First of all, let me just say that this is GREAT feedback and I really appreciate it. I'm gonna try and address your issues in order.
- Fava is located in Maras, the big city by the ocean. You will find him sitting in the park in the center of town.
- The places you're having trouble entering are actually designed like that. The glowing red shield is directly related to the main quest, as is the situation with the capital gate.
- The stairs note is something I've gotten from a lot of players. Originally it cost 5SP per jump but after feedback I cut it to 2. That being said, since it's still a grievance people have, something more comprehensive may need to be done in order to balance jumping. I'll look into it.
- The enemy death hitbox thing is something I'm actively working on. It should be fixed with the next patch (which will likely be in a couple days)
- I agree that the quest info could be more transparent. I need to come up with a clean way to bake that into the HUD without cluttering things up too much. Perhaps I will build some kind of combined map + quests screen separate from the inventory.
- The dungeons are all tied to the story, and thematically they make more sense when played as part of the main quest (there are actually some items and lore pieces that only show up when you visit for the main quest).
- The map lag is caused by the enemy AI. It's in the Known Issues. The problem essentially is that, once an enemy starts chasing you, they won't stop for any reason, and so the further you get from them, the more expensive it becomes for the game to compute the enemy's pathfinding. I'm working on a solution for that which causes the enemy to lose interest past a certain distance. It'll be in a future patch.
- Finally, a lot of the limitations regarding map scope and enemy variety really come down to the fact that the game was, for the most part, made in two and a half weeks by just one guy (me). It was a fun passion project. However, people are more into it than I expected, and feedback like yours really inspires me to keep working on it. I can't really say when, but trust me when I say that the variety and scale (including dungeons) of the game will grow in the coming period.
Thank you again for this excellent feedback. I'm super grateful to have people like you who take the time to give such comprehensive write-ups. I hope you know your feedback has been genuinely heard, and I will 100% be taking it into account with future patches.
Hope you continue to enjoy Wizzerd Quest. Don't forget, it's shareware, so make sure you share it with your friends!
-T