[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?....