[Keroko]

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

His experience is mostly from EQ2 (Mamere is known to have played it for a long time and it seems to be his fall back example whenever he needs one) which is somewhere between the two systems. It's got a linear EXP system and is very quest heavy, but like old MMOs questing seems based primarily around party questing as opposed to solo-questing towards end game raiding like WoW style MMOs. As noted by the talk about the Magic Bag, and events in the LN not yet covered by the anime, Elder Tales does have a fairly extensive quest system, though it isn't mentioned exactly how rewarding the experience is. So if we go off of EQ2, the issue is more that killing enemies after a certain point requires partying and in an MMO, finding a party is usually the hardest part of grinding.

Hmm, you're right, that does seem to be the system here. Most mobs we've seen so far chain-aggro, which would be murder for most solo players. Group combat seems to be the way to fight in this game.

Originally Posted by WhiteJoker

Their training seems more to be about learning the mechanics then it does grinding for levels and experience. Additionally, if Naotsugu and Akatsuki are constantly jumping in to keep Tohya from dying then they're going to wind up stealing most of the experience.

Spoiler:

But we also know from the LN that when the training camp starts Tohya is level 29 and Minori is 21. The level difference is because Tohya was forced to go farming every day when they were still in Hamelin while Minori just crafted all day long. Since the two were only in Hamelin for about two weeks, it means Tohya gained 8 levels from grinding without quests and with a crappy party that had to regularly go back to town and pick up party members who died due to incompetent Shreider shenanigans (come to think of it, he was probably sucking up a lot of exp too since he wasn't using the Mentoring system). We also know from the Goblin War that if a party spends all day fighting something around their level, at a constant rate, they can gain 3 levels in about as many days.

Little bit more than two weeks for Tohya, going by the timeline (warning, spoilers, etc.). At least 24-ish days I'd say.

And if we're talking a non-linear leveling system (which I agree is most likely) the time required to level is only going to grow.