Quality of life suggestion^^ Experience toggle!

[Bluestar2kx]

Honestly, these exp campaigns, it just kind of wrecks low level leveling. It's great for 80+ or merit farming to cap stats, but for anything below 60 it kind of stinks.

I know a lot of people just want to hit 99 as fast as possible, but haven't most people already done that? This isn't like job point or merit farming.

It takes longer to get your skills up or gimps you when fighting the higher mobs as you watch a slideshow of "level up" displays, or you have to use sparks and spam a book for 20 minutes and consume what could be spent on extra pages or other items, which is completely inefficient.

I'm sure someone will say it's a stupid idea, but honestly, to some of us old time veteran (perhaps even new players, since it doesn't give you time to learn anything about your job really), it's a lot nicer then hearing the level jingle every other kill yet your skills are still lv 30 out of 50, 53, 56, 59, 62 etc.. every jingle.

Can we please get some sort of toggle / command to disable all experience bonuses from campaigns and rings? Or better yet, disable experience gain all together (I think Everquest 2 allows that), settable in the field like the merit toggle.

I honestly try to avoid any real leveling jobs below 70 when these campaigns are on. It's just.... waaaaaay too much.

[bungiefanNA]

But they have boosted skillup gain by a comparable amount with Rhapsodies items and the skillup armor. With Trusts you don't need your skills to be very high anyway, and skilling up at 99 is bosted by skill levels added from equipment, skill gain boost attributes from Rhapsodies and armor, and the matter that when you are far from cap, you get a lot of .5s instead of .1s.

Those skillup items are also more effective when you are far from cap then close to it, as they get the same frequency of boost as normal skillup procs.

Have you tried using Call For Help to turn off EXP?

[Bluestar2kx]

The skillup rates don't scale with the experience gains though.
You can EASILY outpace your skill levels with these campaigns up. And my whole point is being able to play without dinging every other mob, and having to go back and do all that skilling up by sitting in town burning sparks, and definitely long before you hit 99. Why would you want to hit 99 so fast that you're still using hotshot on rumble crawlers? (and missing).

The point is to be able to control your experience gains at your rate not going 0-60 in an hour. Least for those who don't want to.
And get your skills up with your leveling, without burning books nilly willy.

I want to enjoy my leveling, not act like i'm some human version of a ferrari.

[Mithlas]

Why not continue killing the same level mobs until the skill is capped for that range? That is what I had done on a job or two - I would cap for that level then move onto a new level range.

[Urthdigger]

Why not continue killing the same level mobs until the skill is capped for that range? That is what I had done on a job or two - I would cap for that level then move onto a new level range.

This. I've stuck around camps for quite some time after the xp became abysmal just because I was working on skilling up.

[Bluestar2kx]

Why not continue killing the same level mobs until the skill is capped for that range? That is what I had done on a job or two - I would cap for that level then move onto a new level range.

I've done that often before just in general, I often do the leeches camp in korroloka tunnel up to 40 for little reason other then the page build up. But with this kind of experience buff up, your still going to rapidly outpace the leveling grounds, by like, a lot. Plus you have to remember, the stronger you get over the target, the faster it dies, giving less skill ups vs the exp gained.

The point isn't to keep finding ways around, there's tons of ways around, the point is to make a way through to the goal, not take a ton of forks to reach the same objective. I've already said some of the alternatives like books and doing it at 99, but... I guess the point I'm trying to make is....

Well, instead of saying this can be done instead, is there a real argument against an experience toggle command? (either for the double/triple campaign, or all experience gains.)
All the other ways aside, is there a real argument to be made against this?

[Pups323]

While i am not against them adding the option for people who want it....but you dont have to get RoV key items if you dont want to. Also why do you need a toggle to disable the bonus from exp rings...just dont use them!

Even before the exp campaigns, you would out level skills, stuff like enhancing took days to cap at 75 cap when you first hit it. Then came abyssea where it was even more pronounced and people lost their minds. Honestly once you hit 99, it takes an hour to skill up most skills now a days. Go do a lair/colonization reive and bam capped combat skills thanks to 0 evasion level 99 mobs.


300% inc skill gain rate via RoV (only 180% inc exp) so yes they did increase the skill gain rate proportionally to exp rate.
The temachtiani set
Skill up rings/earings from gov
SKill up bonus from GoV
Food from the curio moogle
RoE skill up pages (by the time you hit 99 the first time you should have had enough to keep all skills close to max while leveling)
You dont have to do limit breaks, you can sit at 50 till skills are capped if you want, same for 55/60/etc

Again though i wouldnt be adding it as an option if people wanted it.

[Alhanelem]

I think this is unnecessary. Any new or new-to-current-meta player isn't going to have the KIs yet and will get more normal experience. Almost anyone that's already spent countless hours leveling in the earlier years of the game though, probably doesn't want to deliberately level up slow. Skill ups aren't much of a reason for this because the rate of those was increased as well.

The way the EXP is right now feels like leveling up in a single player RPG, which is kind of appropriate since it's exceedingly difficult to form a party with so many people having everything they want leveled already (this was the case even before RoV and much of SoA)

[Bluestar2kx]

While i am not against them adding the option for people who want it....but you dont have to get RoV key items if you dont want to. Also why do you need a toggle to disable the bonus from exp rings...just dont use them!

Even before the exp campaigns, you would out level skills, stuff like enhancing took days to cap at 75 cap when you first hit it. Then came abyssea where it was even more pronounced and people lost their minds. Honestly once you hit 99, it takes an hour to skill up most skills now a days. Go do a lair/colonization reive and bam capped combat skills thanks to 0 evasion level 99 mobs.


300% inc skill gain rate via RoV (only 180% inc exp) so yes they did increase the skill gain rate proportionally to exp rate.
The temachtiani set
Skill up rings/earings from gov
SKill up bonus from GoV
Food from the curio moogle
RoE skill up pages (by the time you hit 99 the first time you should have had enough to keep all skills close to max while leveling)
You dont have to do limit breaks, you can sit at 50 till skills are capped if you want, same for 55/60/etc

Again though i wouldnt be adding it as an option if people wanted it.


I hadn't considered RoV's exp boosts... ... And after writing all of this, i forgotten about RoE experience gains too. ><
But I've only done the first chapter so far, my partner and I are still working on the mission lines for chapter 2. We just finished ToAu, Wings is next. So we haven't even gotten far enough to deal with how crazy RoV KI's get :/ As for experience rings, I know, I don't^^ Well, definitely not in this kind campaign anyway, I use emporer otherwise (generally not until 30+), and Trizek for 80+ if I get annoyed by the speed vs. kill rate, esp as pld, not known for super DPS heh.

Oh yes, I remember the old days.
Summoning magic for example was utterly evil before they added skill gains by bloodpact, I don't think any summoner had capped magic skills at 75 for a long time until that point, tho I don't remember how the skill affected avatars at that time. Magic skills were always evil in general, tho I think summoning was the worst, some rdms might argue enhancing was tho hehe^^

I know it doesn't take long generally to skill up, esp with all of that, tho i've no idea what the temachtiani set is, could check that on wikia, and some of that won't work at low lvl, except destrier beret. But again, I know there's tons of ways, I could even just not experience at all and just shoot/kill too weak mobs until I cap on them and move up, but I want to enjoy myself as I go, esp since i often level with my partner on low level jobs, rather then hit level cap and have to go back and do it all again anyway to cap skills.

I'm not saying there isn't ways, and obviously some I didn't know of, or consider in my original post, though that sitting at limit breaks only works if you're a brand new character, which won't have the benefit of 80% of that anyway, but of adding a way to not have to do all that if you didn't want to.

I also know a lot of veterans wish we could have old time like experience parties or that experience gains could be controlled somehow, which can't really be done except by an option like this. Which gives it a second benefit even over what I'm seeking. (A few brought it up last night hehe^^)

But in my opinion. The problem isn't the options available to get around it, it's that you can "technically" out level a camp before you even finish the daily RoE's during these campaigns. Not exactly a great way to play imo. 2 mobs is all it takes at lv 20. I killed 2 mobs last night, and hit 21, thats not even with an exp ring or chain up.

Let's say you started at lv 1 today, you would be lv 10 in 3 minutes, and would still have a skill level of 2. You'd be to lv 20 in about 7 minutes, and maybe hit skill lv 5. This is a bit absurd. Tho if you wanted to not get an exp chain you'd have to wait 3-4 minutes every kill.

Thats why I want to be able to toggle experience campaigns and boosters to off, except the base line experience calculations.
Though turning off experience altogether would be a second best option.

[bungiefanNA]

Temachtani set is armor from RoE vendors that is level 115, and has a skillup boost to magic or combat skills on each piece.

The argument against the feature is that development time and staff are very limited, and a feature like this goes against the point of them removing leveling as a grind in the first place by making so many EXP boosts. Most of the player base is at level 99, so group contant occurs at level 99, and taking so long to reach that level while playing solo is undesirable. Such a feature would also only affect you for a short time, and only a few players would even want it. The budget is better spent working on features that a lot of the player base wants. It's like a state government budget, except time is the more limiting factor.

You forget that as you outlevel your skill levels, the rate at which you skillup increases, as you proc more skillup events and they are higher increments when you are far from your current cap. If you are level 20 with a combat skill at level 2, you will get a ton of .3, .4, and .5 events until you are within a couple of skill levels of cap. This makes it very easy to catch up.

You level so fast now because of bonus EXP from RoE and such. You can opt out of most of the gains. Without any boosts, you get 200 EXP per even match mob (less if in a party with real people), and 400 during a double EXP campaign. Rhapsodies KIs will nearly triple that if you have them all, and nearly double it if at the completion you stated. 200-400 EXP per enemy is pretty slow, and do it with fewer Trusts and you have long battles to skillup. Yes, you can break 2k EXP per mob if you use all the boosts, plus bonus EXP every few mobs from RoE, but those are optional.

Outleveling things is the norm nowadays for doing old content. That's what they intended with the adjustments the past 2 years. Leveling hasn't been intended to be tedious since Abyssea released.

The old EXP party culture still exists, it's just for farming Capacity Points. There are plenty of camps for which to do that now as well.

[Malatyr]

One fairly simple, if not perfect solution is:

-ding 75
-switch to limit points mode until skills are capped
-switch back to EXP mode, ding 76
-rinse & repeat

Keeps your skills capped after 75 +earns you some merits. Personally, I never thought it was too difficult to cap skills once I hit 99 (what with trusts, sparks +skill gain armor, Sakura, GoV skill boost, RoV skill gain) but if it's super important to you might want to give it a try.

[Bluestar2kx]

These are all good ideas, don't get me wrong, but it's still skirting around the issue I'm bringing up. I'm not trying to find ways you can do it instead, I'm trying to suggest to dev's a way to please a fair sum of people. Those like me, who don't want to go from 1 to 99 in 2hrs, those people who wish to have a some what old school leveling party, those who want the old 75 cap days back, and maybe a few others I'm missing. These people are not just a few, there's actually a lot of them, and some of this is why some of them don't play anymore.

I realize the time and budget is limited, but at the same time, the system i'm asking for is already there in a form, Malatyr mentioned it.

The merit system stops all experience and converts it to limit points, so why not duplicate that system, and write it to work for lv 10+ like sync does (make it compatible with sync of course), but instead of converting exp to limit points, it's just lost without being connected to merits, an extra layer I guess.

Would cut development time in half, and just add an option in the status page to switch experience on and off, or a / command.


I also realize that the further you are from cap the more likely to get +.4 and 5, but if the mob doesn't live a sufficient amount of time it reduces the rate at which you gain skill before you kill it, and you'll still be damaged by it draining trust NPC magic. Tho i guess another way around is to take a lv 1 weapon (if applicable) and skillup with that using only trusts that won't attack. But to me, it's still just finding ways around what should just be an upfront thing: switch off exp, it's really simple.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

These are all good ideas, don't get me wrong, but it's still skirting around the issue I'm bringing up. I'm not trying to find ways you can do it instead, I'm trying to suggest to dev's a way to please a fair sum of people. Those like me, who don't want to go from 1 to 99 in 2hrs, those people who wish to have a some what old school leveling party, those who want the old 75 cap days back, and maybe a few others I'm missing. These people are not just a few, there's actually a lot of them, and some of this is why some of them don't play anymore.

I realize the time and budget is limited, but at the same time, the system i'm asking for is already there in a form, Malatyr mentioned it.

The merit system stops all experience and converts it to limit points, so why not duplicate that system, and write it to work for lv 10+ like sync does (make it compatible with sync of course), but instead of converting exp to limit points, it's just lost without being connected to merits, an extra layer I guess.

Would cut development time in half, and just add an option in the status page to switch experience on and off, or a / command.


I also realize that the further you are from cap the more likely to get +.4 and 5, but if the mob doesn't live a sufficient amount of time it reduces the rate at which you gain skill before you kill it, and you'll still be damaged by it draining trust NPC magic. Tho i guess another way around is to take a lv 1 weapon (if applicable) and skillup with that using only trusts that won't attack. But to me, it's still just finding ways around what should just be an upfront thing: switch off exp, it's really simple.

#1. So you would rather waste more time in a game leveling a job then doing more stuff in real life? #2. So in your mind can you give us all an exact rough estimate across all servers for large numbers in groups of people who you are thinking really wanting this to change to waste their precious real life hours wasting even more of their real life away grinding for tons upon tons of even more hours leveling of old times? #3. It's as everyone's been saying it's always been the case even in times of old where you would always out parse your skill gain rates compared to your job level's even in the times of old day's exp parties which was why once upon time there were even skill up parties created back then to catch those skills up to be capped again. These are also very validated points but you remember times change where you keep pressing forward and eventually everything is going to have past nostalgia memory to it even in real life where you can't just go back to the way things once were so you have to keep reminding oneself to keep-on moving into pressing yourself forward instead of backwards again to bring back those lost years that are never going to exist again. Once again these are all just very true valid points to realize but all great to be up for a great discussion topic in chat's when your not having anything else to chat about coming to mind as for myself I even lost the train of thought of where I was going with this since from the very beginning of writing this thus ending it here for now. ;-)

[Moppet]

You know, it's not required to nay-say every suggestion made on these forums into the ground.

It depends on the structure of the code whether or not this would take very little or a moderate amount of development time, something we have no idea about.

[Bluestar2kx]

#1. So you would rather waste more time in a game leveling a job then doing more stuff in real life?

Yes. I play to have fun, but if I'm already done in a few hours, what fun did i have?
Leveling for me is part of the fun, I'm not a huge endgame person, nor is getting every job to cap my goal like it maybe for others.
For me, what i do on the path between 1 and 99 is just as important as what i do with myself at 99^^

Real life does get in the way quite often as I'm a SAHM. But the time i get to play, I want to enjoy myself, it doesn't matter if I get it done, it matters if I had fun doing it.

But keep in mind, this option does not impact anyone who doesn't wish to use it, as the effects are only for the person turning it on, not for anyone else.


#2. So in your mind can you give us all an exact rough estimate across all servers for large numbers in groups of people who you are thinking really wanting this to change to waste their precious real life hours wasting even more of their real life away grinding for tons upon tons of even more hours leveling of old times?

You know that's impossible, that kind of question is used to automatically dismiss arguments in favor of something, because the answer can not be obtained.
However, I can speculate. A lot of people want the old days back, others want old experience parties back, a lot of people left because those died. It's logical to assume a rough 20-30% of the past and current base combined, would be receptive to such an option. It's been mentioned here and on other forums about people wanting 75 cap servers. It's not just a few people who seek that.

I don't want the old days back as they were, I want options for today that may let me mimic those times in a way I can control for my time available, enjoyment, or just that specific job.



#3. It's as everyone's been saying it's always been the case even in times of old where you would always out parse your skill gain rates compared to your job level's even in the times of old day's exp parties which was why once upon time there were even skill up parties created back then to catch those skills up to be capped again.

Thats not entirely true though.
Back in the old days, experience gains per kill were very low, I think they soft capped at 200 per IT+ kill, only chains and rings let you go higher for a short time, and experience required per level was also higher back in the day until it was changed, I think in 2005? or 06? Something like that.

Skills were harder to cap yes, but parties also took much longer, and players were comparatively much weaker then an equivalent today. The average PUG lasted about 2-3 hours, in which you might have gained 2 levels, fighting IT mobs. In general almost all your combat skills and half your magic could stay capped fairly easily. With exceptions to Guard, parry, enhancing, summoning, and throwing, tho the later 2 because they weren't used the same way they were later patched to, throwing esp until Daken. Tho as an extra note, healing could be a pita, but enfeebling, elemental, dark and divine weren't too bad, esp if you had a good ninja tank and could flash when shadows couldn't be gotten back up.

But overall, keeping your skills up wasn't too bad back then because you generally fought hard monsters for extended periods. A single fight could last over a minute, instead of 30s, depending on party makeup and mob type/level.

Skillup parties we're mostly for those waay behind for some reason, like those power leveled, or for those leveling an entirely new weapon, like sam using polearm, or rangers trying to keep marksmanship up with archery, or a monk or ninja working on guard/parry.



These are also very validated points but you remember times change where you keep pressing forward and eventually everything is going to have past nostalgia memory to it even in real life where you can't just go back to the way things once were so you have to keep reminding oneself to keep-on moving into pressing yourself forward instead of backwards again to bring back those lost years that are never going to exist again. Once again these are all just very true valid points to realize but all great to be up for a great discussion topic in chat's when your not having anything else to chat about coming to mind as for myself I even lost the train of thought of where I was going with this since from the very beginning of writing this thus ending it here for now. ;-)

I'm not afraid to move forward despite that change is nervousness, but I think that goes for most humans, tho some react more... less then civil ways then most people.

I like the changes FFXI has (minus the massive uncontrollable exp gains), unlike many who left over aby, adoulin and ilevel gear (tho i was on break for personal and financial reasons between 2010 and 12, but I've not turned away from them just because they were there. Though i admit, I'm the kind of women who spends more of her time in Zilart/vanilla zones then i do in Escha, and Adoulin, but I do go there for different purposes. I also only have 6 lv 99 jobs between 3 characters, and i retired one character for Cymopoleia. So i'm not exactly a faster or wide leveler.

But that doesn't mean we can't mimic the old days in reasonable ways for those who want them, it's little inconvenience for others who don't.

[bungiefanNA]

There aren't massive uncontrollable EXP gains. You can choose not to have most of them except the global doubling of mobs (so Even Match gives 200 EXP) and the double EXP campaign, which makes them give 400 EXP. If you avoid using RoE, EXP Trusts, Rings, and doing Rhapsodies, then you stay at that low EXP gain. If you don't upgrade your equipment, then monsters can live long enough for battles to give skillup events.

Also, if you really don't want EXP, then Call For Help on the monster to make it not give EXP. That nullifies it for everything. There's your global "disable EXP" button. That's how people dealt with it in Abyssea to make sure they didn't break the EXP chain when an NM popped or roamed into the camp, or someone accidentally got aggro.

As for changing it for the people that have left the game, SE isn't trying to get new players anymore, or get a massive amount of people to return. That's why they stopped major patches. If all the QoL changes and the notifications that FFXI was getting its final storyline didn't already bring them back, they're probably not ever coming back. With how many MMOs are on the market now, it is hard to try to reclaim someone that has moved on to a newer one. It makes you sound like the clingy ex-girlfriend that just won't let you be.

The current leveling rate in FFXI is similar to that of offline FF games. You shouldn't need months to level a single job, which is why they made the changes. A long grind to actually be able to reach events with other people is not what people are looking for in an MMORPG nowadays. Now you grind for equipment doing whatever endgame is current. Reintroducing the slow level grind wouldn't bring people back, as many people that left when they raised the level cap with Abyssea didn't leave because leveling became faster, but because after 6.5 years of level 75 cap and a ton of horizontal equipment progression, that 6.5 years of endgame rewards were obsoleted, by equipment that was nearly free (the cruor equipment). We've now been at 99 about 4.5 years, and 119 for about 2.5. When Adoulin released iLevel equipment, it obsoleted all the Voidwatch equipment people had farmed during Abyssea. SE went for vertical gear progression, with new content obsoleting old content rewards, for a while when Abyssea came out, and they've only recently gone back to horizontal progression. FFXIV is almost entirely vertical progression, since you can't do horizontal well without allowing gear swapping. SE changing their mind after staying on that for so long is what drove people away.

[Stuzey]

It's funny, one thing I've noticed from playing XI, is everyone has different views on what makes the game fun. We had a guy in an old linkshell who loved to fish, he was a friendly chap, didn't do a lot of events, was never bothered about gear, but had a passion for fishing, morning, day or night.

Some people just love to exp, it's fair enough, how they spend their time is up to them, you've offered some advice on how to reduce exp gain, which is good.

I had an idea, which should be easy to implement, maybe a food, which decreases exp gain (halves it, maybe more?) and increases skill ups

It's just an idea, if it increases the enjoyment of the game for some and isn't a drain on the developers, why not.

[Pups323]

To test the relevance of this (more like a weekend observation):
I was leveling my geom from 1 to 99:
1-50 i rarely if ever capped elemental magic.
50-99 i capped ele magic at every level, and had enough extra mobs to start working on geo/handbell

By 99 i was capped ele, and ~350/377 for geo and handbell. Granted its not 'all' of my magic capped (still need enfeeble and dark), but it just proves a point, this is only my second level 99 character, and i have all 9 RoE key items, so while 1-50 you might level faster than you skill up, from 50-99 there is so much extra time to cap there would be no need to turn exp off at each level to cap skills. If i wanted slower kills i could go from 5 trusts to 3 or 2, and then i would have for sure capped every skill.

The issue is that at low levels you get 2-5k a kill, which means its 1-2 kills per level, but 50+ your getting 2-5k a kill still...but now you need 7-10 kills per level. With all of the skill up items/food/key items, 7-10 mobs is more than enough for pretty much everything. The only skills that will be an issue are enhancing, and maybe divine since there are so few spells to use.