Honestly, the biggest problem I see is people simply not needing to know their class. In OG orbus, if you wanted to level you needed to know all of the mechanics of the class because the only way to level after the main quests was to sit next to the lv20 worms and kill em for 3 hours. This forced people to get good at their class in order to kill high level mobs (for example, as a lv17ish mage you would need to frost 2 or 3, affliction, fireball spam, pushback, affliction and kite until the affliction finishes it off or whatever your strategy is). Now, you go into the dungeon and the lv30 healer with full +2 gear doesnât even know that they can ressurect. You can get from 1-30 without even casting a spell, swinging a sword ect. Lv20 used to be a sign that you are good enough to get there and have gotten very good at your class, but now lv30 is a sign that you can catch highsteppe mice.
Preach.
20characters
Sorta, but I canât say I got very good at any class through grinding.
Warrior - Granted, I got my warrior up before provoke heal was a thing, so I never used provoke while leveling. I never learned boss positioning while leveling, or kiting, or any of that tanky stuff.
Mage - Got it to 20, sure, but I never was nor will be a good mage. Got pretty decent at that frost 2 spam though I could not cast anything else.
Musky - Cooldown management isnât a thing while using whatever is off cooldown for many, many hours.
Ranger - You sort of learn to aim, but none of that teaches you about an efficient rotation since most things die after charged pierce, poison, and a few arrows.
Not everyone mastered the class as they hit lv20, but at least they knew all of the mechanics. Some level 30 characters have the same amount of skill as a complete beginner because killing mobs takes so much longer to kill mobs than critter capture, there is no real reason to do any of Dariusâ quests. Many people get to lv30 then learn mechanics as opposed to get to lv20 and then master the mechanics that they have already learned.
There are only about 375 players who are even Level 30 on any class yet, so itâs a pretty small percent of the population. Itâs not like getting to 30 is now so easy that 50% of everyone who started the game has gotten it done. It would take you about 30 days straight of playing every single day to get to 30 if you only did Critter Capture.
Running a dungeon is a skill set just like grinding mobs is a skillset just like fishing and PvP and a lot of other things in the game are skillsets. I donât think itâs really productive to try and reduce the entire game down to, âif you canât kill things as well as me, you donât deserve to be Level 30.â
I have seen some people suggest that maybe there needs to be some kind of qualification to queue into dungeons to show you can play your class to a certain degree, but again to me that is less about someone being Level 30, and more about them showing they have that ârun a dungeonâ skillset.
It takes what, 70 quests to get 1-30? A solid 20 of those are the leveling missions, plus the two weekly missions⌠Repeat for just shy of three weeks and youâre done (25 missions every 5 days), completable in about 8-10 hours of total play time.
Before the daily missions, we were seeing 16-20 hours playtime to level 1-30. With daily missions, you can ignore the longer-time quests that take more effort and concentrate solely on noncombat missions (dragon racing and critter capture).
I donât think that the leveling speed is an issue per se. But I do think that having some baseline skill measure or training is important.
I did the math and it would be closer to 30 days (as I said), but yeah you wouldnât have to play very much per day. That said, I still think the point here is kind of being missed. Thereâs a guy in WoW who got to max level by doing nothing but gathering plants.
In an MMO there should be a wide variety of things that you can do and be good at. Crafting. Fighting monsters. Doing dungeons. Healing. Tanking. Gathering. Exploring. Questing. I mean honestly thatâs the whole point of having an open world in the first place. Itâs also what makes assigning a single âlevelâ to a character kind of worthless. All it really shows is âI have existed in this world and done something for a reasonable amount of time.â Itâs true they might not know about every feature of their classâ battle capabilities, but itâs also true that they probably know how the game works, how to talk with other players, how to navigate the environment, etc.
At the end of the day if the measuring stick has to be âGood enough to heal 5 people in a dungeonâ, thereâs nothing level-specific about that, so it would be foolish to try and make level represent that anyway. A veteran MMO player might be able to do that at Level 2. Someone who is brand new to MMOs might just be trying their first dungeon at Level 30. Thatâs why in many MMOâs Iâve played people usually fall back on achievements or something to show that you can do content.
Kinda interested now how quickly I could do 1-30 on a new character without ever killing a mob or player
Test it out and let us know!
Play a shaman and just donât use totems. Dress like a monk. Tell people youâve taken a vow of pacifism.
Pacifist run would be an interesting idea. you can do the crystal events without killing a single mob. Do all the critter capture, dragon races, crafting, collecting and money making quests. The amount of XP possibly without killing involved makes being a pacifist possible for sure.
The lore disagrees with that being pacifist 
I think you said it yourself⌠Right now there is the missing element of âbeing good at Fighting monstersâ. Right now there is not 1 overworld mob in the game that I can enjoy farming solo or as a small party. Abberations were fun because they were mildly challenging, had some valuable drops and pretty much had to be done as a group to effectively farm. I donât see anything similar to that level of challenge for a small group or solo player.
edit: it should not just be hard but it should have a risk vs reward factor (aka; drop something good for being a hard mob to kill).
Would love to see both soloable and group monsters in the world that are a cut about the rest.
For example, an assassin-type solo monster that throws out a few good tricks. Give them a bunch of mechanics, like AoEs (e.g. old cactus aberration short range arc, or old spirits by the farm circle), projectiles, slows, and maybe an ad (sends out a dragon pet? Or something less sad to kill). To keep them soloable by a wide audience, not just tanks and healers, give them multiple phases where they âhideâ in between, removing the attacking player from combat and let them heal up. Make them wander around, at most 1 per zone, or 1 in the world. If theyâre that rare though, theyâll absolutely need to respawn if theyâre not killed after a while, to prevent them getting stuck somewhere inaccessible.
To prevent grouping a solo monster like this, defeating earlier phases with multiple players in combat could just cause then to ârun awayâ instead of coming back stronger.
i would absolutely love to fight an elite pistoler or something in the world. i thoroughly enjoy fighting them. just about the only mob that i enjoy fighting. All of the melee mobs are disgusting to fight because you cant dodge them. the ranged mobs mostly heal or cast spells you cant avoid (Im looking at you, poison). Pistolers,however, dont have a single ability that cannot be dodged, but yet you always have to be on your feet.
I seriously think you should lower quest xp but up the grind xp. Not just mobs, but fishing rare fish, capturing critters, harvesting, Dragon racing and pvp Arena.
Also J is right. There is no skill required in killing in the overworled (edit:) when fighting with a group worldbosses excluded, we need more actual dangerous things in the world. Stuff you usually avoid. Like the aberrations from the old game.l
please no. some of us hate leveling. again as i pointed out above, just because YOU like grinding doesnât mean EVERYONE does. If you want to go out and grind⌠feel free. it isnt like you are being prevented from spending extra unwarranted time grinding.
I donât think they are suggesting mobs you would fight to level, rather mobs that are around the world, that could be avoided but if fought put up a strong fight (and probably have good drops if farmed). Something you would be hunting for rather than running into.
then why are they suggesting to lower the quest xp. If all they want are some mobs to kill with higher difficulty, then there would be no reason to adjust quest exp.
Iâve seen a few new player groups head out of highsteppe to go kill monstersâŚand then realize itâs a waste of time.
The fact is, you now grind for leveling in new Orbus by having the Armory API event schedule open and portaling between the easy and personally bug free ones (Gate Defense, Crystal Cave, Flying Fish, etc.) while spending your daily points on repeating the easy critter capture quests. Actual grinding of the âI am going to set up in this location and go ham on the mobsâ for an hour as essentially been removed. (Both from a leveling and farming perspective) Thereâs even the anti-grind mechanic discussed above for the legendary transmogs. Although I wait with excitement to see what the devs have planned to support the more grindy playstyle.
Sure a lot of people hate grinding but others really enjoy it and want the playstyle supported. A bit more xp for mob killing along with a few different hidden grindable transmogs/rare drops (ala Jesterâs Orb in OG) from specific monsters would make most players happy, I think. It also gets the grinders in a few locations so they can chat and socialize. (Making friends and guildmates at worms was common in OG)
Why is the xp necessary and not just a grindable transmog to make this fun? Well, if you do grind for 3 hrs for 1% chance of getting that transmog and then fail to get it, you do need to feel you didnât waste your time. This is where xp and leveling can assist. Sure you didnât get the transmog, but you get to boast you were at X for Y hours, and at least your second class went up a few levels.