[Trexmaster]

It's been two years and Lava Lake + Sea of Clouds is still the optimal route to level 60 without question.

While we got a few more mob spawns, dungeons still crumble at the thought of handling more than one efficient party at a time. In some cases this party can be a single person.

The 'Always IC' rule is Always Ignored Casually because almost nobody wants to bother roleplaying such a monotonous task that everyone is required to do in order to acquire items and EXP. The game is designed in way that is antithetical to roleplay when one attempts to try and respect the mechanics with the IC. I call this the 'Does all poultry stem from chests in hell?' problem. The answer is obviously no. Yet mechanically, the answer is yes. The sane course of action is to ignore this mechanical fact. Thus the preference to treat the vast majority of the game's mechanics as OOC due to how difficult they are to make work with roleplay.

Without going on a rant the easiest solution in my eyes is to have something like the old G6 Badlands Arena and let people farm EXP repeatedly off group fights in the comfort of their respective nation's training pit. That's the EXP situation solved for those who want to spend all their time bashing monsters repeatedly without fighting others for spawns.

Items have been a bit of a roundabout issue. We got Ancient Charges that helped for non-weapon/armor items to an extent. No solution has been provided for how awful it is to farm non boss 10 stars from Dark Amplifier only mobs.

While it'd be nice to have items get more crafting recipes/more pity like the ancient charges that require 100 clears.

My main concern is the fact it's been two years and I still log in to competing with people to help level others in Lava Lake or Sea of Clouds. If I don't push for gathering those present in my party, I'll often see people running around soloing all the fights rather than grouping up.

We need something to help alleviate how easy it is for so few people to completely shut down a dungeon. No, I do not mean 'make all the dungeons harder/introduce enemies to hard counter setups that are comfortably clearing'. That just gets people, like me, to stop bothering with that content. Having instances for dungeons or allowing faster monster respawns to be forced for a price is one example of allowing dungeons to keep up with multiple capable parties, without punishing players for trying to play the game.

I should clarify that harder content is fine. Harder content that offers nothing for the increased difficulty only pushes people away from it, if no incentive is given to run it.

TL;DR

Let us make monsters respawn faster in dungeons and/or offer a Badlands Arena esque arena for each nation to farm EXP without item drops.

[Poruku]

I think the biggest point for me is RP. I wish this game had more opportunities for people to rp together as part of the main gameplay loop, because as it stands, many people essentially "lock" themselves to grinding (including myself) for many many hours, with almost no chance for roleplay unless you just so happen to have a great conversation on hour 6 of killing fire dudes.

The grinding situation feels like it's 30 years old, we need some innovation. There's a million different ways we could make it more fun. I would really like it if Dev focused efforts on the user experience, give people good rewards and reward them even more for visiting the many other dungeons. I feel like Dev focuses too much dev time on accessories to the gameplay rather than making the core experience varied, satisfying and fun. Sometimes all you need is to shift some numbers.

I think dev wanted to make really hard content because people have been telling him the game is too easy for a while, but nowadays the issue is that yes there's hard content, but since it doesn't give 10x the loot as the easy content, nobody does it. If it gave way more loot and xp (even 2x on labyrinth would not be enough to make it worthwhile) then it would make for a varied, more enjoyable experience. Like oh yeah, my character is strong enough to do the hard content? That means I get a ton of loot! Great! This is not the case :I. In fact nowadays the meta is just to use performer tact for the xp multi in lava lake.

The natural trade of risk = more loot is simply broken. The social contract! Lava lake is the baseline, it's the acceptable, yet slow, method that people can use to grind. I think instead of being the only way, it should be the basic way. The baseline standard, that you can fall back on when other more challenging or limited ways of grinding aren't doing it.

Think about the persistent vs generated dungeons in g6. The basic dungeons provide a consistent experience, but the random dungeons are where the real loot is. Their inconsistent nature means you can have them be more rewarding, which in turn makes the game way more fun because you encourage players to do varied things. Everyone loves random dungeons that give a ton of loot. Currently, korvara's grinding experience is nothing but the baseline. It's a consistent repeat of the same thing over and over.

And it's not as if this game needs the playtime to be stretched so much. People love to legend extend. More xp, more rewards, means more inks. If the people enjoy the grind they'll grind more, they'll do as much as they feel like doing. This is how things should be!

There's also many ways we can make the grind more fun. I still think the campsite rested xp bonus thing is a good idea for instigating rp within grinding.

[Collector]

I think the biggest point for me is RP. I wish this game had more opportunities for people to rp together as part of the main gameplay loop, because as it stands, many people essentially "lock" themselves to grinding (including myself) for many many hours, with almost no chance for roleplay unless you just so happen to have a great conversation on hour 6 of killing fire dudes.

The grinding situation feels like it's 30 years old, we need some innovation. There's a million different ways we could make it more fun. I would really like it if Dev focused efforts on the user experience, give people good rewards and reward them even more for visiting the many other dungeons. I feel like Dev focuses too much dev time on accessories to the gameplay rather than making the core experience varied, satisfying and fun. Sometimes all you need is to shift some numbers.

I think dev wanted to make really hard content because people have been telling him the game is too easy for a while, but nowadays the issue is that yes there's hard content, but since it doesn't give 10x the loot as the easy content, nobody does it. If it gave way more loot and xp (even 2x on labyrinth would not be enough to make it worthwhile) then it would make for a varied, more enjoyable experience. Like oh yeah, my character is strong enough to do the hard content? That means I get a ton of loot! Great! This is not the case :I. In fact nowadays the meta is just to use performer tact for the xp multi in lava lake.

The natural trade of risk = more loot is simply broken. The social contract! Lava lake is the baseline, it's the acceptable, yet slow, method that people can use to grind. I think instead of being the only way, it should be the basic way. The baseline standard, that you can fall back on when other more challenging or limited ways of grinding aren't doing it.

Think about the persistent vs generated dungeons in g6. The basic dungeons provide a consistent experience, but the random dungeons are where the real loot is. Their inconsistent nature means you can have them be more rewarding, which in turn makes the game way more fun because you encourage players to do varied things. Everyone loves random dungeons that give a ton of loot. Currently, korvara's grinding experience is nothing but the baseline. It's a consistent repeat of the same thing over and over.

And it's not as if this game needs the playtime to be stretched so much. People love to legend extend. More xp, more rewards, means more inks. If the people enjoy the grind they'll grind more, they'll do as much as they feel like doing. This is how things should be!

There's also many ways we can make the grind more fun. I still think the campsite rested xp bonus thing is a good idea for instigating rp within grinding.

I agree with several points made in Trex's post, but not this.

nowadays the issue is that yes there's hard content, but since it doesn't give 10x the loot as the easy content, nobody does it.

Dark Amplifier Rematches have unique 7, 8, and 9 star loot pools, along with larger loot pools. Assuming you're doing T2 boss rotations, you should be printing FAR more loot with MUCH higher quality than random drops from trashmobs; I believe this fulfills the "give people good rewards and reward them even more for visiting the many other dungeons" point you brought up, and is DEFINITELY more than 2x what labyrinth offers. You can accomplish this on any build with mercs, similar to lab, so I'd classify it as 'easy content'. The good endgame is here with its bonus 10* rates and a 9* pool on T3s if you want to go to the difficult.

If your cutoff for wanting to do content is 10x drop rate, I just don't think you want to do the content.

The natural trade of risk = more loot is simply broken. The social contract! Lava lake is the baseline, it's the acceptable, yet slow, method that people can use to grind.

No, it isn't. Grinding for items at Lava Lake is a terrible idea and barely rewards the Dark Shards needed for Dark Amplifier. You don't grind here for the challenge or the enjoyment, you grind here because it's the easiest way to get to 60 once you hit EXP uncap. Assuming no outside interference (the realm of 4 AM EST), I've snagged a few friends and taken them to 60 in less than two hours. It's only slow if you're competing with someone else trying to do the same thing, which leads me to my point;

We need something to help alleviate how easy it is for so few people to completely shut down a dungeon. No, I do not mean 'make all the dungeons harder/introduce enemies to hard counter setups that are comfortably clearing'. That just gets people, like me, to stop bothering with that content. Having instances for dungeons or allowing faster monster respawns to be forced for a price is one example of allowing dungeons to keep up with multiple capable parties, without punishing players for trying to play the game.

I should clarify that harder content is fine. Harder content that offers nothing for the increased difficulty only pushes people away from it, if no incentive is given to run it.

TL;DR

Let us make monsters respawn faster in dungeons and/or offer a Badlands Arena esque arena for each nation to farm EXP without item drops.

THIS is where my issue is. Despite all the good that Dark Amplifier rematches have to offer, and despite how much time and effort I can put into it, I'm always going to be bottlenecked by the rate at which I farm dark shards. I routinely lock down the Sea of Clouds on a build no one of appropriate level range could hope to compete with so I can print enough shards to fuel my grind machine. Having someone just trying to get to the exp uncap at 45 walk in, see me eat every monster in the dungeon in less than 5 minutes, then leave, is a common occurrence. I hate this and they do too.

If both myself and the person here for EXP could slam ourselves into the mob printer like G6, this wouldn't be an issue. They'd get to 60 in 2 hours farming lake like I do at 4 AM, and I'd get SIGNIFICANTLY more dark shards instead of having to perform the 10 minute waiting ritual after wiping a dungeon. Even if I believe the item grinding experience is fine, the EXP experience is, frankly, ruined by me trying to produce enough dark shards to summon the G6 necromancer across worlds.

That last point also gives me the excuse to bring up T3 Decarabia and his lack of c00l l00t again. There isn't reason to do his T3.


TL;DR: We don't need a grand rework or re-imagining of the grind, we just want spawns reactive to how quickly a dungeon is being wiped. It's better for everyone.

[Rendar]

I don't wanna say it. But I will.

"Hey guys. What if we had items that enabled Random Encounters like G6 static dungeons (Jammer dungeon style). Walk 10 steps get a fight?"

[AkaInuHime]

I don't wanna say it. But I will.

"Hey guys. What if we had items that enabled Random Encounters like G6 static dungeons (Jammer dungeon style). Walk 10 steps get a fight?"

Whoa... Blood Whistle Plus

[Poruku]

Dark amplifier is great for items but not leveling. Most of the people in lava lake are there for xp, and it makes up the majority of what grinding is about. I agree that dark amplifier is a good mechanic, but it's only endgame content, not to mention it's locked behind an unlock. I'm talking about the general user experience of progressing from 1 to 60 then LEing

[matthewmwps]

Part of me wonders if a simple solution, or at least something to make it easier, would be just to have it where if all monsters are defeated it makes them all respawn.

Though given how those things operate on a server wide 'hour' shift, that may not even be possible?

[Ray2064]

A part of the problem is definitely how you're entirely disincentivized from...having party members, aside from Dark Amplifier drops? Since loot and Murai are both split among party members, and that most of the content is easily doable alone, atop of the fact that having multiple people will actually make things slower most of the time for that aforementioned content (bosses even get more HP and mobs with multiple players, so sub-80, bar Lava Slime, it's always better to solo them) , it's much more preferable for players to just go grind alone, ergo, worsening the issue where a dungeon will run out of mobs at the slightest push

So, 75% of the time, people are encouraged to just grind alone because they're rewarded better for it in both time and resources. This would ALSO bring us back to the topic of Dark Shards, considering that there's typically only one 'dark' mob per monster encounter, and at most, four players to get the drop.

[Tana]

You're really not disincentivized from partying at all. Actually, it's quite the opposite - There are incredibly large incentives to partying. Bigger exp, incredibly increased drop rates, absolute negation of risk, higher clear speeds.

Any lack of speed from partying tends to be due to whoever is leading the party not being very good at starting fights. Many people just run face-first into packs of mobs, which is very slow. It'll be just as slow when you're alone. Meanwhile, someone who is actually trying will have it so every fight is over round 0.

The one and only actual disincentivizing thing about partying is the way korvara boss gold drops work, and the generally unfavorable way that murai is split (Resulting in technically less from the same fight), with the note that murai is already trivial with no real sink to it at all.

Other than murai, a party of 4 is rewarded much better in terms of time/resources spent, as long as there's nobody in the party who is literally asleep at the wheel.

For the actual topic of the thread, I don't think there's actually much problem with Korvara's grinding now. Gear is now basically free unless you have some bizarre need to use one of a tiny handful of hard to get items, the time from 1-60 is very quick, money has no use, and you can even just gain ink through RP.

(Also we did try for the g6 arena complete with captured merc selling in Duyuei... It wouldn't be the worst idea for arenas, to at least keep all the may-as-well-be-OOC-tagged people out of dungeons, which is always incredibly annoying to see and have to report.)