The ability to finish the game and continue again at a harder difficulty would be great way to raise replay value.
Good point about the repeat of the game, but since the story isn't done yet, and not even all maps are in game as of this moment, so it's a little early to build it in. But it would definately make the game more interesting.
Adding in repeatable quests would aid players in the grinding process, by adding a buffer between them and xp loss or coin shortages. It would also be a great way to make grinding seem less monotonous.
Repeatable quests are even more important (and would be interesting in this stage of the devellopment). To add another advantage: (repeatable) quests could point newbs in the direction of the good leveling grounds (I remember it took me quite some time to figure out where to grind). For example, a simple quest like "bring a letter to the guy guarding the assylum", would let people know there is an assylum and point them in the general direction (like "follow the road south, then west"). Also quests leading towards the next town could be handy. Quests basically steer the players into the right direction.
A trainer would be neat. One that trades specific items for attribute increases. Ie. Bring 6 bones and 7 animal fur to gain +x% block chance. That would give increased purpose to the existing resources.
I'm afraid this would be overpowered honestly. You need to grind quite a bit in this game, which means you can get a lot of these things stockpiled. Take a look at any of the "looking for a ... " threads in the general forum and you'll see what I mean. Getting 500 gems while grinding for a unique weapon is quite commont grinding untill the next update. There's people going lvl 100+ in the Irquan cave, and you should be able to start grinding there around lvl 50...
but overall there's some great ideas here. Keep them coming
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right?
) search for good RPGs. Some games even incorporated multiple dificulties story wise (allthough barely - think amnesia/timetravel stories).