In case your sport has an XP system then there’ll presumably be some choice permitting the participant to decide on how a lot XP they attempt to purchase; i.e. the participant can keep within the present stage of the sport and grind for XP, or they will press on to the subsequent stage. (If there is no such thing as a such choice, and the character receives XP on some fastened schedule, then XP is irrelevant and also you solely want to decide on a balanced schedule for giving out character upgrades.) As others have famous, the XP curve will be balanced both by requiring extra XP to stage up greater, or by giving much less XP when the participant is already at the next stage; these are equal, so I am going to assume the previous.
A participant who chooses to “grind” could combat twice or 4 occasions as many enemies as one other participant who simply “presses on”, and due to this fact achieve twice or 4 occasions as a lot XP. Most likely you don’t need their character to be twice or 4 occasions as highly effective; it might trivialise the sport to be twice or 4 occasions greater stage than you’re “supposed” to be at a given stage within the sport, particularly if it is a lengthy sport with many ranges (e.g. Remaining Fantasy or Pokémon).
To keep away from this you want some kind of diminishing returns. You most likely do not desire a participant to get greater than N ranges forward of the curve by grinding, for some quantity N. So that you desire a participant with, say, twice the anticipated XP to be (at most) some fastened variety of ranges greater than the extent the sport is balanced for. Mathematically, this entails that the connection between XP and ranges have to be (not less than) exponential, i.e. the XP required to stage up grows (not less than) by some fixed issue per stage.
In distinction, a sub-exponential relationship between ranges and XP would imply that the grinding participant retains getting additional and additional forward of the curve as they progress via the sport. It will make the later levels boring when they’re alleged to be difficult; the payoff for grinding needs to be that it makes the sport simpler however not too a lot simpler.
Alternatively, if the connection is super-exponential then the grinding participant (who persistently fights twice or 4 occasions as many enemies as one other participant) will get forward of the curve early, however fall again in direction of the curve as they strategy the late sport. That does not sound as unhealthy as letting the participant turn out to be too overpowered, so perhaps it’s an choice, however maybe gamers who grind will really feel like they’re being “punished” for it.
