[Rendar]

It is pretty true, getting from level 1 to 60 is a slog outside of the tower. I'll admit as well, when I introduced my BF to the game, I grinded them in the tower for... a goodly while. It only was made easier when I also completed the horrendous "Kill 100 of these things" missions and told him to just hold on to them after completion.

COmplete 1 or 2 saves you a **lot** of the start-up of the "below level 45" crap.

LEVELING IS JUST ANNOYING RANT

One thing that I feel would, at least help, in getting the grind over faster, and hell.. even make more RP since is to not just make characters lose XP at the vast rate of 10% if you aren't within range. Make it so that there is a range outside of that. This won't help with the tower of power, but if you wish to, you could just nullify the ability to get XP proper from it if they're too low (same for all 1-60 grinding, but let's not just murder grinding your friend outright)

For the first 5 levels you are below the 'requirement' for full XP, you get 90%. Next 10? 75. Next 10? 50. Next 10? 25. And if you are beyond that, you get 10%, or even 0%. Whatever you care for in that regard. What comes afterwards however is that things need to be not exclusively in dungeons.

WEAPON PARTS RANT

Weapon parts (mindstar, metal plate, etc) need to not be hidden away in chests. There needs to be a proper way to buy them that isn't 100+ gold per 1 at the Onigan Casino. A money sink is needed, but at this point the game's economy is so inflated that it needs a needle. Especially in the cases of certain people who have been grinding for years and selling items to folks for ridiculous prices. They have millions, if not more than that just... laying about.

EVERYONE IS SAMEY IN THIS META OF HELL

Now. I'm sure as hell not advocating for just dropping the Reckoning. It brought a lot of balance and interesting mechanics to the world. However... it also killed a lot of variety between characters. You choose the best stats you can, usually roll aptitude to just beyond the soft cap. Then start pumping your stats. There is little to no variation in characters. Especially characters of the same archetype. In the old system, certain characters were stronger than others.

Fern had one of the strongest characters in the game, in terms of raw stats per level. Something like 4.8 or something? I don't remember. This was a mix of luck and also grinding the shit out of the game so that your character could be better. Legend Extending was an incentive. but also a necessity. At least a few times. Now? Now people just grind a shitton to fill their books for every possible plus that they can get their grubby little hands on. Get a lot of +stat items equipped, stack as many +STAT things as they can... and then just run into battle with huge stats.

Maybe I'm just sentimental and really miss having that sort of shit, but having some level of variance would be nice. I don't think the old system is the answer, but I don't know if what we have right now will be good or bad in the long run.

THOSE FRIGGIN ITEMS RANT

People hate dungeons. So they hate getting items as well. So people make a business out of it and sell items to people OOC. Despite there being the "NO TWINKING" rule that prohibits people from doing it to themselves. So long as someone else does it it's completely fine. Whatever. Either way, dungeons have a lot of issues with them. Spacials are just awful on the eyes. The unique battlefield for them make it better.. but it's still a headache. Crypts are even worse for this because it's hard to tell where the door is in a lot of cases. Caves are one of the best ones I can pray for having because, surprise surprise, it doesn't have any doors that slow down the process.

Also, let's not even get started on how fucking awful the random floor event of "HAHA RUBBLE EVERYWHERE" is 9 times out of 10.

tl;dr

Dungeons are a pain in the ass because certain builds stomp all others when it comes to merking NPCs. In the past it was CM / Magaisendo / Wretched Oil, now it's just do a giant AoE that nothing resists and be done with it. Melee people, as they always do when it comes to PVE, get the majorly HUGE shaft because "fuck you that's why" while mages reign supreme still. Though mages suck-ass in PVP a lot of the time, but that's a discussion for a different time.

Oh. Also the game's economy is shit and could use an overhaul in general.