Excavation states that it will only take 62 “Life Energy” (translated elsewhere as “Work Energy”) in its tooltip. It takes significantly more than that per dig, and the Stronghold pots that are relic dig replacements take 300 energy, base, while outside Stronghold it takes 180; this is still nearly triple the energy cost. Cutting Trees takes 60 energy, as the tooltip states… but only when cutting a tree on your own; with someone else, your energy cost drops to 20, though this isn’t stated anywhere in-game. Carving after a hunt in Stronghold costs 150 energy, a significant amount more than the stated 84 on the tooltip, and I’m pretty sure it also costs more than the 84 outside of it, though I haven’t used it recently enough non-Stronghold to be able to confirm it for sure from memory. Even Mining costs more than its stated amount, though only minimally. The only one that doesn’t is Foraging… and that might change with the foraging level 30 upgrade. Stronghold foraging probably costs more, too. this isn’t even addressing the vastly higher amounts things cost under Leap Energy Potion which is supposed to only double the cost, but does far more; Stronghold Excavation costs over 1000 energy per “dig”, for example, which should under current values only be going up to 600 instead. Other skills are similarly affected.
So, to recap: most skills consume far more than the listed energy values on the tooltips. It’s even worse in Stronghold, and if you consume a Leap Energy Potion, it consumes far more than the 2x it purports to take without guarenteeing increased drops.
Stronghold materials take more energy to harvest than non-stronghold materials, yeah. This is done cuz of the convenience of the stronghold farming (no mobs + easy access).
I went ahead and tested (in Shushire) each of the skills you mentioned and got these numbers:
[excavating] = 450 XP / 180 energy = 2.5 XP per energy
[foraging] = 75 XP / 30 energy = 2.5 XP per energy
[mining] = 75 XP / 30 energy = 2.5 XP per energy
[logging] = 150 XP / 60 energy = 2.5 XP per energy
[hunting] = 225 XP / 90 energy = 2.5 XP per energy
it seems for every (non-stronghold) trade skill, your 1 Life/Work Energy = 2.5 XP for that trade skill. You are correct that the tooltip is misleading about how much energy will be used per “harvest” of an excavating or hunting node. No idea how they’re calculating the tooltip (maybe 2.5 XP divided by 2.5 XP per 1 energy?) but you’re right; they definitely need to update this to reflect what a player would understand as energy used per a single action.
There are many locations like that for regular materials (which can be used for a much wider array of things than stronghold resources; if stronghold resources were 1:1 in recipes, then you’d have an argument there); even if you exclude Treasure Islands like Tooki where you can excavate until you’re kicked off the island, there’s places like Lullaby Island and similar that have no mobs or, if they have mobs are passive rather than aggressive. Regardless, those values being increased are not marked out anywhere in-game, be it part of the stronghold farm/cave tutorial quest stuff or otherwise. I’d prefer they not arbitrarily change them in Stronghold for resources, especially with them having such limited use cases, personally, but they need to fix the values to match the tooltips or vice versa, either way. the values reported need to match the values actually used. Additionally, the abilities that buff your drop rates like for Fishing add far more than their stated costs, just like the Leap Energy Potion, so that also needs to be properly addressed.
I’d also much rather have less XP and less items per harvest than the current if that’s what it takes to have them reduce the costs appropriately at the moment, especially considering quests (especially guild quests) that require a number of uses of the trade skill, which disproportionately consumes energy for some skills, and is a breeze with others (sad statues (excavation) vs. plant leaves (foraging) is an easy example). If those quests instead got rebalanced, or the rewards got rebalanced so they matched up with how many attempts it should have been, that would be fine too… but I’d rather get as close to the original intent, rather than the washed-out “EZ” version with this botched tampering in an attempt to “balance” the energy costs.
EDIT: you know what would actually be nice? If Stronghold Farm/Cave took Stronghold Energy instead of Life/Work Energy, and didn’t grant any tradeskill EXP. I’d be 100% down for that change.
Also, lets do the calculations for Stronghold tradeskills.
[excavating] = 187 XP / 300 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
[foraging] = 31 XP / 50 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
[mining] = 31 XP / 50 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
[logging] = 62 XP / 100 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
[hunting] = 93 XP / 150 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
[Fishing] = 62 XP / 100 energy = 0.62 XP per energy
These are not just terrible scalars for energy in terms of resources gained, but also in terms of XP gained. I really just do not see any reason to ever use Stronghold resources by comparison, since you can make everything with regular materials just fine, and you get more for less cost to energy, AND more XP.