I’ve been LITERALLY playing all day 24/7 without rest because my fiance is on vacation for the month, and this is what I have ascertained so far.
Once you hit level 25, you’re expected to kill mobs until you reach level 30, then you can start doing a couple more quests again. When I hit this level, I finally felt the need to actually take advantage of the upgrade system to make my lowbie weapons even more awesome. I ascertained that, not only is fighting mobs within your level is important, but finding areas where mobs are generally not resistant to your main form of attack is key to leveling up fast. Leveling within 5 levels of your current level is suggested… even if it’s 5 below. In fact, it seems if there is a high mob count in the area you’re in and the enemies are lower level than you… then you gain EXP very fast.
I buckled up and turned on my inner “Grind Mode” I have acquired from countless of hours studying medical books in nursing school. The grind, honestly, isn’t that bad. In two days of NONSTOP play, I managed to get to level 45+ and apparently the EXP curve resets back to lvl 1 once you reach level 46. This is great because, at this point, you’re given a whole slew of new quests to push you through the more climactic parts of the main storyline.
Bosses… get… much… more… difficult… After you reach lvl 45 the bosses start to move faster, the “prediction” radius is typically nonexistant, and the grind gets easier… only for a little while though. This is probably to get you up to speed with your new class skills and such.
I ascertain, that getting to lvl 45 for a normal player (like how I will be when I’m in school) will probably take around a week or two… which is fine because slow progression games like this is RARE in the current day where all we want is to fast forward to the end of the game and then complain there’s no content. I haven’t played a game like this… since… since… Since Ragnarok Online.
Of course, people are going to complain how “grindy” it is… considering they’re used to being babied around in games like Tera, high rate private servers in Ragnarok Online, and World of Warcraft as it got older. Even the official server in RO has repeatable quests… which I always disliked because people stopped grouping together to level up and spend those precious moments to bond together.
Speaking of grouping up, Mabinogi used to be a great difficult game… It was almost required to be in a group in some dungeons to survive, unless you were both very good and very high level. I liked this because it made people WANT to group together… but Mabi was ruined when Nexon decided to nerf the ENTIRE game… so now everyone just solo’s all day every day. It’s hard to make friends when you make a game too easy.
To me, this is the most important aspect of an MMO. Making the game difficult enough so you don’t get bored in 5 seconds while also not making it frustratingly hard. The grind? That’s hardly difficulty… but I think in the US, we’re too used to getting everything fast and easy.
Anyway, moving on to the upgrade system.
OH BOY! You’ll always need money because the upgrade system is very in depth… from gem inserts, to anvil upgrades, to using up potential everytime you want to trade something, to upgrading GEMS, to attribute passive skill levels. This isn’t even touching the tip of the surface considering Alchemists can do EVEN more once we actually get to it. I must say, a lot of things I’m very pleased with… the ease of showing off items, the smoothness of the UI, the ability to change your team name at will, and even the silly card battles.
I think if I have one complaint, it would be that for someone my level (55), the best place to level for me is still places that are vastly under my level… I think the EXP progresion is a bit… I dunno… wierd. I don’t think the game should be made easier to level, but there’s some oddities to the exp progression that means fighting stuff much higher level than you IS NOT A GOOD WAY TO LEVEL.
I REPEAT, FIGHTING SOMETHING THAT TAKES LONGER THAN 5 SECONDS TO KILL = TERRIBLE EXP GAIN RATE!
I’d say, if you can kill something within 3 seconds and the exp isn’t terrible… like… 60-120… then it’s a great place to level assuming the mob spawn rates aren’t awful.
Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. Time to keep bug testing!
. As I got my key after my friend was rewarded one for being top 1000, I have a grasp of how to grind to level 30. My friend and I took turns leveling his pyromancer and I knew that once i hit the chapel I would have issues myself.