So here’s what I’ve discovered pertaining to leveling.
1 Minute of racing - 1,000 EXP
485,000 EXP per Affinity = 485 Minutes of Racing
Max Level Affinity Time ~ 8 hours
Affinity Level 1 - 5,000 EXP to level. (Offsets the rest so the can be 20,000 EXP per level)
Affinity Level 2 to 25 - 20,000 EXP per level.
And?
Just by playing the game fresh and finishing Career ALL GOLD on an average difficulty level (medium drivatars and only 20% assist bonus) you can already max out 3 cars and get a decent dent into another 4 to 6 brands.
Rivals can/will pay more especially if you have a bucketload of friends and you manage to beat all of their times.
Online can/will pay more as well if you’re able enough to be, let’s say, level 200 and end up in a lobby against level 600 or more and still get a good top spot & medal.
No and at all, was just mentioning it because I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’m sure some people would like to know.
so its time based rather than distance? try it with d class vs x class and see if the time holds up. if so i gotta redo my strategy.
It’s not time based, every L25 I have is at a different time with hours between some.
I’ll give it a shot later today however I usually race A to R class and my Caterham and my Radical are Affinity 24 both with 7 hours ~50 minutes each.
i dont know why i wasn’t thinking last night. it cant be time based or last place would pay more than 1st place due to more time spent on the track. it has to be distance or lap based. or a combination of the two.
drifting is one of the best ways to level up affinity due to its relative ease and high payout.
This is only true if you don’t suck at drifting, like me.
Each track pays out xp differently based on some “track average” for speed, but at that track it pays the same regardless of speed or class of car. Indy oval for instance pays out 1000xp per lap whether you do a 999-point racer lap in 0:42 or in a 120-point beater lap in 2:42.
This - it has been suggested that it is distance related but not sure about that (have checked and it varies too much). Definitely not time based though.
Ok did some crunching and this is what I’ve found: XP is per mile on each given track, but based on roughly hitting an XP per minute rate for car class at an average racer’s time. (This is all in Career Mode: I haven’t checked Rivals, Free Play, or Multiplayer… but I think they’re all the same.)
Road America, for example, is 605 XP per mile every time - which, for me, is 891 xp/min in C, 925/min in B, 980/min in A.
In general, my D class is 850-880xp/min (where I’m ranked around #40K); C class is 890-920XP/min (I’m around #100K); B class is 925xp/min (where I’m #150K) to 990XP/min (where I’m #11K); A class is 980-1010XP/min (I’m around #260K). Indy oval is my outlier: class X is 1500xp/min (I’m #8K).
XP per mile on the tracks I’ve checked: Indy 411; Atlanta 452; Road America 605; Spa 632; Prague 641; Sebring 649; Catalunya 727; Le Mans Bugatti 743; Laguna 759; Silverstone 768; Top Gear London 771; Long Beach Full 812.
CorruptedBomb you’re right that, in general, a top-10% racer can average 1000xp/min in the faster classes and complete an affinity in 8 hours’ career-mode drive time. But I think the average of all the classes, for a top-30% racer, is likely to be more like 800xp/min. This would be 600 minutes, or 10 hours’ drive time per affinity.
Just tried some Rivals this am. Much higher XP per mile. I’m sure Octagon is right when he says that Multiplayer pays more too.
Not sure about Rivals’ or Opponents’ ranking affecting per-mile XP: it doesn’t seem to affect per-mile XP in Career mode.
I haven’t recorded Free Play per-mile XP, but recalling casual observations I think it’s the same as Career Mode.
So would there be certain tracks that would pay out more XP? EX: Indy Oval because its fast, but for other ones. It would get boring doing oval’s over and over.
I don’t know how true even the 1000 xp per mile is. Just did 11 laps on the Indy Oval, and got 11000xp. 1000 per lap (2.5mi)
Could take some in depth research to figure this out lol.
Another note, doing the new Nurburgring track which is over 16.15 miles in length, 1 lap gives you 10,000xp. Which is an average of 619xp per mile.
Maximus I posted my findings for career-mode per-minute and per-mile XP in post #11 above; you may want to take another look at my per-minute notes. If you track and spreadsheet your results and your % spots on each leaderboard, I expect you’ll find about the same trends.
Each track is per-mile. Adding in your Nurburgring observation: Indy 411; Atlanta 452; Road America 605; Nurburgring 619; Spa 632; Prague 641; Sebring 649; Catalunya 727; Le Mans Bugatti 743; Laguna 759; Silverstone 768; Top Gear London 771; Long Beach Full 812.
The faster tracks are fewer XP per mile; the slower tracks are more. Where I’ve timed my performance, the impression I have is that the better I am at a track the more I approach 1000XP per minute. Another trend I’ve seen is that the faster the car class, the more XP per minute, as a given track’s XP per mile doesn’t change. My Nurburgring 12:39 in class R is 790XP/minute, in line with my expectations on a difficult track I’ve got barely 300 miles on; the top 30% I’d guess is around 10:00 on that leaderboard, for the 1000XP/minute I’d expect in class R.
That’s all well and good but what are the payout bonuses you get at each level is what I want to know.
I just searched quite a bit for that answer when I read your post. Surprisingly I cannot find a breakdown of this. I suppose you could try it, starting a car from the beginning and write down your Affinity bonus percentage per race, keep going until you reach 25. If you are ambitious enough to chart this yourself please post the results here when you are finished, you got my curiosity up now 
I recently got the achievement for getting 8 manufactures up to level 25, hours and hours on Brickyard