Imported from legacy Flarum.
Original author: reno (Flarum #1645)
Description:
To pre-face, I have manually completed main story quests up to episode 21 on multiple characters. I believe I’ve done them enough times to be able to see major pain points of these quests, and where they can be reasonably alleviated.
Episode 17.2 is accessible as early as Base Lv 130. It starts with the player going through mob-infested maps Sewage Treatment Plant [ba_pw02] and First Power Plant [ba_pw01] before they can enter the relatively safer map Varmundt’s Mansion Garden [ba_maison].
The MAJOR pain point of this part is when the player enters the First Power Plant from the Sewage Treatment Plant. Maggi will trap them in dialog as soon as they load into the map, rendering the player helpless if a large number of monsters are clustered around the NPC and the portal. It happens on step 6 of this guide, and the guide makes no mention about Maggi’s dialog trap.
Instead of Maggi immediately trapping the player in dialog, it should be the player initiating dialog by clicking the NPC.
Why is this a good idea?
NPCs trapping players in dialog while monsters beat them up like a sitting duck is an unfair and outdated part of questing in RO. Giving players the option to initiate the dialog will give them more control and allow a smoother questing experience.
Story quests are good sources of experience that usually require minimum combat, which is beneficial to do on 1x base and job exp rates. Dying while being trapped in NPC dialog has the same punishment as dying from getting killed by anything else, EXP -2% penalty, and that really sucks for anyone not constantly using Kafra Insurance.
What risks or downsides does it have?
At worst, new players or first-timers might miss Maggi and need to backtrack to talk to her. They wouldn’t be sitting ducks anymore though.
Additional Info:
Source server seems to have rectified this in later episode MSQs:
- Episode 18’s first traverse through Oz Dungeon with Maram and co
- Episode 19 chaotic snake’s nest map
- Episode 20 safe spaces with Lehar
- Episode 21 safe spaces in the temple with Tan, Ivan, and Yohan
They all immediately warp players into a Safe Space when they have to talk to NPCs in mob-infested maps and dungeons. Unfortunately that has not been applied retroactively to older episode MSQs, which would be beneficial for first-timers and returnees.