Power leveling, book burns, Speed leveling. What is the appeal?

[Rosina]

I'm a long time ffxi player, now coming back to ffxi. I started this game back in ps2 launch. And on and off till today. As the years rolled by these options started to take shape. First it started with power leveling.

At first only rmt parties did that. Then normal player groups started to rely on them. Almost to the point of outright refusal of joining a group without one.

Then with sync smn burns started to show up, again to the point where a player ONLY wants to do smn burns. Now with these new ground tomes, book burns are around. Why question is just out of curiosity. What is the appeal of speed leveling? Why just join parties to level up?

Personally I miss the old ways of forming a group, which was about having fun talking and meeting new people.

Is speed leveling around because people think there is only high level content? Or do not see the low/mid level content?

Anyway i'm not starting a flame war. Just curious to the appeal. :)

[Karbuncle]

Its because Mid/Low Level content is all shit and out-dated. There really isn't a huge market for Garrison armor, BCNM20/30/40 Stuff (Though some of those are done for a spot few things, Mannequin parts, Scrolls, etc).

Plus all of that can be done once you hit 90 anyway.

I don't really hate the idea of book burns, Abyssea burns, etc, Because... they can play how they want really, But i see where you concerns come from. There still are a few normal exp parties out there.

I see no problems with Speed leveling only because i don't think the biggest grind in an MMO should be Reaching cap.

Thats just one mans opinion, however.

[Meyi]

It's exciting seeing the high numbers rolling in and hearing the fanfare of leveling up at break-neck speed. Many of the old players are tired of the traditional 3k/hr parties, so naturally reaching closer to 200k/hr is much more satisfying. Also, there really isn't a whole lot to do between levels 1 and 90, as anything can be done as a level 90, so there's no need to go slowly to hit certain quests or missions as we go. The sooner we reach 90, the easier the content becomes. And, at 90 we can help our friends in Abyssea, WoE, Voidwatchers, etc.

Leveling can be fun but a lot of the old players have become burnt out on the activity. I know I have. After my seventh job on my Elvaan I had decided I was done with leveling. But with Abyssea, leveling my Taru's Black Mage, White Mage, and Summoner has actually been a blast!

And who says you can't make friends in book burning parties or abyssea? Since abyssea is so laid back and monsters are so easy to defeat, people can actually hold up relatively decent conversations without the party's success being jeopardized. And hey, now we have eighteen people to party with instead of just six -- that's three times the amount of people to chat to at once! :D

[Rosina]

I personally do content for the fun of doing it. Not just for the gear. I think leveling should take time, but not in a grind fasion. More or less to allow people to get to know their jobs. I do not mind the playing how you like. I think it became a "grind" once people only sought out parties JUST to level. And didn't care to much on who they grouped with. Which wasn't how things were before.

Pretty much I'm nicely saying I hate these styles of grouping, due to the chaoticness of them and simple fact that i have to throw a tantrum to be allowed to play my role. (tank/healer if i'm asked to do so.) And then made fun of for plying the game the way it was meant to be played. I guess i'm curious since I never had a good experience.

And A party i was in earlier was a book burn in gusgen, and no one really healed everyone just spam cured the skeletons. I went afk and come back get a page only for the groups leader to /slap me. Ya it is a game emote, but still is rude. And left shortly after.

(just my 2 cents)

[Ravenmore]

Everyone just sought out parties for levels. If you had done that in a bird merit party or if your a dd any level you would had came back to seeing a rep having your spot if you went with out saying anything. Trust me book burning is far more forgiving then old six man parties and not having to wait days for a invite helps more then anything. Even having to wait a hour in the zone for spot to open is better then waiting a couple of days in jeuno for a healer and tank to pop that will level sysnc down to the same level.

Before you bring up people talking in parties that died after level 10. Its my time to exp I want to get as much as I can before I have to log so wasting time chating is wasting my exp so when I made the parties the chatty people got kicked and rep. Now with book burns you can chat all you want to its not going to hurt my exp and if i'm the leader you won't get kicked.

It is because there is not on thing you can do 1 to 90 that you can't do at 90 so you might as well get to 90 to enjoy the other 99% of the game. Leveling is not content thats one of the reason FF14 has 50k players and yes that is not leaving a 0 off.

[Michae]

I miss them too. It wasnt always about getting lvls, that was just a perk of some pts. It was really about meeting new ppl, talking and having a good time. Granted you did need to get lvls and skills and all of that, but you advanced in the game by joining forces with people you met along the way...usually in pts. Now the game has turned into who can get all their jobs to 90, who can have the empy weapons and +2 gear and ppl have turned into savages to get there in some cases. Worse than before. You can tell by the sheer amount of trolling, fighting and taunting in /sh and now unfortunately /yells that this game is going into the crapper /sigh and it was such a good game before they gimped it

[Leonlionheart]

This again.

There is no content 1~75.
Garrison is not content, since no one does it.
Eco Warrior isn't either.
CoP was content, but lol not anymore.

Why get to 90 ASAP? Killing Rani > Killing 9000000000000000 Crawlers in Crawlers nest for 9 hours for 2 levels.

[Ravenmore]

I miss them too. It wasnt always about getting lvls, that was just a perk of some pts. It was really about meeting new ppl, talking and having a good time. Granted you did need to get lvls and skills and all of that, but you advanced in the game by joining forces with people you met along the way...usually in pts. Now the game has turned into who can get all their jobs to 90, who can have the empy weapons and +2 gear and ppl have turned into savages to get there in some cases. Worse than before. You can tell by the sheer amount of trolling, fighting and taunting in /sh and now unfortunately /yells that this game is going into the crapper /sigh and it was such a good game before they gimped it

Hatee to break it to you but thats what all mmos are like. What really change was you made it to endgame and told you needed XYZ jobs fully merited to get into the good LSes, that got claim on HNMs cleared zones could clear other content. Rose tinted glasses since you were to new to know you were getting the short end of the stick with all the chatting. Maybe people you met in exp might help you get into a decent endgame shell but that was beyond rare.

With the insane low drop rates and pay to play events pugs were out for 95% of events in the game. Not till ToAU did we get events that were pug friendly, assults and to a lesser extent nysul.

[Cream_Soda]

It was fun the first time, tedious the second, outright boring after that. Can only have so much fun before you're burned out on grinding. I can make friends and talk doing things other than lv grind

[Zyeriis]

Hatee to break it to you but thats what all mmos are like. What really change was you made it to endgame and told you needed XYZ jobs fully merited to get into the good LSes, that got claim on HNMs cleared zones could clear other content. Rose tinted glasses since you were to new to know you were getting the short end of the stick with all the chatting. Maybe people you met in exp might help you get into a decent endgame shell but that was beyond rare.

With the insane low drop rates and pay to play events pugs were out for 95% of events in the game. Not till ToAU did we get events that were pug friendly, assults and to a lesser extent nysul.

Hurray, the boring "if you have good memories of the game pre-abyssea, you're wearing rose tinted glasses" retarded spew. Obvious, equally idiotic and obligatory counter: "If you don't have good memories of the game pre-abyssea, you must be wearing black tinted bear goggles".

Also lol @ waiting days for parties pre-abyssea, it's no one's fault that you were an idiot and either A) didn't know how to form parties, B) decided that if you couldn't do A) then you couldn't do anything else and are now trying to use your inability to be semi-intelligent about your time spent in-game, or C) it's a massive exaggeration to make things seem worse than they actually were (except for HNM-esqe "content", which is still prevalent, even inside abyssea, just at much faster pace) or D) All of the above.

See, I can spin and twist perceptions to fit my potentially and equally ridiculous-sounding argument too! Did you see the part where I made blind assumptions about people with your point of view and tried to use them as facts, just like you?

[Rosina]

Ravenmore, you do waste time playing an mmo. And not mmo are like that either. Infact it was the appeal of ffxi to have a good community.

Please do keep elitism out of the comments though. I'm not asking to change people. I'm just asking out of curiosity.
Talking makes leveling and being in a group fun. It doesn't waste time at all. And there is only 50K players in ffxiv because of the manuel attacking preventing from people to communicate in groups. And no one is enjoying the zerg fests.
I never stated leveling as content. But you can't say there isn't any content from 1-75. Just because no one does them doesn't make it any less content. Infact most people do not do them because they do not know they exist :)

anyway this is just my opinion. Not here to change anyones opinion. Just asking of curiosity as to the appeal of speed leveling.

[Zyeriis]

FFXIV is getting auto-attack in it's update tomorrow I believe.

[Karbuncle]

Ravenmore, you do waste time playing an mmo. And not mmo are like that either. Infact it was the appeal of ffxi to have a good community.

Please do keep elitism out of the comments though. I'm not asking to change people. I'm just asking out of curiosity.
Talking makes leveling and being in a group fun. It doesn't waste time at all. And there is only 50K players in ffxiv because of the manuel attacking preventing from people to communicate in groups. And no one is enjoying the zerg fests.
I never stated leveling as content. But you can't say there isn't any content from 1-75. Just because no one does them doesn't make it any less content. Infact most people do not do them because they do not know they exist :)

anyway this is just my opinion. Not here to change anyones opinion. Just asking of curiosity as to the appeal of speed leveling.

In the defense of "power leveling" people, Most mid-game content is absolute garbage with crap rewards and isnt worth the effort in todays FFXI world.

Garrisons: has terrible rewards,.
Eco Warrior: is evil.
Exped. Force: see Eco Warrior.
BCNM20/30's have mostly crap rewards too, but those that dont can also be done at level 90.

etc. Most of it is supremely under-rewarding due to it all be produced during a time where 2k an hour was good exp, and 300 gil for a quest was boss as hell. No one does it because its out-dated content and its rewards aren't worth the effort today.

Back when i first began, I did Exped. Forces and Eco-Warrior like, once a week, it was really fun back then because for Eco-Warrior, 5k gil and like, 2k exp was really awesome. But today its not so much.

So you can't really blame people for not playing like we did back in the day, Because that content is out-dated and not rewarding. We enjoyed it when it was new, I feel sorry for people who dont get to experience it like i did, through the eyes of someone joining the game before even CoP was released...

But times change, and the dynamics change. Its now about endgame content, the game is so old that its pretty much expected, very few new players coming in and old ones are/were already 75 by the time the caps got risen up.

I don't know what else to say ... I lost my train of thought.

[Ravenmore]

Yeah cause all those JP only brds and up tight rdms that refused to party with out a brd. I have good memories of pre- abyssea every drg burn I ever did. Any party that wasn't retarded enough to think high exp per kill was a good idea when it took 2xs as long to kill for not even double the exp. For the longest time before level sync find a healer at you level was the hardest part of putting a party together. I'm not going to think of how many bad parties that I put togther even with the perfect jobs, either it took to long to make everyone happy, there was no decent camps, we all know how people love leveling bibki bay and on trolls.

My fav though is going from 59 blu to 75 blu with 2 parties that I was invited since I was already in the zone soloing and they need a rep for a hour. That was the best flag up the whole time since those rdms and whms I invited to parties just loved taking a invite from a blu. If you couldn't get a whm or rdm and a brd waste of everyones time to sit around and wait holding everyone else up.

[Meyi]

Well Rosina, it seems my post was skipped, so I'll just say it again; it's really easy to chat and have fun in today's parties. Even more so than it use to be! People don't have to focus as vigorously as they had to in the past, and in general, it seems a lot more people are laid back and accepting the game as a game meant to have fun. So get out there and chat away! :D

[Enoah35]

Back in the time of 75s, I obtained my Maat cap but it took me almost 3 years to achieve it. Most of my melee jobs appart from a select few I was soloing colibris from high 60s till 70s. The exp that I gained were from those long and boring solo sessions + besieged + campaign and the escort quest once a day. When the FOV has been introduced I did some of those too.

Being and european I don't have much choice on forming parties. So that is basically not an option unless its friday and weekend when I can adjust the time. Still staying up all night just for the game was not my thing. Lets not forget that we did have very few camps before ToAR has been introduced. I remember camping on Kuftal tiger/cocatrice(sp?), bones on King Ramp's or Gustav's bones on 60s and 70s. I bet new players don't even know these camps (appart from the fact that they changed mob places for GoV).

I did lead a lot of parties but in all it took me more time forming the parties and then traveling to the camp site praying no rival parties were there (back before ToAR). When ToaR got introduced and level sync, these old camps died out. Now everyone was after killing colibris. Camp site were overloaded and even if you could form a party, the lack of camps made it difficult.

All in all I don't mind the easy mode (it does take a while to build up till this state, like collecting atmas and other things) we have now. It was just added too late and a bit too extreme compared to what we have experienced before. Only gripe is the need of skilling up to do after an exp session cause the speed you getting levels doesn't match the speed your skills are getting up. Probably you spend more time skilling up than leveling up now.

[Ravenmore]

Well Rosina, it seems my post was skipped, so I'll just say it again; it's really easy to chat and have fun in today's parties. Even more so than it use to be! People don't have to focus as vigorously as they had to in the past, and in general, it seems a lot more people are laid back and accepting the game as a game meant to have fun. So get out there and chat away! :D

Thats what I was trying to say, now it doesn't matter much its far more lay back if you not geared to the gils it won't effect exp you can chat all you want no one will get mad. For mages its far less stress making sure all the melees have haste you managing your MP so you have as little down time as possible and at the end of the party your not totally drained. I haven't seen a true fake D/C in a long time in a long time.

I focus on all the times a party never left town or took a hour just to find members only to be pushed out of a camp or drop out of a party when they pulled that. Now camps can surport 2 allis in abyssea at one camp. Thats double all 3 of the bird camps put together. Lower level camps could only surport one maybe 2 parties good luck trying to get 5 other people to try some were else or if they had that area. Even now you need fewer healers for 18 people to level in low level book burns. 1 whm and a back up healer is enough to cover a whole alli or a few of the DDs are /dnc and can take care of them selfs.There always been far more dds then healers so having the few cover the most is good way to keep jobs from getting pushed out of exp cause their not the best DD for exp.

[Malamasala]

People avoid low levels because there is so little to do there.

You are a level 50 SMN... what can you do? Hardly anything.
You are a level 30 NIN... how's tanking working for you? Not so well I'd guess.
You are a level 35 COR... enjoying to shoot bullets that do no damage but cost a fortune? Probably not.

I'd have no problems playing any job at level 1, had I all my JA/JT/spells. Level doesn't matter at all, only how many actions per minute I can do.

[Rosina]

ah ok. i really do not want an opinion debate. more to get ppls personal opinions. on why is speed levelong good. Not really why it is like that. I know the why. I've been playing this game on and off for years.

And My pov is i never had s great experience with any of these things I mentioned. And I have my own personal onpions on the effects of it. Not that I'm going to share for fear of being hated, insulted and the like. :)
More or less i'm trying to learn why it is good and get use to the speed leveling. I just wish I had a better experience with this stuff. And play how I like as well.

[Neonii]

The reason for speed leveling from my point of view is, it was pretty much all that was available. I remember my first dunes party was a group of folks power leveling their alts. I did not want to be a ploob so I mostly used fov and campaign to level my character. I read a lot of guides. I was in the low 70's when the first level cap raise came in and for the first time I was able to find a party regularly as folks started the race to 80.

Ploob=power leveled noob (a person with a high leveled character which was power leveled leaving them clueless as to how to play it). This term was popular on my last online game.

[Zatias]

I dislike speed leveling on jobs I enjoy; I like to see it gradually build in strength. Good thing I lvled my 4 favorite jobs this way XD Any other jobs that I need to lvl as a sub but don't enjoy playing, speed level away. That's where most of the speed leveling's appeal came from. That or the need to feel accepted in Abyssea by having a Proc job leveled.

[Hoshi]

I don't think that power leveling was such a bad thing. For my first few jobs back when the game was new finding a group with a tank and a healer really wasn't difficult and if you had a blm you were set. As the game got older finding a good healing job and a good tanking job looking for group at your level became much more difficult (we'll skip the part where blms weren't needed any more). It got to the point where you needed a high level outside healer to serve as both tank and healer (or at least dedicated healer) in order to build working parties. They added level synch and that helped a bit but it was still hard to find the right job combo and so having an external healer made that search easier.

Page burns are a further response to the lack of low level jobs which shouldn't come as a surprise in a game this old. Most people were nearly out of jobs under 37 well before abyssea came out and out of jobs under 49 by a month after the level increase to 99 was announced. I'm sure people still have the odd job that needs to be leveled but it's hard to make a viable party with a bunch of 2nd string DDish support jobs and a pet job or two. It's easier once you're in an ally (increasing the chance that you might find a healer who needs xp or someone with an alt account to cure the group externally).

As far as old school leveling being fun: my first job to 75 with my static of friends was great fun for a while. We met every night and had a wonderful time together until 3 of them quit the game at level 60. Leveling in pickup groups was a crap shoot. Sometimes I joined a fun group but most of the time I joined a group with at least 1 player who was determined to insult the entire party or played in such a manner that they got the whole group killed repeatedly or they went afk constantly and slowed our xp/hour to an unbearable speed. And lets not forget about battling other groups for the same camp even if you were there first and killing at a reasonable pace. I think page burns are a refreshing change.

[chubrocka]

2 things, SKILLS can I have it please, and Over all job player knowledge. These are gone. take this, we all see it, dude new to our LS has more level 90 jobs then I do and never passed rank 5 in one city, took to abby party and cant hit anything. Nuff said.

[Coldbrand]

Because there was nothing redeeming amount killing the same robber crab as I saw in the last zone for the 8,000th time, and it was never challenging the 1st time. It just made me wish I was done and onto something actually entertaining.

[JackDaniels]

I had absolutely no fun the other day in a book burn party, so I made a sync party in yhoatar jungle, just a drg blu dnc and brd. It was a lot of fun minus the whm we kicked due to excessive afking and the drk who decided to leave after the afking whm got us all killed. Even without a proper page to do (seriously wtf mandragoras and bees?), it was a lot of fun. We managed the occasional chain #5.

There's no challenge at all with book burn alliances, I couldn't even make it past 1400xp/page without getting bored to tears.

EDIT: It's not like this game is going anywhere any time soon, what's the rush? Being at level cap these days doesn't mean anything if you just burn your way to the top.

[Ravenmore]

I don't bother watching people damage or misses since you eye balling it to start. Its not like you need 18 people all killing mobs to bring in great exp. I see abyssea exp as a easy none thinking way of getting gil/cuor if people are skilling up at least they are engaging the mob and not trying to hide on a low level job. Now it doesn't impact me in anyway they are not capped since 2 decent melees and one decent mage can carry 18 other people.

Its a way to keep people coming to LS exp nights. I get paid they get skill ups its a fair trade. Its not the same as a 75 sam showing up to a bird party with and starts skilling up polearm he hasn't touched since he left his drg sub at 37. Its not going to slow down exp and I have since really stop caring about what other people wear to exp again if they are engaging thats good for me.

[Zagen]

As many have said my first job to 75 at the time, felt like an accomplishment everything after that was a grind.

EDIT: It's not like this game is going anywhere any time soon, what's the rush? Being at level cap these days doesn't mean anything if you just burn your way to the top.
I enjoy being able to offer BLM/BRD with all yellow procs, WAR/NIN with all red procs, THF TH proc, THF/NIN/MNK/DNC/BLU/WAR/PLD(lol) for tank options, BRD/COR for buffer, WHM for extra healing, RDM for support/debuffs. All of these help me get gear or help my LS and friends get gear.

Being at level cap never meant anything more than it does now past your first job. The more jobs you had at 75 the more useful you were at multiple events, the same is true at 90.

[Olor]

Yeah, I don't miss lfg for hours and hours and hours and only getting an invite when people were desperate as a blu/whm... and then having people hassle me about my sub. No one cares what I sub for my blu for exp now, and, in fact, since I rarely get hit (with 17 other bodies around) they are more than happy to have the extra healing I bring to the table with my whm sub.

I don't miss old exp at all. Either I solo (for spells and skill ups) or I book burn, and it is fun! FUN! People laugh and joke between pages and mobs, and don't bother with the elitism that used to plague even the most mundane aspects of the game.

I am cool with elitism where it matters, but it shouldn't matter for mundane things like exp.

[Zatias]

I am cool with elitism where it matters, but it shouldn't matter for mundane things like exp.

Speaking of this, I had a cor in a book burn in Gusgen Mines who was just this. Elitist for exp.

"This is how exp is done now? GAY! I can get 1k a kill in Qufim Island!" Needless to say he got booted ;P

I like the laid-backness of book burning and that's just about it. I just get waaaay too bored killing borderline Too Weak mobs and running all the way up to the stupid book. This is only my preference though, I see a lot of people who really enjoy it.

[Leonlionheart]

2 things, SKILLS can I have it please, and Over all job player knowledge. These are gone. take this, we all see it, dude new to our LS has more level 90 jobs then I do and never passed rank 5 in one city, took to abby party and cant hit anything. Nuff said.

I burned WHM 30-90 in 6 hours. I play it better than 90% of the WHM mains I've pugged in Abyssea.

Old fashioned EXP =/= learning

[Tsuneo]

I burned WHM 30-90 in 6 hours. I play it better than 90% of the WHM mains I've pugged in Abyssea.

Old fashioned EXP =/= learning

I don't know why people keep saying that leveling in a fast manner creates gimps. Initially of course your skills will be under leveled, but any player worth anything will have no problem overcoming that. If someone doesn't fix that situation than they were most likely going to be gimp even if they did it the old fashioned way.

[scaevola]

I personally do content for the fun of doing it. Not just for the gear.

then go do that, you clown

[Leonlionheart]

I don't know why people keep saying that leveling in a fast manner creates gimps. Initially of course your skills will be under leveled, but any player worth anything will have no problem overcoming that. If someone doesn't fix that situation than they were most likely going to be gimp even if they did it the old fashioned way.

This is very true.

The fact of the matter is that there were just as many gimps at 75 cap, however they were stuck in between 10~75, and couldn't get into LSs.

Now however 80% of content is easily pugged, and everyone gets to 90 easily. You see the gimps more than you did if you were a good player at 75 cap.

[scaevola]

if i level a job to 90 in X amount of time, i can still do all the stuff i could do if i only leveled that job to 40 in X amount of time, in addition to all the stuff i can do at 90

not that i'll do the stuff i could do at 40 because that stuff all sucks

[Dew]

Main healing a party on blm in Bibiki Bay at 67 wasn't fun. So no, why would you miss old way of xping. Was faster soloing in sea the rest of the way then getting parties on blm. Deco weapon parties sure they were good back then, but now they suck and aren't worth wasting time with. Skele burns with mnks in KRT were good before, but not anymore.

Things changes, more types of parties are formed. Being able to level faster don't matter. Noobs will be noobs wether they take 5 years to get 75 or 1 day to get 90. I have seen too many people claiming they are great at their job cause they leveled the hard way. Later then you see them play the job and they suck at it. Leveling slower and taking more time doesn't make them good at anything.

[Coldbrand]

I had absolutely no fun the other day in a book burn party, so I made a sync party in yhoatar jungle, just a drg blu dnc and brd. It was a lot of fun minus the whm we kicked due to excessive afking and the drk who decided to leave after the afking whm got us all killed. Even without a proper page to do (seriously wtf mandragoras and bees?), it was a lot of fun. We managed the occasional chain #5.

There's no challenge at all with book burn alliances, I couldn't even make it past 1400xp/page without getting bored to tears.

EDIT: It's not like this game is going anywhere any time soon, what's the rush? Being at level cap these days doesn't mean anything if you just burn your way to the top.
There's no challenge at all to mindless grinding either.

On an unrelated note people need to learn that the whole "learn the job" arguments are flawed too. I've never had anyone first voke Bukhis for my THF so far. In fact, get this, nothing about conventional party play is in any way relevant to playing a large number of jobs in content that actually matters that you were leveling for in the first place.

[Seriha]

Just curious to the appeal.

I imagine others have said similar since I haven't read through the thread, but ultimately, leveling is one of the least enjoyable aspects of the game, perhaps behind making gil. Simply killing many of the game's weaker mob families over and over and over and over again does not really teach you how to play a job, as a lot of endgame encounters through some monkey wrenches into the works even if it's just some hate resets.

More personally, I've been playing since NA PC beta with, at most, 6-7 months of break spread over that time span. Of the 20 jobs, you can figure breaking them down into the main archetypes of tanking, support, and damage. Once you get a feel for one of those families, branching out to similar jobs isn't particularly difficult. And assuming you pay attention to those around you, you can also learn other jobs by proxy.

Eventually you can hit a point where leveling holds no appeal. No, you could choose simply not to level a job, but if you're interested in being an overall well-rounded player, you'll probably eventually level jobs you "hate" for those "just in case" moments. Slogging it out oldschool doesn't really make the end of that trip any sweeter. In the case of consumable heavy jobs, it can also make things much more pricey, and in turn even more time spent making gil to cover your expenses.

Overall, I have no real issue with how one levels as long as if they're coming to something for an expected function, that means having all your spells, things skilled up, and some passable gear. Not meeting those criteria are by no means solely hinged on how you level, as the "gimps" certainly hit 75 prior to FoV, Campaign, doubled EXP, level sync, or Astral Burns.

[Rosina]

I have fun leveling.
And there is a "learn your job" that you can't do in speed leveling.
old exp ways people had to learn the timing of when to do skills so the tank can tank. And the tank needs to learn timing of their skills to control hate. every job runs on different timers between each skill.

Mindlessly pressing skills = button mashing. And button mashing causes wipes.

>.> where you think the term NOOB is from? People who do not know how to play their class. Which was from various reasons.

Thanks to those who posted polite and constructive posts.

To those who really had nothing contrsuctive to say, really..... why did you waste time posting >.>?

The burn party I was in pretty much was bad. There is a huge difference between a laid back party. And a party full of noobs.

At least try to play your role. (like healing as a whm) and not just mindlessly hit buttons. It can prevent someones death.

[Octaviane]

if i level a job to 90 in X amount of time, i can still do all the stuff i could do if i only leveled that job to 40 in X amount of time, in addition to all the stuff i can do at 90

not that i'll do the stuff i could do at 40 because that stuff all sucks

How do you know that all that "stuff" sucks? Have you tried and failed? That would be my guess.

[Jandel]

Power levelling?
I'm fine with it as long as I can do stuff myself.

My problem with pts was always that after 1-2h of exp I get bored and quit it. This was never a problem for my main job (rdm) nor to my blm (I soloed it with pet exp) but when I choose to try out a dd job well... What's difficult of being dd? What's the learning? You just need to engage the mob and use the ability when you have tp. The exception was thf (for SATA when used, not always). This is what I learned from watching other dds when I pt with my rdm (pre abyssea and pre sync). No one care about skillchain, some of the player did not care about hate either.

I really like how the gov change exp gaining. Maybe you did't consider it but gov for solo/duo exp is great and actually you can log in 1h, kill some ep mob and get one level done (low level, I've used it to exp sub XD). You will get also the skill. And the possibility to choose between long session exp and short (all worthwhile) it's great.

Anyway, this is my opinion, hope I manage to express myself correctly :)

[StingRay104]

I spent my first 2 years of this game not even caring about level 75, I was having fun trying out new jobs and just exping. The old days were fun back then and sometimes I do miss them, but ultimately I got my fill of them back then. I read that you haven't had a good experience with speed leveling, and that can happen, I've had some bad groups. When I do get a good group once we get lights built its like putting on the cruise control in a car, you can just sit back and enjoy it. I've had some fun conversations with speed leveling groups and I only wish I had some more jobs to take into one so I could have some of that old fun. As for the appeal its really obvious why most people are drawn to it, the one who dies with the most toys wins pretty much explains it. They should add some new mid game content but at this point we really need more high level content, which we will eventually get. Anyway thats my thoughts on the subject.

[Panthera]

I can't fathom the appeal either. Go on God Mode in a game long enough, and it just gets boring. There is such a thing as too challenging, which is just frustrating. But if 55-75 exceeds one's fortitude, well...

I don't think PLing was as rampant as you made it out to be, though. They were around, but for me, they were easily less than one half of parties, if not much less. Consider though that there's all degrees of PLing, and a modicum of compromise is not a bad thing.

[scaevola]

How do you know that all that "stuff" sucks? Have you tried and failed? That would be my guess.

oh gee i don't know

maybe because i tried that crap in 2004 when getting past level 55 or so was like pulling teeth (i've seen ancient papyrus lead to more broken friendships than vaginas, i swear) and there was nothing else to do

maybe because i, too, have been playing on and off since 2003, the "off" mainly motivated by SE's habit of confusing things like expeditionary force and garrison for "content"

I mean seriously if you want the garrison experience you can hop on a level 40 job and hit me with a tell; we'll go to monastic cavern and I'll train half the zone on top of you and warp


I get that reasonable minds can disagree on the merits of rushing to the level cap but if your case for stopping and smelling the roses is garrison and expeditionary force i seriously have to ask if you understand the concept of fun

[Rosina]

nope every party I was in from 2006 till this year had a Power leveler. I played about 20 hours a day unless I had work. (i hate tv and my town has nothing in it to socialise at all we got is a library)
I was in over 1000 parties. People started to get PL to not wait for mp resting. That means even if party has a healer. I was forced to heal alot of the time as my rdm, and as dnc. I'm very good at it because I pay attention.

I think speed leveling came up because people forgot what an mmorpg is. This isn't a game you need to rush is. And yes there is mid level content. And yes garrison is mid-high level content. There is also brenner and ballista. Content is something you do, such as event type stuff. Content isn't just end game.

With that said. I guess i had the new laid back ffxi because I got trashed on, bullied etc for wishing to melee as a rdm. Even though I did my job (refresh, heal, duff, debuff) and did what was asked of me. Now all of a sudden you can be a whm in a book burn and not heal players

[Meyi]

I think speed leveling came up because people forgot what an mmorpg is. This isn't a game you need to rush is. And yes there is mid level content. And yes garrison is mid-high level content. There is also brenner and ballista. Content is something you do, such as event type stuff. Content isn't just end game.

No. Leveling does not equate to a MMO. Many single player games also include a leveling up through experience points strategy, and they are most certainly not MMOs. MMOs are multiple people playing together online. Whether this is leveling up, completing missions, quests, or slaying higher leveled monsters for gear, the fact remains that no one facet of FFXI represents what the entire game, and the entire genre, is all about.

Mid-level content isn't appealing. And it's not as much fun at 50 when you can come back at 90 and definitely win. Most of the fun comes from having lots of abilities, traits, spells, and decent looking armor. That's a big problem in this game; low level gear looks god awful. Who wants to run around in nasty looking bone subligars when they can don byakko's haidates and look amazingly cool?

Besides, level 90s can perform in all of the same content a level 50 can, but level 50s cannot perform in all of the same content a level 90 can. If you want to do level 50 content, you can always do it as a level 90.



With that said. I guess i had the new laid back ffxi because I got trashed on, bullied etc for wishing to melee as a rdm. Even though I did my job (refresh, heal, duff, debuff) and did what was asked of me. Now all of a sudden you can be a whm in a book burn and not heal players

Then boot them. There's no reason to allow people who refuse to play their job and refuse to participate to stay in a party and mooch off XP. Just remove them.

[Luvbunny]

It's all about options, today you have plenty of them. If you want your old school party, you can make one, good luck finding people to do it. If you wanna chit chat, there is chat LS for that. You can meet new people when you shout for seal farming. The game has a lot more options now than ever, and level grinding has become a thing of the past. Now you can speed level to 90 and then take some time to learn the job on your own - or not, your choice. Options are what I want, and SE does give me plenty to choose from now - unfortunately, it is still abysea or bust :)

[Rosina]

Mer Ypu misunderstood me. I never stated leveling, just no need to brush period. And I wasn't the leader in the group. I was invited with out knowing. Thanks for those who actually gave their opinion.

To those who wanted a debate, should look else where. This wasn't a debate thread. Just a question. No need to have a debate on other peoples replies.

I personally do not like speed leveling. I was hoping to see the appeal and personaly. I still do not like it. I do not hate those who do speed leveling. So do not hate on me for my dislike. I play this game for fun, and leveling in 3 days to max is not fun for me. I can play DCUO for that. (have and quit). I enjoy chatting which is part of the mmorpg experience, it is boring to not chat in a party.
Only reason i camr back to ffxi is because ffxiv is quiet and a solo fest. I really didn't expect to only find speed leveling.

Oh and the whms were casting cure to dmg the skele, just none was healing. And we got told to rest if our hp was low.

[Rosina]

To add since I hit the character limit on my ps3.

I do not play the game for gear or rewards only. I play mmo for the hours one can put into it. Doing various content at various levels. Just for fun. I do not need to get the uber gear right away. Or ever that doesn't appeal to me. (yes i'm odd) Also byakkos haidate looks dumb. I perfer bone sub @ 16 then most high level gear basing it on looks. :) O-hat enough said.

[Tsuneo]

Like other people have said the options to do such things was never taken away, but the fact that majority of people don't prefer the old method of leveling speaks for itself.

[thenewzero]

For me, the only option you mentioned that is appealing is book burns. I enjoy those, more than I enjoyed most exp parties back in the day. I never enjoy being powerlevelled or other burn party types. But I also like to play a more active role in the book burns (being a puller, or a healer, not just sitting around).

There are several reasons book burns appeal to me.

1.) Invites are usually quick.
2.) A person leaving the group does not mean massive downtime or the group immediately falling apart.
3.) More people to talk to, and a more casual environment to talk in.
4.) You aren't expected to have very expensive gear that you will only be keeping for low level content.
5.) You will get invited to a party even if you're not playing a Job that is considered "must-have" (no more lolDRG or lolPUP).
6.) Progress is tangible and, more importantly, guaranteed. (No more strong chance of losing exp because of one or two bad players.)
7.) Leveling is no longer a massively daunting task that comprises the majority of your gameplay time, which leads to real content being more achievable for new players and for more veteran players to try Jobs they may have never previously considered without investing a gargantuan amount of time into the tedium of killing the same crawlers for hours upon hours.
8.) Gives solid incentive to stay with a group (retaining a high page exp chain), while not forcing you to stay if something comes up.
9.) If you have to / want to leave suddenly, you aren't costing the group a lot of downtime or forcing them to stop playing.
10.) Softens the level ranges you can enter a new area.

Overall, it makes the leveling process less stressful, less rigid, and more freeform, while speeding up the blandest part of the game (leveling). The majority of an MMO should not be built around trying to qualify for interesting content.

[Texx-sylph]

returning back to play after 4 years. my original pg was deleted (hacked + banned ;_;)
now i restart from level one with no subjob, no rank, no anything.
new possibility to levelup faster grants me the opportunity to recover fast what i've lost.
i cannot play so mutch time and i leveled only one job in the first 5 years of play (pld75).
many times, after changes, fixings and so on, my pally become useful, mandatory, garbage... means situational.
if i would like to have a better role in game i had to level ninja. but i cannot for time.
so now the possibility to have a new life, exping the jobs better, should be a great opportunity.
i agree that this fast exp grants also to ppl don't know his job to have high lev/gears.
but i think that people thyat willing to play in a proper way his job, are still here. so maybe the problem is when you are playing with shouts and not with linksheel mates. in that case of course the level or the equip is not saying "i'm god on my job!"... but having a small gourp of ppl, that knows how to play... grants you the possibility to have so many choiches that in the past are not allowed (in my case, i cannot imagine in the prevoius way, to have 2 or 3 jobs capped... now as a galka i would like to take the "risk" to level all mages jobs).

just my 2 cents

[Camiie]

When I did bird parties in Aht Urghan there was no time for fun. It was GO GO GO! No time to type silly comments or there goes the chain. In low level parties you often had that chance because it was just such slow going. Waiting for pull, waiting for a rep, waiting for weakness, waiting for the damned crab to just die already....

To me, the new way of grouping actually lends itself MORE to being social. You have larger groups fighting relatively weaker mobs without either too much pressure or too much downtime. Dare I say it is balanced? I don't feel as though I'm going to ruin the party if I start cracking jokes or discussing the local sports team or some TV show. I also don't feel as though I'm being lulled to sleep by the glacial pace of an old school dunes/mid-level party.

Honestly, I have way more fun and am a lot more social in an Abyssea group, so I really don't see how old parties were better in that regard.

[Concerned4FFxi]

Maybe instead of nerfing book xp bonus from completing a page, an xp bonus could be given to people in a six person or less pt. I see what the op means, some of the best and worst times I've had were in the old camps. Avoiding goblins in the dunes, the undead at night in qufim, the goblin in yhoater when pulling mandies near the book camp, etc. However, many other valid points have been made in this thread, also. The way xp is now is most reasonable and totally more enjoyable in a time vs. reward fashion. Like I said though, there needs to be some bonus offered to parties that in a non-alliance outside abyssea fashion. I occasionally do low level content for the fun and to take a break at times but except for book burning its very hard to find an old school pt. There's a better chance of finding a duo/trio than old school parties.

Also, all the old content that dropped rare logs/ores/etc are outdated with abyysea chests. So it's really a shame they did it that way. I see their logic, they made things more accessiable and cheaper, but totally destroyed a majority of the game they had in the process.

[Saefinn]

I found the old parties to be more interesting, just because they were harder, required fewer people and gave you room to get a feel for the job you're playing. Book burns, it is pretty much boring, there's no challenge and it's just a lot of enemies dropping to the floor and starting up with the next pretty quickly. However, the exp is fantastic. Admittedly, with Book Burns I actually feel more inclined to key whore and I have. I can either be bored and getting lots of exp or I can be bored and gets lots more exp. In an ideal world, I'd be having fun and getting lots of exp, I get that the big grinds did get boring after a while and yes, I got pretty sick of Valkurm Dunes and Qufim Island as they were the easiest areas to find parties.

It was doing the old exp parties where I found my love for SCH and COR, for SCH it was in Western Altepa Desert on the beetles, realising that I was pretty good at curing and DDing at the same time - managing between 2 schools of magic and adapted to the pace of the fights rather than being set into one frame of mind. At that point I ditched my DRK and took my SCH to level 70 and took out Schultz then took it to 90. I also discovered my play style.

On the side of being social, I never struggled, even when as a healer - I just timed my responses, even in WG. In fact, I got quite social with some very awesome people I STILL talk to and team up with in game. Also, if you had a decent puller, you didn't wait for a pull. :P Sadly, I wasn't THAT brilliant of a puller myself, so I managed to avoid it, except when on COR .

3k/hour was average for a bad party. With the right set up you avoided that. I remember one guy and his PL on our server being a master of Dunes parties, he'd managed to sustain an average of 16-18k/hr from level 10-20. It was insane and it wasn't even boring, it was actually quite fun, because you'd still have to play your jobs well and you didn't spend time on just one camp, we went around 4 or 5 different ones to keep the exp high. Also, if you had a BRD, a COR and PL, exp was also pretty damn epic too. When I was levelling COR we literally sped through Qufim Island through to Yhoator Jungle. BRD did ACC & ATT buffs, I did ATT & EXP buffs and DD'd.

In my opinion, the solution would have been to increase the exp even further. I think we'd still be finding classic exp parties, but without them droning on a bit too far. I see little point if you're doing something in game that's boring, it just becomes a means to an end rather than playing a game.

[Vivik]

Wow, nice necro bump. Here I had almost forgot about Rosina. She was special...

[CrAZYVIC]

FFXI never had and never will have a good balanced level system.

A mmrpg without good designed lving system is losing 1 of parts more important in a "Rol playing game"

FFXI always had a horrible party system.
Abbysea was good but let the players in at lv 30 was the biggest mistake the devs did. That finished of fuck the lv system in the game.

I liked fields of valor, that had nice exp rate depending of your lv. If 8 years ago Fields of valor without the 1 hour cold down was implement the exp parties could reach 20 - 30k per hour and solo/duo 12 - 15k, fixing the level system in the game.

Square enix is in crysis, not only in FFXI.

In my opinion Square enix is in decadence they are making products for the big masses of people and they are forgeting the qualify in their products.

Examples

FF13 have the qualify Skyrim? FF13 is junk compared with Skyrim
FF11 have very short devs team. Square Enix wish leech our money without enough work.
FF14 was a terrible fail, they now want a second oportunity with FF14 2.0 Lets see if they can save that game.

In conclusion when this company start make products with qualify again, we will see results.

[Zarchery]

It's so that people can rush through the game as fast as possible, then complain that there's no content.