Book burning ruined 5-man groups

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Originally Posted by Michae

Having been a player for over 5 years now I too miss the old group party format. I have participated in a few of the new Grounds of Valor book burn formats as well. But what I have found is that the traditional party still seems to give more exp per hr if you have a group of ppl who know what they are doing. In other words ppl who have not lvled every char in aby or in GoV burns. In a colibri group in WW the other day, with the exp increase, I was getting around 600-800 exp per bird and with 2 pups, 1 drk, 1 whm and 1 sam we were burning thru the birds so fast that the exp piled up faster than it would have going page for page in a book burn. The book burns only seem faster due to the large lumps of exp at once, plus it allows ppl to do a minimum of work.

Its a fad and should die down eventually when ppl realized that the exp isnt that great compared to the traditional pt. The downside to the months its going to be before this sinks in, is that we are going to have a whole massive group of ppl who dont know how to tank with pld or nin, healers who dont know how to watch for things other than hp colors, dd and pullers who know how to keep thier hate to a minimum and so on.

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I disagree with this take. You are only talking the bird camp which is a great exp camp, what about the slower camps from 50-54 or 59-62 outside of level sync (good with a well equip pt possibly). Also lets say you do get more exp per hr, the margin is slim and that doesn't take into account on how long you must wait to get a party, with a high level of job prejudice ie. monk, drk, blu, pup, etc.

The new style is so widely accepted because I know I can get a pt invite pretty darn quick, so while exp an hr doesn't factor in wait time for an invite it's almost an invalid argument (also you dont need an elite setup to burn and you can have 1-3 people afk or leave without affecting exp too much). Book burns aren't going anywhere because it saves times on waiting and lets face it, its pretty fun, fast paced and love the race back and forth to the book to collect exp.

I for one don't miss the old style...sitting in lower or port jeuno for hours waiting for a pt only to find out that one or more people in said pt suck so badly that you physically can't kill stuff (I don't mean just suck by elitest standards, I mean like suck in a seriously detrimental way, that prevents the pt from killing things) thus causing you to have to go back to lookin' for a pt, cuz at that point the only jobs that could solo effectively were bst and rdm....

to all that, I say no thanks lol give me a quick few levels to a job so I can go run off and have fun doing storylines and quests that I really enjoy doing...or just helping/hanging out with friends

I for one find GoV to be incredibly dull and I really miss the old exp party dynamic because I found it to be one of the most fun things about the game. However, I am not one of those people who refuses to do GoV. It's great exp and I do it just because its faster. When I get a chance to do an old fashioned exp party I take it but that doesn't happen very often anymore.

Everyone keeps talking like it's either exp parties or GoV alliances as if they can't coexist as if one must die so the other can live. I don't see it that way. I think they could coexist. The problem right now is that GoV is much faster exp/hr than the old fashioned exp party and so the majority of people don't want to do anything else. If they buffed up exp per kill for parties or if they buffed the multiplier for exp chains to the point where it was equal to GoV in exp/hr. This would give people the choice of doing one or the other.

Everyone keeps saying that they don't want to stand around in Jeuno for hours well last time i tried to get into the GC GoV it took me an hour because there was 5-6 other people seeking when I got there. On top of that there was this DNC who was there for 30 min before I got there and I got invited before he did because WAR does more damage as the leader put it. The more popular GoV becomes the more of wait we will have to get in. Maybe my server has a higher population or GoV just caught on quicker but getting an invite still takes a good wait even for GoV.

The way I see them coexisting is the jobs that are great for 6 mans but not so much for alliance based exp like BRD, RDM, PLD can start their own exp parties. Jobs that used to have to wait hours for invites but are great for burning pages like DRK, SAM, MNK, etc. can just go to the GoV spots and join the alliance. More options means less congestion which means faster invites. Right now it's really hard to start a good exp party because a lot of the people seeking refuse to do anything other than GoV.

Its been hard to start a good party for years, for any level. It was always a roll of the dice if the people you were inviting knew how to gear thier jobs, if they weren't cheap and used food, swap gear to WS(at the very least)had the area you want to exp at if they were a job that there was few of(mages/buffers) list goes on. None of this is new or abyssea or any other retared reason people will put down other people for wanting to level as fast as possiable.

If you didn't know or had partied with people back at 75 cap before all this you were taking a large risk inviteing people. How did you know if the partied hitting 25k a hour that the rdm and brd would stick around. Even if you were getting 18k to 20k a hour but they would give that up for a chance at that while going back to town and wasteing time waiting for the next invite getting 0exp a hour.

That was just the hell you had to go though just to merit in a game that was top heavy, god forbid you try to level at lower levels finding people that would sync down low enough to get a proper party going or even finding a healer that was in the dunes since they had the final say in everything. Since they were so few people would down to thier level before giving them up. If you can find the people to do a 6 man party have at it. Its really hard for a alli to mess up by not being able to kill mobs.

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Originally Posted by Armauk

I for one find GoV to be incredibly dull and I really miss the old exp party dynamic because I found it to be one of the most fun things about the game. However, I am not one of those people who refuses to do GoV. It's great exp and I do it just because its faster. When I get a chance to do an old fashioned exp party I take it but that doesn't happen very often anymore.

Everyone keeps talking like it's either exp parties or GoV alliances as if they can't coexist as if one must die so the other can live. I don't see it that way. I think they could coexist. The problem right now is that GoV is much faster exp/hr than the old fashioned exp party and so the majority of people don't want to do anything else. If they buffed up exp per kill for parties or if they buffed the multiplier for exp chains to the point where it was equal to GoV in exp/hr. This would give people the choice of doing one or the other.

Everyone keeps saying that they don't want to stand around in Jeuno for hours well last time i tried to get into the GC GoV it took me an hour because there was 5-6 other people seeking when I got there. On top of that there was this DNC who was there for 30 min before I got there and I got invited before he did because WAR does more damage as the leader put it. The more popular GoV becomes the more of wait we will have to get in. Maybe my server has a higher population or GoV just caught on quicker but getting an invite still takes a good wait even for GoV.

The way I see them coexisting is the jobs that are great for 6 mans but not so much for alliance based exp like BRD, RDM, PLD can start their own exp parties. Jobs that used to have to wait hours for invites but are great for burning pages like DRK, SAM, MNK, etc. can just go to the GoV spots and join the alliance. More options means less congestion which means faster invites. Right now it's really hard to start a good exp party because a lot of the people seeking refuse to do anything other than GoV.

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I'm going to go out on a whim and if the said people knew about GOV or GOV areas, I can almost guarantee if they went where the pt is taking place they would get an invite ASAP! Most of the GOV's I participated in had 10~15 people and always took randoms that came with their flag up from previous burns.

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Originally Posted by Kwate

I'm going to go out on a whim and if the said people knew about GOV or GOV areas, I can almost guarantee if they went where the pt is taking place they would get an invite ASAP! Most of the GOV's I participated in had 10~15 people and always took randoms that came with their flag up from previous burns.

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The said people were seeking next to me in Garliage Citadel right next to the alliance doing the GoV. We were not standing in Jeuno with our flags up. On my server theres almost always multiple people seeking next to the book/alliance. Enough that it causes us to have a wait of 20-60 min depending on how many people are also seeking next to the book/alliance and what job you are and whether or not you know one of the alliance leaders.

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Originally Posted by Armauk

The said people were seeking next to me in Garliage Citadel right next to the alliance doing the GoV. We were not standing in Jeuno with our flags up. On my server theres almost always multiple people seeking next to the book/alliance. Enough that it causes us to have a wait of 20-60 min depending on how many people are also seeking next to the book/alliance and what job you are and whether or not you know one of the alliance leaders.

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Don't get me wrong, GOV is far from perfect, but overall, with the significant decrease in wait time, increased exp every page you complete (with added effects), less job prejudice, less downtime for a couple afk or pt members leaving.....I can honestly say this is a step in the right direction.

I felt that I needed to give myself some more time to see both sides of book burning and normal xp, so I've been doing GoVs until blue in the face and the occassional and rare normal party. From these experiences I can say this...

Book burning got boring after the first 3 jobs. I could literally feel my brain melting down over the constant running around in Gusgen Mines, watching a mob die because it was dead before I could target it, seeing half the alliance just standing there doing nothing and then grabbing next page. I just don't see the fun in it and after seeing so much of Gusgen and Crawler's Nest I'm beginning to hate those places with a passion. If anything I'm craving for a real group where I feel like I'm really contributing and playing a role. Because of my lack of experience in a proper party I don't know how to play some of my jobs.

Normal xp has been real fun in comparison. I've gotten to do some places like the jungles, Qufim, Valkurm, Eastern Altepa Desert and East Ronfaure(S), and we made amazing xp and were virtually levelling at the same speed as people doing GoV. However since book burns and leeching has become the trend normal xp parties are extremely rare, and while soloing is also an option for a mage class it takes far too long or is too hard. Right now been in /seacom for 2 days levelling smn magic outside of cities getting depressed at the lack of interest in normal xp parties and not even a GoV invite because they were all full 18/18 for hours and hours and hours.

Edit: I've noticed a number of good friends no longer playing the game, they talked of leaving before saying that Abyssea ruined the whole gaming experience for them and also that it was a poor example of expanding the game by copying/pasting zones and recolouring them. Just today another friend has spoken of leaving. He doesn't get to play much due to work and said that he enjoys logging in to play in a party for a while, what he doesn't like is sitting in Gusgen running back and forth and that is what the game has now gone down to. In his words, "what's the point?" I couldn't agree more.