Was Shalore ever made to have greater XP penalty?

[Steven Aus]

It is a very powerful race, and there was a suggestion way back of swapping the XP penalty percentage with Thalore. Would you consider this, since Thalore is relatively less powerful?

[Micbran]

Except XP penalty barely means anything.

[Davion Fuxa]

A Higher Experience Penalty means dying more in the early game before you get powerful talents from the class you pick or the race. Part of what makes Yeeks 'playable' is their low Experience Penalty - you can level them up fast enough to get Quickened and their other racials online to make up for their horribly -3 Life Modifier.

I'm not sure a 10% change would do much though.

[Steven Aus]

But does Shalore have an XP penalty that is relative to their power? That's my real question.

[Micbran]

If that were the case, Ghouls would hit level 50 after killing one boss. And you don't see that happening.

[Davion Fuxa]

The Shalore probably do have an experience penalty that is relative to their -1 life modifier and their first three racials. Timeless, maybe not so much.

In all likelihood, raising the Experience malus will likely delay Shalore from getting Timeless maxed out before confronting the Master, and prevent them from picking up their Prodigy point until likely after fighting him. However, that is likely unmeaningful.

As an idea though, the experience penalty AND the level requirements for unlocking Racials could be adjusted. If capstone talents required something like level 40 to unlock with a significant experience malus, it might not be until after players face the Backup Guardians or did some Farportal Runs that they would have enough experience.

[Steven Aus]

I like that idea.

[Micbran]

Yes, let's force the player to grind more.

[Davion Fuxa]

Yes, let's force the player to grind more.

It is likely there won't be enough experience in Normal (or Nightmare for that matter) to get to level 40 for example, until reaching and defeating all the Backup Guardians; moreso if the Shalore's experience malus gets swapped with Thalore. Backup Guardians are pretty well already experience pickups, and if that is around the time players start grinding to get to level 40 then I really don't see it as much of an issue.

I'd be more concern with other races on the issue. Skeletons for example have that massive +%40 Experience Malus, and their Racials help to overcome their disability of being Undead. Even if their Experience Malus was to be reduced (I had suggested making it the same as Ghouls for example a while back) it would lead to much more difficult play with them. However, it could lead to other beneficial things too. Cornac would become much stronger in comparison to other Races because they could get full benefits from talents they could invest in; by level 16 they could be fully invested in a capstone talent for a lower tiered category, where Shalore wouldn't be able to do that with Timeless until 30 levels later.

There is also the question of how proceeding racial talents would be effected too; would they have the same time limits as before or would the be scaled to be higher leveled too.

[Aquillion]

I dislike the idea of locking any talent that far into the game. That would mean that players wouldn't really get to use those talents for most of their playtime (and people who rarely get to the endgame for one reason or another would never see or experiment with them at all). All else aside, that just isn't fun. A talent that only gets used in the last few levels is not really a talent worth having in the game.

I generally feel players should have at least the option to access to every talent they're going to get by the midgame - level 30 at most, with 22 being preferable. I would be very, very strongly opposed to anything higher than that as the prereq for any talent's first level.

It ought to be possible to base your build around any talent in the game, including high-level ones; if you feel that a talent is so overpowered that it shouldn't be the centerpiece of a build (ie. the player ought to have to complete most of the game with no access to it), you should suggest nerfing it or even removing it entirely. Pushing talents up to level 40 feels like a half-hearted way of removing them from the game.

[Davion Fuxa]

I suppose it needs to be asked then where prodigies would come into this then. You don't get your first Prodigy until level 30, and then only at level 42 do you get a second one. In some ways, capstone Racials are generally on par with Prodigies - bar Timeless which is clearly better then most Prodigies.

Also to note it as well, we are talking about Racials here - not Class talents. Class talents I can see a lot more argument for them being available earlier, but Racial Talents aren't exactly something you build your character around. Pushing the Racial Talents a bit down the road too encourages investment in other Generic Talents as well.

[Steven Aus]

So what are the suggestions here? (And also, even if Shalore was not changed, maybe Thalore could be given a reduced XP penalty?)

[Davion Fuxa]

Well, if including mine:

Change it so that Timeless isn't accessible until much later in the game.

• This could be achievable by raising the level requirements to pick up capstone talents, and bumping up Shalore's Experience Modifier

Possible adjust other Races with high Experience Penalties to be much lower.

• Consider dropping down Thalore and Skeleton for example so that they gain access to capstone talents

[Jarinex]

I agree with Aquillion on this, pushing a talent like that THAT far back is not a good idea. Having it that far would be too severe a hindrance. I think it is fine at the level it is at.

[SamGray]

I agree with Aquillion as well. I probably just wouldn't pick Shalore if Timeless required level 40. I get that you're making a balance argument, but he hit the nail on the head when he said such a change just isn't fun.