Ryzom

On newbie island, I've discovered that most enemy encounters last less than a minute, which makes it hard to cast multiple spells in a party.

As I start to fight stronger and stronger things, does the fight time increase significantly? As of now spells like blind, slow atk speed, etc. are useless because the enemies die too quickly

When you're in a team, you should try things of a lot higher level than you.
It will give a lot better exp, and you'll be able to cast in time

It also depends whatmobs you fight. For example, a gingo of level 40 will have way more HP than a ragus of lvl 40. Some mobs have very little HP, some have a whole lot.