I do have one suggestion, for the novice starting area. Can we take away the Steel Chonchons, or at least reduce their numbers drastically in the starting area? They aren't exactly easy to kill, if you're even able to eventually kill one. If you're in a very mobby part of the map, you may as well forget being able to pick up any of your loot. The starting level loot will help with getting our first weapons (it's not much, but at least these weapons will have added stats, right?).
Also, the different levels in the starting area are all the same, instead of offering different monsters like the NPC mentions. It would be nice to have Condors in the novice area, since they drop bows.