Fast leveling in Parties - hot spots

[Demon6324236]

old school guys.. aleast we had lot fun in the past back in the day with the exp pts, lot great camps etc. but that not gonna happen anymore, now n days it all about naked leech/key people. i guess this what the people now call fun, leeching, paying for a leech pt & afking. like who pay gils to afk for exp that boring.lol?

This is the most commonly said about leeching and the like, and all I have to say to it is, that is boring as hell. The fun is what you do at level 99, everything upto it would be boring no matter what for alot of people because it would either involve alot of soloing, or the pain of finding others like yourself who want to level in a 6 man party in old areas. In either case the point is that the leeching is not fun, thats not why people do it, they do it so they can get to the fun part of actually playing that job in a much more meaningful way.

[Mayoyama]

With the exception of automaton and summoning skills, skilling up after leveling up is probably not gonna take more time than slowing down the leveling to let skilling catch up. In either case, you get around a lot of this problem by not staying at 20-sync parties all the way to 70, but instead change to parties where the sync is at 35-55 (CN) and 65-72(Bostanieux). At those higher levels, skill levels will increase a lot by just playing. I'd usually come out with just 50 points below cap at lv70 after bostanieux.

I merely meant that the OP should solo some GoV if they're not finding any book burns (on Shiva its not uncommon during the week for gusgen to be empty). And as for the 10-67 smn comment, was just an illustration how ridiculously easy and effortless xp is these days lol.

[Kjara]

On Siren these areas are nearly dead now. I've seen activity in Gusgen Mines, but also spent two weeks in Crawler Nest before finding someone willing to team up. Nowadays people just burn in Gusgen up to 30 and then go pay the RMTs for FC burn parties.

Honestly, if putting a lv75 entry requirement in Abyssea is too much for SE, I wish they would at least change Fell Cleave's nature (either make it magical damage like most of other weapon's AoEs, or make it single-target) and stop the RMTs.

Why nerf chocobo blinkers and make it harder for all players when you could change a weapon skill and target the Real Money Traders? Keep it up at this rate and only the richest players (IRL and in-game) will be able to get anything achieved in this game at all.

I've been playing since 2006. I never had the RL cash to afford two accounts to dual box and never had over 700K on my character. My in-game progress compared to the other players was just fine pre-abyssea. Prices for gear were manageable, people would actually team up to do stuff instead of dual boxing by themselves (because sharing... oh noez!), and leveling was easy for any range of player. Now instead, everything is about either dual boxing or burning by payment, and my progress has pretty much stopped. Seeing how everything is now so money-dependant really throws me off.

MMORPG 2012: Massively Multicharacter Online Rabidly Paying Gilsellers.

[Luvbunny]

I am glad SE not changing the nature of fell cleave or putting level 75 limitation for Abyssea. Leveling is moot point, total inconvenience, just a relic of old times gone by. The fun start at 95-99. Do you not realize that if they change the entry level of abyssea, book burning RMT will just move to somewhere else, namely Boyahda Tree and Zeruhm Mines. It is ridiculously easy to pump those exp round there via books and beastmaster job. The old school style is never gone. You find it in assault, salvage, nyzuls and its neo counterpart, limbus, meeble burrows, and tons of level capped BCNMs. Everything else is all about gear hunting and for most of the gears you do not need gil EVER. Just time. You are paying for someone else's time if you are buying gil to speed up your relic or mythic. And if you have the money, why not, that's how economy works, the haves buy your time, the not haves sell their time.

[Carth]

Leveling is moot point, total inconvenience, just a relic of old times gone by.

This is 100% correct. The problem is that shouldn't be the case.

[Luvbunny]

Technically you can still do your 6 person set up. And actually be rewarded just as much, with 400-600 exp per kill, more if you are using the anniversary ring. The BIG problem is that you level so fast, all the old school camps will be dead spot within an hour you get there and xp will drop to a meager 200 ish once you get your 4-5 levels. Think about it, between level 10s-50s, only take you 3k-8k per level. At average of 500 xp plus exp bonus, you get around 3k per 4 xp chains and bonus book (or more). Which means at Valkrum, you will level roughly every 10-12 mnts, or even much less. Changing camps every one hour or so probably not the most efficient ways to run exp party.

Obviously certain dungeons are still great for this. Example is Crawler Nest and Boyahda Tree where the mob level range is the greatest. You can level from 55-99 if you choose staying in Boyahda Tree and actually get massive skill ups to 270s on old school mobs and max skill ups on the newer level 98-102 mobs. The problem is gears and access to areas. Not many newbies do exploration. And they certainly not going to carry gears that sustain 10-20 levels in one partying session. They are probably not even aware of ToAU camps or WoTG ones. Level synch can only get you so far, trying to find a new synch every 45-60 mnts can get tiresome fast. GoV is best done in alliance, more efficient and more convenient.

As Arcon has pointed out, you learn nothing in normal exp party, nothing at all. Useless wasted time. You are better off learning those abilities in abyssea or other endgame activities. Nothing forced you to learn and open wiki when you get wiped by NMs or your ignorance lost you valuable items. Small party set up really gives you no room for error, either know your jobs, or die trying. That's what abyssea is for, a fun battle ground for you to explore the jobs and its abilities. And then deal with the harsh reality of outside abyssea lol, hopefully you learn enough on how to play your job to survive :P

[Carth]

Really, SE should just artificially start every job as level 99, since all the content starts there, and there is practically nothing from lvl 1 to 90, unless you count Nation missions as "content".

MMOs really shouldn't be like this though. There's a lack of world-building in this game that should've been present during the level grind, and while it was kinda there back in 2005-07, it's hardly there now.

Responding to your edit, I never agreed with the "leveling slowly allows you to learn your job" thing. In fact I find it a stupid arguement. This game, especially in comparison to other MMOs, is really easy to pick up. I just find that FFXI as a whole lacks that world-building element to it. Everything in the damn game feels so routine and lacking innovation. This doesn't deal with just the leveling "problem" (I don't find it a problem at all), but with content for the game as a whole.

[Luvbunny]

I think the game now is all about options. You can take the express train or you can do it at your own very slow pace. This applies for leveling or doing end game activities. Which is a great thing. Most people take the express train and start the endgame grind, others just do what they want in regards to what other people told them to do. You now can do whatever you want in the game. Slow or fast, solo or small groups, 18 people or 36 people.

[katz]

Ive seen people go to zehrun mines from 10+ so long as they take a high level friend. Pages make up the loss of exp per mob. Dont forget to skillup though if you are in all these parties or even at 99 you will suck

[Mayoyama]

Ive seen people go to zehrun mines from 10+ so long as they take a high level friend. Pages make up the loss of exp per mob. Dont forget to skillup though if you are in all these parties or even at 99 you will suck

Pretty sure its as low as lv7 (iirc, my mule's whm was only 7 when i started zeruhn pages on her)