Ludicrous game mechanics are ludicrous

[Kraggy]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.

[Demon6324236]

Honestly, at this point the skill up system should be basically removed, there is little point to it anymore. Magics can be leveled by spamming the same thing over again, the melee ones can be leveled just by fighting normally, its really a fairly pointless system which does nothing for the game except adding, or rather maintaining a time sink for any new job you level with a different set of meaningful skills.

[Teraniku]

Honestly, at this point the skill up system should be basically removed, there is little point to it anymore. Magics can be leveled by spamming the same thing over again, the melee ones can be leveled just by fighting normally, its really a fairly pointless system which does nothing for the game except adding, or rather maintaining a time sync for any new job you level with a different set of meaningful skills.

Actually, I'm sure I'm one of the few people who like the skill system. Yes it's a time sync. It's a pain in the butt cheeks to level, but it's a good gauge of which jobs you like to play, or have played. Granted I wouldn't expect anyone to have everything capped, but if you play a job frequently it'll show in your skill levels.

[Toadie-Odie]

Actually, I'm sure I'm one of the few people who like the skill system. Yes it's a time sync. It's a pain in the butt cheeks to level, but it's a good gauge of which jobs you like to play, or have played. Granted I wouldn't expect anyone to have everything capped, but if you play a job frequently it'll show in your skill levels.

You aren't the only player that feels this way. Since the beginning of the game I've always made a point to skill up as I go, even if it meant playing solo in a game that at the time was not solo friendly. Yes, I died alot and deleveled alot but saw that you NEVER lose those skill points. I decided that the skill points meant more to me than the levels of the job.

I am happy to see that SE added food that boosts the rate of skill ups for magic and combat.

This MMO was designed to be very much like a traditional RPG which, by definition, centers around grinding, leveling, skilling, etc. It's true most other MMOs don't focus on this as much as FFXI, but if I wasn't one to like such a process I would be playing another game.

[Toadie-Odie]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.

Just because someone is willing to pay for a game and then use a program to play some aspect of the game for them doesn't mean the game isn't skillfull.

The question in using such a program I have is do the people that use such programs really understand the game? The real skill in the game isn't in the numbers of some skill, but in the way you operate within your team and how you play. Yes, having capped Healing Magic certainly helps but if you don't understand the nuances that come with being a dedicated healer then it will show even if your skill is capped.

[Mayoyama]

Just because someone is willing to pay for a game and then use a program to play some aspect of the game for them doesn't mean the game isn't skillfull.

The question in using such a program I have is do the people that use such programs really understand the game? The real skill in the game isn't in the numbers of some skill, but in the way you operate within your team and how you play. Yes, having capped Healing Magic certainly helps but if you don't understand the nuances that come with being a dedicated healer then it will show even if your skill is capped.

Spoken like a true skillmaster!

[Zagen]

The question in using such a program I have is do the people that use such programs really understand the game? The real skill in the game isn't in the numbers of some skill, but in the way you operate within your team and how you play. Yes, having capped Healing Magic certainly helps but if you don't understand the nuances that come with being a dedicated healer then it will show even if your skill is capped.

It takes very little human skill to learn how to play any job in this game. However not having game skills leveled can in many cases prevent you from being able to use the knowledge you have of the job. In an era where leveling up takes a week skilling up has no purpose other than being a weak time sink. Before Abyssea and the various EXP changes the skill time sink wasn't annoying because leveling up was slow enough to keep up with skill gain rate in most cases.

In this day and age you have to intentionally handicap your EXP gain rate in order to keep it on par with your skill up rate even with using food. This also assumes you can even find people to share your venture into keeping skills near capped as you level.

Capped Skills don't make a crappy player good all of a sudden anymore than being level 99 instead of level 1.

The real question is or should be: Why do players feel these programs have to be used even after the improved skill gain rate and food options?

[Alhanelem]

You couldn't just add this to the previous thread because why?

[Zagen]

You couldn't just add this to the previous thread because why?
Because the OP wanted to start their own thread. What does it matter?

Why can't you leave your snide moderating comments to forums where that's actually your role?

[Rustic]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.

I look at it as a wonderful way to banstick botters, honestly.

Although seriously, it'd be nice to simply increase the rate/amount magic/summoning skills up at. Seeing as they rely on finite resources vs. hammering all day on a monster, there's no reason not to. Summoners are the big one of note here. If skillups happened at .3-.6 vs. .1 to .3, that'd save a lot of pain right there.

I never had a problem skilling up caster jobs for most stuff, though. Besieged FTW.

[Toadie-Odie]

Because the OP wanted to start their own thread. What does it matter?

Why can't you leave your snide moderating comments to forums where that's actually your role?

Actually the OP was the one that started both threads of the same name...

[Elphy]

The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism.


Actually I have skilled up manually by simply opening up my spell list and going down it, select spell > enter > enter > down button > enter > enter > repeat

No bot needed, and I can catch up on my dvr, so not everyone doing this is botting

Its not skillful play but when it comes to enhancing magic its about all you can do really if you wanna cap it. Sure you can do it in battle but the spells last for so long and skill ups are so slow coming its nearly impossible to do just by pt. The ppl who do it to skill blu or smn magic are just foolishly lazy, since they both can be easily done (and usually faster) without a bot or repeated summoning and pollens. Blu esp since u can easily skill up while hunting spells

But some things like enhancing magic leaves little other choice.

And when it comes to "skillful play", skill bots and other ways you obtain skill ups are the least of our worries.

[Toadie-Odie]

Capped Skills don't make a crappy player good all of a sudden anymore than being level 99 instead of level 1.

I believe that is what I was saying in my post.


The real question is or should be: Why do players feel these programs have to be used even after the improved skill gain rate and food options?

Well, the answer is a couple of things. It could be:

A. They are lazy
B. Enhancing Magic, Summoning Magic, and Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell
C. They are new enough to the game they do not how to skill up effectively or efficiently without using a bot

I think Rustic's suggestion to change the rate of skill ups is viable. They did this already with Parry, Shield, and Guard.

My team mate, Lupa, was able to cap her parry on DNC without the use of food just being our tank while we goofed around farming.

I don't think the skill up system needs to be abolished. However, it does need some fine tuning to fit with the FFXI we have today.

Edit: Forgot to include Enhancing Magic

[Elphy]

Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell.

Bard song skill ups are some of the fastest/easiest magic skills to get. I posted this before but anyone missed it...

Find a mob the right lvl for your skill > Lullabye > threnody > threnody > threnody > threnody > ok ok you get the point > mob wakes up > Lullabye > repeat

I did this on my original char and the skill ups flew up at an amazing pace. And once you get high enough (150+) you can sleep the marids in aby - ule and use this tactic with little threat since they move at such a slow pace so even if they dont sleep with the first song you can easily stay far enough ahead of them to recast.

Maybe we should start a thread about skilling tips sans bot...hmmm I will get on that.

[Toadie-Odie]

Bard song skill ups are some of the fastest/easiest magic skills to get. I posted this before but anyone missed it...

Find a mob the right lvl for your skill > Lullabye > threnody > threnody > threnody > threnody > ok ok you get the point > mob wakes up > Lullabye > repeat

I did this on my original char and the skill ups flew up at an amazing pace. And once you get high enough (150+) you can sleep the marids in aby - ule and use this tactic with little threat since they move at such a slow pace so even if they dont sleep with the first song you can easily stay far enough ahead of them to recast.

Maybe we should start a thread about skilling tips sans bot...hmmm I will get on that.

Thank you! I've had so much trouble with that. I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing that either. I capped my Healling Skill on WHM spamming cure on undead.

And I think a skill up tips thread would be useful for a lot of people.

[Elphy]

I created a skill up tips thread.

Hope it helps!

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.Skilling up/having job skills, is not the same as skillfull play.

[Zagen]

Actually the OP was the one that started both threads of the same name...
Same title different topic... I learned that just by looking at her other post. The OP is unoriginal with titles that's all, granted the title applies to both issues due to being vague.


Well, the answer is a couple of things. It could be:

A. They are lazy
B. Enhancing Magic, Summoning Magic, and Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell
C. They are new enough to the game they do not how to skill up effectively or efficiently without using a bot
A. Laziness doesn't address skill ups don't define the skill of a player beyond they spent time skilling up.

B. Summoning isn't as bad as Enhancing if you actually use blood pacts while leveling up.
Bard is easy as Elphy's tactic works well. If you have sea access then it's even easier, use the same tactic on Hpemde and you can go from 0 skill to 280 maybe a bit further because of the skill ups on DC mobs.
Blue Magic Skill imo is up there with Enhancing if you never played it before as you need it to learn spells.
Enhancing can be exploited by spamming protect on NPCs in Besieged or your Fellow NPC if it's leveled.

C. Assuming a new player that cares about being good at the game they would have done research. Enough to know how to be skilled at playing the job. This still doesn't address the reality that skills in X magic/weapon/defensive skill doesn't actually define skill of play the job.

None of this defines a player's skill at playing a job the only one that's remotely close is BLU because if you didn't skill your magic you won't have the spells to best do your task/role.

[Toadie-Odie]

This still doesn't address the reality that skills in X magic/weapon/defensive skill doesn't actually define skill of play the job.

I believe that's what I've been saying all along. My response was to your question as to why people would use a bot to skill up. And with that said, who truly knows why anyone does anything? I was only pulling out the three most logical reasons in my mind why someone would use a bot to get their skill ups as opposed to doing it themselves directly.

[Zagen]

I believe that's what I've been saying all along. My response was to your question as to why people would use a bot to skill up. And with that said, who truly knows why anyone does anything? I was only pulling out the three most logical reasons in my mind why someone would use a bot to get their skill ups as opposed to doing it themselves directly.

The point of my question:

The real question is or should be: Why do players feel these programs have to be used even after the improved skill gain rate and food options?

Is that in today's FFXI and even the old FFXI skill gain is meaningless when we're talking about player skill which is what actually affects skillful game play.

The question isn't meant to be answered because the answers are illogical or in the OP's words ludicrous. Just in case you're curious the answer are something to the effect of: SE needed another time sink to keep players from getting to enjoy aspects of the game that actually require their skill on a player level.

[Toadie-Odie]

Is that in today's FFXI and even the old FFXI skill gain is meaningless when we're talking about player skill which is what actually affects skillful game play.

The question isn't meant to be answered because the answers are illogical or in the OP's words ludicrous. Just in case you're curious the answer are something to the effect of: SE needed another time sink to keep players from getting to enjoy aspects of the game that actually require their skill on a player level.

I disagree. While the skills of the various combat and magic catagories do not reflect upon player skill, they are a built in enhancement/augment of the character. I don't see it as being any different than a magian trial, because you can be a bad player with an empyrean weapon just as easily as you can be a good player without one. That doesn't make the magian trials a useless stupid system.

Just because the skill up system exists, doesn't mean you have to make use of it. While Lupa made a point to skill up parry, I elected to not bother with it. If I get skill ups for it during my regular game play fine, if not that's okay by me too.

[Zagen]

I disagree. While the skills of the various combat and magic catagories do not reflect upon player skill, they are a built in enhancement/augment of the character. I don't see it as being any different than a magian trial, because you can be a bad player with an empyrean weapon just as easily as you can be a good player without one. That doesn't make the magian trials a useless stupid system.
No it doesn't make them useless when put into context. They are a time sink, they are designed to artificially extend your game play by requiring you to do X condition over and over. Just like drop rates are more time sinks.

You attached a player's skill by questioning a bot user's understanding of the game.

I would wager a person using a bot is probably more skilled when talking about player skill than a player who does it the natural way because they care about being more efficient with their use of time, which usually means they are efficient in other aspects of the game.


Just because the skill up system exists, doesn't mean you have to make use of it. While Lupa made a point to skill up parry, I elected to not bother with it. If I get skill ups for it during my regular game play fine, if not that's okay by me too.
So then do you feel your decision makes you a less skilled player than Lupa?

[Toadie-Odie]

So then do you feel your decision makes you a less skilled player than Lupa?

No, I've been saying all along that the skill number of X isn't a measurement of a player's skill. The example I used above was to demonstrate player preference in the use of and participation in the skill system.

[Alhanelem]

Because the OP wanted to start their own thread. What does it matter?

Why can't you leave your snide moderating comments to forums where that's actually your role?
Because as a forum user it's confusing when someone makes an identically-named topic on the forum and you click on it only to find out it's totally different?

I think any user would be frustrated/annoyed by that. I'm not saying this because I happen to be a moderator at some other forum, and frankly that's none of your business, so if you could kindly leave that out of this, It would be greatly appreciated.

[Zagen]

No, I've been saying all along that the skill number of X isn't a measurement of a player's skill. The example I used above was to demonstrate player preference in the use of and participation in the skill system.
Tangent examples confused your core point, I'm sorry I missed that.


Because as a forum user it's confusing when someone makes an identically-named topic on the forum and you click on it only to find out it's totally different?

I think any user would be frustrated/annoyed by that. I'm not saying this because I happen to be a moderator at some other forum, and frankly that's none of your business, so if you could kindly leave that out of this, It would be greatly appreciated.
Except you make snide moderator comments like that a lot on here. Worst of all, it wasn't even accurate, had you said the title is confusing instead of questioning the OP's decision to make a new thread about a clearly different topic, or to be very specific a sub topic of the vague title.

[Alhanelem]

Tangent examples confused your core point, I'm sorry I missed that.


Except you make snide moderator comments like that a lot on here. Worst of all, it wasn't even accurate, had you said the title is confusing instead of questioning the OP's decision to make a new thread about a clearly different topic, or to be very specific a sub topic of the vague title.
There isn't anything inaccurate about it. The topic of the thread is identical. They are completely different in the sense that one topic is mechanic A is ludicruous, the other topic is mechanic B is ludicrous. It would have been a lot better to just have one thread discussing all ludicrous mechanics rather than multiple threads with the same title talking about different mechanics.

I do not make "snide moderateor comments" often at all. But when something annoys me, I'm going to speak out about it. It has nothing to do with being a moderator on other forums and everything to do with "that shit is annoying yo, stop it."

[Alerith]

I like the skill up system.

I don't claim to be a hardcore player or an elitist, but I like the fact that it separates me from the abyssea-burned fools with no skill in the job.

[Elexia]

Except you make snide moderator comments like that a lot on here.

Except 9/10 the OP makes a topic saying some bullshit then never posts in his topic again. He does that on both FF forums.

[wildsprite]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.

you do know that some of us have macros and use them to skill up right? and some macro users are fairly fast so it looks like a bot, but it isn't, I use macros to skill up summoning magic, healing magic and enhancing magic, when I'm not out partying trying to gain skill by killing stuff in places like Abyssea where I skill a whole lot faster, you make it sound like everyone casting to skill up is using a bot, that simply isn't true, you say impossibly fast well, you can hit a macro very fast just as one ends, as long as your casting timer is up it will repeat just as though it is never ending

[Zhronne]

I like the skill system as well, but I too think that something has to be done about it. Since the levelling speed increased SO MUCH post abyssea, the skill system never managed to reach the new pace. It got tweaked a bit here and there, they added skillup food, but it's not nearly enough.

I like it for it to be skills, I like the fact I need to raise them myself, but it's too slow. Maybe making so skillups are never under 0.5 could be a good simplification of the system.

[Demon6324236]

I honestly don't think thats a good idea, I rather them just raise the rates by about double or maybe triple, then I would be happy with it. I do think for now it seems to slow, but to make it only give .5s seems like it takes something away to me. Perhaps also raise the cap of skills gained, such as instead of it being .1~.5 make it .1~.8 or so. Also some skills such as Summoning Magic should be increased more than triple the rate.

[Trisscar]

Skilling up/having job skills, is not the same as skillfull play.

I agree. Which is why I believe the skill up system should be overhauled.

The way it is now is a joke.

[Elexia]

I agree. Which is why I believe the skill up system should be overhauled.

The way it is now is a joke.

You hit stuff with your weapon..you level your proficiency in it.

You cast your magic, you level your proficiency in it.

You get hit (?) and you evade hits, you level your evasion.

You block with your shield you level your shield proficiency.

You parry or get hit (?) you level parry.

So while I know you're being sarcastic, let's be real, skilling up is perfectly fine and the only people who suffer are those who pay cleavers to level them and enter the fray with skills of a level 2-30 character, if that then complain that skilling up is a pain. How should it be overhauled that doesn't include them automatically handing you skills then?

[Vivik]

I like the skill up system.

I don't claim to be a hardcore player or an elitist, but I like the fact that it separates me from the abyssea-burned fools with no skill in the job.

I know plenty of players on cerb. that leveled all their jobs normally that are still horrible players. I also know quite a few that burned a job or two that are much better than the majority on the server.

It makes me laugh when people equate burned jobs to bad players. I burned all my jobs on my mule and she is much better than average. Plus she is a mithra which automatically makes her better.

[Trisscar]

How should it be overhauled that doesn't include them automatically handing you skills then?

By removing the randomness of skilling stuff by making it where every success gives you experience towards your next skill level and every failure gives you less experience.

This is the norm for every RPG and MMO that has skill levels. The only place where there's any randomness to skill levels is Final Fantasy XI.

I think the only RPG that comes even close in terms of annoyance when it comes to skill levels is probably Final Fantasy II.

[Zagen]

You hit stuff with your weapon..you level your proficiency in it.

You cast your magic, you level your proficiency in it.

You get hit (?) and you evade hits, you level your evasion.

You block with your shield you level your shield proficiency.

You parry or get hit (?) you level parry.

If that's how it actually worked then the system wouldn't be as bad. What you wrote is essentially this:
(relevant success) + (random number for value of skill up) = Skill Up

How it actually works is like this:
(relevant success) + (random number for chance of skill up) + (random number for value of skill up) = Skill Up

That random chance of skill up wasn't too bad back in the old days because it took so long to level up you almost always averaged out a winner. Even if you don't level up in Abyssea from 30-99 you have to intentionally retard your EXP potential in order to average out a winner in the skill up game.

Worst of all this still doesn't actually prove you as a player are capable of "skillful game play".

[Sp1cyryan]

Oh official forums, even when I think I can stop facepalming you convince me otherwis

On a side note, computers are not capable of the concept of "random" and everything is programmed by whatever formula/rate SE decides.

I also like to point out that besides summoning magic there is really no reason to complain about skilling up. Just in case anyone missed that, and also just in case anyone missed the history of this game. Skilling up has gotten much easier than it once was several times over. It is now easy to skill everything up except summoning skill. I don't see what more you people want after SE has to my memory.

-Increased the rate at which skill ups occur on weapons with lower skill (was around ~200 when it slowed at the 75 cap irrc)
- Provided skill up foods, prowess from the book, and items.
- Improved guard and parry to skill up without procing.
- Increase in multi-hit armor/haste pieces (back when having 21% haste was considered being very well geared)
- Did I mention the FOOD and ITEMS?

Just be quiet and go swing your weapon and cast your spells. Some of you people blow my mind. As if the lot of you doesn't know what it was like to skill up at the 75 cap compared to now. It may possibly put your desire for instant gratification into perspective.

TL;DR Typical instant gratification.

[Trisscar]

Typical instant gratification.

Speaking of face palm... That you use this annoying, tired statement signifies that you don't understand and you never will.

But let me make the attempt: It is not about instant-gratification. No one is suggesting that the skill up system be removed all together, or to give instant skill levels every single hit. We are asking that its random nature, and it is random make no mistake, be removed.

[Zagen]

On a side note, computers are not capable of the concept of "random" and everything is programmed by whatever formula/rate SE decides.

You talk about facepalming and then you say something like this.

So technically a function such as rand() isn't a truly random function and it could even be further limited with additional parameters but it's as close as a program gets. Thus it becomes accepted as a random number in the context of programming.

[wildsprite]

Oh official forums, even when I think I can stop facepalming you convince me otherwis

On a side note, computers are not capable of the concept of "random" and everything is programmed by whatever formula/rate SE decides.

I also like to point out that besides summoning magic there is really no reason to complain about skilling up. Just in case anyone missed that, and also just in case anyone missed the history of this game. Skilling up has gotten much easier than it once was several times over. It is now easy to skill everything up except summoning skill. I don't see what more you people want after SE has to my memory.

-Increased the rate at which skill ups occur on weapons with lower skill (was around ~200 when it slowed at the 75 cap irrc)
- Provided skill up foods, prowess from the book, and items.
- Improved guard and parry to skill up without procing.
- Increase in multi-hit armor/haste pieces (back when having 21% haste was considered being very well geared)
- Did I mention the FOOD and ITEMS?

Just be quiet and go swing your weapon and cast your spells. Some of you people blow my mind. As if the lot of you doesn't know what it was like to skill up at the 75 cap compared to now. It may possibly put your desire for instant gratification into perspective.

TL;DR Typical instant gratification.

this is such a load of crap,

try playing WHM in a party where they do not let you cast offensive spells, see how well you skill up with that, how fast your Divine magic lags behind, its not about instant gratification, honestly if they would just give us more efficient ways to skill up we would be happy, the current state of how the skill ups on anything that isn't melee, healing magic, elemental magic or enhancing magic works really stinks

[Chocobits]

Seconding the removal of random chance of skillup. Even if every successful action you make only yielded a 0.1 skillup.. that is still only 10 actions per level of skill... which at higher skill levels beats the unko out of the 55~70 (arbitrary number) of actions you need to perform per level skill.

The less randomized timer in the game, the better. We have plenty and there's room to shear some off.

*edit* I've gone 400 and more swings without gaining a full level of weapon skill. Putting some finite number cap on that would actually make it work.

Anyone else remember leveling WAR in 2005-2006? You literally had to quit using great axe and switch to axe to stay capped while leveling at anything over 2500 xp per hour..

[Zagen]

Anyone else remember leveling WAR in 2005-2006? You literally had to quit using great axe and switch to axe to stay capped while leveling at anything over 2500 xp per hour..
Gah don't remind me! I was praised when I pointed out T-VT changing was better EXP and we pushed 3-3.5k/hr...

[Zhronne]

In my opinion the skillup system worked really fine in the old WoW.
Back there you had a dynamic skillup rate.
When your current skill was much lower than your current cap, skillups were really really fast, 100% proc chance for each action.
As you went up they became slower, and as you approached the final 5-10 levels they became really slow (slower than current FFXI speed, I'd be leaning to say).

Such a system still requires a bit of dedication and love for your job, but it's much less punishing.
Not saying SE should copypaste this, but they should go a bit more in this direction imho.

[Rustic]

By removing the randomness of skilling stuff by making it where every success gives you experience towards your next skill level and every failure gives you less experience.

This is the norm for every RPG and MMO that has skill levels. The only place where there's any randomness to skill levels is Final Fantasy XI.

Incorrect. If you've ever leveled a single crafting skill on WoW, you know this to be untrue. Or Everquest, for that matter- which is FFXI's chronological counterpart in MMO-dom. Darn tootin you had to skill up there as well- only it was slightly broader categories. 1H edged instead of dagger/sword, for example.

Truth is, if you're sitting there doing things the old fashioned way- you don't have low skill levels. Soloing my thief on EP's? Capped weapon skills, evasion/parry a point or so below cap. On -easy prey-, doing nothing faster than GoV pages with mobs that normally generate 150-80 exp.

Low skill levels indicate you decided having job levels was more important than a character than can do the basics. Skill up now or skill up later, you put in the time either way. Yeah, you can have a job leveled to 99, a dozen of them, two dozen. Somewhere in there, you're going to end up putting in the time facing off against opponents or casting that gets you to skill caps.

I -do- think that some skills are under-increased by normal play- summoning magic is at the top of that list. Those are the ones that need to see higher skillup rates put in, but when I can sit there swinging at a high EP monsters solo and watch the 0.1-0.3's rolling in and see a few levels of skill per mob...that's OK by me.

[Zhronne]

It saddens me to see how many people hate the skill system.
On one hand I recognize it's a bit too punishing and something should be done to loose it up a bit (something HAS been done, it's just not enough yet), but on the other hand I really like it.

It saddened me a lot when I noticed they removed it completely from FFXIV, which I was hoping to be FFXI's successor in the world of MMOs.