[Zakizo]

---- Rambling about the problem as I see it, probably not a necessary read. The quick summary is that LE caused problems ----
I'm not advocating the removal of all the systems that make SL2 a game, I play SL2 over other games precisely because it also functions as a game, so don't worry. My problem isn't with levels, item hunting (barring certain things like craft materials that I really feel there's no reason to restrict to dungeons), or even grinding... no, there was a time when none of this actually felt as out of control as it does today. I hate to say it, but someone has to: this seemed to happen when Legend Extension was added. Grinding was always... well, slow, but there was an end to it. I do realize that I complained endlessly for a system that assisted with remaking a character to be added, but Legend Extension goes beyond that.

What I initially had in mind was a system to remake a character without deleting them because grinding became impossible due to RNG shenanigans, but Legend Extension guarantees that most people will reset at least once. Not only that, but because the gains keep stacking up, they constantly feel the pressure to reset again and again to get the most out of their character. This probably sounds like a problem that powergamers should just have to deal with, but ultimately everyone suffers from it when their friends are too busy grinding to interact with them. Whether it's you or not, if someone you know is doing it, you're paying the price.

The reason I believe this wasn't a huge problem before LE was this: Before LE you could remake, but there was no boost from it. There was no guarantee your stats would be better (whereas now, since you grind from level 1 with promos, it's almost as good as guaranteed the first time around), and there weren't as many ways to game the growth system. Because there was no real incentive to remake, people simply grinded until they felt their character was 'viable.' And that felt reasonable. Though the grind itself felt painfully slow, there was an end in sight.

Now, after the whole movement to get EXP boosted to lessen the pain of grinding... let's say it's become 2x faster (this is an arbitrary number so I don't know how accurate it is, but it works for this example). Seem good? It would be if we were in pre-LE days, but since you'll probably end up performing LE on most of your characters at least once, that boost is canceled out, and you'll still spend just as much time grinding, if not more-so. Now let's say for your build you want +5% to STR and SKI growth. But the grind the first time around was painful, so you take Deja Vu... whoops! You only had two ink. Now you have to grind a third time unless you want to sacrifice one of those growths. It may seem like the mindset of a min-maxer (and it is), but that's the norm in SL2 now. And unfortunately as stated, it's not only the min-maxers who suffer from it, it's the people who are left twiddling their thumbs waiting for them in largely deserted areas.

---- Hopefully things get more constructive at this point ----
As for how to fix this... LE has done its damage, so I'm not sure if reworking that system is an option. If it is, removing promos on reset and changing ink to be obtainable via another method instead of resetting your character would greatly help, but it would cause a huge power gap between characters created before and characters created after. The only way to alleviate this would be to give base classes comparable growths to promos. I'm not sure how appealing that idea sounds to anyone else, but it has a nice ring to it to me. People don't even keep bad stats when they come from promos, they're certainly not going to when they go through an initial grind with base classes. That means, currently, base classes having low growths is cosmetic at best and, while potentially frustrating, still futile at worst. Nothing of value would be lost.

An additional idea is to change ink to be obtainable through the same method as RP EXP currently is, but much less frequently. And if done this way I would recommend it only count if someone else is within range to hear the say/whisper/emote, because as it stands people seem to abuse the RP EXP system to the point where I almost regret suggesting it (and I'm sure they'd find a way to make me regret this too, but I'll cross that bridge if I get to it). I don't really feel too strongly about this suggestion, the main thing is just taking ink away from a character reset. How they're obtained beyond that probably won't matter much.

Finally, on the topic of bonuses obtainable through ink, they could stay the way they are now, but that would still result in people feeling compelled to reset. It may be worth changing the aspects to something not growth-related at all. An example: When you take the aspect, the base stat of the aspect you took scales up by the percentage, rounded up. For example, if you had 50 base STR and took Axys Al, your base STR would increase by 3 (2.5 rounded up). This wouldn't affect characters made before the change, so it would be up to them whether they want to keep their current stats or use the new system. The point of this isn't to change the scale of benefits from the aspects, but to remove the desire to "remake" for them, as the player would already know what they're getting before they took the aspect in the first place.

It's just one idea, but I think things would calm down considerably if the current "eternal grind" situation is addressed first and foremost. That can't be done without adjusting legend extension. Again, I'm not sure how appealing any of that sounds to anyone, but I definitely want to hear opinions and/or alternatives.