Leves should be removed or atleast downplayed for overall gameplay?

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Originally Posted by Engineer

At first, I really liked leves, until I started doing the same thing everyday. It got kind of boring, and started to feel like grinding. I wish xiv was more of a quest and progress kind of structure, instead of grinding 20 levels to do one quest..

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^ Indeed.

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Originally Posted by Engineer

At first, I really liked leves, until I started doing the same thing everyday. It got kind of boring, and started to feel like grinding. I wish xiv was more of a quest and progress kind of structure, instead of grinding 20 levels to do one quest..

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If everyone one of those quests actually had some sort of meaning to them, then yes. Just like any other Final Fantasy story, you are progressing while meeting certain expectations in that section of the story. Once you have accomplished the mission in that part, you are either close to that level or at that level of withstanding the next area's mission.

MMO's like Aion and WoW have that kind of system, but the quests really didn't bring out any involvement because none of those quests were really relative to one another. They didn't paint the big picture for that part of the story. FFXIV doesn't even have that kind of structure, let alone does it have any structure at all, except for the story missions, but what they should do is throw in some missions to help you level up so you don't have to grind through boring leves to get to the next part of the story. It should take a little bit of everything, but not too much of one thing, to put it brief.

Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that leves (In the form they are presented) should not have been the main focous of the game.

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Originally Posted by Gramul

Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that leves should not have been the main focous of the game.

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I think its more on how they are presented in the game. The opening video made them seem like they were going to be more challenging and epic. They might be higher level leves in that video, but from the leves we have now, its just not a good impression at all.

My problem with leves right now is that im confined to those 8 leves and beyound that why bother? once they are finished theres alot less incentive to play the game untill reset. Fatigue adds to this, you hit fatigue doing leves and its just another reason to stop playing. Personally my prefered direction for leves would be that they become less frequent say every 3 or more days with sp gains increased and difficulty increased. Then also fix Behest which is its own form of casual xping to fill in the time gap. As for camping/partying i'm not totally for it but if SE put in some algorithms that made other mobs randomly spawn in the same spawn points i think it could be made less samey. I'm not talking about nms like they did with xi but like say you are camping 6 marmot spawn points randomly some times other mobs spawn in their place and even groups of mobs could spawn in their place(a group of 2 dodos etc). Forcing the party to deal with other things other than just 4-8 vs 1 mob lol.

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Originally Posted by Nuru

I think its more on how they are presented in the game. The opening video made them seem like they were going to be more challenging and epic. They might be higher level leves in that video, but from the leves we have now, its just not a good impression at all.

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agreed.... they need to be more involved, more story and more objectives

leves + side is that the objectives feel different, they have groups, and they have terms, it breaks the monotony of grinding the same monsters, the problem is you end up doing it so much that monsters become just as rote, the other thing is you do it longer, to be effecient you change your camps probably every 5 levels or so, levels basically last 10 levels.

imo the real answer isnt to kill leves, but probably to lower the bonus sp potential, maybe to just 2 leve links, each link after that, maybe it should just kill the sp drop for adding the person, or give a really small bonus.
either that, or boost sp outside of leves, either via a multiple objective chaining system, or just a straight buff.

Even that will get boring so i suggest they add some quest related story driven stuff, with decent sp rewards, not as much as grinds, and leves, but still fairly decent and pretty interesting, the number of monsters should scale with party size in these things.

make leves more entertaining and varried. for example, the defense ones, should adapt to how fast you kill, ie the faster you kill the more mobs you get for that time period, they should also occur on places on the map that seem like you might want to defend them. Other leves could have powerful groups of enemies, and large bonus sp on completion. fail a leve has to be downplayed, but they say they are working on it.

they should also have some SP tied to exploration or random events in the field. for example some monster that pops randomly in a large zone that gives huge SP (i mean huge) Or just random items, events that if you stumble upon, you can get a lot of sp for being in an out of the way place at the right time.

Essentially they need to increase sp options, and make it more fun, and les monotonous

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Originally Posted by Physic

leves + side is that the objectives feel different, they have groups, and they have terms, it breaks the monotony of grinding the same monsters, the problem is you end up doing it so much that monsters become just as rote, the other thing is you do it longer, to be effecient you change your camps probably every 5 levels or so, levels basically last 10 levels.

imo the real answer isnt to kill leves, but probably to lower the bonus sp potential, maybe to just 2 leve links, each link after that, maybe it should just kill the sp drop for adding the person, or give a really small bonus.
either that, or boost sp outside of leves, either via a multiple objective chaining system, or just a straight buff.

Even that will get boring so i suggest they add some quest related story driven stuff, with decent sp rewards, not as much as grinds, and leves, but still fairly decent and pretty interesting, the number of monsters should scale with party size in these things.

make leves more entertaining and varried. for example, the defense ones, should adapt to how fast you kill, ie the faster you kill the more mobs you get for that time period, they should also occur on places on the map that seem like you might want to defend them. Other leves could have powerful groups of enemies, and large bonus sp on completion. fail a leve has to be downplayed, but they say they are working on it.

they should also have some SP tied to exploration or random events in the field. for example some monster that pops randomly in a large zone that gives huge SP (i mean huge) Or just random items, events that if you stumble upon, you can get a lot of sp for being in an out of the way place at the right time.

Essentially they need to increase sp options, and make it more fun, and les monotonous

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good ideas but the only problem i see is when you say we could keep the leves just change them up and make them different my question is why? we could just add different things in the game that arnt leves that do that exact thing like u said some defense things where we have to defend and go on killing rampages in a short time faster=better why do those have to be leves why not their own system? and pretty much everything else u said is what im trying to say is yes partying will get boring thats why i want other systems on the side that break it up giving less exp and sp than pts though but maybe items and a break from the norm instead

Perhaps the Chaining System can be part of some sort of Challenge that is issued by a Camp General of some sort. (Camp General, given that the Grand Companies are coming, i just thought of this randomly) Could be introduce as part of the Grand Companies as some sort of training regime. Main focus would be to challenge the teamwork within a party to be able to attack certain mobs and diminish them with certain actions, whatever the chain requirements may be.

So if mobs in the area normally give out about 200sp per kill, then..

EXP Chain 1 Commence!
- Defeat 5 of X Enemy Before the Timer runs out! (These enemies can either be part of the update they are going to perform to change where monsters spawn, or they can be instanced.)

EXP Chain 2 Commence! (EXP x 1.5) (200 x 1.5 = 300 per kill)
- Use Defense Down Battle Regimen 10 Times before Timer runs out!

etc.

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Originally Posted by danny52844

good ideas but the only problem i see is when you say we could keep the leves just change them up and make them different my question is why? we could just add different things in the game that arnt leves that do that exact thing like u said some defense things where we have to defend and go on killing rampages in a short time faster=better why do those have to be leves why not their own system? and pretty much everything else u said is what im trying to say is yes partying will get boring thats why i want other systems on the side that break it up giving less exp and sp than pts though but maybe items and a break from the norm instead

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mostly because they arent bad in and of themselves, its the balancing thats off, also the tools are already there for leves. Im not saying everything should be leves, in fact some of the other forms of SP should not be leves, because if everything is leves its like, ok im done, ill log on in 2 days. But leves too should become more interesting.


anyhow whatever is clever as long as they make more options for SP, try to hide the SP grind better (like quest chains, and stories seem to) and give people reasons to explore and have fun

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Originally Posted by Physic

mostly because they arent bad in and of themselves, its the balancing thats off, also the tools are already there for leves. Im not saying everything should be leves, in fact some of the other forms of SP should not be leves, because if everything is leves its like, ok im done, ill log on in 2 days. But leves too should become more interesting.


anyhow whatever is clever as long as they make more options for SP, try to hide the SP grind better (like quest chains, and stories seem to) and give people reasons to explore and have fun

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j mentioning grand companies gave me an idea for a side thing other than partying
something like massive pve where your sent off to fight a massive pve yet it doesnt have to be organized its a common thing for ppl to do so when u enter thiers already ppl fighting and after each wave u get rewards and thier would be many areas to fight (an actual war is going on) and depending on where ur team is under control and where ishragard is undercontrol u get varies bonus's for lving up in that area (via pt leve or w/e) (yes im still saying pting should be the back bone but this could be that something else)

So OP...

You don't like being "Forced" to do leves but you wanna force people to party and grind....yeah....I can see this working great for everyone. >.>

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Originally Posted by Draven

So OP...

You don't like being "Forced" to do leves but you wanna force people to party and grind....yeah....I can see this working great for everyone. >.>

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:|because me repeating that thier being other viable and easier ways to lv up that are just slower means i want u to pt only right -.-?
tbh why shouldnt easier = slower i mean do u want the easy stuff =faster and harder = slower?

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In that case I totally agree. Leves should not be the main focus and partying in "camps" like in 11 should be brought back. I like not being forced into parties though so they need to balance solo play.

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it's already there problem is no one wants to grind & there no party search in the game the one inside the game is garbage that means its a bad piece of gameplay. they also need to make fight last longer because the mobs dead before i pull out my weapon 50% of the time.
/sea all (can i have it) SE!!!!

leve's are just the fields of valor from ffxi

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Originally Posted by danny52844

leves ruin progress because in a mmorpg the solo aspect of the game should never be the main progress model of the game if u want to play by urself and talk to ppl buy an offline game and play it while ur on facebook

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One thing you have to understand is that it was said by the devs on more than one occasion that it's the Japanese players who stressed the greatest desire for solo play. Japanese people have busy jobs and busy lives, and they need to have quick activities that they can jump into and still feel like they get something accomplished. Leves give them that option. If you think that SE will not cater to their home market, then you aren't familiar with this company. Solo viability is now and will always be present in this game. If you have a problem with that, then maybe FFXIV isn't the game for you.

That's not to say that party play isn't rewarded. There are party SP bonuses plus leve-link bonuses that prove that leves aren't meant to just be solo content. And after the players' poll, it was discovered that one issue NA players had was with the lack of meaningful party play, so now we're seeing additional party incentive tweaks such as light party and full party bonuses, plus the addition of raid dungeons that will yield SP.

The heart of the issue isn't solo play vs party play. Because solo and party based leveling can certainly co-exist in an environment like this where you have many old-school gamers and FFXI refugees that prefer party play. If they had a proper LFP system in place, I really think there would be no problem putting parties together. But the real issue is having few meaningful options to level, and this:

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Originally Posted by Nuru

I think its more on how they are presented in the game. The opening video made them seem like they were going to be more challenging and epic. They might be higher level leves in that video, but from the leves we have now, its just not a good impression at all.

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Bad execution. One reason most of us play Final Fantasy games is for SE's amazing talent for storytelling. But there is nothing story-driven about leves at all. They feel like glorified WoW-dailies. And you know why no one likes to do their dailies in WoW? Because they become tedious and boring. Making a game centered around daily quests is one of the worst designs I could think of. If they had somehow made them more story-oriented and progression-driven like Rydin suggested, they would be much more enjoyable.

I agree with the OP that leves aren't ideal. But instead of suggesting that we be presented with more leveling options or to somehow make leves more enjoyable, it was suggested we just make them trivial and go back to pointless party grinding, which brings us back to square one (and that I don't agree with). Yes, everything is a grind, but disguising that grind behind an enjoyable activity is how you make an MMO fun. Right now I think we can all agree that this game is seriously lacking on fun factor and it's time to take a look at why leves are a major culprit. I don't think the solution is to ditch them, but I think they need a redesign.

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Originally Posted by indira

it's already there problem is no one wants to grind & there no party search in the game the one inside the game is garbage that means its a bad piece of gameplay. they also need to make fight last longer because the mobs dead before i pull out my weapon 50% of the time.
/sea all (can i have it) SE!!!!

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leve's are just the fields of valor from ffxi
ya i dont get that SE wanted nothing to do with 11 yet leve's are fields of valor mixed with bcnms
behest is just an hourly campaign that makes u run around
idk what else thier rly is but im sure it can be related to 11 some how

I wan't both leves that are more developed and other means of leveling to where you wouldn't have to focus on leves if you didn't want to.

The party recruitment certainly needs some improvements, but when did this suddenly become something that was so awful that no one can make use of it? How was it the primary use of starting parties and progressing to 50 the first two months (which was my personal experience) then suddenly one day no one could touch it or look at it again?

One thing I did notice is when the SP system made it's first change and the game became Doblyn Fantasy XIV and everyone just thought it best to solo. Now, we've become lazy as a whole and forgot that there was any use of it. If party play was still very relevant in the non-leve setting, we would be using it because we'd have no other option.

Leve linking the big three leves at Broken Water and Levinshower yeilds enough XP to equate to about 5 hours of grinding in a SP party outside of leves. There isn't as much wrong with the party recruitment system as there is with the field grinding rewards and the time dedicated to it.

If grinding SP in the fields gave a better incentive, people would be using the hell out of it like players had at launch.

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Originally Posted by danny52844

and grouping up in leves and nms to kill the same things every day and a half or 5 minutes is not just as unimaginative?
the only diff between partying and leves is that partying can be done any time and thats the main reason im saying it should be the more important thing

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No that's not what you're saying. Repeating the same leves is boring. Rather than revert to an extremely archaic progression system because you can't realize that FFXI was an 'ok' game 10 years ago and is not anymore they could simply expand upon the current system.

You do realize games are moving away from that system because players do not like it.

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Originally Posted by Seikninkuru

No that's not what you're saying. Repeating the same leves is boring. Rather than revert to an extremely archaic progression system because you can't realize that FFXI was an 'ok' game 10 years ago and is not anymore they could simply expand upon the current system.

You do realize games are moving away from that system because players do not like it.

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+1 Agreed.

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Originally Posted by Seikninkuru

No that's not what you're saying. Repeating the same leves is boring. Rather than revert to an extremely archaic progression system because you can't realize that FFXI was an 'ok' game 10 years ago and is not anymore they could simply expand upon the current system.

You do realize games are moving away from that system because players do not like it.

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'ok' game as in the 2nd most popular mmo in its prime? and the main thing ive ever quoted from 11 in this thread is the campaign and keeping party as the back bone with the addition of options that 11 did not offer (wow just realized this is way off topic :|) but yet the only reason im refering to partying as the back bone is back to the first post you need a reason to go to different areas the game NEEDS to push u to diff area or thiers no reward and whats up with leves go to this diff area kill what we spawn for u gj gj do it 7 more times and wait while if u pt u have to find where to camp and many different areas in the map to switch when u out grow the ppl at the camp but even if u hate that HEY we have behest leves grand companys (other things SE might make) that will get u to the end game and maybe bonus items for incentive even for the ppl who enjoy partys
idk whats wrong with that?

leves suck their boring to do. you know what also sucks the way all the guilds looks the same, kinda like all the new town houses being built down the street all the same ...... same crap diffrent bowl .

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Originally Posted by danny52844

but yet the only reason im refering to partying as the back bone is back to the first post you need a reason to go to different areas the game NEEDS to push u to diff area or thiers no reward

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I agree, this game has a serious lack of progression. But how is party grinding the only way to facilitate that progression?

This issue is addressed in http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-Zone-Long-OP

Here you'll find that the progression issue is a complex problem caused by poor leve design, random monster placement, lack of subzone variety, and little incentive to send players to high-level areas like Coerthas and Mor Dhona.

Even if we strip everything down to pure party grinding, it will not fix the progression issue.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

I agree, this game has a serious lack of progression. But how is party grinding the only way to facilitate that progression?

This issue is addressed in http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...e-Zone-Long-OP

Here you'll find the that progression issue is a complex problem caused by poor leve design, random monster placement, lack of subzone variety, and little incentive to send players to high-level areas like Coerthas and Mor Dhona.

Even if we strip everything down to pure party grinding, it will not fix the progression issue.

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read my first post :p this thread is all about that link u gave us :p its kinda gotton to a leve vs pt thing though :|

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Originally Posted by danny52844

read my first post :p this thread is all about that link u gave us :p its kinda gotton to a leve vs pt thing though :|

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Why wouldn't I think your main point is about leves vs partying given what you named the thread. =P

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Why wouldn't I think your main point is about leves vs partying given what you named the thread. =P

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well it kinda is i guess ._.; lol
i didnt mean to. all i ment is that i dont see leve's giving us a good progression in this game and that they should best be played in the background with incentives and not the huge exp, giving way for pting being the best way to exp and sp with little incentives. that way if u wanna lv up u can pt while progressing and if u dont thiers other things that arnt ideal for progression but are "fun" hopefully
now to be rly long winded :O
ff11 i loved the pt backbone but yet i loved being to do other things i organized a 3 vs 3 alliance brenner match once it was amazing campagin was awesome dynamis so on so on that stuff broke the pt thing but the pt system is what brought us from our town to w/e its needed and this games leve's just arnt doing that and should be used as brenner / campaign/dynamis was in 11 a way to break up the grind with something different

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Originally Posted by danny52844

y is it fine that the most dull and boring thing is the best for exp

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Why is it that you're arguing in favor of removing all variety and forcing people to do full-party exp-grinding?

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Originally Posted by danny52844

read the first post again and ffs please stop qqing about grammer on a forum

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This thread has, at this moment, a little over 100 posts. 65 of those posts are from the OP. 65 of those posts are largely unreadable but early translations indicate that many of them are off-topic or yelling at people who know how to spell. The others seem to consist of telling anyone who disagrees with the OP that they're wrong.

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Originally Posted by danny52844

i mean just what it says partying should be the best way of getting exp and by best i mean the fastest way of getting exp and sp
but it shouldnt be the only way to lv up there should be other ways like behest and leves that give less exp but are easier to do more convenient and doesnt take a long time to do with repeatability viable (yes ive said this alot becuase it was awesome) campaign in ff11 it didnt give exp anywhere near partying yet it was fun and very convenient to do and i enjoyed doing it when i got bored of partying

leves ruin progress because in a mmorpg the solo aspect of the game should never be the main progress model of the game if u want to play by urself and talk to ppl buy an offline game and play it while ur on facebook

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Campaign was terrible. It was the most dull and boring thing in the most dull and boring expansion S-E ever made for FFXI. It also gave a terrible, terrible exp/hour ratio.

I wish you had mentioned that you love Campaign in the first post somewhere. (Maybe you did? I dunno, you really should learn how to spell.) We could've just looked at that post, seen that you have absolutely terrible taste, and ignored this thread completely.

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Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_

Why is it that you're arguing in favor of removing all variety and forcing people to do full-party exp-grinding?



This thread has, at this moment, a little over 100 posts. 65 of those posts are from the OP. 65 of those posts are largely unreadable but early translations indicate that many of them are off-topic or yelling at people who know how to spell. The others seem to consist of telling anyone who disagrees with the OP that they're wrong.



Campaign was terrible. It was the most dull and boring thing in the most dull and boring expansion S-E ever made for FFXI. It also gave a terrible, terrible exp/hour ratio.

I wish you had mentioned that you love Campaign in the first post somewhere. (Maybe you did? I dunno, you really should learn how to spell.) We could've just looked at that post, seen that you have absolutely terrible taste, and ignored this thread completely.

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lol harsh :( btw wow i did respond alot (32 i counted :p well now its 33 ._.) im not saying campaign should be the only thing they should make other things like they are with dungoens and grand companys btw why do u keep saying im hating on ppl when ur posts are doing that to me :( tbh i didnt make what this thread was about rly clear and was just trying to communcate that through the thread i guess its all about how u read what i say to think if im beat mean or not but if u think im bashing u just read another thread :|

btw who actually thought campaign was bad XD i <3'd doing that every now and then

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Originally Posted by danny52844

lol harsh :( btw wow i did respond alot (32 i counted :p well now its 33 ._.) im not saying campaign should be the only thing they should make other things like they are with dungoens and grand companys btw why do u keep saying im hating on ppl when ur posts are doing that to me :( tbh i didnt make what this thread was about rly clear and was just trying to communcate that through the thread i guess its all about how u read what i say to think if im beat mean or not but if u think im bashing u just read another thread :|

btw who actually thought campaign was bad XD i <3'd doing that every now and then

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Campaign was fun as a "from time to time" thing, sure. But as a core component of an expansion, as a primary activity? Utterly horrendous. It required no thought, no planning, no responsibility. You just show up and the clock starts running. Granted, it improved on Besieged in many ways but at least Besieged had the decency of being a rare occurrence with real consequences.

Compared to Campaign, regular exp grinding was preferable. You couldn't just throw a bunch of people together and call it a party: you needed a party design, whether "traditional" tank+healer or one of the "burn" style parties, it took some degree of planning to make it work; Campaign required no such planning. It took cooperation and teamwork to make a party function: one person screwing around can get everyone killed; Campaign required no such effort. It had greater rewards and greater consequences in the death penalty; Campaign had no penalty. Campaign was "easymode." It was the easiest of the easy.

I'd rather FFXIV force party play than have it go back to a Campaign model. But I'd rather they fix leves than force party play.

I dislike leves as they are now, but there's no reason they can't be salvaged. Exp grinding needs a major overhaul now too, but there's no reason that can't be salvaged either. I don't want leves to be the main attraction, as I've said before, but there's no reason to strip them completely from the game.

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Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_

Campaign was fun as a "from time to time" thing, sure. But as a core component of an expansion, as a primary activity? Utterly horrendous. It required no thought, no planning, no responsibility. You just show up and the clock starts running. Granted, it improved on Besieged in many ways but at least Besieged had the decency of being a rare occurrence with real consequences.

Compared to Campaign, regular exp grinding was preferable. You couldn't just throw a bunch of people together and call it a party: you needed a party design, whether "traditional" tank+healer or one of the "burn" style parties, it took some degree of planning to make it work; Campaign required no such planning. It took cooperation and teamwork to make a party function: one person screwing around can get everyone killed; Campaign required no such effort. It had greater rewards and greater consequences in the death penalty; Campaign had no penalty. Campaign was "easymode." It was the easiest of the easy.

I'd rather FFXIV force party play than have it go back to a Campaign model. But I'd rather they fix leves than force party play.

I dislike leves as they are now, but there's no reason they can't be salvaged. Exp grinding needs a major overhaul now too, but there's no reason that can't be salvaged either. I don't want leves to be the main attraction, as I've said before, but there's no reason to strip them completely from the game.

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thx for not insulting me this post atleast :p
but whats wrong with having time to time events
if u have enough things that u can do anytime u want that also level u up or progress u through the game ull never really get stuck into a rut like in 11
one day i wanna do campaign 2(20k exp a new peice of armor) hours later pt 2 hours (40k exp) after that its dungoen time 2 (14k exp better armor than campaign) hours after that company time (idk if companys will be story ro not but if thier a side thing than 30k and gil) after that leve's(varies rates of exp and items/$ reward) after that something that isnt out yet idk i know it might seem like a bad thing but if a game has a good strong backbone (like apt ) with many many other things to do i dont see whats wrong