Please stop limiting good* experience points to campaigns

[Pups323]

Actually a lot of games do it that way.

In everquest, you first 2000-3000 'aa' (jp) go super quick to help you catch up and keep relevant. But everquest has an expansion every year that adds another 1000 new 'aa' (jp) so each year when they increas the bonus range from 3000 to 4000, its because the total is now at 10 or 11k.

I 100% agree there needs to be a larger bonus at 0% then at 1200jp. When you tie things that are 100% needed (acc/atk/spells/ja/set points) to stuff like JP then gate it behind a huge grind where it becomes a catch 22 (need 1200 jp to join apex party, cant get 1200jp without some kinda party), it is silly.

As far as 'plenty of opportunity for spending 1 or 2 jp for meaningful rewards'.....ya that depends on jobs. Some jobs get jack crap for jp but their gifts are amaze balls. Not everyone has blu or bst quality gifts/jp.

Also how do you get into said 250 jp/hour parties without first having 900 or 1200 jp depending on your job? Answer you cant unless you make it, and then you are just a leech riding on others coat tails.

I personally think that jp started as something they didnt want to make too good because then people who demand certain jp levels before inviting....but then they turned around and made gifts so useful that you need 1200 jp to get 1100 acc without food, or you need those extra spell sets, or faster ready timer. The whole system started as an optional system with meh rewards and quickly became the exact opposite of what they designed.

Go check the dev tracker, you will see multiple posts about not wanting jp/gifts to be too good, or not wanting parties to desire certain jp/gifts when building a party. Then they add stuff like Death, or blu set points/set bonus. Its like they say one thing and do another. and if they are going to make JP so necissary then they need to make the base exp higher so that you can get past the grind of jp to start actually doing end game.

[OmnysValefor]

You're talking to a PLD main here, being my only capped JP job. Trust me I know all about lackluster categories and worse gifts. Ignore the "quote" if you're not interested in PLD^^.

Invincible Effect - Increases enmity -- K, but not really that good
Intervene Effect - Increases damage -- On a boss, it does less than a decent ws or a nuke.
Holy Circle Effect - Damage reduction against undead for those affected. I won't say I've never used this, but there aren't that many undead bosses. It's rather lackluster. I'd rather have seen it be damage reduction (not just against undead).
Sentinel Effect - Increases enmity while under the effects of sentinel. I like this one.
Shield Bash effect - Increases damage of shield bash.
Cover Duration - Increases duration of cover. lol. This shouldn't be a category and rather PLD should have gotten a gift that took the positional requirement away from cover.
Divine Emblem Effect - Increases divine damage while under the effect of Divine Emblem.
Sepulcher Duration - (Sepulcher lowers accuracy, evasion, magic accuracy, magic evasion and TP gain for undead.) - This one isn't bad, but pretty situational.
Palisade Effect - Increases chance to block while under the effect of Palisade. Okay, this one's good, but I'd much rather have seen a general increase to blocking.
Enlight Effect - Increases damage (which will be resisted) and accuracy while under the effect of enlight. In my tanking set, I'm at 850~ acc (I swap for ws), So this puts me around 1000 acc with a fresh enlight? This is nothing.

PLD's gifts are just as bad. Our 100 pt is Enlight 2, and our 1200 is Reprisal doing 20% more damage which, aside from being lackluster, might actually be bad. Most of it is bland bonuses to defense/acc. Our 550 is increased potency of Protect. Nowhere to be found is anything to do with shield skill, damage taken (aside from defense). Heck, i'd settle for some potent +ws acc or +ws damage. There's not a single gift that affects enmity, enmity loss, cure potency, cure casting.

Here are some suggestions to how I'd change PLD. Not saying all, but any one or a few of these.

Invincible Effect - Chance to be affected by hate reset reduced by 5% (per tier).
Intervene Effect - Change this to Intervene duration.
Holy Circle Effect - Damage reduction for those affected. regardless of mob type.
Sentinel Effect - Increases enmity while under the effects of sentinel. I like this one.
Shield Bash effect - Gives 25 tp (per level) for shield bash to give 500 TP at 20.
Cover Duration - Remove it, swap for something else and give a gift that removes the positional requirement.
Divine Emblem Effect - Increases divine damage and magic accuracy while under the effect of Divine Emblem.
Sepulcher Duration - Not all categories for any job are stellar. This one is fine.
Palisade Effect - Increases chance to block, independent of palisade.
Enlight Effect - Reduces chance to decay by 5% per level. (Enlight and II does this neat thing where every hit reduces the potency of the additional damage and [more importantly] acc of the next swing). I'd like to see Enlight "fix" this or Enlight II to be rid of the enmity.

And then yeah, I switch to a job like BLU, which has farmed most of my alexandrite and I get awesome selections like increasing blu points, CA/BA potency, some awesome gifts like increased tiers to nearly all job traits earned from blue magic and I'm baffled.

- - -

Further, a lot of the reason people are at such low JP is that do silly things like 1v1 against a mob (edit: in Zi'tah). While my blu is rounding up a dozen mobs at a time, I see people going 1v1 and I wonder what is going on? Yeah, sure, some jobs don't have potent aoes, but other jobs like blue, geo, sch (manifestation, or /blm), war, rdm/blm, blm, bst can and you can knock out a dozen mobs as easily as you're knocking out one.

Heck, I've cleaved on PLD (Aeolian Edge).

It's not that hard to farm a decent -pdt set for a job to pull, even without defending/vocane ring.

Mafic Cudgel/Genbu's shield (or Terra's Staff)
Twilight Torque
2 5-6% PDT dark rings.
Cape from dragon, can't remember name.

Puts you at -35-37% PDT. For jobs that can get use out of phalanx, you'll push a lot of hits to low-low numbers. Engage, so healing trusts start their business, and start aoe'ing.

People should have solid, if not capped, PDT/MDT/DT sets anyway. They talk about the barrier to get into endgame. Being able to survive aoes is part of being in endgame. It made my laugh the day I got geo skills capped and people were going to red health on things that were barely breaking my stoneskin.

[Kensagaku]

Honestly, depending on the situation, 1v1 works just as well, and in some cases faster. I did both AoE and single-target on BLU, and depending on how good of a day I was having, campaigns, etc, sometimes one was faster than the other. During the campaign, for example, single-target was actually progressively faster because doing a proper AoE pull took enough time that it eventually broke chain, while individual targets I was killing fast enough to maintain it and get more in the end. Also a slight correction. Manifestation does not work on nukes, just on enfeebling/dark spells. The only way you can AoE is with /BLM, and I can assure you that T1 -ga spells (T2 up to... Firaga II, I think?) will not be allowing you to survive a cleave properly.

[OmnysValefor]

Honestly, depending on the situation, 1v1 works just as well, and in some cases faster. I did both AoE and single-target on BLU, and depending on how good of a day I was having, campaigns, etc, sometimes one was faster than the other. During the campaign, for example, single-target was actually progressively faster because doing a proper AoE pull took enough time that it eventually broke chain, while individual targets I was killing fast enough to maintain it and get more in the end. Also a slight correction. Manifestation does not work on nukes, just on enfeebling/dark spells. The only way you can AoE is with /BLM, and I can assure you that T1 -ga spells (T2 up to... Firaga II, I think?) will not be allowing you to survive a cleave properly.

Where are you chaining Ken? I'm talking about Zitah (which I should amend my post to say). My blu is fresh, and gimp, but one aoe and one subduction will kill most pulls.

I wouldn't be surprised if you're chaining in Reisenjima.

Thanks for the correction about manifestation. Oh well. Black magic also suffers from diminished damage on aoe pulls greater than 8 or 10 mobs.

[Kensagaku]

Fair enough, I generally prefer to chain in Reisenjima when farming for silt/stones, or even the gates areas when not, as I tend to get faster CP/hr on the bats in Woh or the Twitherym/Acuex nearby if bats are taken. That being said my BLU is prolly better geared than yours, since you said yours is fresh, so that's probably a difference in style more than anything else. :P

[dasva]

In a way you are already penalized the higher you go in jps. Sure your cp gain rate goes up but nowhere near as much as you think. Like I think the difference between 0 to full assuming you have the other static bonuses might double it... but the amount you need increases at a much greater rate. At the beginning 1 jp gets you an upgrade at the end of a category 20. Similar early on gifts come like every 5-20 or such later on every 50 or so. So having diminishing cp gain rates would be a huge kick in the guts which would probably lead to people just spending enough to not overcap on stored and then spend the last 500 in 1 go

[Olor]

What needs to be done is that the less JP you have the bigger bonus you get, the biggest problem right now is it's so incredibly hard to catch up and get into parties.

Oh gosh yes please. It's just impossible now for me it is so discouraging.

In a way you are already penalized the higher you go in jps. Sure your cp gain rate goes up but nowhere near as much as you think. Like I think the difference between 0 to full assuming you have the other static bonuses might double it... but the amount you need increases at a much greater rate. At the beginning 1 jp gets you an upgrade at the end of a category 20. Similar early on gifts come like every 5-20 or such later on every 50 or so. So having diminishing cp gain rates would be a huge kick in the guts which would probably lead to people just spending enough to not overcap on stored and then spend the last 500 in 1 go

I don't think anyone is suggesting they slow it down at the end just that they should speed it up at the front so that people who are behind don't have to stay SO FAR behind for SO LONG.

[Atomic_Skull]

Further, a lot of the reason people are at such low JP is that do silly things like 1v1 against a mob (edit: in Zi'tah). While my blu is rounding up a dozen mobs at a time, I see people going 1v1 and I wonder what is going on? Yeah, sure, some jobs don't have potent aoes, but other jobs like blue, geo, sch (manifestation, or /blm), war, rdm/blm, blm, bst can and you can knock out a dozen mobs as easily as you're knocking out one.

Some jobs like THF have no choice, they don't have a strong AOE they have low HP and they will never, ever be invited to a CP party.

[OmnysValefor]

Some jobs like THF have no choice, they don't have a strong AOE they have low HP and they will never, ever be invited to a CP party.

I've seen thieves in CP parties. The problem is there is only one to two spots, depending on party comp, between all the melee, tanks included, and tanks are favored. Many groups like knowing the guy taking the hits can survive the hits without a lot of maintenance.

Setups go like this

Tank, Melee, Geo, Mage, Mage, Mage. Frequently there is no healer.

Melee, Melee, Geo, Mage, Mage, Mage. Geo can main heal this.

Tank, SCH, Geo, Mage, Mage, Mage.

It may seem unfair, but it's the reverse of bird parties where groups had room for a mage and a bard, or just a bard, and that was back when /rdm and /whm didn't give haste.

Now the problem is that back then, mages had alternatives ("puddings"). Melees don't really. Melee burns on apex mobs do exist but I've never had one nearly as good.

If I were grinding thf, I might look into the best evasion set I could put together and thf/run (for flash), so that I could tank, or co-tank with another dd. Make myself more viable. You want /run because it offers some useful traits/abils like Swordplay and can get flash down with haste and fast cast, unlike provoke.

As for thf having no decent aoe, it has aeolian edge and access to much of the same MAB gear that NIN has access to. I'm not saying it's a stellar cleaver, but neither is PLD and I've cleaved on PLD (mostly to PL friends).

[Lonnan]

Addressing multiple issues here and using my phone so I won't be quote and cutting

First, the OP. Yeah I agree it's frustrating when the campaigns ends and the exp/cp values drop noticeably. At the same time what the player base considers to be "good" exp/cp is an ever moving target. Back in the day killing Mandies in the jungle a party thought they were boss if they could chain over 400 xp on a single kill. Now even fodder mobs in the escha zones offer around 5k plus xp per kill. Point is that if campaign bonuses become the new normal we will just want more (it's in our nature). So long as SE keeps being generous with the campaigns I can live with the short luls. For the past 3 months I think we've had about 2 weeks without campaign buffs. That's 10/12 weeks which is pretty darn good. So I say, SE please keep the campaigns coming!


As for the discussion about cp parties and limited roles. We all know that this is a player issue. Players want the most/easiest/fastest ways to get cp. With the current state of the game that is a magic burst setup. Eventually, given FFXIs ever decreasing playerbase, the active players will have 3 stars on all their mage jobs. Before that happens, I think we need to make suggestions on how to fix that.

Personally, I think SE should increase skill chain damage (not necessarily ws damage). I think every melee primary DD job that doesn't already have it, should have at least the first 2 skillchain bonus job traits. The bonuses for multistep chains should also be significantly increased. Let's reward players for planning out 4,5,or 6 step chains rather than just going light to light or dark to dark all the time. Heck most players I've seen don't know the properties of any weaponskills other than the Empy ones. I also think that the availability of skill chain bonus gear should rival that of magic burst bonus gear. Right now it feels much easier to find magic burst gear.