Revamp the way we gain experience points

[Demon6324236]

The level-up process was a noob filter. Now it's gone, and the noobs are running around at the top, manuring up the place.

Bad players are easy to spot if you look past their levels... For instance, I saw a level 92 DRG in a worm party wearing the augmented Dom Ops gear, this was a bad player, no gear swaps at all, wearing this gear. If they were a good player they would have been using Perle, yes, Perle, because at 92 if you did not have the seals for the job Perle is a great set with Haste and at least some stats for TPing, where as the gear he had on had nothing. AF3+2 is not to hard to get, but bad players full time full AF3+2, easy to spot yet again, a WAR TPing and WSing in full AF3+2 is a bad player, easily spotted. You will not often come across well geared bad players, only a few of them can get good gear and actually copy the gear of others well enough to look like they know the job, and if they get that far then fail, you can easily add them to the small list of bad players with good gear, and no longer invite them.

The ability to filter out the bad from the good still exists, it just takes slightly more work on your part.

[Rustic]

Bad players are easy to spot if you look past their levels...

Then let's make it so they no longer get to those levels in the first place.

Put more soloing test barriers in the way of content and don't have an "easy button" like Maat WHM fight to get around them.

Bad players in bad gear don't get in, good players pass those tests and progress.

[Demon6324236]

Then let's make it so they no longer get to those levels in the first place.

Put more soloing test barriers in the way of content and don't have an "easy button" like Maat WHM fight to get around them.

Bad players in bad gear don't get in, good players pass those tests and progress.

So rather than take an extra minute to examine the gear of someone you invite, you would rather just make everyone go back to the old slow way of leveling. I can tell you now, I only have 4 jobs left to level, PUP, SMN, RNG, and DRG. If I had to level them the old way, these jobs would never be touched, I liked the old way of xp when it was here, since then I have stopped liking it, not because its easy, but because I want to play the job at the end, not where it starts. There are many more interesting and tricky parts to a job at the end of the leveling experience than at the beginning, and I play for those parts at the end. Going back to old xp is not something I ever want to do, I would much rather just have to take an extra few minutes to check the gear of people I have never seen or heard of before.

Take into account how many good players do not want to level slowly for all of their jobs, or even take more than a few days. I have little time as it is, let alone the time it would take to go out and level an entirely new job up over the course of a week or 2 so that I can play it, and maybe not even like it.

The only real 'idiot filter' you need, is your eyes, I can spot a bad player as soon as I check them, sometimes it is less clear than others, but often it makes itself apparent. Full timing +2, using the wrong gear when you have access to the right gear, missing basic gear that all players should have simply because they do not think its worth it. Want examples? I know of a THF who has full Thaumas, but TPs in Oce/Toci's, I know another with full Thaumas who did not even have Brutal, Suppa, or Rajas, and another who has a Mandau who TPs in +2 Hands rather than Bregos, used to not have a Brutal, and uses Phasmida instead of Twilight even on mobs where the EVA/Acc is not needed. These are examples of players who have good gear putting it to shame because they use the wrong gear or are missing key important gear. Easy to spot with a 1 time use of /check.

[Rustic]

So rather than take an extra minute to examine the gear of someone you invite, you would rather just make everyone go back to the old slow way of leveling.

Wait a second. What on earth does having Maat-style fights set up to be 1v1 tests of a player have to do with reverting to oldschool exping?

I want players to have to test themselves and themselves alone against an opponent in FFXI. Succeed and you can continue along in content. Fail, and you keep trying until you succeed or give up. Along the toughness level of the RDM Maat fight- you make a mistake, you get punished. Two is likely enough to cause a loss, and three is fatal. Nobody else gets to tow you through it. No items that weaken the opponent ala rarab tails. No "easy mode" based on what job you bring. No party to carry you through the fight. Bring whatever medicines and such along you think will help, but that's it.

At that point, we don't even need gear checks. Competent players at their jobs will exceed those barriers, incompetent ones will not and never get into the endgame events in question to begin with.

Take into account how many good players do not want to level slowly for all of their jobs, or even take more than a few days. I have little time as it is, let alone the time it would take to go out and level an entirely new job up over the course of a week or 2 so that I can play it, and maybe not even like it.

As I've said before, I think giving an exp bonus for any job you've capped (heck, even a lesser one for jobs you've taken 50+) that stacks would be awesome. Put it on a ring ala the Emperor/Empress bands as an enhancement you can opt to cast on yourself when you desire, and there you go.

[Demon6324236]

Wait a second. What on earth does having Maat-style fights set up to be 1v1 tests of a player have to do with reverting to oldschool exping?

Then let's make it so they no longer get to those levels in the first place.

That is not proposing Maat-style fights, thats suggesting slower xp, which is why I made that entire comment about going back to slow xp. Checking someone's gear to see how good or bad they are at a certain job or overall is not that hard, and gives you the same, or better, results. I personally like how things are now, I have an easy time telling who is doing good and who is not, at the same time, I am not in any way potentially being negatively effected by the game attempting to correct the skill level of players who make it to a certain level by the time they reach said level.

So far as Maat-style fights, I think every job should have a second fight similar to Maat where you get a piece of gear that is powerful for the job, powerful enough it is not easily replaced. If you wanted to really check the skill of a player in that case you could simply ask them to show the gear to you, so that you know they have it, and passed the test. I am talking about a piece of gear for each job like a Mythic, which would boost abilities, traits, or some type of stats that would directly impact the job in a powerful way that is nearly impossible to replace, and useful enough to bother going after. Some of these would be easier to make than others, but in reality we have items somewhat like this to begin with already.

Black Belt and Evoker's Ring are 2 items like this, where they are exceptionally powerful and are made for only a single job. If gear like this were made but it came from a level 99 version of the Maat fight but without any handicaps or any other party members it would add special gear that would show a certain level of skill as well as benefiting all players who can obtain it, not simply showing an artificial level of skill. Also the fact it is job specific means it would not have an easy job to do it with where you get all of the benefits, such as the WHM Maat fight, where you can breeze through it, and all jobs benefit from the victory.

I would like to think that idea would solve your problems, and give players something unique they could use as well, something that would benefit the entire community of people able to obtain the items, rather than just give you the ability to better discern bad players from good players.

[Rustic]

That is not proposing Maat-style fights, thats suggesting slower xp, which is why I made that entire comment about going back to slow xp. Checking someone's gear to see how good or bad they are at a certain job or overall is not that hard, and gives you the same, or better, results. I personally like how things are now, I have an easy time telling who is doing good and who is not, at the same time, I am not in any way potentially being negatively effected by the game attempting to correct the skill level of players who make it to a certain level by the time they reach said level.

If you hit a level cap and you can't get past it, that's not slowing the rate of exp. That's saying "You can't beat this, you go no further.". For that matter, it can apply to L99's as well. Pass this test on your own and you can play in the sandbox with all the other L99's, fail your skill check and you're stuck till you do.

Gate content based on personal skill rather than encounters other players can carry you through and you filter bad players from the system. WoW actually has cases where if you can't show up with sufficiently high item levels in gear, you can't get in on certain content. I'd rather have skill check instead of gear check.

So far as Maat-style fights, I think every job should have a second fight similar to Maat where you get a piece of gear that is powerful for the job, powerful enough it is not easily replaced. If you wanted to really check the skill of a player in that case you could simply ask them to show the gear to you, so that you know they have it, and passed the test. I am talking about a piece of gear for each job like a Mythic, which would boost abilities, traits, or some type of stats that would directly impact the job in a powerful way that is nearly impossible to replace, and useful enough to bother going after. Some of these would be easier to make than others, but in reality we have items somewhat like this to begin with already.

Ala Suppa and other unique bits. I wouldn't mind seeing additional rewards for success at beating a "gate fight".

Black Belt and Evoker's Ring are 2 items like this, where they are exceptionally powerful and are made for only a single job. If gear like this were made but it came from a level 99 version of the Maat fight but without any handicaps or any other party members it would add special gear that would show a certain level of skill as well as benefiting all players who can obtain it, not simply showing an artificial level of skill. Also the fact it is job specific means it would not have an easy job to do it with where you get all of the benefits, such as the WHM Maat fight, where you can breeze through it, and all jobs benefit from the victory.

That's one of the reasons I mentioned not setting these "gates" up with an "easymode job", which Maat does have. Having a piece of trophy gear to go with the victory doesn't hurt either, as it'd let you prove that the player is competent on multiple jobs, not just the one they originally passed the gate in question with.

[FrankReynolds]

As I've said before, I think giving an exp bonus for any job you've capped (heck, even a lesser one for jobs you've taken 50+) that stacks would be awesome. Put it on a ring ala the Emperor/Empress bands as an enhancement you can opt to cast on yourself when you desire, and there you go.

That will have it's own set of issues. If you pop your ring and no one else does, you will level faster than everyone and ruin their exp. Even if they all decide they want to exp. fast like you, You will also out grow camps super fast making it so that instead of spending time fighting, you will spend most of your time traveling to different camps (which has nothing to do with gaining exp. or learning your job). There are already a lot of people who have most of their jobs leveled beyond a certain point, which means that you will probably have to level synch. Which means that people won't be learning anything about their abilities as they level up because they will be capped to a lower level and unable to access them.


I could go on for days, but I think you get the point. Low level experience points parties are pretty much a thing of the past. The only way that form of leveling will ever be relevant again is if SE somehow creates a huge influx of new players coming into the game that are attracted to the game because of this newly introduced feature that allows them to level at a rate that is 10 times slower than the one that all the current players got to use. Who knows though. Maybe pigs can fly.

[Rustic]

That will have it's own set of issues. If you pop your ring and no one else does, you will level faster than everyone and ruin their exp.

Level sync called, they want to know when you've used their service lately.

Even if they all decide they want to exp. fast like you, You will also out grow camps super fast making it so that instead of spending time fighting, you will spend most of your time traveling to different camps (which has nothing to do with gaining exp. or learning your job). There are already a lot of people who have most of their jobs leveled beyond a certain point, which means that you will probably have to level synch. Which means that people won't be learning anything about their abilities as they level up because they will be capped to a lower level and unable to access them.

We can't de-level everyone who took the exp-o-tron ride, but we CAN make the trip more educational for the ones that come after it- if S-E ever actually capped Abyssea rather than having people be able to la-la-leech mode on L80 mobs with their L30 useless piece of monster snack.

I could go on for days, but I think you get the point. Low level experience points parties are pretty much a thing of the past. The only way that form of leveling will ever be relevant again is if SE somehow creates a huge influx of new players coming into the game that are attracted to the game because of this newly introduced feature that allows them to level at a rate that is 10 times slower than the one that all the current players got to use. Who knows though. Maybe pigs can fly.

Wouldn't be the first time the rate of advancement has been turned back. Or have you been making a mint off those chocobo blinkers lately?

[FrankReynolds]

Level sync called, they want to know when you've used their service lately.

Great. Let's all level synch to 30 and never use our abilities until we are 99. That will fix the problems with people reaching 99 and not knowing their jobs.

We can't de-level everyone who took the exp-o-tron ride, but we CAN make the trip more educational for the ones that come after it- if S-E ever actually capped Abyssea rather than having people be able to la-la-leech mode on L80 mobs with their L30 useless piece of monster snack.

Face it man, there is like 5 minutes of education to be had in there and you want it to be spread out over weeks / months. It's a not a good formula.

Wouldn't be the first time the rate of advancement has been turned back. Or have you been making a mint off those chocobo blinkers lately?

When exactly did we begin discussing money making?

Take THF for example. In the old days people who played THF would learn just the basic SATA from party members explaining to them how to do it. Now new THF at 99 who have never played the game before have no real idea how SA and TA are to work as well as the other JA that benefit THF in end game.

It's been years since people actually lined up for that. Why would I want to spend months learning how to do it?

PS. If you even make it to level 31 without knowing how that works, you are a fail boat anyways. Before wiki even existed, it was almost impossible to level another job besides thief without figuring out how that worked. Gearing for it is the hard part and you won't get any gear fighting crabs.

[Glamdring]

That will have it's own set of issues. If you pop your ring and no one else does, you will level faster than everyone and ruin their exp. Even if they all decide they want to exp. fast like you, You will also out grow camps super fast making it so that instead of spending time fighting, you will spend most of your time traveling to different camps (which has nothing to do with gaining exp. or learning your job). There are already a lot of people who have most of their jobs leveled beyond a certain point, which means that you will probably have to level synch. Which means that people won't be learning anything about their abilities as they level up because they will be capped to a lower level and unable to access them.


I could go on for days, but I think you get the point. Low level experience points parties are pretty much a thing of the past. The only way that form of leveling will ever be relevant again is if SE somehow creates a huge influx of new players coming into the game that are attracted to the game because of this newly introduced feature that allows them to level at a rate that is 10 times slower than the one that all the current players got to use. Who knows though. Maybe pigs can fly.

Frank nailed it. With the Outside Aby XP doubled, XP rings and in most cases an FoV page the XP gain is simply too fast to do an old school grind, at least below 30, what with having to constantly switch camps to keep skill points accumulating (which it sounds like is at least part of your concern). I understand the bitch, I'm a skill points hawk myself, which is why I stay the hell out of aby until 75 (cant connect enough to make skilling realistic before 75).

Now, you can START grinding again if you want somewhere between 30 and 40 depending on the job/party build-and it does vary, even with GoV. However, if your server is anything like mine the common GoV spots have a constant alliance spamming pages at that level, you join them or just try to do your GoV page with no prey-not gonna work-but the problem is the alliance is burning XP as fast as you were 1-30, so again skill suffers, especially with a sync.

So if you wanna old school your best bet is going to be 50-80ish on Gov pages or in an old school camp, but good luck finding the parties. It's been mentioned elsewhere on the forums numerous times, what we really need is an outlet that gives major skill-ups to off-set the gap between skill levels and job levels to get those points up in something like the rate we got the XP/merits up. So far SE's only answer has been Martial Master, a ring/earring and a few foods; oh, and to take away the outlets for rapid skill-up to ofset the gap created by rapid XP up (campaign fortifications, etc.). No answer, I know, make of it what you will...