With a little over a month under its belt, Wayfinder has finally landed on its feet. Delivering to its player base a very expansive and well-designed MMORPG. From its unique cast of characters, to devastating weapons. The game, for the most part is good, outside of some systems behind the general gameplay experience. Such as the Crafting System that feels more tedious than it should. While in my experience of 80 hours, I cannot help but feel like the leveling system in the game is hindered in a similar way. That leaves me discouraged to touch another wayfinder or weapon.
Too Little XP for so Much Work
I played as Kyros after spending my initiates pack wayfinder token before doing the main content of the game. While only getting Niss to level 2, and then shifting to Kyros afterwards. I got to level 30 with him by the time I got to Reaver Woods. But that was in-between nearly 40 hours of play time in Expeditions, Hunts, and exploring in the Highlands. I am at now 80 hours while farming for weapon parts and resources. But due to wanting to spice up my play time. I wanted to go back to Niss and level up other weapons, such as the shotgun “Tempest”. I found in my experience for 8 hours of the total game time I have, that I was only able to get level 2 Niss, and level 6 Tempest to level 8 and level 16.
This is, for lack of better terms, not good. As I never felt like the leveling system was as skewed as it was due to the fact I was consuming a variety of different content and quests. However, there is no way to restart that process. There are almost no repeatable side quests to expedite the leveling process. As well as having low payouts for XP across general enemies, bosses in hunts and mini-bosses in expedition or the highlands.
Expedition XP Gains
I went into an expedition around the power level of my level 7 Niss and only needed about 30% of the XP bar filled. However, in that run, while doing everything I could. I did not level once, which is extremely disheartening. Considering there are these items called weapon and wayfinder scrolls that can not be used nor do I know what they actually do. In the announcement of the “Call of the Void” update, they did not mention these items being activated or not. Which is equally disheartening because I would love to speed up the process of leveling, because killing bosses does not help either and the ones at my power level don’t give me much XP.
Will It Ever Get Better for XP Farming in Wayfinder?
But when it comes to XP gains I think all I can say is that it feels very underwhelming. I know the game is in early access, but as of right now, if I wanted to level up more wayfinders or weapons. I would be sacrificing valuable time to farm resources for wayfinders and weapons. While on the other hand, when I have them, I would not have a meaningful way to level them up. As well as knowing that Airship Syndicate has increased XP gains from bosses and mini-bosses. But not from general enemies, or completing activities.
Hunt XP Gains
I love the way that Wayfinder plays, but I am currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. I want to farm and get everything. But once I do, I can not level things efficiently, and I would be tied to low level content. I even tried to the helper queue to at least earn extra coins to get more gloomstones. But it keeps tossing me into high level content that Niss and Tempest cannot do. So that is another avenue of getting rewards I can not choose.
Suffice it to say, that the game does have a problem with XP gains. I hope it can be addressed as this can make things worse in the long haul. Day one, or week one was not so bad. As I was experiencing meaningful content and seeing what the game has to offer. But now that I have to go back bring my inventory up to the endgame, it feels daunting. While further down the road when more wayfinders and weapons are added, that this problem will just feel worse.
