[Neus]

On the topic of lnet requests, I was meaning to do this as part of one of the 10* updates one week but never found the time because it ended up being a lot more work than I thought it was on paper. Now that I've managed to hit a period where I don't have any outstanding issues I need to tackle (as far as I'm aware, event tools was the last thing I said I'd look at afterwards), I can probably do those for the upcoming update. I could also see these lnet requests being relevant post extension by making them reset every time you do so.

I'm also looking into developing some more static dungeons that are more interesting to explore. I won't go into too much detail at the moment, though.

As for the topic of Evoker being so much better at grinding than everyone else, some of these suggestions are alright. But how do you actually tackle the problem of Evokers being quicker at it than everyone else? Nerfing Evoker damage would be one option. Another option would be to introduce more variety in encounters so that one element in a big area doesn't always work (IE, varied resistances).

You could throw on little bonus EXP modifiers to battle like a melee bonus or no AoE bonus, you could make certain stats factor in to how much EXP you get (such as SKI; this would have the effect of throwing gained EXP out of whack on an individual basis, though, which could be undesirable for a group of friends). You could make most of the EXP from a dungeon be from the boss (although this wouldn't really help things; the dungeon clear bonuses still exist, and Evokers would technically be able to clear dungeons more rapidly than other classes. It'd also introduce an issue of everyone ignoring all floors but the bottom one, if the EXP is significant enough to negate a clear bonus's usefulness. Mind you there are ways around this, too.)

There are a lot of different ways you could tackle this sort of problem. What's the best one? I don't know. Maybe re-examining the purpose of a dungeon is one option. Currently they're used to get EXP and items.

1) Leave things the way they are.
2) Make dungeons more about hunting items; introduce new content that is more focused on EXP and is less about how fast you can do it and more about just doing it.
3) Introduce out-of-battle skills/actions that let you get a leg-up out of battle, such as inflicting damage before it begins, similar to traps, or forcing enemies to start stunned, or such. (This still leaves the issue of Evoker being able to kill them faster than anyone else in the actual battle, though.)
4) Re-examine the severity of monster elemental weaknesses to make them less impactful.
5) Make AoE/long-range spells have some trade-off or reduced effectiveness so Evokers and Hexers don't murder everything on the map before they're put in any damage.
6*) Introduce more quests, lnet requests, and static areas that offer opportunities to earn EXP/rewards. (This is starred because this is already something I am working on, so.)

Feel free to discuss. I'm not opposed to making changes at all and would like it to be an enjoyable or tolerable experience, which is my response to Zakizo; grinding is such a large factor because it's a necessary wall for progression, because SL has always been 'a game that benefits positively from roleplaying' than 'a roleplaying environment that benefits from game elements'. I've always enjoyed the balance of the two rather than leaning heavily one way. We could eliminate levels, grinding, item hunting, and all those factors completely for the sake of roleplaying, but I think that would take a lot of shine away. It would for me, at least.