't get it back. you can't abandon MSQs, and you can't speak to the npc and get that dialogue back.
I think this is really bad design... I can't see any benefit in it, and it can cause major problems for players who are precious about their own character's experience within the world.

edit: I just realised I only wrote half of what happened. that was the part of the issue, but there was a major quest event at a big tree, where I was supposed to fight off a bad guy for the bowyers... I couldn't even target the enemies and I was getting so frustrated and felt like I was useless.. then they all thanked me for saving them and I couldn't bear it because it felt like I was being mocked, then another guy appeared but then two people came in and killed it instead of me because I couldn't target it, then they all 'mocked me' some more, saying I was brilliant. and I went postal and tried to skip it all to try and see if there was any way I could restart the quest. of course I couldn't. and my character's story had been ruined at that point. I find it hard to take that kind of thing at the best of times but things are especially bad at the moment for me, so I just restarted the game.