20160610: Leveling 1 to 80; gaining XP methods

A new character starts the game at level 1. Through the Heart of Thorns (HoT) expansion, the level cap is 80. One gains level by obtaining XP (experience points). Each leveling costs more experience points than the previous leveling.

1. Personal Story.
When setting up a character, one fills in the parameters for the character's personal story: profession, race, regrets, social level growing up, sometimes the Deity of closest alignement. These determine (to a point) the quality of the stories that the game urges you through.


1. Your character and the game's NPCs participate in various exercises that deal with your character's race and its issues.  Part of this is automatic: you and the NPCs have discussions, you make decisions, and mini-quests are given.  
2. After a certain amount of effort, milestones are reached, and one gets lots of XP, gear, and materials.
3. The XP is substantial.  Leveling up is common during 'My Story' efforts.  Occasionally the gear is quite helpful.
4. 'My Story' goes forward in brackets: some in levels 1 to 10, some in 11 to 20, 21 to 30, and so on.  The benefits of the free gear and materials is stronger if one keeps up.  That is, do the story for say 31 to 40 while you are level 31 to 33 for best results.
5. Executing the story pieces also stimulates exploration.  'Meet me at location x,' is often the beginning of required actions.  To continue, one must find x, then go there.  This often uncovers new territory, which results in more XP being obtained.


2. Exploration.
1. Stepping into a region where one has not been before produces a small amount of experience. 
2. Just walking or running around in the same region does not produce more XP.  Instead, one needs to reach certain points and interact with them in certain ways.
3. POI: points of interest.  Just getting near them is enough.  The POI is sometimes surrounded by enemies of your level.
4. Views: again, one needs to get near the point.  Press the 'View' (F) key when near, then see a cinematic.  Only after pressing F, does one get XP.  As with POI, the Views are often surrounded by enemies.  More frequently, though, climbing and jumping is involved.
5. Hero Challenges: There are two basic types.  At one, your character just communes with a place of power.  The other involves fighting with a Veteran or Champion NPC.  With Champions, I would recommend getting at least one other real player to fight with you.  Both with get a hero point for the combat win.
6. Tasks: are given by an NPC.  Once the Task is complete, one gets XP and karma points (a currency of sort).  Further, after completion, the NPC becomes available as a merchant.
7. Waypoints: are Asura teleportation devices.  Getting near a waypoint the first time yields XP, and activates the waypoint for your character.
   
   Travelling from waypoint to waypoint within a major city is free of charge.  Travelling to or from a waypoint not in a major city costs money.  The higher your character's level, the higher the cost.  Also, the longer the distance, the greater the cost.  
   
   The big Star Gate style disks in the major cities are also teleportation devices, with Lion's Arch being a major hub; travel using these is free.


3. Gathering.  One gets XP for the three types of gathering: harvesting food stuffs, chopping lumber, mining metal ores.    These tools have levels, which are copper, iron, steel, dark steel, mithril, and orichalcum.  One typically buys these from vendors.  The higher the level, the more expensive the tool set.  Usage consumes tools, so they have to be bought repeatedly.


1. One needs sufficiently high level gathering tools to be equipped before one can successfully gather anything.  For instance, if one tries to mine iron ore with a copper mining pick, the result is 'ruined ore,' which cannot be refined.
2. The harvesting sickles (vegetables, fruit, herbs, mushrooms, nuts) need to be equipped in the 'Foraging' slot.  The logging axes need to be equipped in the 'Logging' slot.  The mining picks need to be equipped in the 'Mining' slot in the character's equipment page.
3. Gem store alert: one can buy gathering tools that are never consumed and are sufficient to all gathering operations.  However, to get these, one needs to spend gems, which are available through real world money (ouch), or by trading in-game gold for gems. 
4. In the higher level regions (like level 75 or so), individual gathering operations might yield around 500 to 1000 XP each.


4. Crafting. 
1. There are nine types of crafting.  Eight are available to any character over level 10.  The ninth, 'Scribe,' is only available to guild members.
2. Crafting has its own skill leveling, mostly independent of character leveling: 0-74 (novice), 75-149 (initiate), 150-224 (apprentice), 225-299 (journeyman), 300-374 (adept). 
3. In parallel with the crafting levels are rough levels for materials used to craft products.
4. As one's skill level rises, new (higher-level) recipes yield XP, but older lower level recipes will eventually yield zero XP.
5. One of the better ways to increase crafting skill as well as to increase character level is to discover new recipes using available materials and new materials one has created through lower level recipes.  At the higher skill levels (like above 325), such discoveries can generate 7000 to 15000 XP, which helps character leveling and increasing crafting skill level.
6. The crafting types are
1. Weaponsmithing: build swords, maces, shields.  Needs: metal ingots, 
2. Armorsmithing: build metal armor (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, boots).  Needs: metal ingots, fabric.
3. Huntsman: build wood weapons: harpoons, bows (cross, long, short).  Needs: metal ingots, lumber.
4. Leatherworking: build leather armor (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, boots).  Needs: leather, fabric, thread.
5. Tailor: build cloth armor (head, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs, boots).  Needs: cloth scraps, thread.
6. Jewelmaker: makes trinkets (accessories, amulets, rings) and higher order gems.  Needs: gems, metals (copper, silver, gold).
7. Artificer: makes potions, transforms luck, makes scepters, tridents, foci, and staffs.  Needs: lumber, metals, fine crafting materials.
8. Chef: makes ingredients from harvested raw foods and from commercially available (karma merchants, usually) supplies (salt, sugar, yeast, water, and so on).  Makes consumable foods that buff players.  Needs: a wide variety of food types. 


5. Events: cooperate with other players to accomplish a goal.
1. Rewards in terms of XP and drops are greater than in individual combat.
2. Many events occur at regular intervals.  Google for times.
3. Some events take a while, but are usually well worth the time fighting.
4. Event rewards vary.  If you fought hard and killed some enemies, you will likely participate in rewards at the Gold level.  With less involvement, perhaps the Silver level.  If you showed up in the last 15 seconds and cast 3 spells, perhaps the Bronze level.
5. With several events, there is Chest available at the end.  Look for this, especially if you participated at the Gold level.  Also, try to loot the boss monster in a successful event.
6. In a failed event, one might still get some XP reward, and perhaps loot the sub-boss monsters.


6. Solo Combat: your character against monsters with no aid from others.
1. This is slow, and the XP rewards and drops are not as good as with events or crafting or completing 'My Story' segments.
2. Solo combat is hard to avoid with exploring, though.  Be good at it.
3. Individual monsters seem to me to be easily killed, especially if your armour and weapons are more or less up to date.
4. Two monsters at once are not all that much more difficult.
5. Veteran monsters take longer.  Veteran monsters plus allies can be disastrous.  Try to approach veterans plus allies with a player friend of your own.
6. Champion monsters: oi, run if you are alone.  Champions are often the centres of events, and are best dealt with along with six or ten live players as allies.