Nexus Clash

I think I remember reading that this breath will last about 1 year. To make it easier for latecomers I think the XP gained should be increased depending in which stage of the breath we are in. For example, 4 months after breath start people would get +25% XP and after 8 months get +50%, etc

Numbers can be changed but the basic idea is to make it easier to level the later you join.

The bonus XP should probably not be counted towards the XP leaderboards.

We don't have a specific timeline for ending the breath and in internal dev discussions the one-year number is only a hypothetical minimum breath duration. I would describe the current state of the game as still firmly placed in Early Breath. There are significant game events - heavily focused on the lore, history and exploration of Cordillera - that are important parts of the B5 experience but are as-yet unlaunched since much of the dev team are still running around putting out early-breath fires involving bugs and balance. We're not even close to exhale.

A year and a half is a more "ideal" duration for B5 and two years a more "realistic" one. Breath 4's extremely long duration was caused by:
A - unrealistic goals in its first half, pressed by now-removed site management who punished anyone who suggested doing anything else
B - an extremely large number of changes in its second half to a large number of core mechanics and system-architecture things. B5 was locked behind the idea that a breath launch meant every class needed an overhaul, which is unsustainable in the long run; we won't be doing that again.
C - Investment of the authority to make changes in an extremely small number of developers, such that it only took one or two key developers being super busy in real life and unable to spend time on the site for real-life reasons to make the launch impossible for years.

Going forward, we have made some promising changes that should make issue C less of an issue. As for Issue B, when Breath 6 does happen, expect substantially less mechanics/balance changes and new game mechanics for the B5->B6 transition than the B4->B5 transition had; Breath changes will likely focus on a few (low one-digit number) of topics rather than an attempt to overhaul everything. B6 will have new planar maps, but we have not started developing them yet not least because it is too early to make the call of the likely breath winner.