Update: February 13th 2020

On Tuesday, we released an update to Multiplayer XP that aimed to deliver a more consistent higher-rate XP earning experience for the majority of players.

As part of that update, we removed the difficulty multiplier curve for PVE difficulties in lieu of a flat doubled XP earn rate for all difficulties. While we aimed to deliver a consistent XP rate for all players, we understand that – for many high level PVE players who reached out to us yesterday – MPXP is a key reason to chase higher level difficulty completions.

As of this morning. we have decided to restore the difficulty multiplier to PVE following yesterday’s deployment.

To achieve our goal of improving the MPXP across the lower difficulties (most PVE matches are Elite or Lower) while retaining the best MPXP returns at the highest end of PVE play, we have returned the difficulty multiplier curve with upped rates across all difficulties except Master.

With this change, Master will still deliver the best XP rates at the same amount prior to Tuesday’s change, but all other modes have received a significant bump in their XP multiplier to bring up the average PVE MPXP earn rates.

To account for the return of the difficulty curve for PVE players, we have also further upped the MPXP rate for Versus to triple it’s original rate (up from double the original rate with Tuesday’s deployment).

Current MPXP Tuning – February 13th

Base MPXP for time played has been tripled for PVP modes

PVE Difficulty Multiplier restored and returned Beginner: Was 1x, now 2x Intermediate: Was 1.25x, now 2.25x Experienced: Was 1.5x, now 2.5x Advanced: Was 1.75x, now 3x Elite: Was 2x, now 3.5x Insane: Was 3x, now 4x Inconceivable: Was 4x, now 4.5x Master: Remains at 5x



Please note that these XP rates will not be reflected in the Matchmaking UI for either Horde or Escape. We’ll be updating those values in the UI to reflect these new rates via a future Title Update.

Original Post

Today we’ve deployed a server-side updated adjusting the way we distribute Multiplayer XP (MPXP).

Our main goal with this update is to create a consistent XP return across all modes based on time played, so that the time it takes to complete a Character’s Totem XP objective is more consistent for the majority of players.

Here are the two changes live now in Gears 5:

Base MPXP for time played has been doubled for all modes

Difficulty Multiplier no longer affects MPXP earned in Horde and Escape

When we deployed Character unlocks via Totems, our intention was for a Character unlock to take approximately 10 hours of play to complete the full set of Challenges. However, we’ve heard consistent reports of the process taking much longer for some players and, after reviewing the data, we identified that the average unlock time for most players exceeded that 10-hour goal.

The cause was an inconsistency between MPXP rates in Versus and lower difficulty levels of Horde/Escape on Elite or lower – which accounts for the vast majority of our player base – and higher difficulty PvE play.

With this change, you can now earn consistent MPXP rates in the modes you enjoy and not feel pressured to play a certain difficulty / mode in an attempt to optimize XP earn rates.

For top-end PVE players, we understand this means a drop in your MPXP rates and we appreciate this may be a frustrating change as we seek to make MPXP consistent across all modes. As with before the change, there is still an advantage for playing at an increased difficulty with better chances for higher rarity Skill Drops and increased Character XP.

We’ll be monitoring the results of these changes as always to determine if these provisional changes should be considered final. As always, please send us your feedback and let us know your thoughts.

TC