Experience



Experience can be obtained by gathering Experience Orbs from defeated mobs and players. Experience is used for Enchanting. The experience system has been changed in Snapshot 12w22a.

Behavior
Gathering experience points increases the player's experience level by gradually filling a bar on the bottom of the screen until a new level is achieved when the bar is full. When the player dies, they drop 7 times their level as experience orbs, up to a maximum of 100 points (enough to reach level 6). All the other experience vanishes.

Experience Orbs will not drop from a mob unless the mob is killed by a player or damaged by the player and then killed by other means; therefore ordinary mob grinders cannot be used for farming experience (although grinders can be designed to funnel monsters to a holding location, and wear them down to one-hit kills). Experience orbs will "float" or glide toward the player if they are 2-3 blocks away.

You can also get experience by mining coal, redstone, diamonds, and smelting iron. The experience orbs will be picked up along with the coal, redstone, and diamonds but the experience given from smelting iron will be granted when it is taken out of the furnace.

Mobs will drop a random number of orbs, and the orbs can have different values. However, the total value will always remain within these values, regardless of difficulty setting:



Leveling Up
Note: Experience leveling was changed starting in snapshot 12w22a. In 12w23a, "enchantment levels are slightly exponential again." While the growth is faster than in 1.2.5, only 825 experience is required to attain enchanting level 30. The graph and table below are only relevant in versions before snapshot 12w22a.

A calculator is available using the chart data below to detail for the user how much additional experience they need to obtain to reach a particular level. 

 XP required,XP diff 7,7 17,10 31,14 48,17 69,21 93,24 121,28 152,31 187,35 225,38 267,42 312,45 361,49 413,52 469,56 528,59 591,63 657,66 727,70 800,73 877,77 957,80 1041,84 1128,87 1219,91 1313,94 1411,98 1512,101 1617,105 1725,108 1837,112 1952,115 2071,119 2193,122 2319,126 2448,129 2581,133 2717,136 2857,140 3000,143 3147,147 3297,150 3451,154 3608,157 3769,161 3933,164 4101,168 4272,171 4447,175 4625,178  

A chart which details the experience per level and cumulative experience more accurately is available here: Detailed Enchanting Experience Chart (last updated 7/3/12)

Snapshot 12w23a
Snapshot 12w23a has again changed the way experience is gained. The first 16 levels are linear (17 XP points per level), while level 17+ require more points per level to the maximum level of 30. In addition to this certain actions such as mining ores, smelting and destroying monster spawners will all give you experience. A calculator is available using the chart data below to detail for the user how much additional experience they need to obtain to reach a particular level. 

 XP required,XP diff 17,17 34,17 51,17 68,17 85,17 102,17 119,17 136,17 153,17 170,17 187,17 204,17 221,17 238,17 255,17 272,17 292,20 315,23 341,26 370,29 402,32 437,35 475,38 516,41 560,44 607,47 657,50 710,53 766,56 825,59  



Snapshot 12w27a
In Snapshot 12w27a gaining experience is now different for each ore type. The amount of XP dropped per block mined has dropped. Mining Coal Ore gains the least amount of experience while mining Diamond Ore and Emerald Ore gains the most.

For smelting: It is NOT a requirement that you smelt ores. At the very least, cobblestone to smooth stone is worth experience. Experience is not awarded until you remove the item from the furnace; in particular, if you log off while waiting for a stack to smelt, when you return no experience will have been lost, and it will be waiting for you in the furnace.

Note that this means that a wall of furnaces can be started before ending play on a server (assuming that other players will keep the chunk loaded), and serve as an XP battery.

Initial testing indicates that orbs are not generated when you remove items from the furnace; the XP sound plays and the full amount is awarded directly to the person that removes the items.

Snapshot 12w30d
In Snapshot 12w30d experience gained from smelting smoothstone and ore has been severely reduced. In earlier snapshots smelting a block gained you 1 xp per block. In Snapshot 12w30d you now gain different amounts depending on what is being smelted with Cobblestone and Sand giving the least XP, food, Clay, Wood and Cactus the medium XP and Ores the most XP. Smelting cobblestone now gives you 1 XP per 10 blocks smelted, while Iron Ore gives 7 XP per 10 blocks.

History

 * A precursor to the experience system was the point system in Classic Survival Test.


 * Experience was originally revealed by Jeb during an interview. Jeb released a picture of the 1.8 GUI list, which shows the experience bar, among other things.


 * Experience was added in Beta 1.8 but there was no measurable benefit to gaining Experience Orbs and levels.


 * Experience orbs once despawned if a player slept before collecting them. This meant that if you died at night and slept before collecting your items, the orbs would disappear when you woke up. This has been fixed; if you sleep after you die, your experience will still be there.


 * The ability to spend experience levels for Enchanting items was added in 1.0. Experience requirements were also changed in this update.


 * As of weekly snapshot 12w04a the Bottle o' Enchanting was added but is only useful for adventure maps since you don't need any experience when enchanting in creative mode in the snapshot 12w05a.


 * As of snapshot 12w22a, players can get XP from mining, breaking mob spawners, and smelting in a furnace. A very large amount of experience can be collected while mining, sometimes into the hundreds of levels. Coal, lapis lazuli, redstone, diamond and emerald ore give you experience points. However, iron and gold ore don't give experience when mined to avoid easily getting xp from mining and placing the block constantly. However, smelting the ore blocks gives the experience.


 * As of snapshot 12w23a, XP levels now increases with a fixed number of 17 XP Orbs until level 16 and will continue to grow exponentially, so killing the Enderdragon will now give approximately 96 XP Levels (instead of ~ 105 before 12w22a). Levels get harder to achieve as they get higher.


 * Before 12w22a, to reach level 50, which is the number of skill points required to purchase the highest type of enchantment, one would need to gather 4625 experience by defeating 925 hostile mobs. This isn't the case in snapshot 12w22a which requires considerably less to get into higher levels (The amount which would usually get the player to level 30 now gets them to level 93), this is because the leveling system no longer makes each level harder to get from the last. Getting from level 1 to 10 needs the same experience as 11 to 20.


 * In 12w22a, levels did not get harder to achieve as they get higher. This means that getting from 1-10 needs the same amount of exp as 11-20. In 12w23a "enchantment levels are slightly exponential again" although the growth is faster than in 1.2.5 requiring only 825 experience to get to level 30.

Bugs

 * Experience is not always rewarded after killing an animal/mob/player, this may be due to effects such as "Fire Aspect" for swords which do additional damage and that damage may not be attributed to you. Animals/mobs should give experience 100% of the time if you use a standard sword and the killing blow is yours.
 * When bringing a single player map into a server, the experience for one's single player will be reset.

Upcoming features
Each level up will potentially reward the player with Skill Points, which Notch has said may be used for buying things such as increased jump height and increased maximum health.