Moderating Rate of Exp Gain

[darkstahr]

Just to tell a tale of my own on this subject.

The first time I did the mission the OP talks about we organized a huge shout with players ranging from level 20 to 35. From shouting to finish the whole process took more than 12 hours.

It took us about nine hours to climb the tower and finish the mission. It was one of the most memorable moments on my FFXI career.

Other event that did close to it was Ifrit's cauldron Zilart mission. We were TWO ALIANCES and we wiped to Tyrannic Tunnok (giant scorpion HNM). Great times (2004/2005) which won't come back ever.

I feel your pain.

Sounds really epic and it would be awesome to have the option to do that! As someone who is fairly new to FFXI, it is sad to think I missed out on this type of play!

[elqplau]

The suggestions Tristan has made for xp management are good ones. It would enable players more control over the level of challenge they wish to take on in game.

I've seen several posts above that suggest his group use the "Call for help" feature, and I've tried that in the past and would STRONGLY advise against it. My group of three used "Call for help" to avoid XP gain, and it was a hot mess. Very kind people kept stopping to help us, some losing their chocos, and we had to keep explaining that we didn't really need help. We just didn't want to gain XP, but we did want to cap a handful of our combat skills. We tried multiple areas to avoid the player population, but in the end, we spent a ton of extra time explaining that we didn't really need help when high level players would still show up and come in and one-shot the mob we were skilling up on. We felt bad for bothering so many people who just happened to be in the area.

Call for Help was clearly never intended to be an XP management tool, and if used that way, be ready to tick off a lot of people and spend most of your time in /tell explaining to other players what you're really doing.

Another side note on "call for help", once you use it, the AoE of the mob you're fighting will affect other players in your area, whether they've engaged the mob or not.

Again, for all of the good people who do actually try to come to the aid of adventurers in need, "Call for Help" is not the right tool to use for XP management.

I think Tristan's suggestions for a change in the game programming are very welcome as a solution to his group's XP management problem.

I agee i started pree pld and CFH meant help me im going to die lol ....id have been the first to jump from a choco(if i could afford one) and offer my blade or healing...i still do so

[Ozzwin]

I have to say that the idea of taking on challenges with other fans of the Final Fantasy genre was what lured me to this game and kept me playing it for so long. Challenges does not mean running through a nation mission area and having nothing agro you. Challenges also does not mean one-shotting a nation mission boss just to complete the mission. :/ Level capped missions were perfect for challenges and they were at all levels of the game! But now, it doesn’t seem right that I have to wait until level 99 to enjoy what used to be a defining characteristic of this game. I don’t want my love of the game (and the friendships I form in it) to die just because I don’t have the option to challenge myself with a group of friends. Please, please give the OP’s request some serious consideration!!

[Capice]

Level capped missions were perfect for challenges and they were at all levels of the game! But now, it doesn’t seem right that I have to wait until level 99 to enjoy what used to be a defining characteristic of this game.

There have been a lot of level capped fights, quests, and missions that I’ve gotten to do in FFXI. I found them challenging and fun. For the most part, they weren't easy wins, but they were meaningful ones, and I remember those fights. Whether it was the awesome strategy we came up with or the groups that I went into battle with. I think the OP is asking for that same challenging quality, but just on a broader scale. A zone under an optional level cap (instead of just a single battle/boss fight) opens up endless possibilities for people to come together by working together

I am totally in support of optional level caps, and I encourage others to share their stories of level capped fights they enjoyed. Maybe S/E will show the OP request some love

[mckenzie]

In my first social linkshell, we started a group to do CoP content as we leveled new jobs, epic fights scraping by and clearing by the skin of our teeth. People leveling those jobs became masters of them as opposed to nowadays burning a job to 99 and then figuring out how your job abilities worked. I got my maats cap back in the day but i still had level capped gear on a mule which i could get to help people with fights. One of my favorites was the mission 2 dragon and eye. After buffing, I'd time myself to see if I could get them killed before the person I was helping got out of cutscene.

Optional caps are a great idea in the vein of level syncing. One possible means of achieving this would be to give the option of 5 level incriments starting at 10 or 20. Ideally setting any obscure level would be great in my opinion, but i'm not sure if that's feasable.

I'd also love the suggestion of being able to earn other points in places of xp while capped. Perhaps people might be interested in rebuilding Imperial standing if they were able to cap at 75, and while under sanction, xp gains were converted 100% into Imperial standing. While in normal areas, under signet, you'd get conquest points, and sigil in the past would yield allied notes.

I do however think that it's too much to expect increased or additional drops based on level capping. Part of level capping yourself is your own chosen restriction and in most cases the experience and enjoyment are the only rewards needed. Don't forget that if you crave rewards, the new high tier battlefields are putting out new gear which really shines and are definitely worth doing. Multiple difficulty settings makes these new fights accessable, even by people who are not geared well.

One thing I really have to encourage is for people who are looking for adventure to get everything there is to offer from the old content, but keep moving. New content has been flowing steadily from the devs lately, the quality of life adjustments are making the game more playable than it ever was in the past. THE best place to look for adventure and team building is the new content. The same thrill that you remember from climbing delkfutts tower can now be found by fighting your way through colonization reives from town to reach a wildskeeper reive and taking a single alliance in to fight it. Not so long ago, I went into colkhab with 5 friends. 1 party, didn't shout, just told linkshell. We went in and fought bee learning it's moves, the nuances and really practicing our roles for fighting it on different jobs. The content changes, the day changes, the challenge moves. It's up to us to find it.

[Youby]

I do however think that it's too much to expect increased or additional drops based on level capping. Part of level capping yourself is your own chosen restriction and in most cases the experience and enjoyment are the only rewards needed. Don't forget that if you crave rewards, the new high tier battlefields are putting out new gear which really shines and are definitely worth doing. Multiple difficulty settings makes these new fights accessable, even by people who are not geared well.

I think that is what is so fantastic about the OP's motivation behind the post. He did not ask to be rewarded for optional level cap. It is a unique request (at least in my experiences of the game) because it is a request for assistance to learn HOW to become a better player (in a group setting) BEFORE reaching level 99. Unless I read it incorrectly, that is the reward they are looking for.

The more and more I hear about this Phoenix Valorian group, the more and more curious I get. From what I can gather (largely thanks to ISLANDWAHINE1107 video find from earlier), they have successfully completed the following:

• West Ronfaure Garrison - in a full alliance; with no subjobs; with no advanced jobs
• Defeated Hundredwall - with jobs at only 17-19 (from what I could tell); with just 8 members; with no advanced jobs; with 4 consecutive renkei and a magic burst at the end
• San D'oria Mission 2-3 Black Dragon fight - with no job higher than 19; 5 consecutive skillchains
• All 3 Eco-Warrior Quests - with no more than 8 party members; with no high level assistance; with no advanced jobs
• San D'oria Mission 3-3 Appointment to Jeuno - with the intentions of doing the entire climb at level 25; defeated Porphyrion, but complained that he only lasted 2 consecutive skillchains
• Made the most adorable 'awwwww'-n00bie video (Neo Mini-Project??) about their experience as a group

Not brag-worthy achievements in the slightest, but certainly not meant to be overlooked, either. Promyvion can sort out how good/bad this group is but only provided they're able to fight monsters in the zone (including bosses) at original intended level caps.

For anyone reading this and is part of the group that Tristian is talking about, could you give me a rough timetable of when you plan on starting Chains of Promathia missions? If it's ok, I would like to keep tabs on your progress (or lack of)

[Sandmaste]

It wouldn't hurt to have the level cap for mission BC's, and even some mission area's. The optional reward could be Sparks of Eminence, and that would also allow all the people who completed those missions back in the day to tick off those Records as well.

Otherwise, as fun as it seems, there were some parts of CoP that did take up a lot of play time, and were amazingly challenging.

When it comes to say the Airship fight (the most challenging CoP mission by far) after a few trys i'm betting you would just scrap the level60 cap and run through it. I remember that fight well, on our 6th or 7th attempt we lay there wiped, double weakend, with Ultima or Omega? I forget which at 1%HP and frustrated, then all of a sudden after 30secs of us all laying there wiped the mob dropped down dead - our RDM had landed a Bio on him and it dropped with us all wiped. It was a memerable feeling but,

From someone who loves a challenge, if the option is there to fight a battle like that uncapped then chances are you after a couple of trys and spending time gathering items needed for the fight you probably will just think 'F-it' and burn through that one forgetting all about it.

Even now, having just returned to the game after a 3 year break, I'm enjoying solo-ing content like Dyna, Limbus, Campaign Battles then VWNM's and Walk of Echo's for getting the WS's for my 4 jobs. I haven't even downloaded the Seekers edition to play Adoulin as I have far to much to do to take up my time, and I know once I have Adoulin I'd be stuck in skirmish and Delve so enjoying these other aspects of the game to the max first is fine with me, I'd like 4 emp ws's unlocked, all the Dyna+2 gear, and AF+1 gear and WotG storyline complete before I move on. Some of it is a doddle (95% of Limbus) but then other things are challenging (tierII+ WoE) solo so I enjoy a nice mix of easy and hard.

[mdjohns23]

We actually did our first Spire fight last week and it was sooooooo AWESOME!!! I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous about a video game before My teammates were fantastic! We did the fight at level 30. Everyone used their animas on time. Oh!! Even when the little baby things started popping out (I forget what they were called) no one panicked and the melee kept them off us mages.

The only bad thing was we found out that we got more exp after winning the fight (it was a reward for winning the fight) and it caused some of us to level to 31. At level 30 the fight seemed easy. Does that mean when we fight the next spire boss that it will be even easier because we’re 31? Bren tried his best to keep us from getting too much exp by having a friend place a level 38 mule in the zone and we created an alliance with her. It helped only a little bit, though. Now it makes even more sense for us to keep hoping for the optional level cap, because Bren should not have to go through so much trouble to help keep things challenging for us.

I know that the exp reward for winning our boss fights cannot be avoided. But, if we had optional level caps, it wouldn’t have made a difference because we would still be able to stay at level 30 for the next Promyvion fights. Can we please get optional level caps?

[Demonjustin]

In my opinion optional level caps wouldn't be a bad thing but I think the best thing would be to allow us to set a level sync in our party to whatever level we want whilst also allowing this to work in BCNMs. If you want to be level 30 you could cap yourself at 30, you'd still get XP but it wouldn't matter anyways because that wouldn't ever stop you from setting yourself right back where you want for the sake of challenging yourself.

[Lithera]

The next two fights shouldn't be too much easier at 31.