There’s nothing effortless about questing. Especially actually good quests
In single player RPGs, following a quest and gaining power through it can either be effortless or not depending on the needs of the outlined story and how the devs interpret that story through gameplay.
If a quest is actually good, you’d be willing to do it without any form of recompense for the effort. You’d follow that quest, simply because you found it interesting, and would want resolve for that quest’s various actors (including that of your own character). That’s what a good quest is.
A majority of mmo quests and quite a lot here just want you to kill a bunch of things. You were doing that already, so why not take a quest to give a little bump when you’re done?
Obviously, the OP’s context refers specifically to modern MMO questing. Quests in ToS already give out items and open up new areas, rather than directly giving out XP, which is exactly how most single player RPGs go about it.
One reason why some us are against the form of questing you suggest is because we see it as exactly as what it is: story-writing that comes off as artificial mixed with lazy game design. We’ve seen it in too many MMO’s post-WoW not to be pushed to the point of fury.
“A little bump” of XP is actually vague, and IMC would have to figure out what you mean by that.
Do you even realize what you’re asking for? How many quest givers would you need to implement in order to satisfy the huge amounts of XP needed to sustain a character through questing alone? This is another problem in many post-WoW MMOs: you have thousands of NPCs, with few (if any) having any form of depth to their characters.
If a player wants to hunt bear butts, it should be by his own volition. Or instead of bear butts, he’s free to hunt lizard tails or peacock feathers, which would be found in very different areas. Quest givers have a nasty habit of dictating where it is that a player should operate. Consequently this takes away the sense of free-roaming exploration that many of us fell in love with in RO.
I personally feel that quests should be reserved for the most important storylines - things that define your character such as a job change, or things that change the landscape permanently. They shouldn’t be there for XP bumps. That’s what grinding is for.
100 is not a high level in a game with planned content as high as 600. 100 is when the game starts to open up and give you more options both class and world wise.
For most modern MMOs, max level is “when the game starts to open up and give you more options both class and world wise.”
