Balancing the skill point rewards of the Guildleve System

[Jinko]

One thing they could do (and I'm sure there are a lot of ways to fix it) is giving all guildleves a set "pool" of experience points that will be rewarded at the end:

This, This a million and one times this !

I really like your idea btw, hopefully the devs will take notice of it.

I would also like to see guildleves rewards normalised, so that all rank 40 leves would give the same SP reward regardless of what the leve entails.

Most other mmo's reward you XP for both the monsters killed and the completion of the quest, I still don't know why SE didn't do this, it would also make side quests more appealing.

More than anything SE need to follow the path of other MMO's if i dc I shouldn't be punished, if i have to log off i shouldn't be punished.

I should be able to complete the leve at my own leisure, leves need to becoming more like the current side-quests and not resticted by time limits or weather I DC or log out during the completion of one.

Until you compare this game to any other MMO out there, you don't realise just how many restrictions they have set up and its a large part in why people get fed up with the game.

Guildleves was a poorly designed idea from the start and if I was SE I would completely scrap the idea and go with repeatable side-quest content, which would give SP/XP on completion.

[Reika]

Sounds good and all, but instead of a skill point pool, just have the leve give a set number of SP/EXP at the end, adjusted by your rank, the difficulty, and links/aspect.

[solracht]

I didn't realize this thread got bumped.

This system has a few problems too which weren't as aparent when I suggested it (mainly related to links and party play, particularly with multipliers still making the guildleve experience a little too volatile), and I never bothered updating it to fix them. I think we'd be better off with it than with our current system, but that's not really saying much.

I still stand by the problems I raised, however. Our current guildleve system is not-intuitive, backwards and punishes "normal play". What the devs envisioned for the guildleve system was running up to the counter, picking up guildleves, and doing them. That's not really something that's possible in the current system, without feeling like you're wasting your time.

I've campaigned for this all over the forums so many times that I honestly don't feel like saying it again, so I'll just quote something I would've probably ended up re-typing:

the problem is how out of the way and counter intuitive the guildleve system is.

Most new players won't come to the forums to ask which 8 leves they should fail and retry. Most people won't think the system has such an obscure and backwards requirement in order to give you good numbers.

They'll pick up the guildleves offered at the counter, they'll do them, and this will work for a while. Then they'll get to rank ~25-30 around the time they completley run out of favor and then they'll end up in a situation similar to the original poster's, and reach the conclusion that the game is not worth their time.

There is not any kind of obvious hint, or any kind of indication in the game that says experience rewards increase exponentially when a lot of things align. Expecting most players (especially those used to other MMORPGs) to find enjoyment in the current system feels really far-fetched.


Lastly, the new player leaving before being able to experience the guildleve system under the right conditions is not even the only bad scenario: the system is pretty boring for someone who is using it to his advantage. Redoing the same 8 guildleves from rank 30 to 50 can't seriously be considered as a good gameplay feature, can it?

Something needs to be done, honestly.

While I am not interested in promoting this specific suggestion at this time (although I will probably come back to update/fix it at some point), I'd like to encourage others to bring up and talk about the problems of the guildleve system. It's definitely not something that's getting enough attention in the General forums, and guildleves are content that we're going to be stuck doing pretty much every day.

Whether they fix these problems by following this idea, AlexiaKidd's idea (read her thread if you haven't yet, it's pretty much the same system but without a variable pool) or by messing with every Guildleve individually like some people suggested in this thread, I do not really care.

Personally I think the devs would be able to do more interesting things with guildleve objectives if the experience reward was about completition rather than luck while doing the guildleve, but that's just me.

I just want to feel like I'm playing to beat the enemies or completing the objectives, rather than like I'm playing to beat the system itself.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments again.

[solracht]

One last thing, to get rid of the problems in the current system you can't simply apply bandaid fixes. My original post did not mention it straight, but the root of the problems is actually pretty simple: most guildleves are horrible.

-If you simply ruin the failing trick, then people will travel all over the world every leve reset to find the 8 best guildleves that are offered. This will probably frustrate most people too, as linking will be harder and anima or time will be wasted. Odds are you'll have to suck up a few bad guildleves, too.

-If you make it so you can pick any guildleve you want from the counter, the leveling situation doesn't change: we're still stuck doing the same 8 guildleves. Leveling will still be boring as we'll still be doing the same 8 guildleves every reset.

While I won't argue that these changes could come eventually, they really don't fix the problems of the current system.

[Jinko]

Solracht take a look at what I said in this thread regarding SP normalisation, I think it would be a step in the right direction, especially if each leve had a similar amount of mobs to kill in each leve.

It's mainly regarding the balancing of SP/XP that monsters reward which would also alter how leves, sidequest, behest and dungeon work as well. (and possibly even crafting)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ll=1#post96114

[Grundy]

While in principle I really like your suggestion, especially if it encourages people to explore other camps what it robs us of is that magical Dunesfolk for Dinner or Levinshower where everything goes right and you net 20-25k SP off on leve with full party bonus and Guardians Aspect. There is nothing better than that! So, an addendum, make the skill pool the minimum guaranteed SP, so that you can potentially get more.