Rocket League XP nerf provokes player outrage

Now that Epic Games has made Rocket League officially free-to-play, hundreds of thousands of new players have jumped aboard the best car-based football game of all time. The new Season 1 also brings with it a new XP system that’s a little different from the old one.

Posting on the Rocket League subreddit, user EnvironmentalString explains just how the new system works. Players will soon notice that their overall XP gains are drastically decreased across the board, and this is due to a number of reasons.

(Picture: Psyonix)

Firstly, XP per second has been reduced. Instead of the usual 4.5 XP per second earned in-game, players will find that they’re now receiving 3 XP. This takes the total XP earned in a 5-minute game from 1350 to just 900.

That aside, the Weekly Win XP is no longer in the game. Instead of the 3 daily 2500 XP bonuses that players could previously earn, now there’s a single 1000 XP Daily Win. This is a hard blow to players who lose a potential 52,500 weekly XP bonus only to gain 7000 XP for wins each week instead.

The new Challenge XP rewards can help make up some of the lost experience, but unfortunately not all of it. Completing all available challenges each week will earn players approximately 5.7 levels, according to EnvironmentalString’s calculations. 

Given the overall decrease in XP gain, the user determines that this isn’t even close to earning back the lost experience points from simply playing the game. Obviously, players aren’t happy about this new change, but whether Psyonix will comment on the changes remains to be seen.

• Read more: Rocket League Rocket Pass Season 1: all tiers and unlocks, cost, challenges, end date, and more

This change to the XP system wasn’t announced beforehand, nor has the developer responded to player feedback as of yet. Of course, the new influx of players won’t notice the change, and perhaps this is what the company is going for. Unfortunately, that move was always going to make a lot of existing fans very unhappy, and many are already calling for change.