Fellowship Bond requirements are now totally excessive for Fellow quests

[Cabalabob]

I agree with the OP, the bond should be scaled. I've been playing since release and I had a level 65 adventuring fellow before there was even a 70 cap so I'm unbiased and haven't had anything handed to me.

Now let's look at this both from play style point of view and a lore point of view.

Playstyle, a level 50 adventuring fellow is going to be of no use to a level 99 player, if the fellow reaches the level 50 cap then it's stupid to have to wait a week maybe 2 to then cap your fellow bond. Would you be happy with that if, as a player, when you reached level 50 you then had to wait a week or more to reach level 55 then another week to 60 and so on? There is no added challenge in summoning an npc but there is also just as little reason to summon them at 99 because they can't do anything and they are gaining nothing. So in the end it's just a waste of time, the challenge of levelling an npc should not be in the fact that they hit a wall and have to wait to progress, it should be in actual game content e.g. The limit break quests.

Lore wise, <<character> uses a signal pearl>. <fellow> "Hi! I'm ready to go, what are we doing?". <character> "oh nothing, I just called you to say hi". <fellow> "oh... Couldn't you have done that at a rendezvous point?". <character> "nah, I did that earlier". <fellow> "um... Ok, so.. Why did you feel the need to say hi?" <character> "to make you like me". <fellow> "you called me, your level 50 friend, out here, to an area level 50's dare not tread, to say hi... In an attempt to make me like you...?". <character> "yep! And now I need you to leave, cause I don't want you in my party lowering my exp gain." <fellow> "**** you man, you're an ass...". <character> "watch out for the true sight death scorpions on your way home!" -<fellow> leaves-. <character> "...". <<character> uses a tactics pearl>...

[Rukkirii]

We agree with you guys. It can be pretty stressful when you can't level up your fellow due to your bond with them being left in the dust, so we will be looking into increasing the rate of gaining bond.

[Camiie]

Awesome decision by the devs! Thanks for the heads up, Rukkirii!

[Kraggy]

We agree with you guys. It can be pretty stressful when you can't level up your fellow due to your bond with them being left in the dust, so we will be looking into increasing the rate of gaining bond.

Thank you.

[Meyi]

On a side note, I usually enjoy reading your posts because you tend to be level headed and leave the childish name calling out, but you seem to have turned this into a flame war of name calling and berating.

You started it mate when you accused him of wanting everything handed to him on a silver platter.

I was simply stating my opinion. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Like you did with Karbuncle's opinion on you?

As for the OP, yes, please change the bond requirements. They're ridiculous and it's not fun calling out my friend just to boost it up. I took my NPC up to level 70 on my original character when it first came out, and the bond then was fine. But now that I'm doing it again on my taru, it's really a drag. Romidiant is up to level 60 but... I have no idea where my bond even stands. It's pretty low.

Edit: Saw the Dev team responded to this positively. Yay. ^w^

[Camate]

Hey everyone!

Just a quick update on adventuring fellow bonds!

The Development Team is currently testing and looking into what would be the best way to improve the rate in which your bond with your adventuring fellow increases. As long as everything goes smoothly, we should be able to implement it during the next version update.

[Babekeke]

There is no way I can get Bond to 55 without wasting Signal and Tactics charges on simply summoning her to bump Bond, and talking to her at the Rendezvous Point every day.

Wow, having to talk to your NPC at the rendezvous point every day must be taking up a whole 5 minutes or so of your day!

Instead of "Wasting signal and tactics pearl charges" think of something that you can do that the fellow would assist you with, without needing it to be higher level. Farming, learning blue magic, hunting for brown casket items etc. Have you even done all of the other fellow quests? Trading in weapons etc.?

[Kraggy]

Wow, having to talk to your NPC at the rendezvous point every day must be taking up a whole 5 minutes or so of your day!

Thankfully SE see there's a problem, even if you don't: cute use of 'bold' there, you made my point for me.

Hint: it's not the time it takes to do once, it's the days and weeks where the NPC is stuck way below my level, as I pointed at, and that this is NOT how it was in the beginning so SE didn't even then intend it to be this tedious.

[SharMarali]

OK, so, just to throw in my two cents. I'm somebody who actually just recently leveled my NPC. Funny side story, I did the quest to get the NPC the day it came out, when I had to stand in line for like an hour to check a ??? and pop a NM, and then I never bothered to level my NPC. Ha! But I digress.

I decided I wanted to level my NPC to cure me while I skilled up various weapons. So I got started on my level 30-something NPC. I made sure to talk to her every day at the rendezvous point and use my signal pearl daily.

I was fighting stuff that was easy enough for me, but still high enough for my NPC to gain experience. At first, she gained, I would guess about 5 levels a day before reaching her quota and disappearing.

I got her to 50 in just a few days... And then I was stuck. For about a week. Just because I didn't have enough bond to uncap her. Yes, it only took a couple minutes to go check the rendezvous point, but it was frustrating because I REALLY WANTED to do the uncap quest and I couldn't. I didn't even have access to get a tactics pearl because my bond was too low.

Eventually, I was finally able to get the quest, and I got her from 50 to 55 in two days. Then I was stuck again for another week or so. The same thing happened when I finally was able to get THAT uncap quest. Uncapping her to 70 from 65 took two solid weeks, during which time I couldn't do anything with her other than kill random things to watch her equipment change.

All told, I spent about a month simply waiting for time to go by so that I could gain enough fellow bond to get the uncap quests while she was sitting at the level cap.

I truly don't understand why anyone is arguing against this. If the NPC still leveled at the old pace and stayed out for the same amount of time, so each day they got 1-2 levels, then sure, I could see leaving the bond requirements alone. But the first couple of changes have already been made, and people like me are having to spend a month sitting around watching paint dry if they want to level their NPC.

I actually wanted to start over with a new NPC because the one I chose years ago isn't the one I would've chosen today, but I didn't want to go through all those waiting periods again, so I elected not to.

Thanks SE for giving attention to this issue!

[Windwhisper]

No offense to those that enjoy their fellowship companion, but this should be one of the developers' lowest of priorities. Right next to Pankration and Chocobo Racing. I myself have a fellowship i occasionally use to solo latents on weapons or i tag along during a trial, but still....