Why We Slowed Down Leveling (And Why You'll Like It)

Leveling in Lourdin RPG got slower in May 2026, on purpose. One run through a capstone adventure could hand out about 1.8 levels, so players were outgrowing whole regions before they had seen them. We cut monster XP from level 4 up, capped what a single adventure can give, halved coin rewards to match, and doubled pet XP so companions keep up. Here is what changed, why, and what has changed again since.

Why did leveling feel too fast?

If your character seemed to rocket through levels this spring, leaving whole adventures and storylines in the dust, you weren't imagining it. A single capstone run could grant about 1.8 levels, which meant you could reach the end of the campaign without ever seeing half of what we built.

And we built a lot. Lourdin RPG has 80 hand-built adventures today, including 10 class capstones, 12 multiplayer adventures and scripted rest events, and most of it was getting skipped because the levels came too fast. So we shipped a five-part balance update to fix it.

How much XP does an adventure give now?

We cut the XP that monsters give by 2 to 4 times, for monsters of level 4 and up. Monsters of levels 1 to 3 kept their XP, because your first hours should still feel quick. The slowdown starts once you have found your footing and your class abilities start to matter.

Our goal was for a typical adventure to move you about a third of a level, so that two or three adventures take you to the next level and on to the next tier of adventures.

How does the per-adventure XP cap work?

Even after the cut, an under-leveled hero in a high-level adventure could blow past a level on a lucky run. So we added a ceiling:

The cap is measured at the level you were when the run began, so leveling up partway through an adventure does not loosen it. It covers everything the run pays: battle XP, waypoint bonuses, the completion bonus and banked rest-event XP, in single player and in multiplayer. Fights in the Combat Arena, outside any adventure, are not capped.

Start an adventure at level 8, for example, and the most that run can give you is 24,000 XP: enough to feel rewarded, never enough to skip a level. When the cap holds back XP, the victory screen tells you so with an "XP cap reached for this adventure" note and an "Adventure cap" line in the XP breakdown. Our guide on how leveling works covers the rest of the road to level 20.

Why do adventures pay less coin now?

We slowed XP, but the gold and copper from monster drops and adventure completion rewards had not changed. That meant players were quietly piling up more wealth per level than before, enough to outpace the shops and over-gear at every tier.

So coin from monster drops and adventure completion rewards now pays out at half its listed value. That keeps gold per level in step with the slower XP curve, and the victory screen shows exactly what you received.

Do rest events and Press On give bonus XP?

Some rest-event choices award bonus XP. Before May, that bonus was tracked during your run and never actually reached your character. The May update fixed it: rest-event bonus XP is now saved up during the run and paid when you finish the adventure, counted against the same per-adventure cap.

Press On is a different story. It was meant to add 15% XP at the next waypoint, and when we drafted this post in May we believed that was fixed too. It wasn't: the bonus was recorded and never paid. In June we removed it. Today Press On gives no bonus XP of its own. It skips the rest and sends you on to the next waypoint without recovering, which is still the right call when you are healthy and want to keep moving.

How fast do pets level now?

Companions earn XP as a share of what your character earns. With character XP cut 2 to 4 times, pets would have leveled 2 to 4 times slower too, and reaching the companion level cap of 10 would have become a grind across several campaigns. So we doubled the pet rates:

We aimed for pets to level at about the same pace they did before the rebalance, even though everything else slowed down. The companion pets guide explains how companions grow and evolve.

What has changed since the May update?

Two things, and we would rather you hear about both from us.

Press On. As described above, its bonus never worked, and we removed it in June 2026.

Double XP in single player. In October 2026 we found that every single-player victory had been paying its combat XP twice, ever since the game's first version, and the extra copy skipped the per-adventure cap. So until that fix, the cap did not fully hold in single player. Since October 2026, combat XP counts once, and inside an adventure the cap applies to all of it. Multiplayer was never affected. We left existing characters as they are: nobody lost a level over our mistake.

What will you notice in play?

If you load an existing character:

1. Your level and XP stay the same. None of these updates went back and changed a character.
2. Your next adventure pays noticeably less XP than you were used to.
3. The victory screen will flag the cap when you are far below an adventure's level and hit it.
4. Gold piles up more slowly, so plan your shop visits.

If you are starting fresh, this is the version of the game we always wanted. Take your time with each adventure; the content was made to be played. Class capstones in particular are now real milestones, and the Premium page covers the class capstones and everything else Premium includes.