NCsoft City of Heroes lead disigner Matt Miller gave out a Q&A for players in order to disscuss CIty of Heroes' new XP Curve Smoothing system.

"XP Curve Smoothing" Q&A with Matt "Positron" Miller

Q: Please tell us what exactly this XP Curve "Smoothing" means.

A: Well, the leveling speed "curve" looked like a jagged mountain slope more than a smooth line. There were some levels in City of Heroes and City of Villains that just took players longer to get through. This was due to a variety of reasons, mostly in the realm of available mission content. We have tried to add new content in those areas over the past few updates, but a stronger hand was needed in some of the real problem areas. We went in and, through data mining, determined how long characters "lived" (existed) at any given level. This pointed out exactly where our problem areas were and exactly how we could address them. In addition we did a near global increase to the XP earned for defeating enemies. This will have everyone leveling faster than previous issues.

Q: What made you decide to implement this?

A: Our players had legitimate complaints that certain levels acted like brick walls in developing their characters. We wanted to eliminate those walls wherever possible, and in the process speed up leveling for everyone.

Q: Does it fundamentally change anything about the game?

A: Definitely, players will see more progress on their XP bars in the same amount of play time they are used to. In addition, levels where they felt "stuck" should go by MUCH more quickly now.