Book burning ruined 5-man groups

[darkvision]

I was under the impression that level syncing allowed players from all levels to team up with lower level buddies who were constantly stuck seeking a party of players their own level, and that books were to help players to earn experience point bonuses, gain buffs, and a little extra gil to allow for solo play.

For a short while it seemed to work...people teaming together in zones like Valkurm, Qufim and Yuhtunga Jungle and partying together without the fear of outlevelling each other. That was, until people discovered that by teaming together in an alliance in dungeons and doing ground valor pages over and over fighting easy prey targets gave more experience points for less effort. This coupled together with lower levels being taken to Zehrun Mines by higher levels to leech from the ground valor manuals and Abyssea alliances with lower levels taking advantage of the domninion operations manuals means that once more zones such as Valkurm Dunes, Qufim, and the two jungles have become abandoned zones with players still stuck seeking for a party if they are wanting a legit party or the book burning alliance for their level is full.

My question to SE is was this intended? To have players take part in mindless zerging or leeching without needing to upgrade their gear or spells until they hit level 90 within a couple of days with no decent skills? There's another game that does this, it's called World of Warcraft, and I came to FFXI to escape from that.

in a way i hate this kind of exping, so i understan how ya feel about it, but i do it on my main characer my self, only coz i have all skillz capped, hell my alt is a better WHM than the gimps out there that have really really gimp skills, about 11 times now people sent /tells to me o says in party chat to stop gear swappng too much, i am sorry if you need to tell people that then gtfo the party and read up on making macro's and at the same time find out why people gear change so much,

this is something that just grinds my gears and i just wanna give a RL slap to everyone that tells me to stop gear swapping so much and i have more than 5 gearsets for every job i play.

i was soloing Chukwa the other day on PLD/RDM and no i dont have ochain or Aegis (LS mates thought i would fail) and this gimp group was asking why i changed gear soo much (i have like 17 geat set for PLD), i ignored them till i killed it solo face tanking the whole time, so i explained why, then they said that i should only need 1 gear set, come on seriously?

this is why this in a way should be put a stop to, imo Abyssea should have been be lvl 75+ GoV should be 80+ restictions. but its not going to happen soo i will have to live with it.

[Arlan]

in a way i hate this kind of exping, so i understan how ya feel about it, but i do it on my main characer my self, only coz i have all skillz capped, hell my alt is a better WHM than the gimps out there that have really really gimp skills, about 11 times now people sent /tells to me o says in party chat to stop gear swappng too much, i am sorry if you need to tell people that then gtfo the party and read up on making macro's and at the same time find out why people gear change so much,

this is something that just grinds my gears and i just wanna give a RL slap to everyone that tells me to stop gear swapping so much and i have more than 5 gearsets for every job i play.

i was soloing Chukwa the other day on PLD/RDM and no i dont have ochain or Aegis (LS mates thought i would fail) and this gimp group was asking why i changed gear soo much (i have like 17 geat set for PLD), i ignored them till i killed it solo face tanking the whole time, so i explained why, then they said that i should only need 1 gear set, come on seriously?

this is why this in a way should be put a stop to, imo Abyssea should have been be lvl 75+ GoV should be 80+ restictions. but its not going to happen soo i will have to live with it.

I understand what you mean.
I do a lot of gear changing too for all 6 of my jobs.
Each gear for specific needs.

However,
As a WHM when I am main healing, One thing I hate the most or complain the most is when DDs or Tanks are NEAR DEATH and I need to cure them to keep them alive, and thats when they decide to switch gears and I end up healing myself and getting them killed lol.

Making macros for healing each individual is too much when you can just point and cure quicker by default from my experience.

I think people who switch a lot a gear are fine as long as they know "WHEN" to do so and think about healers who need to keep them alive as well.

Complaining like this has always been there before abyssea from my experience.
oh well

[Ravenmore]

Because people are retarded and still don't know about <stal> new whms and old alike nothing new there. I seen WHMs that leveled wmh years ago that still don't know of it. So even thats not a way to tell if someone burned whm or not. Knowing how the game it self works not the job.

[Covenant]

Wanna know the absolute true beauty if Grounds of Valor?

Its pretty simple alliance parties... I go to area, I put up flag get picked in under 1 min or when alliance comes back to book and see me "Lfp"...fight for however many pages/hours...cap experience...drop party and log out... Log back in, put up "Lfp" join another party in 1 min, keep leveln at capped exp. With all boosts still intact.

It's a freaking thing of beauty. The old way took me 3-4 weeks Solon Darkknight. No standing in jeuno /shouting or scanning for players "my level" that wanted to play. Anyone with a "Lfp" in zone automatically wants alliance party. It's what SquareEnix created the "automatic join" function for.

[Themailman]

It's bitter/sweet how xping is these days. I lvld 17 jobs to 75 and other 3 to 60 Pre-Abyssea. Mostly to get my coveted Maat's Cap. Then started working on the other 5 jobs. It is hard to swallow how easy it is for players these days to get from 1 to 90 in 3 days or less when it took me weeks to get 1 job to 75. Sure i think about all the time spent seems like a waste, but it wasn't cause i enjoyed it all. I'm happy players can xp so fast now that some time has gone by for us to adjust to Abyssea and all its crazyness. my friends can now spend time doing events and stuff with me instead of saying "Srry Mail, i gotta get this job xp'd" Glad those days are gone....

[Ravenmore]

Something else, every time a new way to exp came out be it the readjustment of exp points to get to 75, better camps (toau) players getting over IT++ overcamping, campaign, level sync people will say that those that didn't do it the way they did are less skilled.

[Arlan]

Because people are retarded and still don't know about <stal> new whms and old alike nothing new there. I seen WHMs that leveled wmh years ago that still don't know of it. So even thats not a way to tell if someone burned whm or not. Knowing how the game it self works not the job.

Thats an intelligent response =)

[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.

[Ravenmore]

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.

And killing birds provided any of the skills whms need at endgame. ToAU mobs you need no tank to start with /nin is all thats need or people that know how to work se/te if /sam. Plds didn't get invited to exp if another DD is looking at the same time. Rose tinted glasses again. People have been avoiding mobs with status down effects since toau came out.

I not saying that a 6 man couldn't work but really if you have 3 groups fighting over the one or 2 good camps exp will drop off. Better yet 3 groups looking to get a healer and theres only one, do you all fight over the one healer, shout to try to pay off the healer or team up and go kill EPs were the healer won't have a increased work load and everyone get exp.

All exp will teach you is how to get exp.

[Ravenmore]

Thats an intelligent response =)

With <stal> you can change gear all you want to to and never lose target. You can also pick from the party list and not have to tab around looking for the person to heal or buff. Its in ever single WHM or RDM how to out there. You don;t need any third party tool to do it either. Works on PC and console. No reason not to use it. Been in the game for years as well.