When I first started playing this game this topic was a constant complaint among what I thought were fairly high level players. This was when the level cap was quite a bit lower than what it is now. At the time the "break" in the curve came when you got to the CS or Crimson Snake levels. Characters there could level faster than characters at the EC/FC levels and like I said, a lot of people were pretty upset about it.

In terms of numbers, you collect experience from each mob that you kill and we see that as a small percentage change on the game screen. Back then you needed to collect a higher number of kills, or experience at the EC and FC levels than you did at the higher levels. The total amount of experience needed to level up increases every level. Except that there was a "break", and suddenly you didn't need as much. As a chart it looks like this red line.


The blue line would be the ideal thing of course, and thank you to Margeman because I shamelessly stole that graphic from one of his posts on the Acclaim forum. That broken XP curve was flattened out slightly in a couple of the game patches and the situation isn't anyway near as bad as it used to be.

I also found out that EC level players aren't exactly high level players. They just looked that way to me because I was new to the game.

The situation now is similar, but the levels have changed. The high CS levels start to get really slow and the first time I went through those levels with SpearDriver I just thought it was because I was grinding on the ice map after CS9, and the mobs were harder. The mobs are harder but now I know better.

I just went through those levels with my AxeDriver character and I can tell you there is a break in the xp curve from CS to Golden Lotus. That character is now GL2. At CS12 I was getting 12% or so in event time with an xp card on. At GL2 in similar party conditions and yellow mobs I'm getting 18% per xp card. Leveling up is now slightly easier at the GL levels because this experience curve is still broken.

I don't know how this will go over the next few GL levels but I will keep track of it.