Experience

Experience

Experience, or XP is used to level up. You can see your level and see your progress towards the next level in the top left corner by the green bar.

Whenever you Level Up, you gain +1 Max HP and you an Upgrade at the end of the wave.

You can increase your XP Gain with certain items such as Scar. All experience you gain is multiplied by your XP Gain stat.

Some Characters gain more XP, like Mutant, while others gain less, like Lucky

Sources of XP

The Primary source of XP is by picking up the green currency dropped by enemies when they die. See Materials for more information.

The Materials gained by Harvesting grants XP and money for the shop in equal amounts.

The Pacifist gains 0.65 XP from each living enemy at the end of the wave, and each despawned enemy.

Mathmatics

The Experience required to level up is:

XP Required = (Level + 3)*(Level + 3)

This means that the first Level Up requires 16 XP, or 4x4 (from level 0 to level 1), and getting to level 2 requires 25 XP, or 5x5.

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	30	40	50	100
XP Required	0	16	25	36	49	64	81	100	121	144	169	196	225	256	289	324	361	400	441	484	529	576	625	676	729	784	1089	1849	2809	10609
Total XP Required	0	16	41	77	126	190	271	371	492	636	805	1001	1226	1482	1771	2095	2456	2856	3297	3781	4310	4886	5511	6187	6916	7700	12515	27420	51025	369550

XP Diminishing Returns

Since the required XP for the next level scales to the second power, buying an item that boosts your XP Gain, such as Scar, doesn't increase the amount of levels you gain by 20%.

For example, if you over the duration of a game would reach level 22 (5511 XP), starting with a Scar would instead mean you gained

 5511*1.20 = 6613 XP 

This is only enough XP to reach level 23, and about halfway towards level 24. So buying Scar didn't get you 20% extra levels, but rather about 1.5 additional levels.

Mutant on the other hand could in the same example expect to gain

 5511*(100% + 200%) = 16533 XP 
 

Which is enough to get to level 33. Notice that the Mutant has an XP Gain that is the same as 10 Scars, yet only gains 11 additional levels. But we saw that the first Scar gave 1.5 Levels. So you would have expected 10 Scars to give about 15 levels, but they will only give 11.

This showcases the diminishing returns you gain on increasing your XP Gain.

The conclusion is that XP Gain Items are not very powerful on Mutant, but reversely are powerful on characters with reduced XP Gain.

Items with XP Gain

Name	Rarity	Effects	Base Price	Limit	Unlocked By	Tags
Bean Teacher	Tier 3	+50 % XP Gain -2 % Life Steal	70			XP Gain
Black Belt	Tier 2	+25 % XP Gain +3 Melee Damage +3 Knockback -8 Luck	50			Melee Damage, XP Gain, Knockback
Diploma	Tier 4	+10 Engineering +50 % XP Gain -3 Max HP	90			Engineering, XP Gain
Peacock	Tier 3	+25 % XP Gain +100 % XP Gain during the next wave +50 % Enemy damage during the next wave	50			XP Gain
Scar	Tier 1	+20 % XP Gain -8 Range	25			XP Gain

Note that there are several Items that affects the amount of Experience you gain indirectly, by affecting the amount of materials you gain. For example:

• Fertilizer increases your Harvesting, giving you extra materials, which include Experience.
• Metal Detector gives you a chance for Materials to have double value, thus increasing the amount of Materials you get by 5%.
• Gentle Alien increases the amount of enemies you encounter, giving you additional material drops.

Characters With XP Gain

These Characters Have increased or decreased XP Gain:

Name	Stats	Unlocked By	Unlocks	Item Tags
Lucky	+100 Luck Luck modifications are increased by 25% +75% chance to deal 1 (15%Luck) damage to a random enemy when you pick up a material -60% Attack Speed -50% XP Gain	Collect 300 materials	Lucky Charm	Luck, Pickup, Exploration
Glutton	+50 Luck +1 % Explosion Damage when picking up a consumable while at maximum health Consumable have a 100% chance to explode for 10 (500% ) damage when picked up +25 % Items Price -25 % XP Gain	Pick up 20 consumables during a run	Spicy Sauce	Luck, Explosive (Item Tag), Melee Damage
Mutant	-66% XP required to level up +50% Items Price	Kill 2000 enemies	Octopus	XP Gain

Note that there are many characters that have abilities that affect the amount of Materials they gather, and thus indirectly affecting the amount of experience they gain. For example:

• Loud encounters a larger amount of enemies, which means more materials dropped.
• Arms Dealer has a large starting Harvesting which also grants experience.
• Streamer has a downside where enemies only drop half the amount of materials.