My total Reive EXP gain: nearly 400. My total Reive EXP loss: nearly 40,000.

[Edyth]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.

WHAT I DO IN REIVES:
This may be what I'm doing "wrong:"

I attack the main targets: the lairs and the obstructions. Thanks to the enmity update, that's all I can do. Attacking a monster is death. There's no room to stand far enough away: I have to either aggro or get caught in other people's monsters' AoEs, or I have to stand next to what I'm fighting. Matamata and craklaws have AoE normal attacks, and all reive monsters survive longer than one avatar. I can't resummon when I'm that close.

I do reives on SMN for campaign assignments and to clear paths. The EXP and bayld don't exist. If the lairs and obstructions don't count for much, akin to Fortifications in campaign, that needs to change. Fortifications are almost always unguarded. Reive targets are always surrounded by death.

WHY I DON'T MELEE:
Unfortunately, my staff skill as a career summoner is badass because I use the job for literally everything, and there are plenty of times I can safely melee with my avatar. Therefore my staff is accurate, although not stronger than an avatar's Assault. However, if it's a monster, I still die due to Edyth's enmity spiking despite her avatar dealing more damage, or the monster dies before I whack 4 times with my staff due to bonafide melee jobs attacking the monster. If it's the main target I'm fighting, meleeing with my avatar gets me killed due to danger all around me.

CHANGES NEEDED:
Even if you want to keep the main targets of the Reives "worthless" in terms of EXP/bayld, these changes should be made I feel:

• Pets should earn EXP in Reives.
• EXP loss should be eliminated in Reives. Eliminating EXP loss makes it so that players who prefer to focus on the true objective of the Reive (lairs and obstructions) are neither punished nor rewarded for ignoring the infinite small fries that spawn.
  
  Currently, the system is like this: Your objective is to kill the metaphorical king. We will profusely reward those of you who take out the king's infinite grunts. To the man who kills the king, you get nothing, but you will be punished severely for the injuries you incur.

Note: I do indeed possess "Logging," Demolishing," and Reive unity, so that's not the issue.

[Alhanelem]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.

It seems to me like you're doing something wrong, because while I agree that the xp given vs likelyhood of dying and losing it is a problem, you should be able to do a LOT better than 60 per an entire reive on SMN.

I'm guessing you're just standing there and only using your avatars or something. Pets earn basically no contribution points. Get a good DD staff and use shattersoul or cataclysm and your scores will get much better. Use party BPs like hastega and inferno howl to up your damage and also help everyone around you.

Rather than cancelling XP loss though, I think they should award like 3-5 times the EXP they do currently, because the current values are pathetic, even if you're on a DD.

[Zagen]

Maybe it's something you're doing or not doing because I see SMN doing Colonization Reives and I can't believe they're happy getting that kind of rewards when I get 1-4k Bayld on BLU, DRK, or PLD (I don't track/notice the EXP).

Do you spam buffs, spam damage pacts, and melee along with the avatar? I see this a lot so I assume that's the way to go.

[Cybermario]

I think they should award like 3-5 times the EXP they do currently, because the current values are pathetic, even if you're on a DD.

agreed. Hitting roots all day long isnt fun, this could make it more attractive.

[Luvbunny]

This is the problem with SoA in general, the main activities are not fun AT ALL... It's boring, uninteresting and rather crappy with crap rewards. They really need to go back to the drawing board on this and hopefully the next 4-6 adjustment will fix this sad sorry expansion. I am optimistic BUT looking at the miserable state of WoTG expansion, I am very worried with this SoA future. Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....

[Asymptotic]

Personally I enjoy Reives when there are fewer people doing them so crowd control is actually a challenge

[Zagen]

This is the problem with SoA in general, the main activities are not fun AT ALL... It's boring, uninteresting and rather crappy with crap rewards. They really need to go back to the drawing board on this and hopefully the next 4-6 adjustment will fix this sad sorry expansion. I am optimistic BUT looking at the miserable state of WoTG expansion, I am very worried with this SoA future. Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....

For me it was the other way around. Don't get me wrong the whole pet hate issue and my pets taking more damage sucks but overall and more so once I got the expansion I'm actually having fun with Reives and that addiction is coming back, heck it even got me to go back to a few old events to get things i missed/put off.

[Asymptotic]

Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....

That's really interesting! They didn't remove the rest of the world/events from FFXI when they added Adoulin access to my server.

[Luvbunny]

There is nothing fun when you get horrible lag issue when a lot of people are doing it. It's hard to target or execute macro, very very laggy. I mean sure it's interesting for the first few days but not if this is what we have to do everywhere in the SoA to "clear" the way.... You see a lot of people doing campaign nowadays? Look let's not sugar coat a turd when we see one - lol - after 4-5 big updates (which translate to a year maximum) then we may be able to judge SoA differently. It may as well be very amazing expansion, but as it is now. Pure gold turd!!

[Asymptotic]

I'm personally satisfied with the expansion, but even if it were absolutely terrible, exactly how does that take the fun out of the other 99% of FFXI?