How are you expected to get to high levels?

[Riftweaver]

A friend of mine is really addicted to this game and puts in a lot of hours playing it and showing the late game stuff off to me, he's at like 50ish or so, but hes showing dungeons that are in the 90's? he struggles to get any xp at all via combat, and the non stop dirt farming seems slow and tedious..

is there something he's missing on a better way to actually get xp at higher levels?

[House Gnome]

The Dead Sea Ruins are the highest ruins level in the game right now. It covers level 55-75, so if you are seeing ruins in the 90s either its a bug or you posted this on the wrong game forum.

Assuming this is the right forum, if he is in the 50s and having a hard time leveling his xp here are some tips.

1. No factory or using Rosy to collect from your machines. You get a lot of XP from your machines but it is collected when you collect the items off the actual machine. If the factory or Rosy are collecting for you, poof, xp gone.

2. Mine, baby, mine. Going into the abandon ruins and mining is the absolute fastest way to gain XP, imo. Skip the ore nodes and just mine everything off the ground.

3. Choose your commissions based on the xp gain alone.

4. Make sure you talented into anything that boosts your xp gains and keep your ad running.

[Bobucles]

No XP from helpers? That sounds like a bit of missing code. Portia had no issues giving XP from helpers. It was in fact a huge XP boost, since it gave more time to work the mines.

Most of the XP in sandrock is the same as Portia. Stack up stamina recovery, go in the mines, and tap tap tap away.. Get the highest stats possible for your pickaxe, the more you can dig the more XP you'll get, Then there's XP from smelting, XP from assembling, and XP from having enough resources to do max quality missions. It all adds up to give a level every few stamina bars.

Be warned that most resources demand fluroite to upgrade. There's not enough fluorite in the world to keep up with commissions. Save it for high value items that you only need 2-4 of.

Edit: It also seems the auto assembler doesn't give any XP. Bummer.

[Bored Peon]

Set game speed to .6 in how fast time passes.

[House Gnome]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Get the highest stats possible for your pickaxe, the more you can dig the more XP you'll get, Then there's XP from smelting, XP from assembling, and XP from having enough resources to do max quality missions. It all adds up to give a level every few stamina bars.

Be warned that most resources demand fluroite to upgrade. There's not enough fluorite in the world to keep up with commissions. Save it for high value items that you only need 2-4 of.

Yes, I forgot about upgrading your tools, for sure run them through the refiner to purple quality.

Not sure about the fluorite comment, are you upgrading your crafting materials? That's a waste, just make the final item/machine and upgrade it, those use much more easily obtainable materials.
Very few crafted items require fluorite to upgrade in final form, most final versions of machines and weapons use opal/spinel/bloodstone/lapis lazul/agate/rosestone to upgrade - these are all replenishing resources once you have unlocked the area they spawn in. Fluorite is much harder to come by unless you buy it with Civil Corp tokens, which have better uses.
Skip the commissions that ask for better than outstanding quality crafting materials unless the pay/xp given is extremely high, but that is really the only time I can think of a use for fluorite at all.

[Bobucles]

Not sure about the fluorite comment, are you upgrading your crafting materials? That's a waste, just make the final item/machine and upgrade it, those use much more easily obtainable materials.

Getting purple items for a green mission will give 40% more rewards. It's a huge cash boost and good early XP for very cheap materials. The kicker is that the game has a terrible distribution of upgrade mats. Nearly every mission demands fluorite for upgrades and the other ingredients almost never get used. Fluroite stops dropping after very low regions, and becomes high demand for the rest of the game, bummer.

Tools can gain additional levels above purple quality, so be sure to refine it 10 or more times after hitting purple. When the lvl stops going up, the item is maxed.
The random enchantments are pure gamba. This is the main idea:
- Find 2 main stats and one purple enchant on the first refine
- Pray for the next refine to have an item with 2 enchantments, the second one purple.
- Stay with the first item. It will steal the second enchantment from the second item.
It can take dozens of attempts to get the "perfect" tool, so don't waste too much time trying to make it happen.

[House Gnome]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Nearly every mission demands fluorite for upgrades and the other ingredients almost never get used. Fluroite stops dropping after very low regions, and becomes high demand for the rest of the game, bummer.

I'm still confused, by 'every mission' you mean generic crafting material commissions that you are choosing to upgrade? A 40% upgrade in rewards may sound nice but the way you are posting it doesn't sound like the trade off is worth it. Just upgrade non material commission and make up that 40% gain in other ways. Sell excess materials on days when they sell for more to get gols, mine as often as you can for extra xp, go on playdates/give loved gifts/fulfill wishes for more friendship.

I'm level 51, have lot level 9, workshop level 5, and am BFF with most of the town and Logan literally just got out of jail and I'm not even out of summer 2 - I have a LOT of game left. I don't think I've used a single piece of fluorite, it's just gathering dust in my chests. It sounds like you are making it unnecessarily hard on yourself for little payoff. You also don't sound like you are having fun, you sound frustrated - unless, of course, that's just the way you like to game, then you do you.

And, yes, you can upgrade your tools to purple several times, but I usually don't bother with that until aluminum tools as I upgrade my tools too often until then to make it worth the mats. Now my weapons, I upgrade until I get the stats I want no matter the cost as I carry them much longer. Clothing I upgrade until I get higher damage reflection than what I currently wear and then stop, as I trade it pretty often as well.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by House Gnome:

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Nearly every mission demands fluorite for upgrades and the other ingredients almost never get used. Fluroite stops dropping after very low regions, and becomes high demand for the rest of the game, bummer.

I don't think I've used a single piece of fluorite, it's just gathering dust in my chests.

Not understanding the issue either, then again I usually run two refiners to make gems. On top of that Flourite comes from Copper Ore.

If anything I used Bloodstone more than any other material for upgrading my machines to purple with yield bonuses.

FYI, you need to know a food recipe in order for the NPCs make requests. Some of those pay as much or more normal commissions.

[House Gnome]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

If anything I used Bloodstone more than any other material for upgrading my machines to purple with yield bonuses.

FYI, you need to know a food recipe in order for the NPCs make requests. Some of those pay as much or more normal commissions.

Oh my gosh, yes, the early game bloodstone use is a real PITA, especially before you have enough stone to really refine it out in bulk. Of course, by mid-game I'm now sitting on a couple hundred of them. Wei and I share a hoarding problem.

I think half my money comes from Ernest, Amirah and Pen for their food item requests. They pay astronomical amounts for a few plates of food with easily obtainable ingredients, no wonder Owen is so wealthy.

[SimuLord]

My characters seem to land in the mid-to-upper 70s level-wise in the course of a typical playthrough. And that's normal play, scrapping, mining, animal-slaughtering, just using up stamina in an average day. Higher-level commissions deal out a good bit of XP as well.

I find the pacing pretty solid throughout...if anything, I'm usually overleveled by 10-15 levels by the midgame.