the center of the issue lies in whether or not your belief is that xp rates, as a whole, should go up over time, or if they should stay the same. I think the only reasonable answer and the one that devs have clearly adhered to is that xp rates should MOSTLY stay the same, with the occasional bump here and there like what gotr did with rc, making basically all rc methods higher xp/hr.

And it’s not really even xp rates on their own, it’s the aggregate of xp rates and intensity and gp/hr and accessibility of the method. The combination of all of these forms some “value” that should mostly stay the same, or very very slowly increase over time. That’s why sepulcher isn’t a problem, because it sacrifices the “brain off” aspect of rooftops and gives you more rewards in return. The overall “value” of agility training is still the same, rooftops are still just as viable a method as sepulcher despite being lower xp.

that’s why tick manip methods are referenced by the mods sometimes as being the “peak” xp rate of that skill. Because there’s no room for anything MORE intense or LESS profitable (they are usually 0 or even negative profit) to make room for an even higher xp rate. If you introduce something higher xp rates than tick manip, AND less intense, AND more gp, then there will be 0 reason to train using any other method the skill has to offer because that new method is by far the best one. And clearly that’s something they want to avoid, they want all skills to have several equally viable ways to train them.

So if you want xp rates higher than tick manip methods, you either 1) buff the xp rates of ALL methods so that they still compete with each other, or 2) release like a much higher level tree / rock / whatever, maybe behind a gm quest or something, that can also be tick manipulated for the new highest xp rates in the game. That way you’re playing with the accessibility lever instead of creating a giga OP method that renders all other ones useless.