From the department of ideas I had 2-3 years ago but only recently got around to coding...

Probably most of you will be familiar with one or more currently-existing quests wherein the questgiver will pay you to kill NPCs of some other type; eventually that well runs dry and you can no longer be paid for additional kills.

The first quest of new type that's a variant on that theme will be live next crash/reboot; I have ideas for a few more that should follow in the next few days -- now that I have a prototype working, the next few will be faster to produce. They will be aimed chiefly at the midlevels of the game, 20-40 or so.

The key differences:

1) These quests are designed to be done as a group.

2) The primary reward is XP rather than loot.

So, essentially: there is an incentive to form up a group and get some XP in some areas that you might otherwise currently not, either because they're fairly difficult areas for their level or because they're otherwise often sub-optimal in some way. You'll essentially be able to reap significantly increased XP for this for a couple levels until the well runs dry, at which point it might well be to your advantage to move on and try something else.

Any questions on the basic concept?

Will the typical "awesome" group (tank, damage dealer, support) still be the best option for this type of quest? Or, are there advantages to having some less optimal classes, such as necromancers, thieves, etc.

If there are no advantages currently, would you consider putting some into these quests which might provide "shortcuts" for these types of classes? Example, a quest where an NPC will freely offer info or bypass certain tedious steps if you have a certain class in your party.

Poorly worded, but I am heading to work and I have no time to flesh this post out. Do you get my drift?

And an answer to your question:

I've seen lots of different kinds of good groups; while I agree that a couple different kinds of characters are generally sub-optimal for levelling, I honestly think 80% of it is more about picking the levelling location that fits your group. There's places I'd go with a character with detect hidden or acute vision that I wouldn't go without. There's places I go if there's a lot of healing/support in my group (which, good though it is, comes at an opportunity cost, usually in the damage department) and different places I go if I've got a group full of high offense low defense low support characters like orcs and A-Ps.

That being said...

One of these quests being introduced at this point gives incentives for characters who might otherwise be disinclined to level in its chosen hunting area, and not so much to characters who would be inclined to level there otherwise. So, sort of, but not exactly in the way I think you mean at this point.

Will there be cake?

n/t

The Enrichment Center once again reminds you that android hell a real place where you be sent at the first sign of defiance.

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