AOE Spam Fest <Please remove it>

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Originally Posted by Ryans

I never, not once, said that multiple monsters wasn't something that Final Fantasy games do. I said that spamfest wasn't something that Final Fantasy games do.

As for your example of fighting in previous titles, even if Lux_Rayna wasn't spot on, those tactics tend to be for end game leveling up or simply when you are getting too strong for the monsters you are fighting. When you are playing through those games, you don't spam your AOE abilities without care of what is the most important monster to kill first.

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This :cool:

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Originally Posted by Biggs

If all that is as serious as you say, then explain to me why noone spends any effort making medicines to combat those things, or bothers using materia that bolsters the defense against the very things your saying. I am not claiming these things NEVER happen, I am stating that they happen so infrequently there is no reason to plan ahead of time for them. When is the last time you used an antidote or thought about beefing your boots up with chocobo down materia? The fact is, you haven't, because there is no reason too.

No where in my post did I say these things don't exist in the game, only that they are used so sparsly and with such little effect, most of the player base doesn't go into the field concerned with what will happen if they get paralyzed in a fight or poisoned when out on there on own.

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Look at my sig. Look at the level of my Alchemist.
I run around with medicine to cure Blind and Poison. Yes, they are infrequent, because you normally don't fight mobs which do that (I hate Djiggas :(, why is Thanalan infested) because they're a pain. Maybe i'm the only one who DOES considers that a pain? Maybe i'm the only guy who worries about making medicine?

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Biggs, I apologize. The first part of my post was directed at you, the rest was a rant in general and not.

Now onto the subject matter.

No matter what you do, the fights when repeated ad naseum will dissolve yourself into a grind. Any player with a modicum of experience in FFXI or any other grind-based MMO will understand this. Also, if you've enough sense to pay attention to the trends, you realize that no matter what fights are 'interesting' people will always pick the safest, most mundane, and most profitable means of gaining XP/Hr with the least amount of effort - period, end of discussion.

You do not grind for stimulation, you grind to push out XP and to get levels. That's it. It's never been and can never be an entertaining proposition as it is presented in any of your arguments.

To also speak on the subject of beastmen camps. It all depends on what beastmen camps you chose. For example, if you attack a NM surrounded by a pack of mages, and your tank is too close to your party, you're going to have a bad time due to Spell spam. The fights in lower end strongholds do wind up being chaotic, but to some, that's half the fun of it. Now, you do that for four hours on end, of course you're going to get bored of it. And if you do ONLY that, you're going to get bored sick of it and not want to do it again.

Some people, however, are find with those camps as is. And for good reason. For those who DO NOT AoE spam, due to availability (Say it's just a pair of people going in quick to grab a few tapers) the fights are much more involved, entertaining, an accessible. And the deeper you go in, the more difficult those fights even with parties, as more NMs, and stronger mob variants become available.

You make these fights any more in depth then the current trend, I guarantee you that they will get skipped for something easier. Look how quickly Castra Novum became a no-man's land, in spite of the valuables that are there.

You can't excerpt the level of control you're asking for in an open environment an expect it to be successful. Additionally attempting to create that in an open environment on the level which you are requesting, which is a global change for all monsters, would in fact be a game-breaker for many. Again, taking away options isn't healthy unless it's a blatant exploit. And I wouldn't call AoE Burns an exploit - especially seeming Yoshi has already stated support for power leveling, which is far more on the darker shade of grey.

I do agree that there should be an outlet for the desire to XP as a party, in situations that has you deeply engaged into the combat. I do not agree that it should come at the cost of current methods that players chose.

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I have to disagree on one main point here though Hyrist, this idea that no matter how engaging the mobs are, killing them will eventually become a grind is, at least in my opinion, one of the main reasons most MMO's fail. To me, a successful game takes the one or two activities you will engage in the most while playing (in this case killing mobs and crafting) and makes them deep and interesting so that they continue to be fun and engaging regardless if its your first time doing them or the 1000th. As I have said, this seems to be either a point that is missed very often in MMO design or it is extremely hard to do from a design stand point. I feel like what we have now is a good base, but it caters to casual players that just want to get through things and move on. Don't get me wrong, I dont believe time synchs are the answer, however I do think creating systems that allow for sponteneous, deep gameplay is.

In FFXI, it was whatever monster you could kill safely and the fastest as you leveled up. It was many on one because that was how they designed the system to work, to the complaint of many players. If players could fight weaker monsters and destroy them en-masse, they would, and, thanks to Abyssea, they DO.

And again, lower levels just means different camps to AoE. It can be as simple as AoE Dia in early dungeons in Final Fantasy 1, reaping.

The only difference here is that because the monsters are out visible for everyone to see, you can pick your encounters. In the early final Fantasies, you could only pick which pool of randomly selected encounters you could choose from.

Now, if Ryans makes the suggestion that perhaps every so often of farming out a group a of monsters a tougher version spawns to make the fights interesting, giving gridning a bit of randomization to it, I woulden't be so opposed. But what he is proposing is the inability to pick and choose between quickly killed monsters, and slower, more tactical fights. We would have to pick his decision every time.

Nothing is preventing him from picking camps above the normal farming level, except the fact that nobody agrees with him in the game - they'd rather have the chaos and quick XP.

That means, he's trying to force his views on others who would rather just grind and be done with it. To which I counter-proposed that we don't remove the AoE centered camps, but instead provide an alternative method of having more in depth party combat for the aims of XP.

There's more wrong than simply "The monsters die too fast and frantic!" Camps can get over-burdened making XP yields bad. The number of camps themselves are limited. Picking camps that are also hunting grounds for those who hunt monsters for profit also creates conflicts of interests that provide arguments, and entitlements.

I hate to keep mentioning it, but the idea keeps getting overlooked - what about Party Orientated Leves? Ones designed specifically to assist in training parties for XP gain. What sort of designs would you like to see in a system like that, that would satisfy your specific desires.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Look at my sig. Look at the level of my Alchemist.
I run around with medicine to cure Blind and Poison. Yes, they are infrequent, because you normally don't fight mobs which do that (I hate Djiggas :(, why is Thanalan infested) because they're a pain. Maybe i'm the only one who DOES considers that a pain? Maybe i'm the only guy who worries about making medicine?

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First, I think its awesome that you do. I too carry around anti silence meds and such just in case. But the fact is, as you yourself said, the frequency and urgency with which we need and use these items does them no justice at all.

My problem isn't so much with the mobs or the EXP gain. It's the fact that THM/BLM obscenely out class melee in damage single target and AOE. It's become the standard to just throw a BLM type class at it to win. There really isnt a point for melee in EXP groups at all if you have a CNJ type class AND THM type class. Melee just sits around. Aoe pulling just caters to this nonsense. I hope it is fixed in 2.0. Just my 2 cents.

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Originally Posted by Asgardx

My problem isn't so much with the mobs or the EXP gain. It's the fact that THM/BLM obscenely out class melee in damage single target and AOE. It's become the standard to just throw a BLM type class at it to win. There really isnt a point for melee in EXP groups at all if you have a CNJ type class AND THM type class. Melee just sits around. Aoe pulling just caters to this nonsense. I hope it is fixed in 2.0. Just my 2 cents.

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That's just a problem with the profound lack of Magic Resist among fodder mobs. It'd be nice if there was a noticeable damage penalty depending on just how many mobs are getting AoEd for magic sources. But that's just going to cause the BLMs to find other camps where they can still blow things up easy.

I'd like to see more MResist in monster groups in Raids in particular. That is of course on top of the alternative XP avenue for those who like more balanced parties.

personally, i don't mind the fact we get groups of mobs. what i do have a problem with is instead of ten to twenty mobs at a time make the mobs stronger so we can only effectively kill 5-6 at a time. make teamwork worthwhile to where you need to work together as a group. the sp gain can be adjusted to make up for killing less mobs, but it would make each battle more strategic. at least if the mobs were tougher to kill you throw an aoe out you are in deep trouble. it would add more tactical fights than just run in pull all the mobs and everyone throw your aoe ability.

i'm just saying instead of twenty mobs eery minute make it to where it's 5 mobs eery few minutes. once again, the sp could be adjusted to counter the sp you would lose.

I agree 10 mobs are too many. thats not final fantasy'ish.
on the other hand 1 mob per fight is also not final fantasy 'ish (like in FFXI)

i think about 1-4 mobs would be ok. and a great mix. but pulle one after an other like in FFXI is also boring (in my opinion)


in offline final fantasys you often fight against 3 monsters at one time.

Ya they need to fix this, because mindlessly spamming aoe is SUPER FUN!!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Rokien

Ya they need to fix this, because mindlessly spamming aoe is SUPER FUN!!!!!!!!!

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Yeah, they need to fix this, because spending forever and needing an entire party to kill a common goblin is SUPER FUN!!!!!!!

Oh snap a new wanna-be forum cop!~~~

But yeah, the AoE-roll-yo-fayce is lame... Hopefully 2.0 brings something more engaging, and less button smashing. -_-

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Originally Posted by Reaujien

Oh snap a new wanna-be forum cop!~~~

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I'm scratching my head at how you get this out of my post?

I rather have to use an old school FF strat (Like for the really big fights, like Bahamut etc) vs spamming aoe constantly. I often fall asleep playing this game because of that lol..not stimulating at all >_<

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Yeah, they need to fix this, because spending forever and needing an entire party to kill a common goblin is SUPER FUN!!!!!!!

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What can I say besides you and I have very different opinions on what fun is. because I for one did enjoy spending "forever" killing a goblin with a party.

Please dont be so snarky just because someone doesnt share your ideals.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Yeah, they need to fix this, because spending forever and needing an entire party to kill a common goblin is SUPER FUN!!!!!!!

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Why yes, intricate party battles are indeed more fun than mindless cannon fodder. I'm glad you understand

Large groups of pulls are actually quite FFT-ish, though they were nowhere near as easy to get together for the huge AOE's in the tactics series.

How about a monster behavior to have them attempt to flee a high damaging AoE? This would work well, particuarlly for spells.

We do it all the time, why shoulden't they? Or at the very least react to the fact that they're getting spelled and perhaps defend themselves in some manner.

I don't agree all monsters should do that, mind you, just the special ones. This still isn't going to solve the fact that it's the players who are deciding to avoid all the interesting camps because they want no-brainer EXP. This is the primary reasons why I do Leves instead of XP parties. Not that I coulden't find interesting and challenging camps, but that nobody wants the risk.

I won't beat my previous suggestion to death, just empasising that this is as much a playerbase problem as it is a mechanics problem.

I've love to see more dynamic monster behavior, in and out of combat.

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Originally Posted by Jocko

Why yes, intricate party battles are indeed more fun than mindless cannon fodder. I'm glad you understand

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Intricate != long. A fight with a common enemy should not take a long time. You can have satisfying combat without it taking ages to kill something.

needing an army of people to kill a thug is stupid and unrealistic (even in a fantasy game context), and the majority of players are not going to be keen on the forced grouping that would result.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Intricate != long. A fight with a common enemy should not take a long time. You can have satisfying combat without it taking ages to kill something.

needing an army of people to kill a thug is stupid and unrealistic (even in a fantasy game context), and the majority of players are not going to be keen on the forced grouping that would result.

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Hmm let me think about that.

Realistic = killing mobs in about 2 AoE hits and no strategy whatsoever.

Unrealistic = killing mobs with strategy and focusing on one mob while sleeping or CC the adds.

Hmmm, I think I'll choose the "unrealistic" one.

Well on one hand in most FF games i ended up spamming magic on entire groups of enemies every encounter when walking between towns or grinding for the next area so it's not like its un-ff to do that in xiv to me. It's certainly always been an option.

On the other hand that's a little silly and mindless.


on the other other hand 20 people beating on one goblin doesn't feel very heroic at all.

on the other other other hand 20 people beating on one DRAGON feels fine.


When it comes down to it, enemies should probably be designed in a way that you have to think about how you fight them, if it's a horde of small enemies they should probably move around the battlefield in a way that prevent AOE from dominating.

and one strong enemy should always feel like it's a really strong enemy rather than just a goblin with a ton of HP.


what i'm saying is that they should probably do game design.

No one is forcing you guys to gather up all the mobs and AoE them to death if you wanna kill them one by one then all means do so. The devs should not have to force to do this if you want it so bad.

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Originally Posted by Firon

No one is forcing you guys to gather up all the mobs and AoE them to death if you wanna kill them one by one then all means do so. The devs should not have to force to do this if you want it so bad.

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But this AoE dominating all content thing sometimes kills having certain classes/jobs in content. I can understand having this type of content sometimes, but not the majority of things. Even when leveling up it's boring, it's just a mindless zerg fest.

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Originally Posted by Firon

No one is forcing you guys to gather up all the mobs and AoE them to death if you wanna kill them one by one then all means do so. The devs should not have to force to do this if you want it so bad.

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I think she's trying to say that AOE should probably not be a win button as it is currently.

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Originally Posted by DeadRiser

But this AoE dominating all content thing sometimes kills having certain classes/jobs in content. I can understand having this type of content sometimes, but not the majority of things. Even when leveling up it's boring, it's just a mindless zerg fest.

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Leveling is boring regardless of if it's fast or slow. This coming from someone who's been playing xi since 04'

Personally I enjoy the faster combat pace of xiv. If I want slower combat I switch games for the day and hop over to xi. Though I don't really switch to have slower battles. I do it because I miss hanging out with some of my older friends.

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Originally Posted by CrystalWeapon

Leveling is boring regardless of if it's fast or slow. This coming from someone who's been playing xi since 04'

Personally I enjoy the faster combat pace of xiv. If I want slower combat I switch games for the day and hop over to xi. Though I don't really switch to have slower battles. I do it because I miss hanging out with some of my older friends.

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Leveling is not boring if there is at least some kind of challenge. Currently, mobs don't have "oh sh*t" moments that could severely hurt a party unless you are fighting something +10 levels then you (that's when leveling is actually fun in XIV)

Just because a battle might be longer, would not make it less boring. They could up the exp you recieve from mobs since they take longer to kill.

I'd totally trade shorter less-strategic battles for longer, some kind of strategy needed battles.

I loved leveling as an ARC in raptor parties. Oh, the tank pulled too many? I'll bind one of them far away from the party while they focus on the other 3 raptors that were pulled. Strategy is what people are talking about, not easy mobs with a lot of HP.

It's fun the first, second, third, and maybe forth time, but you can't tell me that a meripo in xi for 8+ hours doesn't get boring. Even if you're fighting something that requires strategy or has a near 1 shotting move that has to be avoided or mitigated after you've been partying for hours on end it just becomes second nature and mind numbing.

Because of the repetitive nature of pt'ing all the gimicky strategic mobs would just become a P.I.T.A. I'd rather have more strategic fights in events and keep the leveling simple. But this is just my opinion on the matter.

I can see where you're coming from and I do respect your opinion on the matter, I just don't see things the same way.

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Originally Posted by CrystalWeapon

It's fun the first, second, third, and maybe forth time, but you can't tell me that a meripo in xi for 8+ hours doesn't get boring. Even if you're fighting something that requires strategy or has a near 1 shotting move that has to be avoided or mitigated after you've been partying for hours on end it just becomes second nature and mind numbing.

Because of the repetitive nature of pt'ing all the gimicky strategic mobs would just become a P.I.T.A. I'd rather have more strategic fights in events and keep the leveling simple. But this is just my opinion on the matter.

I can see where you're coming from and I do respect your opinion on the matter, I just don't see things the same way.

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I mean the experience curve and enemy variety have to be adjusted accordingly so you dont get bored of them before you're done doing them.

well i mean not specifically you, but the widest possible consumer base.

I mean there's some "leveling up to do content" vs "leveling up via content" concerns as well, currently we have very little of the latter and way too much of the former. It's gotten to the point where a lot of people don't remember that the latter is actually a thing that games do, other mmos in fact.

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Originally Posted by CrystalWeapon

It's fun the first, second, third, and maybe forth time, but you can't tell me that a meripo in xi for 8+ hours doesn't get boring. Even if you're fighting something that requires strategy or has a near 1 shotting move that has to be avoided or mitigated after you've been partying for hours on end it just becomes second nature and mind numbing.

Because of the repetitive nature of pt'ing all the gimicky strategic mobs would just become a P.I.T.A. I'd rather have more strategic fights in events and keep the leveling simple. But this is just my opinion on the matter.

I can see where you're coming from and I do respect your opinion on the matter, I just don't see things the same way.

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I've never played XI, but from what I hear XIV leveling is much quicker. So in the case of XIV, I would much rather some more strategy to everything including leveling up.

I do wish we could level up with content more than just grinding mobs and leves. But thanks and likewise for respecting my opinions.

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Originally Posted by DeadRiser

I've never played XI, but from what I hear XIV leveling is much quicker. So in the case of XIV, I would much rather some more strategy to everything including leveling up.

I do wish we could level up with content more than just grinding mobs and leves. But thanks and likewise for respecting my opinions.

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I'll agree with that 100% more options would be lovely. Hopefully 2.0 will come with more content for both high and low lv. Right now there's not much in the way of content till you get to 50. I did like the idea that was tossed out earlier about harder to defeat mobs that give enough exp to justify the longer fights. If we had that in place people on both sides of the fence would have a way to level.

One of my biggest fears about this game is that all this time was spend fixing up the new engine and when 2.0 rolls around we'll have next to no additional content. I know they would add in everything they've been talking about in subsequent patches, but I would like to try out some new events when 2.0 is released.

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Originally Posted by CrystalWeapon

I'll agree with that 100% more options would be lovely. Hopefully 2.0 will come with more content for both high and low lv. Right now there's not much in the way of content till you get to 50. I did like the idea that was tossed out earlier about harder to defeat mobs that give enough exp to justify the longer fights. If we had that in place people on both sides of the fence would have a way to level.

One of my biggest fears about this game is that all this time was spend fixing up the new engine and when 2.0 rolls around we'll have next to no additional content. I know they would add in everything they've been talking about in subsequent patches, but I would like to try out some new events when 2.0 is released.

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Same here. I love leveling in games. I really hope they give a lot of content every where. At that time, they can be done with Power Leveling since there will actually be decent content to level on.

Almost makes me want to start a new character at 2.0 just to experience everything brand new :(
(but I don't want to give up on all the progress I've made, looking at YOU 50 weaver lol)

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Originally Posted by DeadRiser

Hmm let me think about that.

Realistic = killing mobs in about 2 AoE hits and no strategy whatsoever.

Unrealistic = killing mobs with strategy and focusing on one mob while sleeping or CC the adds.

Hmmm, I think I'll choose the "unrealistic" one.

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Realistic = kililng mobs within a reasonable time frame. Can still be strategic/interesting
Unrealistic = taking several minutes to kill a mook enemy. No real strategy involved.

Wild exaggerations for the lose.

You didn't need strategy to kill common enemies in FFXI. It simply took 345 swings of your sword or terrible nuke to do the job. Longer doesn't automatically mean more intricate, and shorter doesn't automatically mean less intricate. Long fights can be just as mindless and simple as short ones.

Thus, what we should be advocating here is depth in combat, not an arbitrary length of time that fights should last.

IMO, if you can use AoEs to kill stuff without dying, than you should. If however it is likely to get you killed, then you shouldn't do it. The simple remedy here is to make enemies of a given level a bit more dangerous, so that using AoE is greater risk, greater reward, while CC and focus fire 1 target at a time is much more safe and reliable.

I hated how in in the early-mid days of FFXI, you had tons of AoE spells and effects, but you basically never used them because it was almost always a death sentence. Here in FFXIV, we've shifted a bit too far towards the other extreme of it far to often being the safest, fastest answer. Can't we find a happy medium here? Frankly I think the current situation is good in that people still form parties for XP. In WoW this never happened. You always leveled up to the max solo and only grouped for dungeons quests etc.

Tell me, in what other FF game besides XI did anything other than bosses take a long time to kill? There isn't one.

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Leveling is not boring if there is at least some kind of challenge.

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Leveling isn't supposed to be a challenge. Leveling is a pacing device designed to extend the time required to experience all the content in a game. Leveling is just the beginning of your MMO journey.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Thus, what we should be advocating here is depth in combat, not an arbitrary length of time that fights should last.

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That's what I've been doing, you seem to be the only one throwing this inane '300' sword hits around.

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Originally Posted by Jocko

That's what I've been doing, you seem to be the only one throwing this inane '300' sword hits around.

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Well, FFXI must be inane then, because that's what happened in the early days of that game and yet it's what you seem to want. Or did you never XP in the dunes and run into people taking 3-4 minutes or more to kill a single crab? There was no strategy, it was just long because people were using crap weapons or weak nukes or whatever and the crabs just have high defense and the warriors were missing like 50% of the time.

I see a few people demanding "longer" fights, when what people should really be asking for is more elaborate fights. Complexity doesn't dictate length.

I really don't think FFXI's combat is particularly defective. Yeah, EXP parties aren't that interesting, but EXP grinding is rarely the selling point of a game. Except on bosses, FFXIV does not use massive enemy HP inflation to draw out fights unlike most MMOs. The best thing I think they could do short of yet another combat system from-the-ground-up revamp is add "elite" versions of mobs as some other games do, which are statistically set for a party of people at the same level as itself, rather than a single person of the same level of itself. These enemies would be typically found in open world dungeons and instance raids. I don't like stat inflation but it would be a reasonably effective way to address the issue.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Leveling isn't supposed to be a challenge.

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http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...4/facepalm.jpg

Well it sure isn't doing a good job at "pacing" the game now is it?

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Tell me, in what other FF game besides XI did anything other than bosses take a long time to kill?

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Let's see.

Final Fantasy Tactics is a prime example, as well as Tactics advanced 1/2/reverant wings

Most Final Fantasy games unless you were grinding your levels fights actually took a decent ammount of time even in the open-world of course depending on what mobs you rolled in a encounter. Tonberries have been notoriously long fights in the series even when placed as a standard monster.

I'm not sure why you are trying to draw a parallel between MMO's and RPG's though because your fighting a loosing battle for one. You would be better of citing other MMO's that faceroll their "Fodder" mobs as well. The term in itself should have no place in this game.

We shouldn't be fighting enemies to just fight groups of enemies. I don't see why it's a big deal that a group of 8 level 50 people have a hard time fighting a single level 65 monster. Does the whole level thing just pass over your head or are you ignoring it entirely when you keep spewing out.

"It shouldn't take forever to kill a goblin thug! NO THUG SHOULD BE HARD!" Do you ever think back and remember that once you are max level the same thug is a mere pimp slap away from death in your cold blood soaked hands. Sure perhaps at the end of the game there are monsters who are still of the same race but much stronger...why is that a issue.

I have no beef with having weaker groups of enemies who act dyanmically, but AOE damage just makes most attempts to make large groups of weaker enemies any sort of "Challenge" is slapped in the face by people wanting a easy-out. Players will find the path of least resistance and the flaws in the design of AI groups.

I find as far as MMO's go I've enjoyed group vs singular oponent combat to be much more stimulating than group vs group combat.

It's not like in a MMO you see many groups of monsters gun for the weakest link (Mages) Like we as players do, in itself makes group vs group combat fairly stagnant. Hell if they did such crazy things people would be up in arms that the enemies use the same strategies that they do.

Unless you gave monsters provoke and had them have tank classes you had to fight before attacking the mages....and at that point combat is more orchestrated by invisible hands than it should be. I don't see how PC Group vs AI group combat will ever pan out as balanced.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Well, FFXI must be inane then, because that's what happened in the early days of that game and yet it's what you seem to want. Or did you never XP in the dunes and run into people taking 3-4 minutes or more to kill a single crab? There was no strategy, it was just long because people were using crap weapons or weak nukes or whatever and the crabs just have high defense and the warriors were missing like 50% of the time.

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I don't believe I've mentioned XI in a single one of my posts. Everything I've mentioned in the thread has been asking for more complexity, but the time which battles take does have a relation to that. How much can you really do when working with less than 10 seconds? No one is asking for longer fights for the hell of it, we just want them to take a bit more time so complexity and strategy have a chance to develop. To be fair, XIV has a few elements of this currently. Level 30 parties fighting Raptors is a good example. If the tank is competent, he'll force the raptors to face away from the party, and then maneuver behind/use shield bash to avoid the flame breath, and he has a chance and reason to even do this because the fights last long enough for that to become a factor. That's what I want more of.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Yeah, EXP parties aren't that interesting, but EXP grinding is rarely the selling point of a game.

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You're right, but they also constitute a rather large portion of game time invested, whether it's exp grinding, item farming, or even card collecting (eh, eh?). If a large portion of time is going to be spend fighting random mobs on the field, can't they at least provide a little stimulation?

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I find as far as MMO's go I've enjoyed group vs singular oponent combat to be much more stimulating than group vs group combat.

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This is what things like Ifrit and Garuda are for, not mooks.

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Well it sure isn't doing a good job at "pacing" the game now is it?

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It depends entirely on how you go about it. if you enjoy the leveling experience, you're probably not going to choose to be power leveled, and you'll either level up solo/with a friend or two using leves and enemies close to your level or with an ordinary party of people not employing a PL. They do exist, you know.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

This is what things like Ifrit and Garuda are for, not mooks.

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I've also enjoyed playing in the open field much more than I have in a cramped box.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

I've also enjoyed playing in the open field much more than I have in a cramped box.

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Okay, this is what Elder Mosshorn and other NMs are for, not mooks. There should be more of them, but that's what they're for.

Pretty bad when Analhelm is making the most sense