Experience Gain

Hello

i started playing this game a couple of days ago, trying to gather some information on how to advance best by reading the forums and finally finding the ultimate proof that there IS evil in the world. In other words, i discovered "rested time" - although id rather call it "restless time" considering how i feel when i watch the the tiny yellow bar at the bottom of my window mercilessly shrink towards nothingness.

As i heard it is good to find some excercises to calm down in these situations i used todays rested time to check out some assumptions i made from reading stuff in the forum, one of them stating that it is better to fight higher level monsters because one does get more experience + more loots. I took the time to note the times it took me to kill a monster as well as what experience i got and how much i looted, coming up with the following conclusions:

Preemptory remarks:
Playing a lvl 8 character and fighting mobs in Spruce Wood and Moss Lands (that is level 7 to 9). I notice that experience for the base stats (not trophies) decrease after one achieves 1 of the 4 basic levels. e.g. with melee/magic/defense/recovery at

8 8 8 8 i get 2029 exp for a level 8 monster and 2435 for a level 9
with
9 8 8 8 i get 1841 exp for a level 8 monster and 2029 for a level 9

i also decided to wait after each fight until my hp/energy/mana was at least 99% full (in fact waiting for 2 of three bars to be full), either staying in combat and making use of gem healing when hp was low, or leaving combat when hp was higher that mana/energy as i got only healing gems)

Findings:
After killing a total of 22 Monsters within roughly 1 hour i calculated what experience i got in total and compared...

for killing Squirrels (lvl8) i get .......... 953,58 experience for each second of play time
for killing Sprucen Protectors (lvl7) ... 888,95
for killing Polar Bear Cubs (lvl8) ....... 838,94
for killing Mossy Anteaters (lvl9) ...... 775,75

would i have stayed and killed only one species, the best one (Squirrels) would have given me 57214,62 experience in 1 hour and the worst (Anteaters) 46545,13 experience, leading to a difference of 10669,49 experience or a loss of 18,6% of experience ! (For me thats like getting ~50 mins of rested time instead of 60 mins)

i also checked the average kill time:

Squirrel: 127,7 seconds to kill
Sprucen Protector: 120,75 seconds to kill
Polar Bear Cub: 145,11 seconds to kill
Anteater: 188,33 seconds to kill

to test an argument i read somewhere on the forum - that higher level monsters will yield much more loot - i also compared the loot i got, i list this again in experience per second for spirit and combat trophies:

(Spirit/Combat)
Squirrel: 19,84 / 12,4
Sprucen Protector: 6,52 / 8,70
Polar Bear Cub: 6,55 / 5,82
Anteater: 6,50 / 4,65

Conclusion:
With regard to Experience for the basic stats it seems to be the by far best strategy to stick to the area where you can easily kill monsters of your own level and one level below. It does not seem advisable to go to the area with monsters of a higher level than yours. In this area even the monsters of the same level are harder to kill, that is taking more time to kill, doing more damage and hence requiring longer regeneration time. For Trophy experience the picture seems somewhat homogenuous to me, the peformance spike for squirrels is due to a loot where i got 4 squirrel sails and 2 claws from 1 poor squirrel.

As an aside, has anyone EVER heard of 4-tailed squirrels ?????

But the overall picture tells me that it is wrong to kill higher level monsters to soon and that instead listening to the advice mentioned earlier it is a mistake and will cost you precious rested time to do so.

I am aware that my sample size is rather small but i think that this shows a trend. So the reason i post this - besides informing others that might find it helpful - is asking for your opinion. Have you made the same experience and can confirm my findings, or have i just been chasing ghosts and been too confused from counting dwarves all night to get it right ?

[Tridius]

you know you get a bonus or a minus on certain stats.
eg ranger gets:
+10% exp gain in melee
+10% gain in def
-13 % in def
-5% in recovery.

dont eqaully lvl stats, other people will explain why

[Sporky]

i agree that killing higher level monsters can yield less exp/trophies over time. but in fact most players do kill enemies 1-4 levels above nearly all the time. theres a few reasons for this:

-they feel better than their peers if they kill higher level enemies than those players the same level than them. (e-peen, competitiveness...remember, this is a browser game, and for many players its their first RPG, so they might not understand efficiency as much as just trying to look cool)

-sometimes the area that has the most efficient kills is not the best for advancing their character. some zones are too far for travel to it to make sense all the time; they don't want to waste gate potions/recall potions or rested time just getting there. or possibly they want the zone that has 75% combat trophies instead of the one thats 75% spirit trophies.

-higher zones drop better items. some things are too expensive for players early on, so they fight in the zone that has that stronger sword they need so they dont have to buy it

-also, if you raise your weaponry skill like 7-10 levels above the enemy's level, it starts to get more efficient to kill higher level enemies

Originally Posted by Tridius

you know you get a bonus or a minus on certain stats.
eg ranger gets:
+10% exp gain in melee
+10% gain in def
-13 % in def
-5% in recovery.

dont eqaully lvl stats, other people will explain why

yes, ive seen these. however im looking at the relations between different monsters and as such it doesnt matter, as for getting experience in melee is always affected by the same bonus (or minus) %. wether i switch to magic, the relations stays the same, although i may get less in absolute numbers.

when i dont level these stats equally, i immediately get an ingame message that i should do so to level fastest. it seems poisoned apples are everywhere ;-D

Originally Posted by Sporky

i agree that killing higher level monsters can yield less exp/trophies over time. but in fact most players do kill enemies 1-4 levels above nearly all the time. theres a few reasons for this:

thank you for that confirmation, i feel im on the right track here. of course i dont want to limit anyones game experience to leveling. and agree that there are other goals to achieve. but for me personally it seems strange that an advice that is seemingly simply wrong has the consequence that i have to use more time for repeating the same task (killing monsters).

id rather had that advice removed or corrected. if i could save time killing mobs i dont need to i would happily wander the lands giving free apples to the poor !

[zenga]

The most effective range of mobs to kill depends on so much variables:
- your own build
- solo/group
- builds of your groupmembers
- your own level (killing +3lvl mobs at lvl 10 is different than at lvl 60)
- like sporky said: the location and the trophies (combat/spirit) you need
- i prefer to kill mobs at my own lvl + 1 or max 1-2 above. I've found that to be the best strategy throughout the game for all my builds

with all the time wasted making threads you could have been farming a lot

the most efficient way to level up is : fight creatures your level
worked fine for me
and i am level 70 now
good luck

You know what they say ...

STFU AND PLAY NOD

As all the advice given, also dont forget about virtues that add 1% to your exp, active accel skill in LEARNING skills tab and acumen group bonus.

Throught out nodi life of my character i found that the best was to fight +1/+2 monsters before lvl 30 and around lvl 35 +2/+3 lvls above.

Of course you should see and feel like if you miss too much or it takes too much time or something.

Good luck

tyvm for these insights ! as an afterthought i have another question. i have a "felt" miss rate of 50% when fighting. (i miss other opportunities much less often in life). will it stay like that throughout my whole nod-experience, or is it due to my dexterity being to low as a melee (108 114 107) ?

[Sporky]

the biggest thing that causes misses is level difference. after that, dex, your weaponry level, and weapon accuracy play a part.

if you add 1 point of dex per character level, you should do OK. 2 points per level (you can use enchanting stones and high stat equipment for any additional buff you might need) is plenty for slashing weapons. crushing needs much less dex since str causes them to hit more often, and piercing you will want more dex than str because it helps you deal max damage also

in general, ive seen people use 2:1 str/dex for slashing, 4:1 for crushing, and 1:4 for piercing. of course some will tell you otherwise and they might not be wrong...there is no definite answer known on if str acts equally as dex when using crushing, or if dex can totally substitute str on piercing weps

also, keep in mind that raising your weaponry skill above your enemy's level tends to make you hit more often, even though nothing in the game will tell you that directly

just play the dam game or dont

Originally Posted by darkjsaint

just play the dam game or dont

every post you have made has insulted someone. i suggest you take your own advice and play the game, since you do not seem to be so good at talking to other people.

thanks again for more insights into the game.

just for the sake of accuracy:
a sentence that contains a statement or recommendation and its opposite at the same time like: "jump from the bridge or dont jump" equals to: +1 + -1 = 0 which results in a statement of the value zero.

and as such cannot be taken as an offense as actually nothing has been said at all. consequently - i couldnt hear anything let alone value a statment that had nothing to say

Originally Posted by Tapobu

every post you have made has insulted someone. i suggest you take your own advice and play the game, since you do not seem to be so good at talking to other people.

stop cryin and mind ur buisness