Solo vs Party Leveling
Quick answer: Solo leveling: faster pace control, no scheduling friction, +0% XP bonus. Party leveling: +10-15% XP bonus, dungeon access at lower level, social retention. Solo wins for power-levellers (~15% faster); party wins for long-term retention (~60% higher 30-day retention).
Every new arrival to Aeternum eventually asks the same question: level up alone, or find a party? Both paths reach level 80 and both let you hit Prestige, but they get there differently, and the "right" answer depends on how much time you have per session and whether you care more about raw speed or long-term retention. This guide breaks down the actual mechanics behind each approach using the same XP curve and dungeon data the game runs on.
Solo advantages
Solo levelling gives you full pace control. There is no "waiting for party" downtime, no scheduling three other people around your play window, and no risk of a party member logging off mid-dungeon-run and stalling your progress. The XP curve itself is steep — it follows floor(100 * (level - 1)^1.6), so getting from level 1 to level 10 costs under 4,000 XP total, but level 50 alone requires over 132,000 XP and level 80 needs more than 371,000. Solo players who know the curve can chain quests and Tier-1/Tier-2 dungeons back to back without ever pausing to coordinate, which in practice runs roughly 15% faster bracket-to-bracket than an equivalent party at low-to-mid level, where content is easy enough that a second player adds little beyond split XP.
Party advantages
Parties trade some solo speed for two real advantages. First, a 10-15% party XP bonus applies to shared kills and dungeon clears, which starts to outweigh the "no waiting" benefit once dungeons get harder than you can solo-clear reliably. Second, dungeon tiers scale to party size, so a two- or three-player party can safely enter dungeons a few levels above what any one of them could solo — useful once you are pushing into Tier-3 territory (roughly level 35-50, ~2400 XP and an 8-minute clear per run) where solo wipes become common. Beyond the numbers, players who level in a party consistently show around 60% better 30-day retention than solo players, mostly because they have people to log back in for even on days when the grind alone wouldn't be enough motivation.
Hybrid strategy
Most efficient players don't pick one lane exclusively. Solo works best from level 1 to roughly 25: quests pay well relative to the time cost, and the early dungeons (Crypt of Shadows, levels 1-15, and the early floors of Werewolf's Den, levels 10-25) are easy enough that a second player mostly just splits the loot and gold without adding much clear speed. From 25 onward, switch to party leveling for Tier-2 and Tier-3 dungeons — the XP-per-minute goes up once you can clear efficiently instead of grinding through a fight solo, and it sets you up for raids, which unlock around level 45. Vampire's Lair (levels 15-30) and Swamp Labyrinth (levels 20-35) are natural transition points where a duo or trio starts to outperform solo play.
When to definitely party
Some content simply is not solo-viable and requires coordination from the first pull: Mythic-difficulty dungeons (enemy multipliers above 2x with stacked affixes like fortified, tyrannical, or sanguine), weekly raid bosses, and the monthly Eclipse War, which runs the first seven days of every month and doubles PvP XP for the duration. These fights are tuned around multiple players filling different roles, and attempting them solo — even at a much higher level than the recommended range — usually just wastes your dungeon cooldown for no clear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Solo all the way to 50?
Possible — vampires easier than werewolves, thanks to the vampire's higher base DEX and life-steal passive smoothing out sustained fights. Budget roughly 25 hours of active dungeon-and-quest time to hit level 50 solo, longer if you are unlucky with drops and have to grind gold for gear upgrades along the way.
Best party size for levelling?
2-3 players is the sweet spot. A duo or trio still gets the full party XP bonus and dungeon-scaling benefits while keeping loot splits generous. A full 4-person party splits XP and gold four ways, which often costs more in shared rewards than it gains in clear speed, especially in the lower-tier dungeons where a trio can already clear cleanly.
Does race choice change the solo-vs-party calculus?
Somewhat. Vampires lean solo-friendly early thanks to their built-in life-steal passive, which smooths out sustained damage without needing a healer in the party. Werewolves lean the opposite way — their strength is HP regen and raw HP pool, which scales better in group content where fights last longer and regen has more turns to matter. Neither race is locked out of either playstyle, but if you know you want to solo-grind to 50, vampire is the marginally easier pick.
Does gear catch-up matter for hybrid leveling?
Yes. Switching from solo to party leveling around level 25 works best if your gear already supports Tier-2 dungeon difficulty — a character who solo-quested through early levels without upgrading gear can find themselves under-geared the moment they join a party pushing into harder content. Spend some of your early solo gold on gear upgrades (plus1 upgrades cost only 50 gold) rather than banking it all, so the transition to party content doesn't stall on a gear check.