XP Penalties.

[transcend]

Heya Prime... I don't think that's what we're getting at.  Maybe I'm not articulating it well.

Must of us "Action-RPers" are familiar with the ups and downs of heavy dungeoning/questing activity.
What we're suggesting is that lately, the dive into the deeper XP penalty modes seems to be coming a LOT quicker after a lot less activity, and climbing out seems to be taking a lot longer during periods of crafting, roleplaying, and general idleness.

I can relate to this, and to Anarcoplayba's story. I'm not sure if the XP limiter is counting the percentage of XP sources a given character has or if it's doing some weird census thing where the server average is compared to the gain of the character itself, but it feels like blind drive is both more punishing and harder to get out of.

I've been putting a character on cooldown for a little bit and it didn't take too long for a couple of dungeons to get him from fresh to 'lol slow down' and onto blind drive again.

According to the official posts describing PotM's XP system, it does in fact do a census, essentially trying to keep your level close to the average level for your age.

If there's a lot of level 2-3 characters who were created at the same time as you, then they would continue to skew the metrics (and consequently your XP gains) for months or even years to come, depending on how many such characters existed. (I actually have a number of characters created from December through July that would have such an effect, though it should be marginal unless a lot of people created and discarded characters throughout that period.)

Then that's bad news for everyone who has started in New Character Events, if a number of those characters were never further explored.

[Anarcoplayba]

Well... If being punished by your acts were not bad enough, you are being punished by other's acts too. I'd not feel that bad if we could delete characters.

[EO]

XP is not based on others' progression. At this point, since we've clarified that the system works as intended, I'll lock this topic since it's devolved into speculation.