Alien XP and Alien Titles
First let me start this little article by saying I am very sorry for all the changes that have been to the Alien XP calculations and the amount of AXP needed and what have you not. It should not have happened and looking retrospectively on it it's easy to say that, but certain events led to it being the chaos we have just been through. When that is said, make no mistake about it; we learned a lot out of it and Cz has done an amazing job keeping me updated of the feedback from you guys.
Now to the question at hand, Alien XP, why is it required that the players need so much AXP to gain titles?
First of all, the curve for gaining Alien XP is now set in stone. Going in and changing that curve at this time is not an option really. There are two reasons for this. The curve is a good exponential curve that works, and there are many players that have gained many titles already.
When that is said,
how we calculate the Alien XP has been changed, meaning you will now get more AXP pr kill. This has been adjusted by a factor of a little more than 4. I'll explain more about what this means later. Let me first give some background to how Alien XP works, as there are certain things you need to be aware of.
You will get more AXP for killing higher level aliens than yourself. And you will get less XP for killing greens and lower level aliens than yourself. Higher level players will get more Alien XP by killing a equal level alien than low level players do.
The Alien XP follows the same rules with regards to XPrange as normal XP does. What that means is that there are limits to who you can get XP with in a team. A level 1 in a team with a level 100 wont get AXP in this team. A level 90 is however within XPrange of the level 100 and will be awarded XP in that team.
AlienXP can not be saved on your character. If an Alien kills you (and only when an Alien kills you, not when you get killed by another monster type) you will loose Alien XP. What's important to note here is that the level of the monster you get killed by determines the amount of AXP you loose. If you get killed by an Alien that's lower level than yourself you loose more XP than if you get killed by an Alien that's higher level than you. Actually the amount you loose is the amount that Alien would have got from killing you times 5. There you have some numbers to play with. You are however not able to loose more than 25% of the total Alien XP needed for your next title.
Your Alien XP gain is capped at 10% of what you need to progress to next title. If you are at Alien Title 1, you need 1500 Alien XP to get to title 1. If you are a high level player with the new AXP reward you risk getting this in two, maybe even one kill. Like I said, this is capped at 10%, meaning, you are not able to gain more than 150 (10% of 1500) in each kill.
So, as I explained earlier the XP you get from killing Aliens has been increased by around a factor of 4. This means a highlevel (200+) player starting from Alien Title 0 will use about 2 months of real hardcore playing. A careful estimate I have done, based on feedback from players and my own numbers, is that it will take around 200 Alien city attacks for a player to max out everything. But, you should note that as things are now, you really don't need to gain the last titles, because of the reward. This is something we might adjust later though. Once you get to Alien Title 25 you are about halfway there, at least in regards to the amount of XP needed, so a casual player should also be able to reach the Alien Titles they really "need" within a decent timeframe.
I hope this has given you some background on the changes and the workings of the Alien XP.
Marius Enge
Game Director, AO
