How do I level up faster?

Question

In Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the player's level (and gear level) is crucial to defeating enemies, bosses, etc. ever since Assassin's Creed Origins, when the game has gone from a pure ACT to an ACT-RPG.

However, the main questline alone yield little XP to make progress in the game. Thus, it seems like it is nearly necessary for the player to participate in side quests, conquest battles, etc.

The above wasn't an issue back then since AC was just purely ACT. You may consider me idiosyncratic - I like AC's main storyline, but am not as interested in the quest storylines. Some quests do correlate with the main storyline (e.g. Cult of Kosmos) but most of them have standalone plots which are not intriguing to me.

Here is the question - are there any pragmatic ways to level up without playing side quests and such? Otherwise, which kind of quests (or anything) give you an ample amount of XP?

Answer 1

I have played this game until I had completed all quests and all locations. If you don't want to follow the main storyline (yet), just explore the world. There are some surprisingly large area's where the main storyline won't take you. But you won't get anything near the XP you get for completing quests by only killing enemies and completing locations. Take any side quest you encounter, some are incredibly easy to complete and will reward you with lots of XP. Also often after you've cleared a camp or something similar you will get a notification that you've accidentally completed a quest and only need to go and claim the reward.

I did not do many of the "message board" and other timed (hourglass icon) quests, these always felt more like doing chores than actual quests. These seem to be generated at random and infinitely regenerating, no matter how many of them you complete. If these are what you are referring to as "side quests", I completely understand that you are getting bored with them.

So I guess my answer is: no, there's no "good" (quick) way to do that. Like most games, it rewards you most for completing the challenges the creators have set for you.