Post by xdesperado on Apr 2, 2016 18:39:12 GMT -5
Earning XP is a vital part of HoS and the more you can acquire sooner the better your Heroes will be prepared in later fights.
I'd noticed that just in the first part of episode 1, escape from Red Hill to Oskahold you could get nearly a levels difference in XP between play throughs. Continueing this trend could see the difference with completionist play of having one or more heroes at level 18 for the final battle of episode 1 with the Baron or entire party barely making level 17 before that fight.
After a bit of discussion with Cory Trese and fallen and some testing they did I gave it a bit more thought.
Most of the encounters are random as far as the numbers and types of enemies spawned. So not much you can do there. With luck you'll see larger enemy groups and more high value types early but that's outside your control.
What's not totally outside your control is when you will do certain encounters and targeting high value types in those encounters.
First you need to have some knowledge of where various encounters are triggered. The specific spawns are random but the trigger locations remain the same.
Along with that comes a general idea about the types of enemies spawned.
Next know how much XP your heroes have and how much they need for the next level.
With that information you can start planning ways to get the most XP.
Important fact, XP is determined by groups average level. Every level your heroes gain sees the XP award for killing mobs go up. With this in mind you want to gain levels as efficiently as possible which is where knowing encounters and how much XP you need to level come in.
Say I'm level 4 and my heroes need between 5 and 20 XP each to level. I have two possible encounters I can trigger. One tends to be smaller with 3-6 enemies generally spawned and almost never has any high value mobs. The other is larger with 8-12 enemies and can have high value targets. In this case I want to take the smaller encounter first. It should give me 16-20XP on average which will see most if not all of my heroes level as each mob gives 4XP. With my party average now at level 5 the mobs in other encounter will give me 5XP each which means I've maximized my gains getting an extra 1 XP for each of those mobs in the larger group. If I did the larger encounter first I would assuredly get party to level 5 but each of those enemies would only net me 4XP each and I'd have a smaller encounter to start me on my way to level 6.
Next is knowing the high value enemies or mini bosses like the Shaman which grant extra XP to the hero that lands the killing blow.
You want to avoid using Tamilin/Selen for this as much as possible because they're already getting extra XP from unlocking doors/chests and disarming traps. Instead I like to try getting the hero with the lowest XP that kill shot. By rotating it between the other three heroes no one falls behind or jumps way ahead on XP. The same applies with major bosses but there it's going to have a much larger impact with one hero possibly jumping well ahead of rest of party at least temporarily. Keeping the party as close together in XP as possible will help you plan for where and when you'll level easier since there won't be a big gap between one or two of the heroes and rest of party.
Now as an example, my latest party was closing on level 7 while clearing the West Road out of Oskahold. I finished a battle and Selen made level 7. Checked XP for others and found them all within about 15 of leveling. At that point I knew there was only 3 more encounters left on the map before entering one of the caves. Now I messed up, I knew two of the encounters were larger and would most likely involve ROUS and Shaman while the third would be smaller and only contain normal Ratkin. I should have taken the smaller encounter first as the 4-6 or so Ratkin would have leveled rest of my party and I'd have gotten an easy extra 15-25XP on one of the other fights. While that doesn't sound like a lot it does add up as you play through. In this case that's roughly one less smaller encounter I'd need for level 8. Since there are a limited number of encounters you want to make the most of them.
Anyways hope someone finds this helpful.
I'd noticed that just in the first part of episode 1, escape from Red Hill to Oskahold you could get nearly a levels difference in XP between play throughs. Continueing this trend could see the difference with completionist play of having one or more heroes at level 18 for the final battle of episode 1 with the Baron or entire party barely making level 17 before that fight.
After a bit of discussion with Cory Trese and fallen and some testing they did I gave it a bit more thought.
Most of the encounters are random as far as the numbers and types of enemies spawned. So not much you can do there. With luck you'll see larger enemy groups and more high value types early but that's outside your control.
What's not totally outside your control is when you will do certain encounters and targeting high value types in those encounters.
First you need to have some knowledge of where various encounters are triggered. The specific spawns are random but the trigger locations remain the same.
Along with that comes a general idea about the types of enemies spawned.
Next know how much XP your heroes have and how much they need for the next level.
With that information you can start planning ways to get the most XP.
Important fact, XP is determined by groups average level. Every level your heroes gain sees the XP award for killing mobs go up. With this in mind you want to gain levels as efficiently as possible which is where knowing encounters and how much XP you need to level come in.
Say I'm level 4 and my heroes need between 5 and 20 XP each to level. I have two possible encounters I can trigger. One tends to be smaller with 3-6 enemies generally spawned and almost never has any high value mobs. The other is larger with 8-12 enemies and can have high value targets. In this case I want to take the smaller encounter first. It should give me 16-20XP on average which will see most if not all of my heroes level as each mob gives 4XP. With my party average now at level 5 the mobs in other encounter will give me 5XP each which means I've maximized my gains getting an extra 1 XP for each of those mobs in the larger group. If I did the larger encounter first I would assuredly get party to level 5 but each of those enemies would only net me 4XP each and I'd have a smaller encounter to start me on my way to level 6.
Next is knowing the high value enemies or mini bosses like the Shaman which grant extra XP to the hero that lands the killing blow.
You want to avoid using Tamilin/Selen for this as much as possible because they're already getting extra XP from unlocking doors/chests and disarming traps. Instead I like to try getting the hero with the lowest XP that kill shot. By rotating it between the other three heroes no one falls behind or jumps way ahead on XP. The same applies with major bosses but there it's going to have a much larger impact with one hero possibly jumping well ahead of rest of party at least temporarily. Keeping the party as close together in XP as possible will help you plan for where and when you'll level easier since there won't be a big gap between one or two of the heroes and rest of party.
Now as an example, my latest party was closing on level 7 while clearing the West Road out of Oskahold. I finished a battle and Selen made level 7. Checked XP for others and found them all within about 15 of leveling. At that point I knew there was only 3 more encounters left on the map before entering one of the caves. Now I messed up, I knew two of the encounters were larger and would most likely involve ROUS and Shaman while the third would be smaller and only contain normal Ratkin. I should have taken the smaller encounter first as the 4-6 or so Ratkin would have leveled rest of my party and I'd have gotten an easy extra 15-25XP on one of the other fights. While that doesn't sound like a lot it does add up as you play through. In this case that's roughly one less smaller encounter I'd need for level 8. Since there are a limited number of encounters you want to make the most of them.
Anyways hope someone finds this helpful.
