Did I just mess up my first character?

So been flagged from beginning. Its been fun the suspense of knowing a player can whack me anytime while adventuring, plus I get an exp bonus or something. =P
But... ive been a bit careless. Got bashed by super high lvl players a few times, and I think maybe its clearing out my experience pool right?
I wasn't too worried about ransom, I just don't ever pay it =P I'm only carrying junk anyways right now.
But now I'm realizing that exp loss is pretty bad. And managing exp + skill gain is important too, been burning exp raising multiple skills at once. Now they hardly raise. Still wasn't too concerned I figured I can build exp anytime... But.... I'm thinking now about the fact that theres only a limited number of quests. Only the quests give you lots of exp. And you cant do them more than once right?? So I killed the alpha wolf and also the bandit in soltown and gave the necklace back to the lady at the camp got lots of exp but I think I lost that exp by getting bonked. Not just by spawn but other players. You can always gain by killing spawn, but if I don't get my toon built tough enough ill only be able to slay easy critters that give low exp reward. And if I want to build my character off soltown catacombs to max level.. well.... the image of south park when all the boys were playing WoW but couldn't leave a low level area comes too mind. Bonking tiny little weak critters that give 1 exp a piece forever till you are 800 lbs and have carpral tunnel both hands sounds bad.
Srry for wall of text
Am I screwing up my character permamently or is there ways to gain good exp always?

 

Dying in PVP is not supposed to cost you any xp... so that should not be an issue. Any xp loss should be for other reasons (dying in PVM, a fall in a adventuring scene, etc.). Keep in mind that if you have too many skills open at once, you'll be dumping xp into skills faster than you are gaining xp resulting in a shrinking pool. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

as long as the death was purely pvp it shouldnt take xp, however falling, npcs etc do take it flagged or not

 

The exp from quests is mostly useful at the beginning. You will be able to take on stronger and stronger monsters just by playing the game. But it helps to have a plan about what your strengths will be. After a while you gain so much from slaying things that quest exp is just a small bonus on the side.

 

Your issue right now is not about decay but managing your experience pool. If you have too many things set to raise you are applying more experience to skills during the fight, then adding experience to your pool from the kill. So your pool of experience will be dropping.

Might have to lock most skills and raise specific skills one or two at a time depending on what skill you are raising and how much experience you are gaining. Active management of your experience pool becomes more important as you play to make sure you are maintaining a pool of experience high enough to offset your decay later as still raise skills.

But yes, because of decay this game reminds me a lot of that WOW episode.