I'm not certain this is a new player issue, since it takes months for the average player to even get to high enough level to loot them.
Well the new players can still come in and see that this system of items is in place and be turned off by the idea of feeling obligated to eventually participate in such tedious activities instead of simply enjoying role-playing and adventuring. Most people have no time for tedious things because that's what they do at work all day, or whatever.
A complex RPG is tedious by its very nature. The amount of detail to consider, for example, is tedious. There are easier, simpler games out there with less to remember -- but this is far from the most complex RPG there is.
I would suggest you do not participate in these activities
unless you are roleplaying. Unless you find it gratifying otherwise, you'd be wasting your time.
I'm not going to dedicate my entire 3rd circle to Remove Disease when in any given dungeon where diseases are prevalent, there are three or four times more diseases to cure than I have spell slots.
It's not about optimal play or new players. Honestly, this server can get a lot more inconvenient and unforgiving.
Well why shouldn't those spells be considered a valuable part of a Cleric's spell list like any others. They certainly would be if there wasn't so many items that cured these things, and isn't that better? To have spells be more valuable to other players to promote more party play?
If the dungeons are currently set up in a way that requires so much disease curing, I guess all I can say to that is maybe the dungeons should be tweaked a bit or players should get better disease protection somehow, or parties should bring even MORE clerics with them.
The whole reason I feel this change should happen is to make classes innately feel more valuable to other players than simply bringing more items.
The reason they're not considered valuable is because better spells exist. In DnD, it is traditional for immunities (proactive) to be better than restoration (reactive). There are many core party support spells & spells that allow Clerics to buff themselves to fighter level, for example, on the same level as disease curing and poison immunity. If we lose Freedom of Movement and have to spam Remove Paralysis every round because people keep getting paralysed, it's
more tedious, because we're doing less damage, and the party we weren't able to buff is doing less damage, and it keeps going down that way until we're all mindlessly charging into dungeons with 20 people, not using any tactics because we're filling the dungeon up wall-to-wall with a mass of unthinking meat wielding swords, until we die or succeed, where we used to be able to do them with 5 people if we were smart about it.
Making all the dungeons astronomically easier, giving enemies less and less variety in their abilities, making combat more cost-effective, or asking players to carry around
even more magic items so they can buff their saves just right for every possible circumstance just makes things
even more tedious.
edit: On the topic of crafting, and soloing in general, there are people who will do it, sure. But for me, crafting has been a group adventure all the way from the beginning to the master level. It has this one merit. It can be made less grindy and less rewarding, but any changes to crafting must not compromise that the best stuff is found in areas that really should be visited with a group -- a few fully enchanted characters at level 18+ that go out of their way to spend hours doing this stuff alone are an outlier, and trust me, if you were to ask them directly, they wouldn't tell you it's an obligation, they would tell you it's what they do for fun and for RP, usually when they're killing time waiting for a group of people to RP to show up. I don't think their choice to enjoy themselves how they wish to is hampering anyone's ability to RP, or making the server more dungeon-focused than RP-focused.
Crafting can be done role-playing in groups I suppose, but from what I've seen in other crafting-heavy games, most of the time it isn't done in groups. Is there any real benefit to crafting with a group in this game as opposed to crafting solo? Not from what I can see anyway.
Become a crafter, then, and see. At first, I wrote it off, too. But I quickly realised you cannot progress without help. At level 5, I couldn't kill the enemies which gave me the reagents I needed to start progressing my craft beyond the basic level stuff. By level 10, I needed the products created by other crafters to make anything of real value. I needed a reliable way to earn gold, because the crafting itself becomes expensive over time. I needed other people, often times, to help me carry stuff, because the best stuff is the heaviest stuff. Even if we remove all the grind but keep the material cost the same, the innate design is there: you have to have other crafters, and you have to have help, because the best stuff is found in the most dangerous areas on the server, which means party play. Soloing crafters really isn't a widespread phenomenon. There's a few who do it and it takes a lot more effort, they can attest, than if they were to have help.
What would really be tedious is making all of the server's content significantly more difficult and making it so casters can't even buff themselves let alone their allies, because they have to constantly heal and cure everyone. The overall difficulty of the server compounds and dictates the difficulty of my characters' role as a party support, because it's my job in any given dungeon to keep the party alive. In a server where save or die spells, unavoidable damage, and healthsponge enemies are the norm, I am very lucky to be able to use my spell slots for buffing myself and others, rather than curing diseases and healing every little cut or scratch.
Again, maybe the dungeons should be tweaked a bit in ADDITION to reducing many of these items with spells/abilities.
I really do not think the dungeons are going to be made easier. It wouldn't be "a bit" -- it would be an entire overhaul of the way things work in these dungeons. While a few do need balance changes, I think they just need to be made more difficult to solo, and more fun to tackle as a group by using more varied tactics, by adding a greater variety of enemies. Lowering the variety, modifying save DCs to be easier to succeed at, or even removing the auras altogether, just invites soloers, even without magic items; the magic items exist to counter the aura heavy design.
Casters are strong. This is true. They are a popular choice for soloers, this is also true, and people with mundane classes do solo with magic items periodically. But if you make mundanes reliant on them for every little thing, they're not going to be able to fight side by side with them anymore. They're going to have to stand in the back, minimally buffed and invisible, and throw a few cures at their allies from time to time.
I don't understand what the problem is here. Aren't mundane classes supposed to be more simple? And why would they stand in the back?
The casters would have to stand in the back because they can't fight side by side with them anymore.
Mundane classes
are simpler, with the caveat that they have a lower power ceiling, especially on a server that caps out at level 20. You cannot compare the power of two classes in 1v1 PvP adequately when the game is all about who comes prepared. It was balanced for party play and intercooperation. It's just how DnD works. Other characters having a few tricks up their sleeves does not by any means make Clerics, Druids, or Wizards less unique. It gives the party more options.