[Poruku]

The climb to level 60 as a fresh character has never before been so harsh. Before the Lava lake nerf, it was the only saving grace that made it tolerable.

The problem isn't that hard mobs are inherently wrong in design. The problem is that the reward for defeating strong mobs feels lacking. When I barely defeat a pack of level 60 mobs as a level 50, I get only a tiny amount of experience, and that's assuming you're using brain food (which is basically mandatory nowadays, for the regen and xp). Murai is also difficult to get unless you're doing boss runs, which is something only stronger characters can reliably do. During the leveling process, obtaining xp, gold, and items, is the hardest it's ever been.

But why? Back in the G6 days, xp and gold were plentiful, and the game felt amazing. The random dungeons were rewarding, with plenty of chests that give useful things and even useful objects like fountains and FP butterflies.

In Korvara, however:
- Removed the xp/gold/spatial core from dungeon completion
- Made all the high level mobs FAR more powerful
- Removed modifiers that gave bonus rewards, especially CRAZY
- Removed ASAGO quests, some of which gave us INK which saved a ton of time, on top of giving an xp boost for LEs

And what did we get in exchange? Nothing, except consistency. Arguably, this is a bad thing as well, because a lack of variety makes the grind less exciting as well.

To reiterate, I think having hard mobs is fine. But the problem is that for the average player, this grind is momentous, and forget legend extension. Lava lake was holding the grind experience by a thread, and now it's far harder (No longer water weak, forgery is far more powerful, some of these mobs even have fire resist through nihilist (?)).

The reason people were spamming lava lake isn't because they're sweaty gamers going for the most optimal play at any cost, it's because it was the only way leveling felt decent. It was more fun. Now it just feels bad

Honestly I feel like all "hard" mobs should give double xp and drops at least to feel decent. Those kobolds warriors take forever to kill yet they're way tougher than the others... Maybe something like this:

Dangerous mob (3x xp + loot): Minotaur, kobold, yeti, etc
Tough mob (2x xp + loot): Mushroom, current lava lake, gold beetle
Normal: Jammer, goblin, generally all the ancient mobs pre-icebloods

Then it would feel justified to fight something tougher. For now, I guess it's back to sky temple?....

[zericosmic]

Killing lava lake efficiency just made it so that everyone now goes to Sea of Clouds, I was trying to grind there the other day and saw like 5 parties fighting for EXP whilst Lava Lake was left desolate. At least before, people alternated between the two locations

The grind got so mind numbing that I simply started begging friends with woodworking to just make me dummies for the last five levels. (Thanks Autumn)

Idk how this is supposed to be more fun in any way, we've been fighting the same mobs in game to level for the past 3 years, and honestly it takes less than 30 minutes of fighting the same thing for it to start being boring, especially when we're talking about leveling mobs. Grinding is a chore, and the last thing i want to do when I come back from work is some mindless menial labor for the next few hours, in fact I find doing my actual job more fun than this on most days.

Removing the wastes ink from the equation as well made it suck even more, because at least I could trade a LE for a quicker experience via Deja Vu, and I could get past some of the early levels where I have no skills whatsoever, now if I want to have a less irritating experience the only way to do it is to cough up some patrions for brain food.

I am thankful that I have characters of plentitudes of races leveled already because I just don't wanna bother leveling again.

[Snake]

I think a better approach would be to introduce more Ancient Charges, but tie them to leveling (TNL% rewards, only while you're under LV60) instead of gear.

Gaining levels by reaching specific kill quotas feels more engaging than relying on randomness or being forced to farm weaker mobs.

If the game's goal is to eventually make all late-game content uniformly challenging, then at least standardize the leveling method so that your kill count has real impact.

[Trexmaster]

I made my own thread touching on these issues as is tradition.

I agree, the difficulty to reward disparity is a huge problem that will hopefully be addressed at some point.

Efficient grind setups get curbed, monsters that were easier to deal with made more difficult, it all combines into a painful experience for everyone involved in a game where that isn't even the primary focus. The grind exists largely as a barrier to most people when it comes to enjoying the rest of the game.

If I chose not to engage with the mechanical aspect I am excluded from event content that utilizes mechanical aspects of the game and my IC suffers as a result if I am meant to be remotely competent in a fight. Hence the compulsion to participate and grind so your character can be accurately represented, even if it doesn't make much sense ICly.

I am not sure what making things more tedious accomplishes other than discouraging players and slowing down the borderline obligatory step in seeing a character from conception to reality that is the grind.

It's really not that hard but that doesn't mean it should be made more of a pain, it only hurts the people who were already struggling.