Revamp the way we gain experience points

[Rustic]

I felt like I had nothing to do back when the level cap was 75 even though I only had like 5 jobs leveled on my main. The reason? Because getting the jobs that I was less interested in up to level cap seemed like a giant boring, tedious grind. After they released abyssea, I went and leveled a bunch of jobs that I had previously ignored just because it was easy to level them. Guess what? It turns out that some of them are fun, so I started gearing and practicing playing them. Now I have tons of new job quests to do, AF sets to build and gear to chase because I actually like some of these jobs that I had previously ignored due to the effort required just to try them out.

For example, when I leveled Ninja to 45 for a subjob many years ago, I hated it. But after I leveled it in abyssea while my LS was farming chests, I started to like it. Now I play it as much as I can. If I had been stuck playing RDM, BLM, BRD, WHM, MNK and THF all this time, I would have p[robably lost it a long time ago.

Of course, even if this very day we said NO SOUP FOR YOU and locked Abyssea to 75+ characters...people would STILL be leveling faster than they did in the bad old days. You could sit there on your I-don't-want-you-in-my-exp-PT-forever-alone job of choice from that era now and be guaranteed a steady rate of exp gain.

I don't care what job you are. Given baseline equipment, you can kill EP mobs. If you can kill it and it gives exp, all it takes is a GoV/FoV page and you're looking at advancement at a pace that isn't grindingly agonizing. For anyone.

That's good. It's the overwhelming mass exp generation that is Abyssea that's broken, where players literally don't have to move for 69 levels straight from one place, in perfect safety while the guy with the great axe and his healer lulz their way through for you. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't just bot the healer and auto-level 17 people with one guy twoboxing his computer (yes, botting illegal. Someone should tell all the fishers I keep seeing that.). No threats. No worries. Just dingdingdingding hey I'm 99 now, YAY I R TEH SPECIALZ!

Abyssea's exp system wasn't a "fix" for grinding. It was the death of the exp system, period, reducing the process to something of a zero-risk proposition for 16 people at once. GoV/FoV was the fix.

Abyssea was like having the human race become immortal and invulnerable, followed by GoV/FoV's discovery of the cure for cancer.

[FrankReynolds]

Disclaimer: The following post is not aimed at anyone in particular but if the shoe fits...


I'm not really sure what the problem is? It sounds like a case of "I don't want it, but I don't want you to have it either.". I mean if you like leveling slow, it's there. If you like leveling fast, it's there. It seems to me that some people just love making other people do things their way.

Why does it make people so sad in their pants to see joey the mouth breather on a level 99 character? Are you really going to assert your mental superiority over him while simultaneously admitting that in ten years of game play you haven't figured out how to spot the retard in your group and kick him out? I mean how are you honestly going to say that you are an intelligent seasoned player who hasn't figured out how to either A) spot a moron or B) coach an inexperienced player? If you are in charge of a bunch of idiots that you chose, then what does that make you? If you did not choose those idiots on your team, then what does that make you?

Smart people kick the idiot and don't invite him again. If you keep getting screwed by the pink BST on your NNI runs, maybe the problem is not abyssea.

If you really love old exp. parties and you think they are so fun that everyone else should be doing them then make an effort to revive them. I have seen 20-30 threads about how abyssea exp. ruins the game etc., but I have yet to see even one person create a thread / link shell / group organized around the idea of actually getting together a group of people who like that method of leveling succeed. There is a reason for that.

Wanting to slow other people's progress just to make your self feel more accomplished is a pretty pointless endeavor.

[Horadrim]

Disclaimer: The following post is not aimed at anyone in particular but if the shoe fits...


I'm not really sure what the problem is? It sounds like a case of "I don't want it, but I don't want you to have it either.". I mean if you like leveling slow, it's there. If you like leveling fast, it's there. It seems to me that some people just love making other people do things their way.

Why does it make people so sad in their pants to see joey the mouth breather on a level 99 character? Are you really going to assert your mental superiority over him while simultaneously admitting that in ten years of game play you haven't figured out how to spot the retard in your group and kick him out? I mean how are you honestly going to say that you are an intelligent seasoned player who hasn't figured out how to either A) spot a moron or B) coach an inexperienced player? If you are in charge of a bunch of idiots that you chose, then what does that make you? If you did not choose those idiots on your team, then what does that make you?

Smart people kick the idiot and don't invite him again. If you keep getting screwed by the pink BST on your NNI runs, maybe the problem is not abyssea.

If you really love old exp. parties and you think they are so fun that everyone else should be doing them then make an effort to revive them. I have seen 20-30 threads about how abyssea exp. ruins the game etc., but I have yet to see even one person create a thread / link shell / group organized around the idea of actually getting together a group of people who like that method of leveling succeed. There is a reason for that.

Wanting to slow other people's progress just to make your self feel more accomplished is a pretty pointless endeavor.

Quoted for truth.

There is absolutely no reason to lock Abyssea. You don't learn any more in Book Burns than you do in Abyssea, especially when you look at how often you find people leeching there as well.

Last I checked, I had to interview and fill out applications to join big linkshells doing endgame content -- that should be even more intense these days seeing as how established members can just abyssea up required jobs instead of finding people who already have them. The only reason you should be having trouble dealing with bad players is if you didn't do your due diligence in finding people worth doing events with. Pick ups have always sucked ass, Abyssea didn't make them any worse than they were when it was shouts for 75 climbs or CoP boss battles.

[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...

[scaevola]

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.

Yeah actually you're right; some things are kind of hard to figure out on your own without somebody knowledgeable present to explain them to you.

Fortunately, people recognized this problem a while back and tried to address it with a pretty neat little innovation called "writing".

[RAIST]

Fortunately, people recognized this problem a while back and tried to address it with a pretty neat little innovation called "writing".

If only people would take the time to do a little research...so many posts lately about "problems" that are already covered even in the older wiki's that receive little updating these days.

[Kari]

It's too late to make any changes. Bad players will always be bad players. Gimp players may get better with time, just don't let them be convinced that it's okay to come to a T6 Voidwatch shout with AH gear, no temp items, 3 stones, etc.

If you can't look at someone and figure out that they aren't geared/skilled enough to do what you're planning, then you're probably just as bad of a player.

Making exp boring as hell again will just make SE lose money. I'm okay with having more gimps and potential good players opposed to every new player quitting because exping sucks and all of this game's content is at 99.

[saevel]

Hey guyz I got a solution

when they release SoA they should delevel EVERYONE back to 1 and make Abyssea level 99 onry. Also make it so you don't get XP on the monster unless you SC it.

That'll sure teach everyone to really hate the game, make it so only us true players can play...

[saevel]

Yeah actually you're right; some things are kind of hard to figure out on your own without somebody knowledgeable present to explain them to you.

Fortunately, people recognized this problem a while back and tried to address it with a pretty neat little innovation called "writing".

OMG seriously! You mean people can learn about something without being subjected to blind trial & error? WTF is this nonsense, why ... that's CHEATING! You should be banned for suggesting some actually research community knowledge pools!

Next you'll tell me that we're not supposed to wear costumes of our characters while we play.

[FrankReynolds]

Next you'll tell me that we're not supposed to wear costumes of our characters while we play.

No way man. If I can't dress as a galka in a mankini while I play, I'm out of here.