Questions 1 & 3 offered good option choices. Question 2 is missing a key option, which I kindly suggest should be considered. It would be a variation of the second choice:
Allow mana potions in game, make them very expensive (like ?150k each to start, but can increase later based on inflation), perhaps 90 second re-use and otherwise like on bartz (can't recall exactly but something like gives 100 mp/second for 10 seconds). The bottom line .... no player should ever be able to pve on mana pots to where a nuker can just nuke non-stop without a recharger and without b2m...that was what happened on old bartz. Mana pots should only be available in emergencies during pvp. Kind of a bridge between MP elixirs and the old mana pots. One possibility is to make them available to craft from castles. They need to be valued in a similar manner to QHP.
Regarding buffs, something needs to be adjusted to allow buff stealing / canceling to have value. But also, 20 minute buffs is annoying. Perhaps something like all buffs have 3x duration? The result is regular buffs 1hr, prophecies 15 min, songs/dances 6 min.....if that is too annoying for some players fine but perhaps that could be used as a baseline. Another thought is a cooldown timer on rebuffs. If ALT+B is used for buffs, then I suggest a cooldown period for rebuffs so cancel / buff stealing has value.
Regarding epics - - - the point of quests and different boss levels is to provide hurdles that players need to overcome. Need to take these two topics separately:
Level - the key to the level of bosses is it prevents the same top party / clan / ally from dominating every boss in game. I feel strongly it is important to keep the levels for bosses: AQ is 4x, Core / Orfen 5x, Zaken 6x, Baium 7x, Antharas / Valakas 8x. If you make them all 8x bosses then 100% of focus goes into the main char and that's it. It takes time and commitment to level the alts, gear them, dyes, and then OE their gear...all of which helps pull adena out of the game (which is needed).
Quests - I hate the quests....hate them. But they lead to the proper in game conflicts. Clan / ally members getting upset with others in their guild who do not complete the quests....parties not being able to port in because 1 or more chars don't have the quests, etc. If you sell quest items for $$, even $1 that becomes too ptw as those with $ buy without thought while others cannot or chose not to. The balance I think would be to drop the quest items (bloody fabric, portal stones) as a rare drop from ???, or give them in other parts of the game like festivals or castles, or new events, or find some aspect of the game which is being under-utilized and reward players for engaging there.
On Bartz
- most bosses 20 - 7x just sat there all day. Even many 7x-8x bosses often were up without competition. That should change. Even CORE / ORFEN were up 100% and was freely available to farm (which means more incentive is required .... give those jewels SOMETHING extra, enough to cause desirability...and conflict). For example, does a mage wear his valakas necklace? or frint? or freya? Well it depends on the situation. Para is op'd so you never wear valakas in oly/pvp if you are going against anyone with para. That kind of conflict should exist for Core / Orfen as well.
- Festivals were not done at all. An entire part of the game just sitting there.
- Manor system. Many castles never even bothered setting up their manor. The castle rewards from the manor (that the castle owner receives) need a boost. Brez's are practically worthless...their main value being a fast rez.
These are just examples.
As always, some will love these suggestions, others will hate them. But that's L2! Gotta love the confilct / discuss