Please stop limiting good* experience points to campaigns

[OmnysValefor]

You've run some great exp-campaigns that enhance chains or greatly affect base exp/cp and these are great and fun and fantastic and the parties are awesome.

And then the campaign goes away, and what should feel like a great party feels mediocre at best. A lot of people, wanting to maximize their invested playtime, won't CP outside of a campaign so you end up with sub-optimal setups or people not geared enough to be there.

The best parties can clear 250-300 JP an hour during a campaign, so half that during offtime. Lesser parties are doing doing 50-100.

I'm an old player. Like many people here I remember when 3 merits an hour was a great party that you wouldn't leave if you could at all avoid. Remember the days when someone earned a merit point and everyone stopped to say grats/cg?

Then Abyssea came out and obliterated the best bird parties.

It sets a new bar that just feels disgusting without. I'm not at all asking for exp-campaigns to go away. I'm asking you to make them permanent. No longer a campaign, just part of the game.

[Elexia]

The funny thing is, start a new character and level up normally without all of the RoV KIs that boost exp and skill gains and such, that's quite a bigger hit than losing these campaigns for a short time. It does make JP gaining slower but the campaigns definitely seemed more targeted at helping people returning/just joining catch up quicker rather than let us get our gifts faster. I doubt they'd make it permanent though as nice as it would be.

I don't think it really sets a bar perse when they damn near have the campaigns after extremely small breaks in between. I'm an old player as well (since 2001 Japanese beta), I'm pretty sure getting the RoV key items alone already makes things extremely faster in comparison to the good ole days. If we want to completely remove all time investment on gaining JP for example, it's far easier to just ask for the amount needed per JP to go way down rather than super charging the gains.

[Pups323]

Cept the rov key items are from exp, the cp bonus you get from rov is rather small when you consider its additive and most people are already have 300% + from RoE quests/cp cape/gifts. So +100% additive ends up being a 25% bonus vs 2x-3x multiplicative of a campaign...it is quite a huge difference.

For exp, rov is pretty much the only way to boost exp gain rate outside of rings, so going from 0 to 300% bonus exp is huge, but going from 300 to 400% cp is not so much.

[OmnysValefor]

@Elexia--

I'm well aware, as I stated in my OP, that exp used to be much much slower and that exp/cp is much slower without the variety of bonuses you can unlock. I know that getting to 75 could take months 1-99 is doable in a day now.

Those 30k/hr merit parties people worshipped? Noone would stay in them now (it's almost unfathomable that we ever did.. 30k seems so.. impossibly low). 100 JP/hr should be a good party. At that rate, it doesn't take that long to Master a job, but once you've tasted 300 JP hr, 100 jp/hr feels like a waste of time, literally. I can get past that feeling, personally, and build cp parties but it's frustrating when either noone replies or the replies you get are by people not remotely geared for Apex enemies.

It's not that I'm asking for things to be faster, just consistent so that there aren't times when it's difficult to build a good party.

[Olor]

@Elexia--

I'm well aware, as I stated in my OP, that exp used to be much much slower and that exp/cp is much slower without the variety of bonuses you can unlock. I know that getting to 75 could take months 1-99 is doable in a day now.

Those 30k/hr merit parties people worshipped? Noone would stay in them now (it's almost unfathomable that we ever did.. 30k seems so.. impossibly low). 100 JP/hr should be a good party. At that rate, it doesn't take that long to Master a job, but once you've tasted 300 JP hr, 100 jp/hr feels like a waste of time, literally. I can get past that feeling, personally, and build cp parties but it's frustrating when either noone replies or the replies you get are by people not remotely geared for Apex enemies.

It's not that I'm asking for things to be faster, just consistent so that there aren't times when it's difficult to build a good party.

LOL... I'd love to get 50 JP an hour currently don't have 100 JP total on all of my jobs and I have spent many many hours to get those... it's crummy that my gear leaves me in the cold for even exp parties... 100 JP/hour is fine... what needs to happen is a massive boost to soloing JPs it's unreasonable currently.

[dasva]

The bar for using experience points is a lot higher now. 20 merits was once something huge that would be a significant amount of the work you put into a job... now it's entry to a single battle or 1/1250th of a vanity item with a goblin. Then there is the silt gain being based on xp. I mean outside of campaigns and such to say earn enough for something small like a single geas fete fight (just to be able to do the fight not any temps you might need/use or transport or the pop requirements) is 100k xp per person. Kind of puts things in perspective. Or on the high end buying a brew would be 1.1 billion xp

[OmnysValefor]

I agree completely.

I don't care what the bar is at. I just know people scoff at groups that get 100 jp in an hour now (and I understand why--I feel the impulse to do the same), but they only do that because they've had so much better.

I think the exp-component of campaigns going away hurts the daily grind. It should be permanent, because they're the one that exposed us to it, and not tampered with in the future.

[peculiar]

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.

[Kensagaku]

I can't say I agree. The way you describe it, "you should get a bigger bonus for being behind," is a twofold problem. First off, it's counter-intuitive; who would want to progress if it means that your hard work makes you get less than the person who hasn't put in any effort at all? The way Gifts are, the more work you put into them the easier it gets. Yes, it starts off as a slow slog at first, but as you build up more JPs and gifts, your growth overall is quite noticeable. Going from a 2100 JP job to a 0 JP job, you notice a major difference.

Second, the problem is your description of why it's hard to get into parties. Why is it hard to get into parties? That one's partially on the player base, and partially on SE. They were given a taste of a much faster CP growth, and as a result, lesser isn't good enough so they won't even put the effort forward, thus no parties at all. Why spend hours to get half the reward? With the frequency of these campaigns, it certainly feels like half the reward, instead of the double that it actually is during the campaigns. The other half is likely because of the usual player logic of "if it works, don't deviate from it." People found manaburns, and, at least on Valefor, you won't see a shout for a JP party unless it's manaburning (and it has to be the DD DD GEO SCH BLM BLM paradigm or no go). I've done a few non-manaburns with my LS (something like PLD WHM (both of which can be trust), SCing DD x2~3, support), and while it's slower, it's still a fair deal faster than soloing or not doing anything at all.

Really our solution is one of two options: Keep the campaign on permanently, or turn it off except for rare occasions. The former is obviously preferred to get things done more quickly, but the latter is just as valuable as long as we can find a sort of equilibrium. Either make this bonus permanent so that when the campaign spree ends we don't feel like we went from normal to half, or make it uncommon so that we adapt to the "lesser" rate and the bonus actually feels like a bonus. Again the preference is the former, but don't boost us up so long only to cut us down at the knees. Pick one or the other. >.>

[OmnysValefor]

Have to agree entirely with Ken, being penalized (slower CP) for progression is ridiculous.

On top of that, it's already easier early on to spend CP, and there are more bonuses early on so there is more progression in the early levels of CP.

Take a great CP party. Let's say they're doing 250 jp/hr during a campaign. Off campaign, say same party, same mobs, performing exactly as well and getting half the reward or less. You cannot help the feeling that there is something wrong with the party even though you know it's probably the lack of campaign.

The progression model, imo, is perfect. You can:

* Focus fire important categories, saving jp til you have enough to spend.
* Dump JP equally -- I wouldn't recommend this as some jobs have some categories that is pretty lackluster.
* Dump JP wherever you can afford, getting your bonuses as early as possible. I tend to do this, focus firing whatever jp I have towards goals I want and dumping the rest wherever I can afford.

Early on, you have plenty of occasion to spend 1 or 2 JP, and for some meaningful difference. As you climb up to higher-costing ranks, you're simultaneously earning gifts that make JP easier to obtain.