Template:Leveling

How to Gain Experience ("XP")
The player gains XP by exploring, gathering, and hunting. When you gain enough XP, you'll also gain a level, or "level up". You can see your progress of earning XP between levels in the Inventory window by pressing, or keeping an eye on the "XP" icon on the bottom right of your screen. When you hunt, you gain XP by harming animals and harvesting resources. Harming Predator creatures (carnivorous), gives more XP than the herbivores. Digging up Treasure Chests also gives XP. When you explore and discover new islands an XP boost is given for each new island discovered. The does more damage to players and animals than fists, but have a chance of breaking. tools will have higher durability and harvest rates, but requires the to craft. If you start out in a Freeport, once the player hits level 8, XP gets capped and the player must leave the Freeport regions to advance further. 

Learning Skills
For each new level you achieve, you'll be able to upgrade some of your character's Stats (Health, Stamina, Fortitude, Weight and Intelligence.) Clicking one of these icons when they're "glowing" will allow you to increase your maximum capacity in whichever you choose (ex: You can increase how many health points you have when fully healthy). Raising a level also gives Skill Points (see below table for amounts), which them you'll be able to choose a new skill (or more) on the Skills tab.

Planning Your Skills
Choose your Skills wisely when leveling up. Most skills after the first level require a previous skill to be unlocked, and it's important to plan ahead. For example, you need to learn Tools Of The Trade before you can learn Archery Unlock and the Archery skill is required to unlock ability to make Archery & Throwing Weapons. Sometimes it's smarter to save your skill points for the next level, in case your desired path costs more than you have earned at your current level.  Hovering over a skill icon (even when it's dark) in the Skills tab will provide more information about what you can do with the skill, and help you plan the path of your character. You can also use the calculator at Atlas Calculator (**note: this tool is slightly out of date**) to plan your upgrade path ahead of time.  If you want to change your Skills after you have already learned them, you need to respec.

Leveling after LVL8
On most servers, (some unofficial servers have this turned off) you will need to explore the world and find another island once you achieve level 8. You won't be able to continue earning XP after that, if you stay in the Freeport area.  Depending on your level you earn different amount of Skill points per level: