I just haven't ran into that situation.....yet. but I don't go around at 3x xp either. I am in no hurry to get anywhere.... In the game.
I've had the game now for just over two years. Just about all my playing experience is with the 300% XP setting, and here is why.
In the beginning, I had a rough time of it trying to just not die, over and over again, every play session. Eventually, it became possible to shoot for trying death=restart, and nobody was up for achieving that goal, they were more like, turn up the difficulty, fight hard, and not care if or how often they died. Then I started surviving until over level 100, and folks started to pay attention/become interested in seeing how far we could get, without a single death.
By the time I and my partner were getting characters to level 200+, it became more and more of a thing. My last failed attempt at living all the way to 300, I got cocky and died at level 298.
Much unhappy.
The next game(s) I didn't even get to level 100, because I thought I knew what I was doing. took risks I was not powerful/skilled enough to survive, and died and restarted, over and over again.
Eventually, finally, I made it all the way to 300th level, and never died once. My partner was right behind me, and now only occasionally do we die, and even then, mostly at very low levels. However, this is all using the crutch of 300% XP. My friends and I have done very little experimentation with not using this setting, and we died, often, because we were used to all those free levels, and were going places we had no business being at our lower levels.
One good friend, that plays with different minded folks, finally got one single character to level 300, but she died 400 times doing that. She still wants to play, but only on a server. Her partner is one guy I just cannot stand, and if I tried to play with her, she would want him in game, and that just wouldn't be an enjoyable experience for me.
My partner is a great guy, plays daily, and is just as much a "Grumpy Old Man" as I myself am. We had been playing in his private games (not a server), but when v2.0 came out, anytime we tried to play together, things got glitchy. It started with his computer not wanting to stream, at all, but we could still play together. then we tried all these big PoI's, and got crashed out over and over again. Once the code improved, we were kinda sorta able to mostly play alongside one another. Then he decided to try streaming again, and I immediately started getting dropped, every play session, and often not being able to rejoin his game at all.
Since then, we both stream/share screen, but play in our own separate games, and things are good. I miss being able to play in the same game, but not getting dropped/EAC banned all the time. He has the better internet connection, I have the better computer, but when we were both streaming and in the same game, my internet just couldn't handle it anymore.
Anyway, I have been taking it slow PoI wise, but rushing to max level for 2 years now. I want to try no XP bonus next game, but if I start now, it will be a month before he does.
By the way, I really enjoyed your thread, where each death was followed by:
Day 1...
I would love to play a day/week game, where the story is the main thing. Play a single game day/real week, and write up a good story. I just know that that is something that would be hard to do, all the way to level 300, without dying, and without the XP boost, but it is on my list of thing I'd like to do.