At the end of the day its about rewarding effort and not punishing those who put the effort in with silly systems like this, but this is where lazy servers come in every zircon server is copy and paste until level 60+ we have had the source for what 6years now, we have a map editor, yet not a single server has gone fully custom. Still start in one of the 3 towns go PSC>ZT>BP>lava its boring and the main reason why people pay others or use bots to afk level nobody wants to do the same **** for the 50th time. Zircon files are now stale and that's the real core issue of botting and paid levelers. Every class has become an AFK AoE nuke, every cave has to have screens full of mobs that are basically just stat sticks there is no difference between 1 cave and the next.
Adding endgame content is key and not just 50 more levels with 3 new caves with 3 new set kits. Add a level cap, slow the progression for the last few levels to a snails pace, stop making the difference in power between 1 tier of kit and the next so huge keep player power closer together. Slow down the rate of item drops, remove personal drops, remove the trust merchant, remove cube weapon upgrade system. Bring back and expand the original refining system and make gold hold its value. Get rid of the tiered kit 10 new items every 10 levels is just lazy and sloppy.
Daily and weekly events, achievement's, secret quests scattered around the world like cod zombies that all link together at the end, super rare chase items akin to what it was like to find a para or pro ring on mir 2 euro, quests like the life/death necklaces or a soul bound item that evolves and upgrades its self based on things you do ingame. All helps keeping players busy during down times.
Job systems like miner/hunter/gatherer that link in to buffs and items needed for endgame content again more busy work that keep players engaged and working towards progress, there is nothing wrong with horizontal progress IF that turns in to vertical progress. multi boss dungeons that require daily/weekly attempts to progress and clear, bosses that have actually AI and are not just a stat check, and for **** sake KEEP THE TRINITY INTACK. A warrior and tao should not be doing massive AoE damage, a wizard shouldn't be tanking full screens of mobs
You do half of that and your server will be successful. I wish i had half the brains as some of you do when it comes to coding it would be so easy right now to wipe the floor with every zircon server past and present