Trust and exp the system

[Jblauh]

Hello folks. So I just wanted to bring up something I find unusual with the trusts system and that's that they don't cut into your experience gain, but real people do. Now I know for the majority of you who might be reading you probably couldn't careless and hey I'm not going to say you should. However I find the penalty to experience gain per person is just pointless and out of date anymore. I feel it's important in XI to make many friends, team up, and enjoy 1-99 together with someone. Not just endgame alone, but so many times when I'm out in the field working on a new job and see someone else doing the same I'll ask if they'd like to team up and more often then not they'll respond saying "I'd love to, but its just not as efficient" and hey I don't blame them. Shouldn't the goal be to encourage people to team up while using trust and not just using trust alone if they can help it? Heck toss in a experience bonus per person. That'd encourage the idea of joining forces all together and while this might sound silly to some think about how this would effect the game over all. More likely than not I believe this kind of system would keep the game around longer. Think about it. People would make friends more often and folks returning to the game can form bonds with players more. Rather than them coming back and leaving shortly after cause it's to lonley of a experience. Idk. I doubt people or Square will care, but I just wanted to toss that out there. Thank you if you read this. Much appreciated.

[Zeldar]

Well trusts suck. Plain and simple. They make for a horrible party. Your EXP/CP gain should be much faster if you team up with real players, penalty included. Try killing an apex mob every 20-30 seconds with a trust setup. Its much more efficient already to party with real people...theres no need for a change.

[Jblauh]

This doesn't have anything to do with endgame in anyway. This is in general for 1-99. The idea is removing exp penalty for real people and add a bonus even to encourage socializing so the grind to 99 may not be so lonely. I'm really not sure what you're talking about tbh. This idea is to try and keep a longer lasting healthy community for current players and new/returning. I feel anyone who values that would be for this.

[Zeldar]

I guess I'm not being clear. The bonus to having real players is that you kill the mobs much faster and can kill harder mobs for more EXP. You should be gaining more exp per hour from a party of real players than from a party of trusts because you should be killing twice as fast and killing much harder mobs. You can take out very tough mobs pretty easily with a trust party. You can takeout incredibly tough ++ mobs easily with real players. THAT is the incentive to party with real people.

[Jblauh]

9 times out of 10 people refuse to party with me or a friend when were in low level parties because they won't gain as much experience than if you're with trust alone. They wanna party, but its not worth it for the loss of experience. I'm someone who is willing to sacrifice efficiency for socializing and while others want to they aren't always willing to do that and I can't blame them. So I don't agree with what you're saying 100%.

[Zeldar]

Your/their idea of efficiency and mine are totally different then. I feel like having more real people is more efficient because you are killing stronger mobs faster. You SHOULD be getting more exp per hour with real people. The fault isn't in the system, its in the way those people are thinking.

[Jblauh]

But I said the focus should be on encouraging real people to party and trust fill in the gaps. Idk I'm just very very lost with what you're saying my friend...in low lvl exp parties lvling with trusts or real people won't change how difficult of a mob I can take on usually. Actually I can probably take on a harder mobs with trusts tbh just because of how they have access to early ws's and some abilities real ppl won't at them lvls. Not to mention how some will SC and MB with me on point for big dmg. I'd still take real ppl any day of the week though at those lvls. Mind you this has nothing to do with CP ptys, endgame, ect. Just early leveling.

[Zeldar]

Wow, if I were to come across a real person that was worse than a trust at any level, I would run the other way, and fast. If these are the type of people you are coming across, I'm not sure you WANT to get to know them.

With the boosts in EXP they have already given (flat out exp boost, more rings available for better boosts, records of eminense, grounds of valor, trusts with exp boost) I would be strongly against any further exp boosts. You can already solo 1-99 in days. Maybe some other incentive types would be ok... they already added a few ( level sync, RoE objectives for level sync, and increased seal drop rate in parties).

[Jblauh]

You're replying just to debate at this point cause you're either missing the point or just don't care and I'm leaning towards the latter based off that last reply. No one is looking at that lousey lvl sync objective think (oh yeah that's what this games been missing to being ppl together) nor is a exp ring some kinda solution. The exp gain was just a shot in the dark idea to make it seem more enticing on top of ridding the old exp penalty to socialize. It can be w/e yet that's your focus when replying and yeah sorry to say but a trust is most likely better than a new/returning player for a while. Big deal. Population count continues to plummet on many servers. God forbid I just suggest something that could help bring some folks together right. Lmao Oh this community @.@

[Zeldar]

How much of the community would this benefit? Very few are actually leveling low jobs these days....do a search of any area pre-adoulin and you'll see that. Maybe you don't know me from my previous grumpy old man-ish posts, but I'm tired of suggestions that make this game easier. Leveling up is already way too fast and easy. A good judge of that is how crappy players are at the highest level these days. You are suggesting making leveling even faster and easier, so yes I take serious issue with it. Again, LEVELING IS ALREADY TOO FAST AND EASY. We don't need more exp boosts. I understand your desire to be around more people, I really do, but giving parties even more experience points on top of the already rediculously fast amount they get is harmful to the game. People don't even spend enough time per level to cap skills, much less learn the job.

[Zeldar]

And I agree : "oh this community" of people that want to constantly make things easy mode. I realize that making leveling easy mode is not your goal at all, but your suggestion would make something thats on easy mode already even easier.

[Jblauh]

Once again you're focusing on the exp boost that I'm not demanding over bringing ppl together and have you asked yourself why no one is around in them zones exping most the time? It's cause no one new or trying this game is seeing any reason to stay around. I never said let's make the game easier you did. You have beat around the whole point I made to argue something else that wasn't what I was aiming for. Please explain that for me real quick? Tell me why trust shouldn't cut into your exp but real people who decide to duo should? Sounds counter productive to me in a MMO no? Please do tell sir.

[Catmato]

Wow, if I were to come across a real person that was worse than a trust at any level, I would run the other way, and fast.

Trusts come with capped skills, WSs beyond their level, special traits, and instant status removal. Players level too fast to bother getting proper gear, level-appropriate spells, or to cap skills. Very often they'll be better than real players at many levels. That said, I would still never pick a trust over a person, exp penalty or not.

[Zeldar]

"Heck toss in a experience bonus per person"- this direct quote from your original post is what I'm responding to. It is what all of my posts are in response to. In an answer to one of the questions on the reddit AMA, they actually did state that this is a team game and they would prefer for people to team up. You are on track in wanting them to find NEW ways to encourage that, I just don't feel as though giving an exp boost for teaming up with a real player is the answer.

And yes Catmato, it is very sad but true that trusts really are better than some players. Its due to the simplification of the leveling system in my opinion. It may have been necessary in some way when they made this game a lot easier than it once was, but that doesn't mean we all need to like it, right? lol

[bungiefanNA]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/4ulgh1/official_ffxi_developer_ama_with_producer_akihiko/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/4ulgh1/official_ffxi_developer_ama_with_producer_akihiko/d5qtzkn

I asked about this during the AMA. This was their answer:

Q: 実際のプレイヤーたちとパーティを組んだ場合、各プレイヤーが入手できる経験値が下がりますが、フェイスを呼び出してパーティを組んだ場合、彼らは新しい装備や魔法、スキル上げをしなくても便利に使える上に経験値ロスもありません。 これって逆じゃないでしょうか？実際にプレイヤー同士でパーティを組んで共に戦っているのだから経験値ロスをなくしたほうがよいのではないでしょうか？ 友達と一緒にエンドコンテンツを遊べるまで、レベル１から９９まで一緒にやる理由がほしいです。

A:フェイスはプレイヤーに追従する動きしかできません。人間同士のパーティの場合に経験値ロスがないと、共同して強い敵と戦うより、手ごろな強さの別々の敵をそれぞれ倒した方が効率がよくなると考えたので、今のような仕組みとなっています。

Alter egos can only follow players. If we didn’t put in EXP penalties when forming a party with other players, we felt that players would think it would be more effective to fight separate monsters rather than fighting stronger monsters together. For this reason, we have it set up the way it is now.


Essentially, they figure if we could party without EXP, we'd all just solo seperate monsters anyway and just get EXP as each other kills, rather than teaming up on the same monster. Trusts are so much better in stats than real players though, with how hard it is to find good equipment for your level on the AH, and the quests or NMs to get the best gear for that level taking longer than just leveling up more. Below 76, we don't have the stats anymore that a player of our level would have had 6 years ago. We also likely are capped on skills as much as we would have been, but trusts are always capped on skills and don't need to upgrade equipment or buy spells.

It seems backwards to me to have an EXP penalty at all. No bonus is needed, but having Trusts be better all around causes the effect that you noticed. People would rather decline a real person in the party if they can have 5 Trusts out.

The intent of the EXP penalty in the early years was to minimize the ability to powerlevel people, and to make harder monsters a more appealing target for a party, since EXP would slow down with more people when fighting Even Match, which was already difficult to fight solo after level 15 or so.

[Zeldar]

What they are saying is the same thing I said earlier: teaming up with real players means you can kill tougher mobs and kill them faster than with trusts. This leads to higher, faster experience points per hour. They are telling you to team up with real players and fight incredibly tough mobs rather than use trusts and kill tough mobs. Take the dunes example. Sure, you can kill crabs at level 20 with a full force of trusts and get decent exp. If you team up with 5 real players instead, you can move to TOUGHER mobs and get even MORE exp, like the ones in yuhtunga jungle. Its a balancing act: they want you to team up, but they realize that this isn't as common as it was back in the day. The game has died down. They needed to make it possible to level up solo pre-99 because there aren't nearly as many teammates available. It sucks for peoplle leveling up that they can rarely find parties of real people to level up with, but thats the state of the community. You aren't going to bring THAT many new faces into the game to make a difference on that front unless you offer it up for free.

[Jblauh]

I still don't get how you think I cant fight the super hard mobs with trusts, but I can with real people. I use a tank, Ayame to SC with me and Shantotto for back to back MB and I can take on whatever Incredibly Tough mobs reasonable for my level. I don't just spam Decent challenges, Even Matches, or Tough. So why you keep going on about that idk. Then we swing back to the exp. per person. Once again it was just a idea. No one put it in stone that that's how it should be you did. Was merely a suggestion and the point was just brining people together. I see you on other posts bro. I've seen this kinda stuff before. Youre them people who live and breath FFXI. Act like your gods gift to SE or something. Seen it tons of times through out the year. Just stop it dawg. The games on life support. Let it go. If something as simple as this brings even 5 people to keep playing the game that much longer then it should be something you should support. I'm all about difficulty. Ask anyone who knows me in my LS and they'll tell you how I'm always going on about wanting a old school server for that in particular. At this point though our goal should be bringing everyone together. We focus on endgame 24/7 then wonder why no one wants to pick this game up anymore. Well that's cause there is no middle or beginning game. Anyone who is coming back does so cause they have played before and know XI. Even then they leave as fast as they came back most the time.

[Zeldar]

Nice assumptions about me. I'm simply trying to preserve the game I enjoy playing. I am none of the things you claim me to be, but whatever. Since you have read my posts you know that there are mostly about 1 core topic: I'm sick of people asking for things to be made easier for them. The part of your post I was responding to, as I have already stated, is where you suggested an experience bonus for teaming up with other people. You get enough experience to level from 1-99 in days. You'll do so and suck at your job. You want even more? You want to suck even more? Have at it, just don't be surprised if you aren't invited to things when you hit 99.

And yes, this game in its advanced age is all about endgame. Why? because you start doing endgame now weeks , sometimes days, after you are level 1.

[Jblauh]

Well said BungiefanNA. I can agree with all that and you make great points with trusts having the advantage over real people.

[Jblauh]

Bro people coming back are all gonna suck at their job regardless and especially since there is no one to guide them on their way to cap. Let it go. Just a stupid point to even bring up nowadays when people can get to cap naked with trusts doing all the work. Idk also how you think I just jumped back into endgame again or something. I've just about done it all. You need some new material bro. Shocked you replied so quickly. You like live on these forums dude? lol

[Jblauh]

I took 2 to 3 days to reply and you hit me back 5 mins after I made a reply dawg come on now. That's either amazing luck or you're home is here like I said and 10 people man? Really? lol That's hardly a point worth mentioning cause its "he says she say" nonsense and hey maybe you're the exception. Maybe you really do have 10 people who returned after 8 years of being away and are just tearing it up! Great. That doesn't change the fact that 9 times out of 10 they will suck. Especially on all the dead servers out there where no one talks often and can offer guidance. My point still stands.

[Gannon]

Just add Zeldar to your ignore list like I did. This way you won't need to see him arguing against everything and shitting up threads.

[Catmato]

That's awfully harsh. I disagree with a lot of what Zeldar says, but he does bring up many valid points. Although, he could feed the trolls a bit less, not respond to ad hominem.

[Zeldar]

Thanks Cat. I know I'm stubborn and argue against the norm a lot, but to block me? Lol.

[Gannon]

I know it's harsh Cat, however I see him post in almost every new thread that pops up arguing against EVERYTHING. It just gets irritating after a while. Hell, I only even remembered that the ignore list existed a couple of days ago.

[Drazilenoteb]

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[kylani]

Hello folks. So I just wanted to bring up something I find unusual with the trusts system and that's that they don't cut into your experience gain, but real people do. Now I know for the majority of you who might be reading you probably couldn't careless and hey I'm not going to say you should. However I find the penalty to experience gain per person is just pointless and out of date anymore. I feel it's important in XI to make many friends, team up, and enjoy 1-99 together with someone. Not just endgame alone, but so many times when I'm out in the field working on a new job and see someone else doing the same I'll ask if they'd like to team up and more often then not they'll respond saying "I'd love to, but its just not as efficient" and hey I don't blame them. Shouldn't the goal be to encourage people to team up while using trust and not just using trust alone if they can help it? Heck toss in a experience bonus per person. That'd encourage the idea of joining forces all together and while this might sound silly to some think about how this would effect the game over all. More likely than not I believe this kind of system would keep the game around longer. Think about it. People would make friends more often and folks returning to the game can form bonds with players more. Rather than them coming back and leaving shortly after cause it's to lonley of a experience. Idk. I doubt people or Square will care, but I just wanted to toss that out there. Thank you if you read this. Much appreciated.

I agree with removing the exp penalty for multiple people in a party now that trusts have been added, but I don't think any other exp incentive is needed. I do agree its a deterrent at lower levels and for newer players who actually want to enjoy exping. With the ability to be power leveled in Abyssea, SE made it easy to level anyway. Why not make it better for people who want to play together but not be auto-leveled?

I don't care about Apex parties or endgame, but exp is so easy to get on 99 jobs, I could care less about a buff after 99. Why would adding more exp be a big deal at that level? When I'm on my 99s, I care more about CP than exp. I was glad you could spend money on extra merits so that I could stop capping out on exp as it is. Adding more seems like it would just be more that is lost when I cap merits and don't want to go back in yet. But SE could always keep the penalty at 99 if that's such a big deal.