EXP Curve Explained

This guide explains how experience points influence character progression and how to adjust EXP curves to match your game's difficulty setting. Read to learn about EXP Curve in RPG MAKER WITH.

EXP Curve Explained

EXP Curve Determines the Pacing of Character Progression

In RPG MAKER WITH, the EXP Curve determines how quickly or slowly characters level up as they gain experience points.

By adjusting the EXP Curve, you can control the pacing of character progression depending on your game design and the difficulty that you have set for your game.

Where to Find the EXP Curve

You can view or adjust the level of the EXP Curve in the Database screen inside the Classes tab.

Parameter Curve Explained

How to Adjust the EXP Curve

Let's do an in-depth look at one of the character classes. For example, here is the EXP Curve for the Swordsman class. The Next Level tab shows you how many experience points are needed to reach the next level.

The Total tab shows you the total experience points that a character class can earn. In this example, the Swordsman class needs 2,547,133 experience points to reach level 99.

On the left side of this panel, there are 4 sliders that you can adjust. These are Base Value, Extra Value, Acceleration A, and Acceleration B.

Base Value and Extra Value refers to the raw amount of experience points needed to go up a level while Accelerations A and B determine how quickly or slowly a character levels up.

To see how much experience an enemy grants upon defeat, return to the Database screen and navigate to the Enemies tab. For this example, we'll examine the Slime enemy to understand its experience value.

A Slime gives 10 experience points so it requires defeating 5 Slimes for a Swordsman to go from level 1 to level 2. To ensure smooth progression throughout the game, you will have to adjust the exp drop of every enemy in the game. Another way to ensure that your players get enough EXP is to control how often an enemy appears, so as to limit your players from getting too much EXP too early in the game.

How to Make Enemies

Should You Adjust the EXP Curve?

Adjustments Depend Upon World Size and Enemy Variety

How you adjust your EXP Curves is ultimately your decision. If you created a large world with some side quests and varied enemy types, it is best to make the EXP curve steeper, so as to prevent your players from getting too overpowered too quickly.

To adjust the EXP curve, go to the EXP Curve tab and move the sliders. For this example, we're modifying the Swordsman class from its default settings: Base Value 30, Extra Value 20, Acceleration A 30, and Acceleration B 30. We’ll change these to Base Value 16, Extra Value 2, Acceleration A 12, and Acceleration B 20.

This change lowers the EXP requirements in the early game, making it easier to level up initially. However, progressing to higher levels will become more challenging and will require more enemies to defeat.

Adjusting the EXP curve must be done hand in hand with adjusting the EXP drops for enemies to ensure balanced gameplay. In this example, we've adjusted the EXP drop for the Slime from 10 to 5.

Learning about modifying EXP curves allows you to influence the pace at which characters grow in strength. A well-designed EXP Curve can help maintain a steady rise of difficulty in your game.

Character Class Settings Explained

RPG MAKER WITH Related Guides

All Advanced Guide Articles

Core Guides
Advanced Guide Part 1	Advanced Guide Part 2

Supplementary Guides
How to Make a Boss Dungeon With Traps	How to Make a Puzzle
Advanced Playtesting	How to Make Enemies
How to Make Enemy Groups	How to Make Different Kinds of Monster Encounters
How to Make a Boss Battle	How to Make an Ending
How to Use Common Events	How to Use Variables
EXP Curve Explained	Status Effect Creation Basics
Animations Guide	How to Set an Enemy’s Action Patterns
Event Priorities Explained

Tips and Tricks
How to Switch Battle Views	How to Make a Debug Room
How to Make Your Characters Jump	Kinds of Games You Can Make With RPG MAKER WITH
Game Design Fundamentals	What to Do When You Can’t Make a Good Game