Do I HAVE to do the quests or I can just grind?

Black Desert Player, hu?

There are few dungeons that require you to do some questing, but those are usually done fast and the dungeons are quite old, which means that they are not that relevant anymore.

You can level up your character the way you like. In fact, most of the alts in this game are done by grinding certain high level dungeons. You will miss some titles and such, but you are definetly not "forced" to do tons of questing in this game.

So ... Happy Hunting I guess.

but be aware that it will take a very long time if you kill monsters in your level range^^

What seems to be possible at first becomes almost impossible the further you get. To have a level up you will need to complete around 60 quests later on. To gain the same amount of XP via grinding openworld instead of doing a single quest, you will need several hours I assume. But if you decide that this is the way to go ... you will surely establish a reputation doing this.

The keyword in all of this is "openworld". There are ways in multiple dungeons to grind your XP by killing mobs. Tomb of seven heros (doable after reaching around level 64 and by having a gear to do so) is one of those for example. Not for every class tho. Mage, Scout, Rogue and Champion can do that. Warrior, Warden, Knight, Druid and Priest not so much. Warlock eventualy, but I have no clue to be honest.

If you absolutely hate questing but want to play the game, honestly just pay a max level player to kite you through the high level dungeons. 3-4 hours and you should be max level as well (if you do it while XP events). In the endcontent there are plenty valueable things you can grind, so eventualy it is worth to you.

One problem with the whole grind only approach is that at level 54 you have to get to the continent of Zandorya to stay with the mobs that are at level. That requires a quest chain that starts with Mysterious Torrog at Titan's Hill in Aotulia Volcano. Then around level 70 or 71, you need to get to the Continent of Balanzasar. In order to get the quest that takes you there, you must complete both main quest lines that start in Thunderhoof Hills and join into one at the end of Limo Desert. Then main quest lines are required to get to all the subsequent continents.

If you don't move through the continents, you will reach a point where you are 11 levels higher than the mobs you are battling. At that point, you can kill all the mobs you want, but you will never gain a single point of XP or TP.

The largest XP per task is from QUESTING. Sure, if you really wanna just grind you can, but I prefer the journey.

Runes of Magic is designed for questing*.

You could get some power-levelling from a friend letting you tag along behind them in a higher-level dungeon but this will result in problems later.

• Some dungeons will remain locked to you (these are just the ones on the first continent of Candara):
  • Arcane Chamber of Sathkur
  • Ruins of the Ice Dwarf Kingdom (Both level 35 & level 50 versions)
  • Treasure Trove
  • Pasper's Shrine
  • Mystic Altar
  • Cyclops Lair
  • Heart of the Ocean
  • Zurhidon Stronghold
  • Lair of the Demon Dragon
  • Cave of the Water Dragon
  • Hall of the Demon Lord
• Access to further continents and the various Islands will remain inaccessible.
• Ingame resources will not be so easily obtained - questing gives gold and useful gear, especially at later levels.

After level 25(ish), and especially beyond level 50, the amount of XP required to level increases massively.

This means you'll be left killing mobs for so much more time than at the very low levels. Even using XP boosts from furniture and pet eggs, this will be a painfully slow and laborious process.

So, I write this cautionary post, ending with what I said at first:

Runes of Magic is designed for questing*.

*But don't let others dictate how you want to play - we're just offering you our observations...