Suggestions

[SilkiyTea]

i think the mob farming is taking away a lot of the game's enjoyment rn and incentivizing standing in groups clicking aoes instead of running around RPing and interacting with people, but it's also only done because the RPL grind is a lot slower first gen and it's kind of a necessity to do if you work a lot and don't want to fall too far behind those with more time.

i'm not rly a big fan of the wipe launch slowed gains because it doesn't add any value to the game's experience in my eyes and only delays the ''end of tutorial'' mark at 200, but ik there are many who do enjoy the baby phase slap fight era and they're likely the majority (could be entirely wrong, just my observation) so i don't expect much to change

Meanwhile I’m on a completely different side of the spectrum. When I am farming mobs, I tend to meet more people, I tend to rp with anyone that is gathering resources, I have befriended people icly over gathering and I have met characters that have earned my character’s ire icly purely based on their behavior while grinding mobs. There is quite literally one PC out there that my character has constantly shit talked purely for how he acted while grinding.

If mob grinding for exp wasn’t a thing, I wouldn’t have met half the people I have rped with out in the wilds. Because they likely would have been inside their city of choice rather than finding a spot to kill boars, and only coming out for the rare resource gathering or to hunt enemies, which means they’d have no reason to have a long scene with me since the plan would be ‘find someone to fight or get the mats needed and return to city.’, I know that’s a thing because I have also briefly interacted with people who weren’t doing it for exp and just wanted some mats or a fight and the scene almost always ends when they’re done gathering or realized i’m currently a filthy neutral and thus not a person they would icly throw hands with.

It is a double sided blade where it does incentive people standing in one spot grinding, but it also incentives partying up with strangers you oocly DO NOT KNOW and meeting new people outside of that “city safe zone”, and of course being in areas where if you piss off the wrong person while farming it can cause a confrontation or some sort of social drama or a budding dislike of someone icly.

There will always be people who grind mobs solely for power. But, there are also those who will grind rp solely for power. I personally prefer the extra incentive to go out there and grind, it has helped me meet brand new people I otherwise wouldn’t have. Sure, their intent wasn’t to find rp, but it didn’t stop me from slapping it on them.

I’ve rped at quests. I’ve icly dragged people to safety against chuggums and had a whole small scene of “this is how we’ll beat the rabbit!” with strangers, etc etc. Point is, I’m a player who enjoys the pve grinding aspects of eternia and met complete strangers icly while doing so. Unlike in e3 where I would ask a friend to join ooc and icly since random strangers almost never asked to join or stuck around long enough to have a real scene. This has been a much more organic experience for me in the long haul!

Just thought i’d share my experience from the mob-slaying-for-exp side of things.