@dev team ->> Thanks for bringing back party grinding, -really-

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Originally Posted by Tezz_Xivectro

It's not about the difference but about the presentation. It's all a mental feeling that those kinds of players get off on.
Repetitious grinding is actually horrific now, and we still need chains along with a few other things to spice it up (personally, i want this first).

My idea of a "repeatable quest" would be something like Fields of Valor or a town quest that you must farm a group of monsters for X of X item (only being able to obtain X item after the quest has been started).

It is a shame that it's either 1 or the other these days in MMOs. Mainly leaning more & more anti-social.

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But it's not that people are anti-social they are merely responding to the deliberate balancing by WoW-clone MMO developers. They award more XP for running many solo, repetitive, pointless/joyless and grind-full quests at a time. MMO players, being human beings do what most human beings would always do in such a situation and they take advantage.

The result is that the only incentive to group would be to recapture that feeling of actually having to try and work with other people... only why do that when you can rush with everyone else to endgame where there is actually once again some reward for teamwork.

I disagree with OP 110%

Variety is a great thing.

If I don't have time to seek for a party invite or to make my own party, I could just do some leves. Perhaps can also seek for a party invite while doing leves and quest. It is a win win situation.

If I were to grind for hours solo or in a party, I need some more motivational pumping music to keep me awake.

FFXI's camp-style grinding was terrible. Seriously, standing in one place for hours and hours pulling one mob at a time made the monotony almost unbearable. Please don't try to add that style of gameplay to FFXIV. It isn't any fun.

The people who liked FFXI's style of grinding seemed to only like for the fact that you were playing with other people, which is understandable, but you CAN play with other people in a WoW style questing system. In fact, doing so makes WoW's quest grinding much more entertaining. The people who don't know this probably either never played WoW, or never bothered to try playing with other people in it.

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Originally Posted by Rhianu

FFXI's camp-style grinding was terrible. Seriously, standing in one place for hours and hours pulling one mob at a time made the monotony almost unbearable. Please don't try to add that style of gameplay to FFXIV. It isn't any fun.

The people who liked FFXI's style of grinding seemed to only like for the fact that you were playing with other people, which is understandable, but you CAN play with other people in a WoW style questing system. In fact, doing so makes WoW's quest grinding much more entertaining. The people who don't know this probably either never played WoW, or never bothered to try playing with other people in it.

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You can play with other people in a WOW style questing system in 100 other WOW and or WOW clone games. And frankly, having played Aion, WoW, AoC, Rift, and so on, the more premiere WoW clones if you will, the only people I see playing together in that type of system are real life friends, or people joining a group for 5 minutes to kill one thing and then disbanding it immediately once the enemy is dead without even a thanks or c-ya have the time.

I don't see how WoW quest grinding is "much more entertaining" .. lets do a compare

WoW - Get quest from NPC with minor story to kill 8 wolves, bring back 8 wolf hides. Get Gold, Armor, and Experience Points. (i.e. welfare)

FFXIV - Get quest from floating stone to kill 8 wolves (with the option for increased rewards for doing it with other people), or more recently, get quest from NPC to kill 8 wolves. Complete, get gil and experience points (i.e. welfare)

Since the guide-leve system has existed in FFXIV since day one, and creates the WOW quest / daily system which you embrace AND at least at some point encouraged grouping to complete them then all those players should have been satisfied. Since the game has lost players at an astounding rate (For a multitude of reasons) its safe to assume a portion of them left due to dissatisifaction with this play style.

FFXIV will never do WOW/Clone questing as effectively as those games do it.

There are plenty of WOW/Clone games available to satisfy that market.

FFXIV currently has an opportunity to differentiate itself from the swarm by going more towards the earlier gen MMO style (which WOW has effectively killed) as there is an audience out there who is hungry for that. If they weren't, then FFXI wouldn't still be running 9 years later, with a player base much larger than this game.

Finally - If you look at the actual design of jobs, they are built to be played with strategic position. The games mechanics lend itself much better to a camp and pull style party system, not a run around with a strategyless hack n slash zerg fest. That experience is available 100 other places.

Camp & Pull will save this game if its implemented in a way that
1. There are actually enough mobs to camp and pull
2. They don't run back to their house if they get 5 feet from it
3. Jobs are more specialized

WOW style play will never save it because
1. Instanced content has little longevity
2. This game will never do WOW style as effectively as WOW
3. They already tried it with leve's and look at where we are at.

Non instanced dungeons/worlds with other parties and risks introduced by other real people, is what makes existing content fun, keeps it fresh, and gives it longevity.

In short-

SE keep working on partying, its the bread and butter of fun
Add epic quest lines (Zilart style - now those are quests I can get enthusiastic about)
Focus on job diversity

For those that want a casual element in the game, then just let them solo for severely reduced experience points. There is no need for leve's. I can't stress how much that is just MMO welfare.

Having only mindless repetitive grinding of field mobs from R1-Rx will be no fun for anyone. Having more and more quests to do will be more fun. If you want to grind on monsters forever with little questing, there's a F2P game called 'Fly for Fun' you could play. No one wants FFXIV, besides you OP, to become like that.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Having only mindless repetitive grinding of field mobs from R1-Rx will be no fun for anyone. Having more and more quests to do will be more fun. If you want to grind on monsters forever with little questing, there's a F2P game called 'Fly for Fun' you could play. No one wants FFXIV, besides you OP, to become like that.

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You must mean no one left playing since most people like me split along time ago. That would explain the dead game.

I do rather like the option to gather up some friends of the same rank and go out on a monster slaughter expedition. Mind you its never not been an option in xiv. just highly devalued during the mega leve link period.

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Originally Posted by captainpicard

You must mean no one left playing since most people like me split along time ago. That would explain the dead game.

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A long time ago there were no side quests or dungeons, and you could have grinded on field mobs all you wanted then and you can now. Dont try to say all that has been added and all that is coming is the reason why people left. People left because there was very little to do and battle was not fun and unrewarding.

Mind blowing revelation for you grind-lovers: you will always be able to grind, regardless of whether the game promotes solo questing, group questing, dungeoneering, or whatever. But it doesn't work the other way around when a game promotes grinding.

OP makes no sense being that none of those other options affect party grinding. It's now the best way to SP when not soloing leves.

grind parties = lack of content
is the truth why SE uses grind method when this metod is obsolet
again the foult ffxi players that wanna outher ffxi no ew game

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Originally Posted by Tezz_Xivectro

My idea of a "repeatable quest" would be something like Fields of Valor or a town quest that you must farm a group of monsters for X of X item (only being able to obtain X item after the quest has been started).

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FoV is great, I always thought that's what leves were supposed to be for and I don't think there was any need to relegate them to solo only. Not really sure where Yoshi and company is going with this. :/

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Originally Posted by captainpicard

I don't see how WoW quest grinding is "much more entertaining" .. lets do a compare

WoW - Get quest from NPC with minor story to kill 8 wolves, bring back 8 wolf hides. Get Gold, Armor, and Experience Points. (i.e. welfare)

FFXIV - Get quest from floating stone to kill 8 wolves (with the option for increased rewards for doing it with other people), or more recently, get quest from NPC to kill 8 wolves. Complete, get gil and experience points (i.e. welfare)

Since the guide-leve system has existed in FFXIV since day one, and creates the WOW quest / daily system which you embrace AND at least at some point encouraged grouping to complete them then all those players should have been satisfied. Since the game has lost players at an astounding rate (For a multitude of reasons) its safe to assume a portion of them left due to dissatisifaction with this play style.

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Guild Leves are not like WoW style questing at all, and your claim that they are only proves that you never truly understood how either Guild Leves or WoW style quests actually work.

WoW quests are different from Guild Leves in that each WoW quest sends you off to new and unique areas, has you fight different mobs, you get quests from a variety of NPCs, and most importantly, you're not forced to repeat the exact same eight quests over and over again once every 36 hours. All these things are present in FFXIV's Guild Leves, however, and they serve to make FFXIV's Guild Leve system highly inferior to WoW style questing.

However, you are correct in saying that the more recent Side-Quest system where we get quests from NPCs is like WoW style questing, but it's a half-assed, bastardized version of it. I'm sure the Side-Quests SE adds in the future will be better, but the ones we got so far have felt very shallow compared to similar offerings in WoW.

Yes, a lot of people have left FFXIV, but I guarantee you it's not because FFXIV had WoW style questing, because it didn't until just a few short months ago. The REAL reason so many people left the game is because FFXIV lacked engaging and interesting content, had copy-pasted terrain, had a clunky battle system and a horrible interface. THAT'S what caused people to leave.

I prefer a mix of grind and questing, or rather I'd like both options to be available. FFXIV for some reason captivates me as compared to any other MMO. Although I haven't played a whole lot, it sparks a particular interest to see that the community has a large input on how things are being handled. For sure we don't want to see a repeat MMO, whether it be the archetypes of XI or WOW.

Honestly though, I don't think exp should be a HUGE reward from a quest, well because that makes no sense. The brunt of the exp gained should come from the things you grind upon while carrying out the quest. Now if there are quests where you don't take part in any form of advancement where you don't fight or craft, like if you had to sneak by something hella strong and get an item, the exp should be found in the reward. (Which reminds me more levequest types need to be introduced.)

Furthermore, I'm just going to throw this out there, I don't like the stagnant camp play style that so many people seem to want simply because they are used to it in XI. You have a goal in partying and that is to gain experience. Part of experience is to see new things, not the same old camp grounds. Roaming parties just makes sense. While a camp is a good idea, stagnancy can be boring, unless it for a reason, such as undead popping.

WoW also has well over 5000 quests, per faction, that aren't repeatable on the same character. And they are all chained together to send you to progressively more difficult areas all over the world. I hope SE manages that kind of questing system in FFXIV. It takes a lot of hard work and planning to get as many quests that WoW has chained together like it. It also takes a story, something OP doesn't think an MMO/RPG requires. If this were a silly hack and slash game, the story could be omitted, but it wont be that way with FFXIV.

A WoW type questing system (even tho WoW didn't invent the chain quest..... dammit) would be good for any MMO, because it gets you involved in what is going on in the world. Even tho we all dont want FFXIV to be like other MMOS, having lots of quests that involve the story and theme of the game is always a good thing in an MMO. as said above, they send players out into the world, not just to kill some monster for no reason, but to kill that monster for a cause.

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Originally Posted by Reika

WoW also has well over 5000 quests, per faction, that aren't repeatable on the same character. And they are all chained together to send you to progressively more difficult areas all over the world. I hope SE manages that kind of questing system in FFXIV. It takes a lot of hard work and planning to get as many quests that WoW has chained together like it. It also takes a story, something OP doesn't think an MMO/RPG requires. If this were a silly hack and slash game, the story could be omitted, but it wont be that way with FFXIV.

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I do like that system, but only to an extent. That way feels like they've mapped the whole game out for you. I like to make my own choices on what to do next. They basically spell the entire game out, completely directing you until endgame. I like a little freedom in what I'm to do next, so as I don't take the same path as everyone else to the top.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I do like that system, but only to an extent. That way feels like they've mapped the whole game out for you. I like to make my own choices on what to do next. They basically spell the entire game out, completely directing you until endgame. I like a little freedom in what I'm to do next, so as I don't take the same path as everyone else to the top.

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Yea, but we still need more quests that send us to areas that are totally unused and that no one would normally go to. There could also be tribal quests that are unique to each tribe, like plainsfolk quests and such.

WoW actually offers you plenty of choices. At each level-tier, there are at usually at least five different zones for you to choose from in terms of leveling. Or, if you would rather not quest at all, you can just go do PvP the whole time, or the random dungeon finder. Heck, you could even just straight up grind if you really wanted to.

Really, WoW doesn't limit your choices at all. In fact, WoW has far more choices for progression than FFXIV and FFXI combined.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Yea, but we still need more quests that send us to areas that are totally unused and that no one would normally go to. There could also be tribal quests that are unique to each tribe, like plainsfolk quests and such.

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Agreed. Ooo I like that tribal quest idea. tell me, in game have we even experienced the dwellings of the dunesfolk as described here?

but yeah a reason (but not a necessity) to explore as we advance would work well. As far as I understood from I think a letter or an interview, thats something they're working on.

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

I do like that system, but only to an extent. That way feels like they've mapped the whole game out for you. I like to make my own choices on what to do next. They basically spell the entire game out, completely directing you until endgame. I like a little freedom in what I'm to do next, so as I don't take the same path as everyone else to the top.

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I found FFXI's leveling to be infinitely more limiting than WOW's. Everyone always used the same camps, and there was no f***ing way you could get a party to do something unique or off the wall.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

I found FFXI's leveling to be infinitely more limiting than WOW's. Everyone always used the same camps, and there was no f***ing way you could get a party to do something unique or off the wall.

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My thoughts exactly.

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Originally Posted by captainpicard

Its starting to feel more like a game.

Now keep working on improving the classic camp and pull party setup.

And please delete/kill/eradicate the leve system, and the WoW quests, and the instanced dungeon crap.

Kthx.

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You had me ALMOST pressing "like" until you asked to delete the other stuff.

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Originally Posted by Alkoun

You had me ALMOST pressing "like" until you asked to delete the other stuff.

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Agreed, there should be multiple options open to every kind of play style.

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WoW also has well over 5000 quests, per faction, that aren't repeatable on the same character.

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And it definitely shows, in the overall quest quality.

If to achieve creating that many quests requires them to be dumbed down to the level of repetition, while only offering a freaking chat box for the 'story' for each and every one of them (thankfully phasing makes it at least somewhat tolerable) with gameplay that in other games would be delegated to a 'tutorial' status (except this 'tutorial' lasts for 50, sometimes even 80 levels), I can't say that's a goal SE should aim for.

I also find it hilarious how 'grinding' is considered to be some kind of mysterious, separate entity from activity X or Y. There's no fucking difference. You do the same tasks over and over again = grinding. Simple as that. They can try to spice up grinding by creating small goals to work for (essentially what leves and quests in other MMO's are) or by creating somewhat enjoyable gameplay mechanics or social space to hold your attention.

And the poorest form of 'spicing up' the game is the Chat Box. And the dialogue lines that complement them (HoHoHo adventurer, I needs me some Bat Wings!). A 3D game - a 3D experience. I don't want to read a goddamn book. If you can't achieve that, consider telling your story through other means that aren't as insulting and use other tricks to spice your game up instead.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

I found FFXI's leveling to be infinitely more limiting than WOW's. Everyone always used the same camps, and there was no f***ing way you could get a party to do something unique or off the wall.

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Your absolutely right.
I guess when it comes down to it people choose the fastest way to the top.
But making everyone play the same direction whether its grind or quest seems pretty lame.
I guess a variety of balanced activities is the key?

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Originally Posted by AceofRains

Your absolutely right.
I guess when it comes down to it people choose the fastest way to the top.
But making everyone play the same direction whether its grind or quest seems pretty lame.
I guess a variety of balanced activities is the key?

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Yeah they need to add more activities obviously and they seem well aware of this, but balancing them means party activities give more XP than solo activities. That needs to be emphasized repeatedly, and that is why WoW and its clone have a far worse leveling system for anyone who likes to group in an MMO. It's shorter, thank god, but I have never heard anyone praise it for any other reason than that. FFXI's leveling system on the other hand brought many benefits to the community, many many people playing FFXIV like to group.

Nothing would keep them from adding group quests into the mix. Instead of getting quests that 'You man bring up to 2 additional party members', we would get 'This quest requires at least a light party', and we wouldn't even be able to start it at the quest area unless we had 4, similar to the dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Reika

Nothing would keep them from adding group quests into the mix. Instead of getting quests that 'You man bring up to 2 additional party members', we would get 'This quest requires at least a light party', and we wouldn't even be able to start it at the quest area unless we had 4, similar to the dungeons.

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group quests are not a solution. First of all they require all people to be on the same quest/step which makes forming a pick up group nearly impossible, 2nd in most implementations they are incredibly lame and just as easy as solo quests. They are whack-a-mole "content" I'd take a skillful party grind any day. So would most people who like to group for XP.

There's nothing skillful about party grinding.

Options are nice. I like both having grind parties and solo levequest and other stuff to get sp from. So what if some stuff seems wow-ish or whatever. If it makes hardcore WoW players feel a bit at home then it will keep their interest and not to mention help FFXIV keep a higher player base.

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

There's nothing skillful about party grinding.

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Wrong.

In party grinding your XP is entirely dependent on your party's skill and coordination. In guildleves/quest grind your skill gain is determined by how fast you can whack moles, and run between quest givers. Which one takes more skill? The answer is obvious.

It doesn't matter how good a quest grinder whack-a-mole player is at their job, it won't show when compared to someone who is completely clueless as long as that person doesn't get lost running between the moles and the quest giver.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Wrong.

In party grinding your XP is entirely dependent on your party's skill and coordination. In guildleves/quest grind your skill gain is determined by how fast you can whack moles, and run between quest givers. Which one takes more skill? The answer is obvious.

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So you don't get more XP by whacking those moles faster during party grinding? Oookay.

At least there's a clear reward for being efficient. The faster you are, the larger the bonus at the end. While party grinding you might see a difference in xp/hour, but usually a parser is required to even notice.

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Originally Posted by captainpicard

Its starting to feel more like a game.

Now keep working on improving the classic camp and pull party setup.

And please delete/kill/eradicate the leve system, and the WoW quests, and the instanced dungeon crap.

Kthx.

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Why don't you just say "remake/clone FFXI"? No but seriously, why not play FFXI? Is it the monthly fee or what? kthx...

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

So you don't get more XP by whacking those moles faster during party grinding? Oookay.

At least there's a clear reward for being efficient. The faster you are, the larger the bonus at the end. While party grinding you might see a difference in xp/hour, but usually a parser is required to even notice.

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Have you ever played whack-a-mole (the arcade game not the modern MMO version). One whack kills the mole, so no.

Actually in party grinding it is quite clear when you are in a good (skilled and coordinated) party versus one that is not. You hardly need a parser. In quest grinding it has no noticeable effect at all unless some how you manage to die (very rare with most of the grind quests) the time actually spent fighting is so small that the only defining factor in time is how closely grouped your quests are and how far they are from the quest giver. What a terrrible design for encouraging people to work together.

That is assuming you can get a group to do group quests. I can count on both hands the number of times I have ever gotten or even seen a real pick up group for quest grinding. 99% of quest grinders simply do it solo because it is so incredibly inconvenient to find other people on the same quest/step as you. It simply doesn't work. So please by all means put more sidequests and other activities in the game, but don't screw us people who enjoy playing with people over in the process.

It isn't necessary for you people to have your fun, to also ruin our fun in the process. The leveling curve is hardly steep in this game if you want to play solo fine, but those who want to level faster and in a group should get that option too.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

And it definitely shows, in the overall quest quality.

If to achieve creating that many quests requires them to be dumbed down to the level of repetition, while only offering a freaking chat box for the 'story' for each and every one of them (thankfully phasing makes it at least somewhat tolerable) with gameplay that in other games would be delegated to a 'tutorial' status (except this 'tutorial' lasts for 50, sometimes even 80 levels), I can't say that's a goal SE should aim for.

I also find it hilarious how 'grinding' is considered to be some kind of mysterious, separate entity from activity X or Y. There's no fucking difference. You do the same tasks over and over again = grinding. Simple as that. They can try to spice up grinding by creating small goals to work for (essentially what leves and quests in other MMO's are) or by creating somewhat enjoyable gameplay mechanics or social space to hold your attention.

And the poorest form of 'spicing up' the game is the Chat Box. And the dialogue lines that complement them (HoHoHo adventurer, I needs me some Bat Wings!). A 3D game - a 3D experience. I don't want to read a goddamn book. If you can't achieve that, consider telling your story through other means that aren't as insulting and use other tricks to spice your game up instead.

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I'll agree that a simple text-window isn't always the most entertaining way to present a story. I like my cinematic cutscenes as much as the next guy. But not every single quest can have a cinematic cutscene with voice acting and unique motion capture animations. That would certainly be nice, but limitations on both development time and company budget simply make that unfeasible considering the number of quests that an MMO needs to have. A simple text-box may not be the most elegant way of presenting a story, but unless you can think of something else that allows the developers to churn out as many quests in a short amount of time, I don't see what else can be done.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

It isn't necessary for you people to have your fun, to also ruin our fun in the process. The leveling curve is hardly steep in this game if you want to play solo fine, but those who want to level faster and in a group should get that option too.

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and it isn't necessary for you to have your fun and also ruin ours.

some like party grinding and that should always be an option in any mmo, but some like questing and some like instances as a way to level. you saying grind only and remove this and that is no different then them saying do the same. i think most people in this thread just want multiple ways to level because not everyone likes to sit and pull spank the same mob over and over again for hours straight.

also, to say that party grinding was never used pre-patch is completely false as i knew people that would not run leves because they got better sp per hour staying in their grinding parties than to take the time to assemble and wait. we actually had people that capped battle classes in less than 2 weeks by straight grinding with no leves.

all i can say that at last those leves r gone, they were basically cheating anyways

As long as killing a mob gives XP, grinding is always an option, no matter how many quests the game wants to throw at you. And whether you grind alone or in a group is completely up to you.

There was no moment in the development of XIV where you couldn't just party up and go grind. There were definitely times where it wasn't the most efficient play, but you could do it for fun nontheless.

People who genuinely prefer mindless mob-grinding for hours always have that option. Providing quests for the other players who don't want to grind takes nothing away from the grind fans.

Not providing alternative content to grinding however leaves the people who are bored of grind in the cold.

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Originally Posted by Naqaj

People who genuinely prefer mindless mob-grinding for hours always have that option. Providing quests for the other players who don't want to grind takes nothing away from the grind fans

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Couldn't agree with this more.
I'm glad that they are moving the focus away just from Leves for gaining ranks; rank 40 leves from 40-50 was just /wrist. Encouraging people to party up and grind, fight different mobs in different areas etc is in my opinion (and it is only my opinion) a good thing.

I see the argument people have that party grinding requires no skill.
However, an example I have from pre-patch (1.18) was a LS member that did not have as much time to play had solo'd pretty much to 40ish on his Archer. He joined my boyfriend and I doing some leves and found that he had to play in a slightly different way in a group. Of course playing on his own he could happily unload all of his abilities, weapon skills etc with no consequence. In a party dynamic with hate to be controlled in certain situations he had to re-learn this and use other skills (e.g. enmity reduction). Turning a mob at the wrong time that does a nasty conal AoE move can cause deaths.

Ok, so most mobs you grind in a PT this not really a concern and they die pretty easy but my point is the concept of party play and what your job can do is (again I reiterate in my opinion) important.

Anway, I'm getting sidetracked! :) I am glad that they are introducing other ways in the game to gain SP and not just scrapping leves altogether. Recently I found myself without my usual "static" group and really wanted to get CON to 45. So I did a few resets on leves solo, and although even with favour I was only getting ~4,200-5,000 SP at the end of a leve, it was easy enough to do and I got from 43 to 45 over the course of a weekend ^^. If they took away leves completely I wouldn't have been able to do this- and due to RL I didn't have enough time at that point to go and just grind normal mobs (I needed to spend time AFK a bit). Options are always good and I do not agree with alienating the playerbase by enforcing a "grind only" rule on them.

I am glad that they are addressing the SP gain in leves and especially Behest though; only being able to do one Behest and hour for ~3,000ish SP is not a good incentive to actually do them ><

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Originally Posted by Naqaj

As long as killing a mob gives XP, grinding is always an option, no matter how many quests the game wants to throw at you. And whether you grind alone or in a group is completely up to you.

There was no moment in the development of XIV where you couldn't just party up and go grind. There were definitely times where it wasn't the most efficient play, but you could do it for fun nontheless.

People who genuinely prefer mindless mob-grinding for hours always have that option. Providing quests for the other players who don't want to grind takes nothing away from the grind fans.

Not providing alternative content to grinding however leaves the people who are bored of grind in the cold.

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No one is legitimately asking them not to provide alternative content except the OP who was obviously being sarcastic. We are just asking that they don't remove the option to group with other people in order to level our characters efficiently. There are several reasons why we need party based leveling options. Which they already confirmed they were developing with XP chains and improved party areas in 1.2.

• People may like leveling in a group more than grinding quests, but if grinding quests give more XP people are ultimately punishing themselves for partying to level their character. As Yoshi pointed out in his letter to the producer it takes effort to put a party together, and do anything as a group. That effort should be rewarded
• Even if grinding in parties gives more XP, as long as you can get decent XP from soloing and quests people who can't or don't like to join parties are still able to play solo with absolutely nothing lost from that experience.
• It's not about one thing being more fun than the other. It is about one thing having to do with a limitation the player puts on themselves (not willing to play with others) which makes that playstyle still viable even if it is not the most (otherwise) efficient method.
• Adding additional content so that solo players can play the game exclusively that way if they want is great, and no one would object to that. But removing the reward people get for leveling their characters together would be disastrous and severely limiting on the ways people can and will play the game. People should still benefit from and be encouraged to do things together in an MMO.