Gaining SP/EXP - Moving forward

[Betelgeuzah]

The problem with the above is that apart from Behest, the above is the only way to level provided you can find somebody who has leves on them. You should be able to go and level and do so all day if you wish. Being restricted causes people to get bored and log off.

I think you can level by slaughtering monsters. It's not fast, but it should be noted that you should always feel like you want to group since that is the way to progress the fastest. If you feel like soloing is "just fine", the incentive to group is just not there. Especially for us, who live in the Western individualized societies where we'd rather stick to ourselves or hang in our own little communities. We interact when we have a good enough incentive to do so.

However, while slaughtering monsters already works, they could indeed make a system designed for soloers to get SP that doesn't come close to that of group leveling but is better than not doing anything at all. It's something to do while LFPing for leves. Hamlet defense battles could have worked like this, but I don't know what the current plans are. The leve system and related features like search can be further improved still though.

If SE control how fast we level maybe they need to change that as well.

So you would essentially want to do more work for same gain? They can keep the current cooldown and the system will work with few adjustments, so why make yourself work more for the sake of this 'freedom'?

In FFXI or any other MMO I have played, I can logon, EXP for 3-4 hours with your equipment/stats/skill increasing the speed in which I gain the EXP, go do some content, go back 1-2 hours later and continue..

All these games control the pace at which you gain levels. They could simply make it so you can gain 4h worth of exp from two quests and then put a limitation on it so you can't do more till the next day. It's all the same, designed with the majority playing X time per day, and adjusting rewards according to that. This system works better for those with little to no time, as you can get more done in a smaller timeframe, while those with more time can still play with others who have leves and progress further. There is simply no mutual interest for groups and those looking for group to team up nor a proper way to recruit and be recruited right now.

[Rentahamster]

One thing I am concerned that is never really mentioned is how SP/EXP is gained..

I have played a few MMOs and they all do it slightly different but in FFXIV I am concerned that there is no viable way to realistically level up.

If a new player logs on, they should be able to grind to Rank 20 (I think they changed the SP nerf to around 23 now?) by soloing/partying on world mobs, guildleves and Behest. This is what I did at first.

Since then I have managed to grind to Rank 30 with a friend doing Leves and Behest. What else is a player to do after 23? If you grind world mobs the SP becomes awfully low and you can only do 8 Leves a day solo, if you are lucky you may get a party to do them. After the 8 leves are done you are left with Behest and that is pretty much it..

In Rift you can mix grinding with quests, Rifts and grinding world mobs all day, in FFXI you can party up, do some campaign, fields of valor etc all day, whereas in FFXIV you are stuck with Leves and Behest where Leves do not last all day. You can't party up and grind in FFXIV as the SP needed to level up is extremely high compared to how much SP you gain grinding world mobs.

The above suits some people which is fine but when the influx of new players comes and everyone is stuck doing 8 Leves a day with some Behest they will get bored and quit again..

I am hoping the Devs can do something further to maintain player interest. It appears they are scrapping Surplus which is great but now they possibly need to make adjustments to how much SP is needed to gain levels or boost SP from world grinding to make parties viable again. This will require a new method to LFP, which I think they are implementing? I really want to see this game get a real boost from the PS3 launch and I can see the need for 'content' being worked on but I think another look at leveling is needed to hold on to them new players that may come.

Its good to have the 'carrot' but let the players feel they have a decent chance to get to it..

As far as overworld mob grinding is concerned, I described the specific problems with it and proposed solutions that would not be very hard to implement in an earlier thread.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-How-to-Fix-it

There are, actually, decent ways to get SP when not doing leves, but it's hard for new players to know.

[ChiefCurrahee]

Betelgeuzah,
It's funny how you can predict, who will respond to a post and how. It really is.

Of course if you reduce guildleve timers you also have to reduce SP/EXP gained. Didn't I say that?
I think you missed the point completely when you put your troll pants on this morning.

BY REDUCING THE GUILDLEVE TIMERS YOU CREATE MORE REPEATABLE CONTENT FOR PEOPLE TO CONSUME AND NOT BE LEFT WITH THE QUESTION: WHAT THE F AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW?

get it?

The concept of grouping with an unlimited amount of people for never ending guildleves is asinine. The reality is you group with your friends, your LS mates, or a pick up you happen to meet up with. You do your leves, and go on your way. YOU are left with 0 content until those timers are reset unless SOMEONE ELSE has not consumed their content yet.

Lets propose this: You've done your leves already, And someone from your LS says "hey lets do some R30 leves" You want in on this obviously. But 7 other people in your LS pipe up and say "I have R30 leves available." Now why would that person choose to invite YOU over someone who can net them more XP?

And when was the last time you got a random /tell for <experience points> <do you need it?>

It doesn't matter if the XP rates are reduced. for Leve mobs, it's the matter of having it available whenever YOU want.

I'll go out on a limb here and say,on Leve reset days a fair majority of FFXIV players log in do their leves, maybe craft a little, maybe grind a little. and log out. maybe 1-3 hours tops.
How many of hose people do you think would stick around if they had a chance to do 8 more leves after 2hrs? Probably a lot of them.

So, do you get it?

Its fine that SE wants to control the rate of our progress, but to do that by: Limiting our miniscule quest content to a 36 hour timer and progressively reduce our SP/EXP rate to 0 the longer we play. COME ON! that is ridiculous!

I want to log into FFXIV have be presented with something to do. It's a game after all. If it's an off leve reset day, and my friends aren't online, I'm left with little to do in FFXIV. I log out.

I know FFXI as an example and been used to death, and they have had 8 years worth of content build.

But take Fields of valor for example. It's basically guildleves. In FFXIs inception it was limited to 1 FoV/hr. At least I had something to do once a hour when ever i logged in. a FoV woudl take me 10-30 min to complete depending on job/level. but in FFXIV standards that means I was able to do 36 guildleves. But in FFXIV i get 8. EIGHT! Solo or grp, they never last more than 10 min. so.... 1.5 hours later I'm stuck with 0 things to do. If i log in any moment before the next reset, I have nothing presented to me to consume.

DO YOU GET IT?

I don't care if SE cripples our progress to the point that it take a year to reach rank 50. I want to log in, pick up some leves and say in LS hey who wants to make some SP? jane and joe? cool go pick up your leves and meet me out at the camp. bing bang boom. I want to be able to do that every time i log in. whether thats at 3pm or 3am, on a monday or on a friday. Not every 36 hours.

Tell me you get it.

[Reika]

You can craft and/or gather when youre done with leves as well...

Maybe even make some friends and conversate.

[Betelgeuzah]

The concept of grouping with an unlimited amount of people for never ending guildleves is asinine. The reality is you group with your friends, your LS mates, or a pick up you happen to meet up with. You do your leves, and go on your way. YOU are left with 0 content until those timers are reset unless SOMEONE ELSE has not consumed their content yet.

The reality is the exact same it was in XI. You didn't group up with "your friends or LS" for the good majority of the time. Guildleves are no different. As far as they are concerned, nothing stops you from doing exactly what people did in XI- group with strangers. Yes, a better party search is needed. Yet there is no sense to temporarily 'fix' the problem when a better party search is coming either way that would, with your suggestion, raise even more problems.

People grouped in MMM just as well as any other. And that content wasn't even the primary content for people to exp on. That content only had one run per person per day and it still worked. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, about this system that is different. Of course you need a combat and group system as well as search that supports this kind of progression (something that XI had)- and those are the problems that need to be dealt with.

Lets propose this: You've done your leves already, And someone from your LS says "hey lets do some R30 leves" You want in on this obviously. But 7 other people in your LS pipe up and say "I have R30 leves available." Now why would that person choose to invite YOU over someone who can net them more XP?

I do not have to cling to an LS to get something done. Maybe you do, at this point in the game's life, but if this is what the game is going to be like then it is going to be a dead game and there is no need for further discussion. There will either be much more people to play with, or the game will die. And when there are more people to play with, there are groups who want you to join them. All you need is something light to do in-between if you have to wait. And when you can make up a system that is available to you whenever you want and has a party focus, come and tell us about it- you've hit a goldmine. Dungeon finder is not acceptable.

Why should content designed for parties and casuals with little playtime be available whenever? They are available when the conditions for the content have been met. This is the case with any group content you can come across. Every single one of them.

I know it's hard to try to interact with strangers on the interwebs but I sure you can if you try. The world doesn't revolve around your bff's or your linkshell. How does one make new friends? Not by sticking to his own little group all the time, that's for sure. You get no sympathies from me, and hopefully not from developers either. "I play an MMO so I can just stick to my own company all the time."

Yes, I do get it.

But take Fields of valor for example.

Ah yes, fields of valor that gave you maybe 10% of the SP as opposed to a single leve. You could do your leves, then go grind mobs for 8 hours, and you'd still be better off than doing all the FoV available to you.

"But I want to do more mundane tasks for exactly the same reward! DO YOU GET IT?"

You want everything to revolve around your LS and friends. I get it. I don't agree. I am disgusted. If you don't want any outside interaction aside from your friends, you get no sympathies from me. I hope that SE will never, ever do what you are proposing. We don't need closed off communities, Japanese playerbase is more than enough for me.

[ChiefCurrahee]

No, I don't want everything to revolve around my LS and friends. YOU don't seem to get it.

Currently, I log in. I use the PT search feature I see 0 people forming a PT. I flag up that I'm looking to do some R30 leves. I wander over to a camp and I start to kill mobs, or i craft a little. I ask in 1 of my 5 LS if anyone wants to link leves. I get a ton of people saying they have no more leves til reset but they will join. and a few that have leves but none for the camp I have them in. We grp we do the leves, and ~1hr later after it's all done. There are no more quests left to do 'til the reset happens in god knows how many more hours.
I log out.

Now this is what i want:

I want to log in, and be able to pick up guildleves. I want to group with my friends, I want to group with my LS I want to group with strangers. I want content that supports those efforts, for anyone and everyone, whenever and wherever.

The answer is to reduce the timers on guildleves so the confines of the 36 hours reset is less ridged and more conducive to actually letting people match quests up on a more regular basis.
How can you argue against that?

Will rates of SP/EXP have to be reduced? YES.

Will you have to partake in more leves to gain the same amount of SP/EXP? YES.

Will you have more opportunities to grp with more people? YES.

Will you be presented with content whenever you choose to play? YES.


Now we can have a pissing match on who has a better idea to create more interactions between players.

I prefer that SE creates the opportunity use use their main content on a more regular basis by reducing the timers on guildleves and reducing the bonus given from defeating those mobs. The time between leve PTs can be used to grind or craft.

From what I gather, you prefer:
the main content of the game being available on 36 cooldowns, and the time in between, grinding on world mobs searching for the off chance that someone hasn't consumed their content yet. Until the next reset when you get your next big boost.

[Jinko]

They need to rebalance monsters so that grinding is an option.

Right now at Rank 41 if I kill a rank 41 monster I will get like 91 SP, obviously depending on the monster type the SP can vary, raptors and such give much more SP for some reason.

If I was SE I would normalise SP gains from every mob regardless of the type of monster they are, so if I kill a rank 41 Marmot it would give me the same SP as a rank 41 Raptor.

Once they have a set base SP per monster, they can start to add party bonus and other calculations based on player rank.

Example

All monsters types and ranks have 110 base sp

SP base = 110 x ( PRB - Player rank bonus) x (PB - Party bonus)

Player rank bonus when at the same level as the monster would be 100% and would decrease 10% for ever additional rank up to a maximum of 10 ranks and increase 10% for every subtraction in level up to a maximum of 10 ranks.

A player 10 ranks above a monster will gain no SP

A player 10 ranks under a monster rank will gain a maximum of 200% of the base SP.

A Player 11 ranks under will gain 0% SP.

Party bonus can be 5% for every member. (includes solo play)

---------------------------------------------------

Monster is Rank 41 Party has 8 member so PB is 40%

Rank 30 (0%) = NO SP
Rank 31 (200%) = 462 SP
Skipped
Rank 39 (120%) = 339 SP
Rank 40 (110%) = 323 SP
Rank 41 (100%) = 308 SP
Rank 42 (90%) = 293 SP
Rank 43 (80%) = 277 SP
Skipped
Rank 51 (0%) = NO SP

Monster is Rank 41 party has 2 people so PB is 10%

Rank 30 (0%) = NO SP
Rank 31 (200%) = 363 SP
Skipped
Rank 39 (120%) = 266 SP
Rank 40 (110%) = 254 SP
Rank 41 (100% = 242 SP
Rank 42 (90%) = 230 SP
Rank 43 (80%) = 218 SP
Skipped
Rank 51 (0%) = NO SP

Monster is Rank 41 player is solo PB is 5%

Rank 30 (0%) = NO SP
Rank 31 (200%) = 346 SP
Skipped
Rank 39 (120%) = 254 SP
Rank 40 (110%) = 243 SP
Rank 41 (100% = 231 SP
Rank 42 (90%) = 219 SP
Rank 43 (80%) = 207 SP
Skipped
Rank 51 (0%) = NO SP

XP can be 2-3 x the awarded SP.

Regardless of your rank you will always get these number values so if the monster is rank 1 you will still get 110 base sp + your rank bonus and the party bonus.

SP is 100% linear you know what you are getting prior to fighting a monster, it also encourages party play and killing monster higher level than your rank. (although no higher than 10 ranks)

It stops high level players from both leaching sp and low level players from being power leveled.

These values can be added to behest & guild leves also and an additional leve link bonus added ontop. (leve link bonus could be 30% for each link up to a maximum of 4 links)

The last point in this system would be that lower level ranks and higher level ranks that play together often would eventually decrease in rank disparity.

[Betelgeuzah]

Currently, I log in. I use the PT search feature I see 0 people forming a PT.

Hey, look, I found out what your problem is! Party search needs work. Combat needs work. The servers are empty.

Fix those, and there is no need to even think about your silly suggestions.

I want content that supports those efforts, for anyone and everyone, whenever and wherever.

Nope. You want content that supports those efforts right now with all the other flawed systems that are going to get fixed.

I don't want SE to spend needless resources to bandaid fix something for the tiny excuse of a playerbase divided between what, 10+ servers? I want them to fix the game effectively and not take any detours because of some self-entitled precious unique snowflake player that demands attention.

[ChiefCurrahee]

It's not MY problem. There is no reason to use the PT search tool. NONE! Thats FFXIVs problem. There is no repeatable content to speak of. Why not make guildleves frequently repeatable with the proper adjustments, just to give what player base is left something to always fall back on?

the majority of MMOs out there today have multiple things for players to do while in game. 100% of the time. Many with no restrictions on the frequency of participation on the players behalf.

FFXIV imposes 8 Guildleve quests per 36 hours on the player.
yes you can participate in someone else's guildleve, but thats not on your demand, thats by theirs.

FFXIV halts your Rank progression through fatigue.
sure you can grind through it, but at some point you'll each 0 progress.

FXIV halts your story line progression through fatigue.

currently it does more to keep the player out of the game than in the game.

Reducing guildleve timers is more than a bandaid . It's a round of atropine to get this game moving again.

What do you suggest SE do to improve the lack of repeatable content?
Develop new systems that will take months program, months to test and balance, and months to implement?
Continue on it's current path and continue to see FFXIV thready pulse finally sputter out and fade away?

You're like that fish in finding nemo "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" ........ Ignorant.

[Karvapeikko]

I'll make a quick note here: Leves won't be primary thing to do for exp when more content comes. It's idea is to make casuals with little time at hand happy with quick boosts to exp. Also if I remember correctly fatigue will be removed when first dungeon comes.