I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Dreamin]

Stuff as simple as this is still kept a secret?

it is to me when I wanted to keep my chain going and not get wasted by some trusters who typically kill slow enough to just disrupt chain. difference between 700-800 exp vs 1.4k-1.6k on chain make my meriting session go a lot faster.

[Dreamin]

depending on what is your healer and what your DD is capable of doing, Woh Gate's from Drift straight down south loop with rabbits and worms are a prefect example of a very low man pt (<= 2 DD at most). Anymore and respawn will kill your chain. Nothing aggro in this path but they do link like crazy so either have a healer that can also sleep would give you some relieve. Or just make sure your healer is a capable healer.

[Eyeballed]

I understand Dreamin's want to keep his camp secret. He probably found it the way any other person could: by researching and exploring.

[Mirage]

Stuff as simple as this is still kept a secret?

You have the same ability as everyone else to figure out which spots work best for you. Finding the optimal spot for yourself can take some time, it's only natural that people don't want to see it spoiled by others right away.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

I understand Dreamin's want to keep his camp secret. He probably found it the way any other person could: by researching and exploring.

... which is time that could have been spent EXPing with Trust NPCs.

[Camiie]

Behold the kind, compassionate, and generous FFXI community at work.

[Dreamin]

... which is time that could have been spent EXPing with Trust NPCs.

No thanks. I do get more and faster xp without the use of trust npc. However, I did use Lion last time I went to fishmarket to farm up a rock for delve entry and it was hella fast with TH (got 2 drop within the 1st 10 mobs...and then the 3rd drop almost 45min later). I definitely thinks the Trust has its place and it does allow those more casual players better opportunity to complete a lot of the stuff that they can't do themselves. But a blanket statement that said Trust NPCs will get you MORE exp than party is just flat out wrong.

There are plenty of other camps that would work. The key is will your party be willing to take on the risk of the harder mobs or not (we're talking about a lot of these will and can 1 shot you even with 119 gears). More risk = more reward and faster merit session.

[Dreamin]

From what I have seen none of the areas offer a bird camp dense area of mobs with the couple that comes close are also the type of mobs EXP parties avoid.

remember it's not just mob density, but the combination of respawn timer that will yield you the effective density. Not sure you ever had to do this before but back in the old colibris merit pt, when we ended up getting the upper camp, we usually have to go steal 1 or 2 birds from the lower deck to keep chain going. But just that 1-2 birds are usually enough to keep chain going and not dropped it. [yeah the lower deck ppl usually yell/shout at us to stop stealing their birds but it's usually just lol all around].

So yeah, there might not be enough density to kill fast but as long as there are enough mobs to keep chain going, then density becomes a non-issue (and why I said in some camps, when you have more than 2+ DDs it wont work anymore since you'll be killing too fast).

[Dreamin]

Behold the kind, compassionate, and generous FFXI community at work.

Unless you're paying my monthly fee, I'm not required to help anyone in any way, shape or form. Especially like others have said, I've spent my own time and found these camps and if I don't feel like sharing with the open public so everyone and their mother and their trusts will come kill my chain. It is no one else's business. I dont mind sharing ideas on how to find the appropriate camp for others (i.e. party size/strength/weakness are the key parameters one need to understands and accepted).

I'll throw a freebie to you here. If you have a group of people who needs a lot of merits (AA KI) and only 1 or 2 people can be active and the rest needs to afk and you just dont want to suffer the 200-300xp/mob + RoE exp bonus on lower level mobs, you can take a MNK (just load him up with EVA) [or BLU with good Thunder gears, or BLM with good MAB or ... name your jobs] and a part time healer/keyer and you can effectively do just about any Abyssea camp with mobs that aggro/link (otherwise kill speed will be way too slow). Won't be some great/grand exp but in about 1.5hr, you walk everyone out with the 20 merits that you each need for that AA run. Abyssea zone/mob choices, I won't tell you but it's not hard to figure that out [there are just way too many to choose].

[detlef]

I agree in theory that you should be killing much faster when you party up. However, I would argue that there aren't really very many camps in Adoulin with sufficient mob density/respawn to be able to handle a real XP party with bad intentions. I would love for there to be one or ten of them, as this would give us some serious options.

Been to the few zones that was added in the last 2-3 updates?

There are plenty of other camps that would work. The key is will your party be willing to take on the risk of the harder mobs or not (we're talking about a lot of these will and can 1 shot you even with 119 gears). More risk = more reward and faster merit session.

I made the claim that there are virtually no XP camps that support even a half-competent group. You asked if I'd checked the newer zones, as if we are barely aware of the what lies beyond West Adoulin. Then you gave me a camp that works for 1 strong DD and a healer and might work for 2 DDs and also qualified it by saying that any kind of disruption will kill your chain.

And then the second example you give is Abyssea. When the discussion is about teaming up instead of using Trust, Abyssea is a terrible example.

If you're going to make the claim that there are existing camps that work well for XP PTs, then why post if all you're going to share is a mediocre (and oft-used) camp and Abyssea?