Skills

Cumulative XP needed to reach a level follows 35 × level^2.55 for levels 1-50 (an easy ramp) and 12.5 × level^3.1 from level 51 on: a steep wall for the back half of the climb. Levels 1-100 exist for every skill.

Your character level is the average of all 14 skill levels: it isn't a separate track of its own, so training a broad spread of skills (not just one or two) is what moves it up.

Hands-on effort has a daily rhythm: your hero grants full XP for roughly the first 250,000 XP earned by your own actions (gathering, crafting, fighting), counted across all skills together each day. Push past that and you grow weary: further hands-on XP is reduced to 10% until the day turns (midnight UTC). Materials, gold, and loot are never reduced, only XP.

The budget takes hours of nonstop action to hit, so ordinary play never notices. It exists so that leaving a click running all night is not the best way to level. Workers never tire: their XP (at 75% rate) flows day and night regardless, which is the intended way to keep progressing while you rest.

4 skills feed your combat stats directly, every level, on top of everything below:

The other 10 skills grant a passive bonus that grows a little every single level, from 0% at level 1 up to 20% at level 99 (where it caps). The same curve also scales how fast a hired worker produces in that skill.

What that bonus actually does depends on the skill:

A guild can purchase an XP Boost upgrade (up to level 10) that grants every member +2% skill XP per level - up to +20% at max, stacking additively with Skill of the Day. See Guilds & Raid Bosses.