Right now many players have the following problems with quests:
- At low levels, <70, you will have an infinite chain of quests that will lead you up to the mausoleum. It is by far the fastest way to level. If you had to grind before this, you likely missed some quests/maps. The tiny hour grind before lv46 is nothing. So basically, you have way too many quests you’re pretty much forced to do in order to progress quickly.
- At high levels, >130, you don’t have enough quests and it feels like there’s nothing to do but grind. When you do get the occasional quest, it feels insignificant compared to the grind.
Firstly, create repeatable quest npc in each town. This gives avid questers who can’t play without a quest something to do. He will ask you to defeat 10-200 of a random mob +/-5 levels compared to you. The number you have to defeat depends on your level. The mob he asks you to defeat resets every hour, daily, or something in between (whichever seems fair for the beta or full release). Upon completion of the quest, he rewards you 1 exp card with level equal to what quests around your level would give.
The npc is a researcher compiling a database of the wildlife in the world. He introduces the quest to you as, “I’ve heard a rumor that [monster_name] drops [item_that_monster_drops]. Can you confirm if this is true? Please defeat [number_of_kills] [monster_name] and report back the results. You can find [monster_name] at [map_name].” Or something along those lines. The item might end up being just some random material, but assuming the monster drops more than 2 items, most of the time you’ll learn about a recipe or equipment drop whether you choose to accept the quest or not.
Chatting with him again before quest completion will have him remind you what you have to do. When you turn in the quest, you get the exp card reward whether or not you get the drop or not. You only need the kills. The npc will comment on whether or not you got the drop and reward you for your efforts.
This helps the higher level players with something to do when they can only grind and teaches newer players about drops. At lower levels, an exp card is worth 10 or so kills, so it’s not really that significant. At higher levels, it’s worth 50-100 kills, a much greater impact. Plus you’re technically doing a quest so it helps alleviate some of the grind. Possibly outright removing it if it’s an hourly instead of a daily.
More instance dungeons. There should be an instance dungeon available for nearly every level range. Right now when I look at /inall, I see a huge amount of instance dungeons all clustered at lv100. An instance dungeon available every 20 levels starting at lv30 leading all the way up to the level cap would be ideal.
Since instance dungeons would become more prevalent, the contents and their bosses will also become more memorable. Put as much creative work into these as you can. I was pleased to see that the boss at the end of Crystal Mines 3f had an attack where it would create foot-holds then use a spinning laser attack that was difficult to dodge without standing on top of those foot-holds. If you have a good connection, it’s also fairly easy to fight as a wizard during the spinning lasers by jump-attacking from a distance. I’m a fan of this attack because after seeing pretty much only traps summoned by bosses, I was very wary of whatever kind of trap “foothold” would do. After seeing the attack sequence happen twice, I figured it had to be intentional and discovered its purpose. Unfortunately, this move is never seen again.
Giving each instance dungeon a gimmick, such as mandatory coordination by your party (needing to activate 2 distant switches within 5 seconds of each other), would make them a lot more fun. Use of creative bosses like the one I described above will help them be more memorable. We’ll be seeing them a lot, as opposed to story bosses that we see just once, except for a few re-colors/names.
Instance dungeons give item rewards, as opposed to exp cards from quests. Having them accessible nearly all the time will give players something else to do if they are aiming for more silver through their play-time rather than exp. This should be a breath of fresh air for players who are making multiple characters and don’t want to play through the exact same side quests every time. Though this is only one other option, two options is better than one. Plus, it’s more partying, and that’s always good at any level.
Grinders like to hunt for good loot. Instance dungeons are great for that. Though the daily limit might be a problem. Hopefully it’s just a beta thing to prevent overcrowding. In the future, I expect more channels so crowding becomes less of an issue.