I had a very different experience of tarrot missions. For days at a time I never played anything other than tarrots. Simply choosing the additional fate reward at the end of a mission pretty much guaranteed someone in the group would always have enough fate. That was before the option of selling the copious amounts of purple items which dropped. Perhaps this isn't the case for groups who play several hours every single day, but it was more than enough for us to outright ignore other content. 

I'm afraid i don't actually know if you are talking about the current system or a proposed system. Your writing style is entertaining but a little difficult to interpret.

Group payment over individual is simple to justify. Host payments with 4 player allows 4x the gear progression rate than solo play does. It's too big of a difference between single and multiplayer. 400%. Balance would have to be based on co op (as the majority) leaving the solo's too far behind. Forcing players to group up is never a good idea, giving them reason to however, is.

It's not a perfect idea though - It makes it substantially harder for players to join together and decreases the chances of community interaction. Something damaging to a game in my view. Not taking clan mates because they haven't been playing as much might be a little bit less than ideal. Although you can argue that all of us get the same weekly / glory rewards each week.

There probably isn't a perfect system but there needs to be something in place which allows for.

• The quantity of available tarrots to be similar between single/multiplayer groups.
• Personal view - "Some" slight incentive for multiplayer and community. ie. bonus to magic find.
• Yet somehow increase in frequency the more you play the game.
• But - Not punish players who want to group up with others..

No simple task.   

Seen and took park in similar discussions on Discord this past week,

I had a suggestion that may alleviate some of the harshness of the seemingly (for some) excessive fate for co-op tarot runs.

Say if a SOLO Tarot mission costs 100 fate (just an easy number for this example)

Then for 2 Player co-op have each player pay a reduced cost each say 80 (%20 reduction) fate each so each player is better off than going solo but both pay. This would of course need to have the difficulty raised slightly to offset the benefit of reduced co op cost as to not completely shun a solo run.

For 3 player co op reduce the cost again to say 60 (%40 reduction off going solo) fate each with again another additional bump to difficulty.

And for 4 player co op reduce it again to 50 (%50 reduction from solo) fate and up the difficulty on top of the previous levels.

This was just my initial reaction/solution to the fate cost issues for all tarot participants which should be there (we should all have to pay fate to participate, just at perhaps a reduced cost the more players partake, this would both allow players to do tarot runs more often but also prevent those not partaking in the fate grinding activities of the game.

On top of this though I believe the normal missions should award between 5-10 fate per mission with an additional 10-20 for a complete investigation.

The dailies fate rewards seem to have also gone up slightly so I personally might see 10 tarots a week solo with the obtainable fate from dailies, glory and missions, take into account the fate from breaking down artificer, relic gear there would be ample fate with the above recommendations and I could see a 4 man co op team easily being able to do 40+ tarot runs a week which is plenty.

One .. last... time.. I did not ever say the current system is perfect, not even ideal! I have been responding to comments that seem to have been putting the last tarot payment system on a pedestal, when in my view it was deeply flawed. 

So with that in mind I don't really understand your focus on the experience system. Sure it might have taken a hit from the massive 400% gain it used to be. But that's not a reason to justify bringing back something that was broken. Its simply a reason to ask for the progression rates and reward for co op play to be revised. Which on that note i'd remind you that the entire levelling and power leveling process is due an overhaul next month. Where i'm sure such feedback will have it's influence.

This seems to mimic other conversations in the forums such as the shop-gear login abuse. Where if there is an issue with something simple like gearing or levelling rates. The solution is simply to change those rates, not by introducing or keep a feature that has is damaging to the game.

TLDR - Agree that co op should have some benefit. <40-50% like Solar suggests is more than reasonable. Going back to the old system though? - No.

Not quite sure when this conversation went downhill - TLDR isn't offensive to anyone in the world I come from. When many points are made and someone makes a concluding remark as an inference, that's just an opportunity to agree or disagree with an overall theme. Clearly the term offends you, next time i'll use another paragraph to see if what i'm concluding is what the author is intending.

Now as for saying I haven't made a single point in the past few dozen posts, I'm going to presume frustration has gotten the better of you and that you are being a little hyperbolic. Every point that has been made I have responded to, sometimes several times.

My points 

• Elite content needs a limiting factor. The old system barely had a limiting factor. Easy content, bountiful resources.
• Instead. Normal Content should be "the norm" - Not so infrequent that it becomes an inconvenience between elite missions.
• Having a discrepancy of 4x for solo play vs co-op play was a terrible proportion to have for two reasons.
  1 - It didn't encourage Co-Op play - It made it mandatory, not doing it meant you were 75% less efficient.
  2 - It provides a situation that can't be balanced for. One of those two groups will be too slow / too fast. Because the middle ground between 400% is still 200%. Far greater than the industry standard of 20-40% for Co-Op "Motivation".  

The Counter arguments and / or suggestion 

• Difficulty could be a limiting factor on elite content - This I responded too and explained Elite vs Difficult content in my views. 
• It was motivating to group up - Which I believe to be because it was too rewarding, see above for why.

The very simple solution to all of this is simply to just introduce a gathering bonus to groups. Like any other ARPG. Then apply that to all the game and not just the elite content. Then as is by magic you have a system that ticks all of the above boxes but without all of the limitations and disadvantages.

As to why I do this, I enjoy it. The idea behind challenging someones ideas or points is that then you end up with a discussion, hopefully something I can learn from and gain a better understanding which I can then put to use when talking about the game in my own content. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen. More often than not counter arguments are ignored and original points are just repeated. Which leaves us where are are now.

C ya round. 

Why you still want to bring crafting into everything xD the impending change was needed since the day the tarrot system was implemented several months ago and has precious nowt to do with the efficiency of crafting which will see it's day next month.

The very fact that you are now saying you see no point in playing "normal" content just highlights exactly how much it has been spoiling the player base because tarrots up till this point have made the majority of the game redundant. Yes I admit the old system made things very convenient and motivating for finding missions and grouping with others. But at a high cost to the overall game.

I'm going to go a little hyperbole here but this strikes me as a another argument for having BIS gear ASAP all the time with as little effort as possible. Placing restrictions has nothing to do with making it into an MMO, it's just placing limits on the snowball of progression which occurs from spamming what's clearly intended as a "rare" and finite mission type.

Perhaps we can agree that a compromise is possible?

My personal view would be that each player gets perhaps X tarrot missions per week or even day they can play "for free" - after doing a quest perhaps. During these the host will pay but they can use their free pass. (this will encourage group play) and then afterwards they will have to contribute.

Heck you could perhaps even trade in 100 fate for 2x free loads into a group mission... Really there are plenty of ways around the problem that don't involve having players continually farm the best gear in the game on repeat

It sounds like you actually agree with me - Incentive for co op should be bonuses to loot find, no on the ability to constantly spam / farm something for free. Again I return to the ratio of 400% - It was simply too damn high of a difference. 

As you suggested - having the host pay and everyone else pay less of a % would seem like quite a fair way to achieve things. Perhaps still not idea, but at least not a return to a broken system.

I'd comment though that what you consider "fun" basically comes down to a form of gear boosting system. Granted that's far preferable to normal ARPG boosting which involves literally getting carried through missions, but I think if the developers want players efforts to = reward then the old system did allow for abuse of this rule. 

Sounds to me like salt over the change and the inconvenience of having to put more time into the game to achieve the same result compared to the previous version. I get that it's not convenient, but we are trying to make a better game here, in my eyes a game has has standard missions and the occasional higher quality reward mission is far better game craft and healthier for the long term. 

I did make the point, several times, that i'm not justifying the new system. I'm saying the old system 100% needed changing. 

Correct me if im wrong but there has never been an exp incentive to do Co-Op content. The exp reward is based off of the difficulty modifier and in no way impacted by the number of available players. 

Fair enough you might not like a slower progression in terms of levels, but... Within a few weeks I suspect the changes will make more sense.

We are simply talking about the human element from different perspectives. Your angle is that if you can do something special with friends without notable cost or barrier then the game will be more enjoyable and motivating. Specifically in this case 400% greater when playing with friends for both gear and experience gain per minute. The statement is true, but it comes at a cost which i'm not entirely sure if you accept.

My perspective is that if you currently lack the motivation to play the standard content of Martyr and require an incredibly large steroid of progression rate (be it gear or exp) (400%). Then the game is failing at a core level. To expand I feel incentive is important, reward is important, but it has to be proportionate to what is invested. 400% isn't justifiable, its basically saying that playing 4 hours on your own is comparable to playing 1 hour as a group of 4. Making grouping mandatory and creating an impossible means to actually balance the game. No matter what you do - one of those groups will suffer, by progressing too fast or too slow. The industry norm is a % somewhere between 20-40% which to me at least seems far less damaging.

That in my eyes is what would be "healthy" for Martyr. A system where normal content is the norm, exciting content is something players look forward to and work for and where finally teaming up provides some bonuses to this experience and everyone, be it single player or multiplayer can progress at a somewhat similar rate of <50%. The previous system was none of these things. 

The TLDR of what you said is progression of experience is too slow and not motivating.

The simple solution is changing experience rates and rewards. Not re introducing a ratio of content where Elite > Normal content. Should that not satisfy gear progression? - Then change normal content to balance the rate of gear progression. That's far more logical.

As a reassuring heads up though - The entire power level system is getting an overhaul soon. Something confirmed by members of staff although not within an "official" announcement. What we are gathering and how we use it is therefore likely to change a lot. So work on balancing it might even well be redundant and the recent changes, perhaps a step toward it? Who knows.

TLDR is because these wall of texts are really hard to digest buddy, with the utmost respect 1/2 the time I have no idea which point you are making or what want because it varies between every post and paragraph. The TLDR = My interpretation of what you are asking for, which at least to me seems to be accurate.

Now moving on, there is a concrete difference between elite content and difficult content. Difficult content modifies normal content to speed progression, Elite content is "limited" in some form and not unrestricted. Because elite content isn't used for progression, it's used for intermittent treats as a reward. Should you progress quicker, you get more treats, proportionate to your progress. You seem to be melding the two separate entities into one.
 

• Playing against higher power levels gets you faster progression. Just like playing "Hard" in any other game. 
• Elite content grants you "special things" Just like any other elite content.
  
  

Finally when I say something is being changed, it's not to shut you up. It's so that you are aware... Every time I try to let people know something that the devs are planning, which isn't common knowledge, I get this copy paste response as if i'm attacking people. 

When I make points regarding a single topic eg. payment system - and i'm met with a montage of points regarding several different topics, can you honestly blame me for being confused. Not on what is being said, fortunately I have the ability to read. But on the purpose of so many unrelated points being brought into a singular issue.

There is a reason games don't go above the standard 25% magic find, which I've already addressed and doesn't need repeating. No matter how fun you found the last system, it was an absurd rate of progression that motivated you to play it. Not clever game design. The fact that if you didn't do it then you were missing out drastically. That is not a healthy position for a game to be in.

Should you want more motivation to group? Ask for it. All i'm saying is that it can be done without providing players with an endless stream of Elite content and gear - which is highly damaging to the overall game experience. Simply adding a group based find % that applies to all content is far more reasonable of a request and more beneficial to the games longevity.

Didn't even know there was a change in system to be honest but the old system was not balanced by 100 miles. 

1:4 ratio of missions solo:coop.

The only factor is that you don't realise it because you don't play with others. But it's not sustainable to keep it that way.

(not saying group pay is ideal though) 

To be fair, I saw the fate change and groaned and then didn't even bother logging in after the patch.

That was not the appropriate response to "Tarot is better than crafting", because, well... crafting was broken, Tarot was engaging. This makes me infinitely less inclined to dive into co-op now, and pretty much makes it impossible to do long Tarot sessions with casual players to help them over the hump--as they'll probably not have enough Fate on hand to do the runs. So there's two things that make me less inclined to brave my terrible net to coop--which strikes me as counterintuitive.

It essentially, at least currently, seems like the change leans towards the MMO mindset and hardcore mindset. That could be ok... except for the "this is not an MMO" point made.

There wasn't much reason to hurt group play that I can see.

Sod the gear (though crafting is relevant because drop vs. made is going to change how players approach things, and in an ARPG "gear is god" and part of all of the mechanics)...

Experience was infinitely better as well. Like, three to five times as much, for half the time it would take to solo the same content. There were great reasons to coop there, and draw you away from running solo (because let's face it, the current XP rewards are pretty terrible from a solo player's perspective). And now... I don't see much reason to do either. I was doing Directives in order to fund coop runs, because they weren't just good for rewards, it was generally more fun.

That word. Fun. I bring it up a lot. I almost never bring it up in regards to multiplayer, because the normal experience is... somewhat negative. So when I use it in regards to multiplayer, that means a sweet spot has been hit. Because it delivered both experience, for the character, and a positive experience for the player. Oh sure, a few times Pineapple ate INSTANT DEATH, but we laughed about it and revived. No big deal.

And maybe, just maybe, I'm currently a little salty over the fact that now that my net has stabilized enough to host Tarot missions, the planned "spend ALL THE TAROT" run isn't going to be viable now. I'd planned taking the newbies through and burning all 2200-ish Fate I'd banked during the couple weeks my net was garbage. Can't really do that effectively if it's a 1:1, now can I? And that... robs me of the fun of helping new players.

That's... not...

Ok, I'm confused. I outright stated to disregard the gear aspect in my reply, and then added further reasoning. So why back to the gear?

On top of "material" (item) rewards, I had active reasons (XP progression that isn't Korean MMO-slow, for one) to group up with random people and do something, whereas the current system removes those reasons and makes it harder to justify throwing up a coop call. And that's disappointing, because it's pretty rare for me to bother grouping up with people in a game these days. By pretty rare, I mean outside of last build in Martyr I've participated in coop maybe four times in the last two years. And that's with people I actively know and like. In Martyr, I put more coop hours in during a three week period than I had in two years.

Two. Years.

I'll let that simmer with you for a bit.

Honestly what I've seen of the current system is none of these things, and I'm guessing they were too close to a stable public build to change stuff up to take into account late feedback from those of us that wrote up comprehensive breakdowns a mere week or two before the update dropped.

I don't want Cookie Clicker-type progress. I want advancing in PL/CR to... be an advance--if I'm in higher level areas in any other game, I get proportionally more experience points to reflect being more powerful and facing more powerful/varied foes. As it stands, the health regen creeps higher and higher each CR, but I don't get a reward proportionate to the extra one to four fully charged shots it takes to down Marauders, Dreadnoughts, etc. If I'm doing more work, taking more time, I should be getting enough experience to make it viable. And that includes the 1-20 run, too. I was PL3 before I hit 15 on my Assassin, and doing CR3-4 missions with her... and it still took nearly two days of long play sessions solo to get to 20. It's just grindy, and poorly implemented right now.

The Marauders are the most damning, as the template for those hideous tarpits was applied to the Ogryns and then the Ogryns got a charge and some more AoE attacks to boot. Which is precisely what I didn't want to see but was sure was probably going to happen. That regen is just... beyond bad at this point, because like all of Papa Nurgle's gifts, it just refuses to stop spreading.

So, if playing coop not only gets me some amusing conversation and time with real people, but also boosts progression to something resembling literally any other ARPG, then yeah... it's gonna be the magnet for players.

And nerfing it without fixing the core causes? That's just Blizzard levels of missing the point.

Playing Tarot mission's as a good group is easier and faster than Solo(same power level). That is enough motivation to group for me.

Pretty much that.

As a group you can split to achieve a way faster clear speed for the objectives or assist each other making missions faster and more reliable compared to doing it solo.

If someone lacks the Fate to go on a mission, well, tough luck. Good thing that Tarot is not the base game for that reason so I don't see a big problem with community interaction anyway.

Unrelated to the payment method: Just increase the Fate Acquisition, building your own Mission and having a decent chance of gear is way more entertaining that most other stuff.

Which is where my point comes in. One, as I've stated in itemization threads.... this is feedback for now. We don't have the reworked XP yet. I don't know what it looks like. So... I have to base my feedback on what we have. When I tune a rifle, I don't base my shot groupings on the barrel that I haven't installed yet. I base my shot groupings on the barrel that put the holes in the paper. Why, then, would I give feedback built on expectations of how features will work, when I don't even have any data on how they're to be implemented? I mean while it's doubtful, they could "overhaul" the system by dropping XP gains a thousand percent. Or introduce minor XP gained for killing monsters. Or for doing rounds at the Ministry of Silly Walks. I don't know, so I can neither accurately comment, nor do I want to attempt to.

Your view is that tarot was too much. Which is... not wrong, if you mean in relation to normal play as opposed to "grind is good, grind is life". My view is that tarot was fine, the plain content wasn't enough. 6k-12k experience, continuing to remain at 6k-12k, is simply not viable when you reach the point where it's several hundred thousand XP to level (normal) but cannot get experience for killing mobs. A steady increase of XP payout relative to CR, then modded by your gear (so grinding CR1 missions in PL4+ gear is the same level of grindy, but doing CR4 missions in PL4 gear gives you actual appreciable experience because hey, you've progressed! You're stronger now!) so that you feel like there was a reason to get there, and a reason to keep going. I went back to Path of Exile, since I've been using it as an off example where Grim Dawn doesn't fit, and found that I was entirely correct--in the time it takes me to get from 1-10 in Martyr, I've already hurtled into my 20s and act 2. It's arguably faster than GD, but largely because GD has such high travel times between monsters--though my output in later-game in GD is probably the fastest in any ARPG I've played thanks to the destructive nature of my builds, usually about 2 levels an hour.

That, too, has been a gigantic sore spot for the pen and paper crowd in gaming, especially if it's a digital representation of tabletop (like Pillars of Eternity, which D&D players threw a conniption fit over, and not just the grognards). Personally, if a quest/mission/etc gives me a reward worth the time I invested, I'm less likely to care if I don't get experience for kills; but my staff threatened to walk out on a meeting when I broached it.

Everything interacts. All of the character systems interact. Experience interacts with coop through efficiency (real or perceived), and dictates what kind of content people will bother with after enough exposure to look at the mission type and know what they'll be facing. Experience, especially when it gets grindy (I know it might not seem like it but I can read the road map, Hydra :P) is going to be a turnoff, both to myself and other gamers, and the majority of us filthy filthy casuals will go to whatever is the fastest, least painful way to gain levels to see the content.

Honestly, I stopped playing because at this point, locked into solo by terrible net, getting to the next account level, the next Power Level, it feels like work. Like I've gone back to bug hunting professionally. And that's not what I wanted out of Martyr, so I put it down for a bit so I didn't grow to loathe it. I want to continue looking at new updates with excitement, not dispassionate number-crunching.

The whole TL;DR fad has really grown to underline the laziness of modern culture. It's used as an excuse for so long on the internet that I think people have forgotten how to bother to read because "reading is a challenge eeew". Potentially not the case here, but it's a warning: using "TL;DR" will just cause me to write ever growing blocks of text because it irritates the people using "TL;DR" to cover up an inadequate ability to parse meaning/being too lazy to read a comprehensive response that isn't just "that's bad". /rant

Second paragraph: again, that's all well and good but isn't actually going to change feedback of what we have now. Nerfing challenge content for the sake of going "see, regular content is still viable because we nerfed the other content" is, again, Blizzard levels of missing the point, and Neocore would be poorly served should they do so in the rework. Giving feedback now, and continuing to give detailed breakdowns of issues now, will serve them far better while they continue to rework systems than going "it's fine, there's a nebulous idea coming that we know nothing about, so we should stop giving detailed reasons why this isn't working for us".

When you take a car to a mechanic, you don't say "well your sign says you'll have the problem fixed in five days or less, so I don't have to tell you what has been going on." You tell them what your problem is so they have some idea of how to fix it.

I think its more of an issue that there are tarot missions that are just right and ones that are just down right impossible solo. To much of a gamble for my liking. Two bosses and a portal in the same room of a timed tarot mission is overly elite in my book and just leads to rage. There needs to be content for all player levels. Increasing the difficulty of basic missions only hurts a game and makes uneven balance more obvious. The tarot missions are way to RNG ATM. Therefore either more fate or evening out the challenge have to happen.

One: as pointed out in a later post in the thread, it's most commonly used as an insulting "I don't care", largely TL;DR has become a catch-phrase for the lazy and the troll; so it tends to be a bit off-putting.

Two: To make this one brief, the point of the whole breakdown is that it wasn't awarding enough to progress faster like a hard difficulty in any other game. Five minutes for five thousand XP twice, vs. ten minutes for ten thousand XP once. It's still the same amount, so it had no push to move on from the first system (the Authority Packs are kind of a joke currently). And while it's possible to grind out 100k an hour, it's not fun because you're throwing yourself into content constantly with no time to get a drink or unwind.

Meanwhile, that same system with a Tarot mission paid out (depending on use of the XP modifier card) between 20k and 50k experience for a ten minute run. That is a faster progression, and that's why Tarot became the "Hard Mode" challenge dungeon. The gear was... meh depending on your class, largely not worth the time most of the time (especially as a tank crusader, where DR was/is such a pain to find), and largely not a motivating factor in my choice of running it.

So if we lowball at 20k/ten minutes vs. 10k for ten minutes, it's a 60k XP/hour difference. It was just more efficient (as much as I hate using that term) than bothering with solo content, especially with those godawful Reborn Marauders loving to spawn in huge clumps just to ruin your day.

Guess I've been exposed to different uses of the term TLDR. In the twit-longer arena and moba scene it's only ever used as a tongue in cheek summary to get across the underlining message, never as anything offensive to an author. Presumably in other circles its offensive.

As it stands at present its 

• 10k exp per mission
• 12k for +1 difficulty 
• 15k for +2 
• 17k for +3

Agreed - The time taken for a +3 difficulty doesn't justify the reward. But why not make argument for the experience rate to be balanced across all content, both elite and normal? Asking for the return of regular elite content to replace a difficulty system seems to me at least like fixing a very simple issue of changing some numbers by causing several complex issues with game balance and progression.

Now i'm not entirely sure if I understood you properly here - But me thinks you are telling me have been running tarrot's for experience and not gear? That further highlights my point as to how much the previous system was just a convenience while waiting for the progression and reward system to be adjusted. Others may disagree but to me it seems that the tarrot system is intended to be a means of providing limited amounts of higher quality items and materials. Not to provide a place to accelerate the levelling process.

Seems very closely linked to the conversations of the log-in shop farming. Where a system that wasn't working as intended was being argued as being essential, yet the balance of the features that led to the reliance on it were being overlooked.

As always, enjoy the conversation. Happy weekend.

That's the core of my argument. Instead of increasing (even temporarily) the core content rewards, they nerfed the challenge content rewards. That's why I underlined why so many of us were spending all our time in the Tarot missions as opposed to solo/group standard missions--because the boost to XP was not enough to offset the time taken to finish the mission (for solo), making it more efficient to grind out starting content instead.

So my argument isn't "bring back the broken" so much as "you just removed the last vestiges of motivation I had to continue playing currently by nerfing the one thing that was still proving fun and leaving me with just the feels-like-a-job-grind".

At the time I was discussing the flaws with the old system. Which I've argued to be changed for several months. But you know what I did that very moment I realised there was a change? - (at the start of the thread) - I immediately went into the game to fully understand what is going on. Don't presume everything I have said since is therefore not based on sound reasoning.

Perhaps you find me rude. To me it's part of normal discourse when someone puts forward several points to then respond with a singular statement. It's not insulting to their hard work, it's providing a simple means to see if you are both on the same page. An opportunity to either agree or disagree and discuss why. Perhaps my choice in words are what you found offensive.

Seemed like you were making the argument for bringing back the old instead of fixing the new! - But nice that we are on the same page. Looks like the TLDR is that we both agree as per usual but managed to debate over it anyway! xD

Well of course, I'm of Irish descent and we're fairly known for being obtuse. :P

Back to other parts of what I was saying, after the same amount of time investment in Path of Exile that got me to account 9 in Martyr, I'm currently racking up around 1.5m XP/hour (which sounds about right for Grim Dawn as well, at something in the range of about 45m-1hr/level if I'm slacking) compared to the 100k per hour (with similar XP TNL) I can get if I pull out all the stops here. That average takes into account the time I've been taking to stop for a few minutes and check my mail, grabbing more water, icing down my bad wrist so I don't end up with a claw in place of a hand, etc. As an aside, the XP/hour tracker is kind of a neat little feature, and makes it pretty simple to work out what I'm getting for the time I'm investing.

Granted, they've had around... I think four years since I played last to hammer those systems out. I was still married, and it was before my motherboard blew up, so roughly four years should be about right. But it doesn't hurt to look at other systems and compare, especially during development. Especially if it's entertaining and gives me a change in perspective to further refine my opinions.

And to do higher and higher CR content in relation to your PL you need...?

More players. You keep going back to the modifier, but seem to be ignoring the human element--this ties into what I was saying previously about the lack of motivation to move on in general, because higher CR content that was "progressing" through the sector gave the same old rewards, and doing higher CR content solo was inefficient (best case) and an unholy slog (normally).

10k XP for 15 minutes of effort, vs. 20k XP for 30 minutes of effort, vs. 30k-50k XP for 5 minutes of effort. One of these is clearly "the right path". The fact that it compels players to group up, and face challenges together instead of slogging alone was just icing on the cake.

The root of that issue, the leveling curve, is a much longer and more complex thing to break down--but the current curve is off on the extreme high end, alongside games like the original Ragnarok Online (and other Korean "classics"), considering the maximum number of levels available. Should you zip through account levels? No. Should you feel as though an hour was marked progress? Yes. Currently, an hour of play solo will not net me an account level. I might roll out an account level if I get lucky and nab three or four Data Hunts, which were giving out 10k XP regardless of CR, but not otherwise. Compare that to any other ARPG out there. Until you hit the 50-70 endgame slump, you're getting levels frequently, with the first thirty or so taking at most six hours, and the first 20 taking you perhaps an hour. Given that the "first 20" in Martyr is essentially an extended tutorial, the fact that the fastest I've cleared it solo was two days of play is not a resounding high note.

Now, what motivation is there? Lower level players aren't gonna have the fate required to run more than one mission, so that's out. Higher level players are going to want to stick to their clades and jealously hoard their fate to share with Their People. All this will do in the long run is throw a divide in the community.