A Short Novel on the XP Limit.

[JackKerras]

XP boosting is a nonproblem.

 

Is it unfair? Yes. As is all cheating. That said, it's not actually the point; the point is that 343 (and all modern game companies) want folks coming back day after day, rather than simply coming in, hitting 50, and leaving. Can't forget to water your crops or your farm will shrivel. Be sure you Like us on Facebook.

 

Now, despite the fact that Halo 4 contains a significant amount of time-gated content (Spartan Ops most obviously, maps from DLC secondarily, Specializations being released a few at a time, daily/weekly/monthly achievements, etc.), 343 also considered it important to put in an XP cap. Not only to purportedly stop boosters (a nonproblem which XP caps do not solve), but also to make sure that people come back a little every day, rather than a lot all at once.

 

That'd be fine, except I work long hours, and my weekend days are the only days I really get to dig into Halo and enjoy myself.

 

This, coupled with the fact that there's a 2x XP promotion from Mountain Dew and a literal monetary reward (as MS Points) for playing a certain amount of Halo in the first month, means that I think the entire system was slapped together by a bunch of monkeys.

 

You are solving a problem that's not there. You are aggravating me, a perfectly legitimate player and until-the-cap perfectly happy customer, by punishing me because other people might cheat, or because other people might not play constantly.

 

It's kindergarten logic; uh oh, Johnny stole extra cookies so now no one gets cookies.

 

That is for children. I do not appreciate being treated like a child, or a cheater, or any combination of the pair. I'd much rather be treated like a customer who pays you folks for a service.

 

I don't play this game just to level. I just prefer to level when I play the game. I only play legitimately and I've run into the cap two out of my three weekend days. I will no doubt do the same tomorrow, and each time I curse whatever designer decided that something as simple and thoughtless as an XP cap would be a solution rather than an additional problem.

 

I have not had my gameplay experience degraded by XP boosters nearly as much as I have by your XP cap.

 

Please do something about this, folks.

[Field of Mangos]

Just curious. How many hours would it take for you to hit the XP cap in a given day?

[ElderlyCrab]

Not trying to be rude, but if you work long hours all week, then spend your entire weekend hitting the xp cap on halo every day.. Is there anything else going off in your life? I Love halo as much as anyone who comes and posts on a forum about it. But jeez dude go out for a drink or a smoke or something..

[JackKerras]

Not trying to be rude, but if you work long hours all week, then spend your entire weekend hitting the xp cap on halo every day.. Is there anything else going off in your life? I Love halo as much as anyone who comes and posts on a forum about it. But jeez dude go out for a drink or a smoke or something..

 

As a matter of fact, there is. I do plenty of other things, but I tend to set aside a weekend or two right near the release of a game I particularly enjoy just to play that game and really get a lot of time with it.

 

And Mangos, I generally take 4-5 hours to hit the cap with double XP and all that jazz. Doing commendations and challenges and things has a sizable hand in getting me up to that as well.

[Meiluy]

I'm likewise being hindered by this XP cap thing. I hit it in about 3 hours of play today running Matchmaking Spartan Ops while using the Double XP from MD and Doritos. I'm trying to get the armor look I want, as I have everything I want to use (weapons, Armor Abilties, etc) unlocked already. Today is my first real play to level day, as I really want that Oceanic chestpiece (Level 47 required, I'm stuck at 46 because of the cap). Since they make all of the previous stuff available at 26 (just have to save the points for the items you want), it feels stupid to limit how fast I can unlock appearance items. Yes, I know about Specializations, and hope I can make it to my first tomorrow, though with the fact that I capped at 46 when I started at 42, I have a feeling I won't be able to.

 

I feel this was a very poor decision on 343's part. As you said, it hurts those of us who want to play for a good amount of time when we have a day off.

[Josh Harris]

Didn't realize that there was an xp cap until today. I am currently around 600xp from my next rank, and finished my BR mastery which gives 10k xp. After the game is over Im still the same level and that XP I earned is gone. Thanks for robbing me of hard earned xp 343. You guys areshowing us how much really care about the community you have been given

[CaptainMarksie]

The XP cap is in place to help prevent boosting.

It is the same for every player so it is fair.

It only affects a tiny amount of halo players (boosters and people who play alot and/or use double xp).

 

343 obviously know this and definitely will not remove the cap, and it's unlikely that they will reduce it significantly. Since you can only hit the cap by playing alot, it is fair to say you enjoy playing the game alot to. This means that even though there is a cap, it is not likely you are going to stop playing all together because of it. They want people to play their game for a long time. Having an XP cap is pretty much the only viable way for this to happen.

With out and XP cap, they would have to make the leveling system take alot longer than it is at the moment or else people who use Double XP and/or play alot will hit the final level far to quickly. But if they do make it so the leveling system takes longer to cater for the player who play alot/double xp then people who play casually will stop playing the game because it will feel like it's taking far to long for them to level up so they wont be getting rewards often enough to keep them interested. Assuming the percentage of players who hit the xp cap frequently is less than 5% (probably even less than that), if they were to cater the leveling system towards them then they would probably lose interest from most of the other 95%. Removing the cap and keeping the leveling system as it is would mean that the 5% who used to hit the cap would hit top level quickly and then most would probably lose interest meaning 343 would lose about 5% of its population early on in the games life. The only way to keep both players playing is the XP cap, yes people will complain about it (343 knows this) but they probably wont stop playing because of it (probably less than 5% of the 5% who hit the cap frequently).

[Fredex]

One issue I have with it is that it feels like it almost discourages playing the game... if I hit the XP limit but have a few multiplayer commendations coming up I kind of want to stop playing, even if I am enjoying it, because it will just make the next level take longer if a whole bunch of XP is wasted.

 

Now I don’t actually know if the limit stops you completing commendations and challenges or if the experience from them still contributes and it is just the game complete experience that ceases... these things are not actually made clear but since I am not sure a couple times it has led to me stopping for the night when we might have played a few more fun games.

 

Frankly the system reminds me of the thing that MMOs have in Japan to stop people killing themselves by forgetting to eat...

[Wolfspector]

I've been playing hella hard, am at SR46 and have never seen this xp cap.. Not saying I want to, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else though, because that does seem like quite the buzzkill. They definitely need to take it out. But I guess it would help some of us to get some sun lol

[Trent Reznor]

What is the XP cap?

 

I play a lot and I'm only SR35. I don't understand how some people have already reached above 50. It's insane.

[littletunny]

I thought the XP cap has nothing to do with true skill, which we cant see anyway....SUPPOSEDLY.

 

So which is it 343????

 

Why would 343 care about XP if it was separate from your true skill rank???????

[Metalunatic]

Well thought out post, OP. I agree 100%.

[buffy the spartan buffalo]

I've been playing hella hard, am at SR46 and have never seen this xp cap.. Not saying I want to, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else though, because that does seem like quite the buzzkill. They definitely need to take it out. But I guess it would help some of us to get some sun lol

me too never heard of it. but does anybody know the specific XP cap?

[Randol James Drangsholt]

I haven't hit the xp cap yet either, but hitting that and being seriously disappointed with spartan ops I would probably stop playing and would be remiss to start again. I vote take it out.

[albinoxeno]

i've been playing quite alot on my days off work and have hit the cap once (lvl 49 with no xp bonuses). i don't boost or do anything illegitimate, i'm just a halo fan enjoying a new game on a day off. It really annoyed me when i hit the cap, and i stopped playing - not because i play to level, but because it accussed an innocent player off cheating. the system does not take into account the players who play alot in one day rather than a few hours everyday - we're not all highschool students 343, recognise you are catering for different types of people!

 

it really does have a detrimental effect on players like myself who cant play every day, but go all out on days off. i stopped playing matchmaking the other day and played something else because i was 1 win away from the monthly challenge, but knew the cap would rob me of some of my reward. why should i have to work around a cap that shouldn't be there. this cap has p****d me off more than someone who is already level 90 for cheating ever will....

 

edit: lol i'm sr49 not sr46.

[Perfectious]

The XP cap is in place to help prevent boosting.

It is the same for every player so it is fair.

It only affects a tiny amount of halo players (boosters and people who play alot and/or use double xp).

 

343 obviously know this and definitely will not remove the cap, and it's unlikely that they will reduce it significantly. Since you can only hit the cap by playing alot, it is fair to say you enjoy playing the game alot to. This means that even though there is a cap, it is not likely you are going to stop playing all together because of it. They want people to play their game for a long time. Having an XP cap is pretty much the only viable way for this to happen.

With out and XP cap, they would have to make the leveling system take alot longer than it is at the moment or else people who use Double XP and/or play alot will hit the final level far to quickly. But if they do make it so the leveling system takes longer to cater for the player who play alot/double xp then people who play casually will stop playing the game because it will feel like it's taking far to long for them to level up so they wont be getting rewards often enough to keep them interested. Assuming the percentage of players who hit the xp cap frequently is less than 5% (probably even less than that), if they were to cater the leveling system towards them then they would probably lose interest from most of the other 95%. Removing the cap and keeping the leveling system as it is would mean that the 5% who used to hit the cap would hit top level quickly and then most would probably lose interest meaning 343 would lose about 5% of its population early on in the games life. The only way to keep both players playing is the XP cap, yes people will complain about it (343 knows this) but they probably wont stop playing because of it (probably less than 5% of the 5% who hit the cap frequently).

 

It only affects a tiny amount of players? I seriously hope that is a joke. There are tens of thousands of people who hit the cap every day or every few days. What do they do once they hit the xp cap? They get off. I like how the person who created this worded it. We are being treated like children. Maybe they should just start checking the systems to see people getting massive amounts of xp and look into it instead of just taking it out on everyone. Feels like grade school when we used to get recess taken away from us because of 2 people talking out of 30 of us. Then we would lose it the next day because those same people started talking during our "detention" type of recess where we weren't supposed to talk. But, in this case.... There are millions of people who are getting penalized for something that a very very very very (x50) tiny amount of people do.

[TRF BaDInTentZs]

Caps are tard, if they want folks to stop boosting then they need to have mods running in the lists that have the ability to hand out bans, not penalize the folks who aren't boosting.

[Meiluy]

The biggest problem with the XP cap is it punishes people who want to play the game. Right now Microsoft is running a thing where they reward players who play Halo 4 a lot this month, up to 600MSP to players who play it for 140 hours or more. So, anyone who is actually going for that will most likely hit their cap every day, and have to keep playing with not only no reward, but also the risk of losing access to XP for commendations or challenges that could be completed during that time. Second off, 343 is working alongside Mountain Dew and Doritos for a Double XP campaign from now until the end of Januray. That means that the people who use this bonus get only half the time they'd have otherwise to play before they get punished too. All of this to effectively limit appearance options once you're halfway through the Spartan IV Spec.

 

The cap is deisgned to limit boosters, yet that's still happening with people who AFK in Spartan Ops, so their measure only really hurts people who are legitimately playing the game, not the boosters. As someone said before me, if they want to nail boosters, they should have mods who can ban/reset progress to the boosters who are caught. Not punish the players who want to play some Halo.

[upton889]

I'm not personally affected by the XP cap all that much but I can see why people are upset about it. Credit farming is an issue but there's no reason to punish the entire player base because of the actions of few.

[Dazios]

My first week playing Halo 4, I hit the xp cap every day. I believe it is around 160,000 xp a day, which includes xp from challenges, commendations, etc. Now every day I hit the xp cap it took me about 8-10 hours of playing war games (using double xp). You get anywhere from 4,400 to 5,900 xp a match using double xp.

 

In Spartan Ops online you can hit the cap in about 3-4 hours, each game using double xp you get 11,900 xp (not including any challenges or commendations you may have completed)

 

Now if you spend all of your time in Spartan Ops online, you are going to hit the cap very quickly with or without double xp.

 

I don't like the xp cap either but they were smart about it, 8-10 hours in war games with double xp, now take the double xp away and that is 16-20 hours to hit the xp cap. I have yet to hit the cap without using double xp and to answer a earlier question, when you hit the xp cap, you earn no xp, from challenges, commendations, etc. So my advice when you hit the cap, either go play campaign or forge or custom games or play a different game because if you complete a commendation after you hit the cap, you will lose all of the xp from it.

 

I hope this helped to clear some questions up

 

Also I am SR 73 so even with the cap in place it is still possible to get to a high rank pretty fast.

[v MoPPy]

Myself, I am here on the forums, killing time, because I have already completed my Spartan Ops weekly challenges, my matchmaking weekly challenges and my dailies, as well as played about ten games on matchmaking. I'm close to being exp capped for today, but I want to keep playing.

 

I have the day off from work today, but I want to play with my friends tonight and ENJOY myself. I enjoy myself when I get exp. Not when I complete commendations and challenges, and not get exp for them. That pisses me off. So instead, I'm being punished by not playing the game.