Health and Experience Points
Health Points (HP)
Every player starts off with a 20 HP, and this is initially the maximum HP every healthy player has available. HP will reduce when taking damage, and slowly recover thanks to self-healing. The recovery speed is influenced by two main factors, that is, health itself and stamina. When one or both these are reduced, self-healing will slow down proportionally.
A quicker way to recover your health, especially when deeply hurt, is possible thanks to bandages and a few special food items. Sleeping in a bed and skipping the night will also heal you, at the expense of some hunger.
The maximum available HP can be increased by collecting Mineral XP from mining. You get 1 additional HP for every 620 XP, up to a maximum of 100 HP in total (including the base 20 HP). HP can also be temporarily boosted by consuming certain booster foods, even beyond the permanent maximum of 100 HP.
Mineral XP
Mineral XP are obtained by mining ores in most realms, with the exception of the Outback and Midfeld. Most but not all ores will give some amount of XP, the highest amount being obtained from Mithril, followed by Gemstones, ores unique to Naraxen, and then diamonds.
The exact amount of XP you get by digging an ore also depends on the tool used, and its level. The absolute best is obtained with a level 7 Mithril pick, while a Level 7 Diamond pick is the 2nd best.
It is worth noting that in most cases, on death a portion of your XP is stored in your bones. Whoever collects the bones will also collect the XP stored in them.
Booster Foods
There are a number of food items which can be consumed to temporarily boost some of your stats, namely: health (HP), stamina recovery speed, damage resistance, and self-healing.
Each stat has a few different foods improving it, and each option differs either in the strength of the improvement, or its duration. For example, both Cooked Mutton and Cooked Meat (Unidentified) improve damage resistance, but the mutton gives more strength and it lasts longer.
The boost effects do not stack if resulting from the same food kind: in other words, eating more items that boost a specific stat will not result in further improvement if the items are of the same kind. However, effects resulting from different food kinds will stack up as expected!
For example, eating two steaks of Cooked Mutton will not give you twice the damage resistance, or make it last longer. However eating some Cooked Meat after the Cooked Mutton will further extend the damage resistance, and its duration.
Each boosted status is indicated by a slight change in your scene appearance (a slight coloured overlay is added) as well as a message to your chat from the Server.
Have fun discovering which food improves which stat! (or cheat and have a peek here below. :-)
Spoiler Warning: Booster Foods!
Damage Resistance Boosters
Damage Resistance Boosters
These foods will improve your resistance to certain types of damage for some time.
| Food name | Kind | Strength | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooked Meat (Unidentified) | Pork | x 0.5 | 7 s |
| Cooked Pork (Yuck) | Pork | x 0.7 | 10 s |
| Cooked Mutton | Mutton | x 0.8 | 30 s |
| Roasted White Wolf Leg | Wolf | x 0.3 | 360 s |
Health Boosters
Health Boosters
These foods will improve both your current and maximum health for a period of time.
| Food name | Kind | Strength | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Carrot Juice | Drink | + 30 HP | 30 s |
| Cucumber and Potato Salad | Salad | + 30 HP | 30 s |
| Potato and Wild Onion Salad | Onions | + 30 HP | 30 s |
Health Regen Boosters
Health Regen Boosters
These foods will improve your self-healing rate for a time.
| Food name | Kind | Strength | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrot Cake | Cake | x 2 | 100 s |
| Acorn Muffin | Muffin | x 3 | 100 s |
Stamina Recovery Boosters
Stamina Recovery Boosters
These foods will improve your stamina recovery speed for some time.
| Food name | Kind | Strength | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carrot Juice | Drink | x 1.5 | 30 s |
| Bowl of Soup | Soup | x 3 | 30 s |
Healing
There are a number of items which can be applied or consumed to heal yourself, or another player.
Bandages
The most widely known method to heal yourself or other players is by using bandages. There are three kinds of those, and none of them is the best in class: each will perform at its best according to your current health status:
- Simple bandages are best used for light scrapes and scratches (best above 30% health).
- Basic Medikit heals moderate wounds (best around 50% health).
- Trauma Medikit aids in recovery from severe injuries (best below 30% health).
All the bandage items require the player being healed to stand still or the bandage just gets spent for nothing.
Healing Foods
Clarified Avysium Herb is another way to improve your health: eating one of those will heal you by about 10 HP over the next 5 seconds. Note that eating more herbs while the previous is still releasing its curative effects does not speed up the process, and the additional items you eat during those five seconds are just lost.
A more drastic option is to eat Golden Carrots. Beware, though: they heal you and even improve your stamina instantly, but they are venomous and will poison you for some time... If you're not able to survive that yet, this food is more like a suicidal one for you!
Death and its Side Effects
Death is generally not a good thing!... Unless you are a very new player with no other means to heal but restart your game it is best avoided. While it's quite difficult to avoid it at least at the beginning, in truth most of the time you can prevent deadly situations: carefully planning your next actions, as well as learning the game mechanics will gradually reduce your chances of an eternal rest, eventually making it possible to completely avoid bonebox deployment. (Almost...).
In most circumstances death has a Mineral XP penalty, thereby reducing your available HP and increasing the chance of further deaths. In addition to the penalty, a portion of your XP is stored in your bones and you'll only get them back when picking up your bones.
Aside from the XP cost, an additional inconvenience is that when you die a "bonebox" is deployed, and your items are transferred into it - this includes your bags, their contents, and even your armor, if you had any of those. This can be an annoyance, especially if your respawn point is located far away from the place you've died at: unless you have any spare supplies close to your respawn point you may have to spend some time getting equipped again, in order to survive your journey to your bonebox. Or, you may decide it's not worth, and abandon it...
The only item that is not transferred to your bones is your Proof of Citizenship (PoC or KoC). Player's bones are also NEVER destroyed or erased. They can however be very difficult, if not impossible to reach and collect. Death when surrounded by brimstone in Naraxen is one such situation.
The bottom line is that death is bad for your health and should be avoided. However, as the server message helpfully explains: "Bonebox deployment is part of this adventure".