I miss party grinding (as a viable option)

I'd like to have that option as well, it was a very good way to learn how to play your job in XI, FATEs don't do that.

Based on some of the stories from people going into DF parties and getting abuse for it I think it would help new guys to learn their job in a party with more confidence as well. Admittedly these attitudes shouldn't exist and you should help new players or people new to a dungeon, but you know what people are like.

The mindless FATE spamming is lessening my interest in this game.

+1 to bringing back group mob farming.

I was going to post this thread too, but for some reason I can't make a new thread. I think there should be an instanced exp zone that parties can enter and fight high level mobs based on their party level. That way there is no blm's running around aoe'ing mobs to get exp like in fates (super annoying) or camp squatters, I hated this in 11 when a new party would come camp right on top of you in an over crowed area, and you ran out of mobs. Players in this game need to learn how to play their roles, too many have no idea what they are doing. Exp parties, in 11 trained players for the real boss fights.

It will happen eventually. The problem currently is area overcrowding so picking mobs is somewhat impossible. Add to that- anyone can attack your mob and get something for it, so right now, it just wouldn't work. I'll admit, I do miss me some exp parties. It truly is a great way to learn ones role and make new friends as opposed to the FATE zergfests. Keep in mind though that many people aren't FF vets and we all have different methods and opinions as to what is considered fun. WoW players are used to questing and raiding. FF players are used to grinding and organizing missions. This was sort of the reason people who left one for the other always went back to what they knew. This game at least has a little of everything tossed in.

I also would like to support exp monster farm parties as an option. I've done a number of dungeons, its not the same and its something I don't think I would ever consider doing over and over for exp (I might mix one in here and there for it).

Im kinda liking the idea of an instanced exp party though, where it would work like an open world party but would be in some kind of arena (no bosses just mobs set at a point for leveling). This way it would not interrupt other open world activities (though I would like a slight boost to open world mob slaying benefits and prolly to levequests too.

Justice Bump!

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...Ii56IbDcnK-6tf

Some of you guys talk like the game doesn't actually have stuff where you learn how to play in a party...

It has dungeons and it has guildhests which serve that specific purpose.

For me, I miss the grouping more than anything. I miss talking and making friends. All of my friends in this game are the result of XP Parties I had in XI.

Casual, but not easy, content where you can spare a few words while fighting, is tons of fun.

(Experience Points) (Party) (Can I have it?)

I really miss these, however I don't think the answer is a level-controlled instance. A large part of the draw to XP parties is the challenge and practice of coordinating the actions and movements of several individuals. XP Parties not only hone the skills of each player at their specific role, but also challenge individuals to learn and develop the leadership skills necessary to tackle more difficult content. The repeated exercise of building a party, locating a camp, task distribution, pacing, and disaster management is what teaches players to become better players. Not just with their individual tasks, but with the overall management of group mechanics.

HOWEVER...

It simply cannot be mandatory.

Dungeons should yield greater rewards for seasoned players, but at a cost or risk that makes those rewards elicit a feeling of accomplishment. XP Parties, FATES, Questing, and Leves should provide comparable leveling options for players who are not yet experienced.

FATE Trains are simply this incarnations version of the Abyssea zerg alliances. XP in exchange for carpal tunnel caused by holding "W" back and forth across a map - now that's dumb.

IMO fates should scale with the number of players doing then, it really sux when you can't even land a couple hits in a target cause everything is dieing too fast.

the bonus that you get from chaining mobs doesn't give enough reward for it to be "viable"? i don't grind fates, i do a couple if they are close by, maybe when i start to lvl my second class i will change my mind =P

XP should be rewarded based on the difficulty of the encounter, not based on an arbitrary "this is what we think you ought to be doing." Add in super tough zone monsters (like BAMs from Tera) and it should go:

Zone bosses -> Dungeons -> Guildhests -> Levequests -> FATES

They would have to tweak monster experience and difficultly for this to work well, and probably add new monsters for people 40's+ to grind effectively, So, well...

Hmm.. I don't think FFXIVs current build would mesh with this at all. I mean, I loved FFXI's system, I loved fighting hard monsters (Ose was so fun) but it only worked in XI due to everything being so damned hard to kill. I mean, you were afraid to go anywhere solo. I haven't had that feeling at all here.

It just sounds like it would take too much work to -do well-.
Edit:
Maybe down the road when they start releasing expansions, they could raise the monster levels considerably higher than our own and tweak experience to reflect that, but in the now, I don't see this happening anything soon.

Just make it so that outside mob gives you scalable xp to higher lvl - just like WoW - so that people have solo grind - small party grind or repeatable quest grind - slay 10 mobs, get xp bonus, auto repeat - aka FFXI Ground of Valor. This way people are not forced to do FATE, Dungeon, and Leve as their only 3 main source of xp.

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

Party grinding scales with skill(because of skill chains) and actually required teamwork and a real party set up. It let you play your class, meet new people, and was good at teaching you the basics. Fate grinding doesn't teach you anything, isn't challenging, requires no teamwork, and is just spam aoe.

Why can't we have traditional experience parties again? They have no downside, and if people don't want to do them they don't have to, but they should be a viable option.

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The devs have already proven they fold like origami. Start a petition and keep the topic active and changes will come.

Fates are simply ridiculous. They're a poor incarnation of GW2's dynamic events and those weren't that good to begin with.

The problem with ARR is the lack of quests. At some point you'll be forced to find alternatives to questing because all quest hubs are exhausted. This worsens as you start new classes.

Just to give you a break down of the current state of affairs:
- Quests as they are, are pretty bland. Kill that, collect this, talk to her, etc...
- Quests aren't enough for your first class, start your second and you'll be stuck without hubs as soon as level 11.
- Leves are bland quests with another name.

- Guildhests are like WoW secenarios but better. The only thing I would change here is their difficulty. 'Move out of red circle' is getting old. They're far too easy.

FFXI leveling techniques were mind-numbing. But hey that's an opinion right? If they could implement that without breaking other ways of leveling why not. But quite frankly, they already have: Dungeons. It's same same principle in an instanced area where no one is bothered by your grinds.

I personally don't feel FATE grinding is actually the fastest way to level. At lvl 45 per hour I pulled in about 300k experience on grinding FATEs in Northern Thalanan. Quite a decent amoun, yes. However! That is including an 80k exp chain bonus for 12 minutes of work on the farming FATE. So excluding that, I gained roughly 220k experience on FATE grinding itself. Whereas with grinding mobs I gained 80k per 12 minutes or if continued for an hour could have gained up to 400k.

Taking exp chaining to your advantage, party grinding mobs for leveling up may very well be the fastest way to level if done effectively. Thing is, it takes time and effort to put together a good group for that. But if players would actually sort themselves out, be willing to form a fixed team and jump in on a good spot with high spawn rate, the outcome may be surprising.

Bumping because more people need to see this. FATEs and all other forms of Zerg fests are not challenging or fun, why is it the most rewarding in terms of exp and seals?

Bring back exp parties as a viable, supported option in the game.

Bumping because I think this would really make the game better in several ways, better ways to level alt jobs, and teach people how to play their class role in a party.

Last night I had to grind my conj to level 15 so I could unlock pld, omg that was horrible, I've done almost all the quests at that level, I had to run around to fates, levequest, and grind mobs, it was horrible. I can't imagine taking another job from 1-30 at this point, it's just not worth it to me, I thought grinding in ffxi was bad, this is worse because there is no exp party system setup. Yes I can get on with a few of my friends, but 100k+ per level in the high 20's takes FOREVER to grind.

Please! instanced exp party areas! :) thanks.

every single way to level should be boosted, the game is made so that only nolifers or people that prefer leveling to endgame will enjoy the game.

leveling right now, even abusing fates, takes at least 70h of play,

some guys can do that in 3-4 days, but working people can only make that in 1-2months.

noone wants to spend 1 or 2 months leveling, i leveled in a week because i was a eremite in home on holidays, and it took sooo looong, ridiculous.

fate farming xp is ok, every other kind should be boosted, quests give too low xp, mobs give too low xp, dungeons give too low xp.

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Originally Posted by gorror

As long as it doesn't become mandatory to level i wouldn't have a problem adding specific zones that require a party and having the mobs give a lot more xp, however 200 mobs to gain a whole level is WAY to fast imo.

If it becomes mandatory then its a very bad idea, groups are common on launch but no so common 3 years after launch.

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So 200 mobs to gain a level is too fast but a couple dozen fates to gain a level is fine

Traditional parties are still perfectly viable. With a solid party and a good camping spot, you can rake in EXP pretty fast actually.. It's not quite as instant-gratifying as some FATES tend to be, but FATES are also pretty damn random. You sometimes spend a lot of downtime just waiting for them to pop, or hell just moving TO them of all things. If you factor in the time, and the randomness, it's actually not as incredible as a lot of people think.. I think a well oiled machine of a party could out-exp FATES honestly, it's just not as appealing to most playing - hence why it's not happening. FATES give you a big pretty number, and with some luck you can chain those big numbers at a pace that it feels especially rewarding to do.. for most people this is a more pleasant thought than grinding on the same mobs for the same amount of time and a similar reward.

I think the better solution would be scale the fates difficultly based on how many people are participating in that targeted area.

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Originally Posted by Fornix

Taking exp chaining to your advantage, party grinding mobs for leveling up may very well be the fastest way to level if done effectively. Thing is, it takes time and effort to put together a good group for that. But if players would actually sort themselves out, be willing to form a fixed team and jump in on a good spot with high spawn rate, the outcome may be surprising.

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Exping on the current mobs in the game is extremely boring, they pose no threat or challenge and are just as easy as fates. We want powerful mobs players would be scared to tackle alone, basically dungeon mobs, but stronger. I'm thinking something more llike bosses, really.

Every NORMAL enemy in FFXI had ~5-7 different special attacks, some were super scary, some were just buffs, some were incredibly scary. We had to adapt to them, stun some of them, dispel some of them, stay far away(as mage) to avoid sleep/status effects, stay away from the front, predict huge damage to the tank, or esuna/erase/-na some of them. Some were too strong we didn't even want to fight those mobs, their difficulty was not worth their experience. Every single normal mob was basically a boss in itself. Normal enemies in this game have ONE special attack at that and isn't scary at all, most don't even have a special attack. It's really lame.

What's worse is most fate "bosses" are just beefed up normal mobs, and when normal mobs don't have any scary attacks or abilities, they're just as easy as a normal enemy.

Bumping this again because as I start to level alts this seems like a critical need in this game. Instanced exp areas, where you fight boss type mobs for 1-2k each as an example. I would much rather do this than chase fates around and hope I beat the blm's there so I can get a hit in and get some exp from it before it's instantly killed by the spamming AoE's. The problem with exp parties now is that the exp reward is out of scale with the amount needed for each level. I get the same amount in FFXIV as I did in FFXI (pre expansion) 250-350ish. However level 74-75 in FFXI only required 75k exp which in a good party I could get in about 4-5hrs, yet from 40-41 in FFXIV I need 350k exp!

IMO. this game should stop spoon feeding us exp through the story line, and make us exp party to level, maybe this way nerds with no life wouldn't be able to finish the entire game, and have relic gear in less than 1 week, and be demanding more content!

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Originally Posted by Steeled

I miss party grinding (as a viable option)

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I miss being able to make use of core content features without being forced to group to unlock then:

1) Retainers, to access banks and selling on the AH
2) Grand Companies, to access the basic MMO ability of MOUNTS
3) 50% of the Leve content post-20 due to (2)

I could go on, but I've made my point, unlike your complaint though I have NO ALTERNATIVE to have to 'group up', there is an alternative for your style: well actually, YOU CAN 'group up' to grind levels so I don't get your complaint.

Even the group-grindfest that was your beloved FFXI didn't lock core content like this behind forced-grouping.

Inb4 "it's an MMO" .. the 'G' in MMORPG doesn't stand for GROUPS!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shiyo

Exping on the current mobs in the game is extremely boring, they pose no threat or challenge and are just as easy as fates. We want powerful mobs players would be scared to tackle alone, basically dungeon mobs, but stronger. I'm thinking something more llike bosses, really.

Every NORMAL enemy in FFXI had ~5-7 different special attacks, some were super scary, some were just buffs, some were incredibly scary. We had to adapt to them, stun some of them, dispel some of them, stay far away(as mage) to avoid sleep/status effects, stay away from the front, predict huge damage to the tank, or esuna/erase/-na some of them. Some were too strong we didn't even want to fight those mobs, their difficulty was not worth their experience. Every single normal mob was basically a boss in itself. Normal enemies in this game have ONE special attack at that and isn't scary at all, most don't even have a special attack. It's really lame.

What's worse is most fate "bosses" are just beefed up normal mobs, and when normal mobs don't have any scary attacks or abilities, they're just as easy as a normal enemy.

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That's totally it right there.

A normal enemy in FFXI, and hell...the occasional one in FFXIV, could totally ruin your day and the day of everyone in your party. Now and then a neighboring parties day, too. And that's a good thing. It's not just that grouping isn't particularly viable, it's that it's so unsatisfying. Every normal enemy in 2.0 can be killed by rubbing your face back and forth across the keyboard. Aside from the occasional conal, or centered AOE they're completely toothless.

Getting a full party together to grind on mobs may be doable, but the fact that you'll kill every monster in the area in the span of seconds then just be left standing around waiting for the next monster to spawn, to dog-pile it. No tactics, no need for healing, no need for buffs or strategy. Nobody needs a role. Just leaping onto the back the back of completely outmatched enemies one after the next.

It makes FATEs look like challenging content, simply by the virtue of having to walk there and potentially getting caught on a tree.

I made myself sad. :(

Right on, I'm 100% with you on this


Party-Grinding should be IMO the best EXP reward. How would you level up in all the FF games? Fighting mobs in a battle.

FATES should be Gil/Seals reward.. ''Hey look im running low on Seals i gotta go farm some''

Dungeons is already good like it is, decent exp/chance to get loot.


Personally, I've been playing FFXIV1.0 when they started to charge. And to me, back in January 2012, it made more sense to sub it over what we are playing right now.
And your point is what that would makes me enjoying the game, and right now i don't see anything I can enjoy as much.

I think it is viable. Find a group of friends and a good spot with monsters a few levels above you and grind away.

I have a ton of fun grinding in dungeons to level, the mob and bosses make me pay attention, test all my skills, and make us work together. I want every zone to have a few camps I can just grind boss/dungeon mobs on in a party. So much more fun, challenging, and teaches me my role. Also make the mobs not leash so there's that danger of pulling links and killing everyone. Dungeons are completely scripted with little to no error, random decent size camps of mobs can have things go badly and links pulled and the randomness nature of "what will happen?", plus you should add random mobs we DON'T want to pull that aggro we need to avoid while pulling mobs we're exping on, add undead that spawn on night that will wipe your entire party(much higher level mobs than other mobs in the zone), makes it a lot more fun than scripted - > 2 mobs - > 3 mob pull -> boss and all mobs around your level with nothing scary to avoid in fear of wiping your entire party etc of dungeons. Plus the thrill of wanting to keep the chain and chaining as high as possible is fun too.

Fates should be campaign, something you do solo on your free time, nowhere near as efficient exp/hour as party grinding but enough to be able to solo level and get some nice gear on the side.

Please add leve-linking back too, cap it at 4 people or something, make mobs scale even harder than they do, leve party leveling in FF14 1.0 was really fun and made us all group up and make friends.

This game desperately needs reasons to group up with people on your own server and make friends.

Really, leveling anything not my main is COMPLETELY killing all enjoyment I have for this game. Fates are so boring, dungeons aren't doable 30+ unless I'm with friends who are playing a tank AND healer, and it's at least 3 of us, even then, the exp/hour is 1/4th that of fates. I am getting so bored leveling my WHM that I just want a "get level50" button, something I would never have wanted in FFXI.

You cannot sustain a player base on end game dungeons alone, especially when end game has the least amount of content in the game. I weep for all the dev time spend on 1-49 zones and dungeons, so much wasted time that's barely used and dungeons most people skip or do once.

You're not alone. I miss when MMORPGs emphasized group-based gameplay also. But at least this game has a duty finder, so there is easy access to group content that way. But there is very little incentive to group on this game outside of those.

I agree that soloing should be possible. But I also think it should be sufficiently difficult and slow enough that players are encouraged to form ranks. Sadly, this game doesn't succeed at that. FF14 is basically a solo game with the option to group up if one wants to for Fates or Dungeons. I don't like it, but we've been out-voted. Looks like we are going to have to live with it - because all MMORPGs are doing it this way now.

Keep bumping this, i don't know what the mmo scene is like in Japan or if they are really happy with this game, but i imagine that once people start getting monthly billed for this many will drop off simply because noone wants to play a multi player console game disguised as an mmo. Whatever happened to having to run into a dungeon with your whole guild because the monsters are so tough you take 30+ people and split them into 3 parties watching each others backs to get around. You sending ranger scouts up ahead to check if the bosses have spawned etc...

This game does not feel like an MMO in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

I think it is viable. Find a group of friends and a good spot with monsters a few levels above you and grind away.

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Except that no, people are not willing to do it cause to them it is more faster with a FATE party. I've tried to put up PT, ended up finding 3-4 guys willing to, and even tho we were killing quick the EXP reward isnot good at all, at least not as it used to be.

On my ACN36 I solo a LV36 mob and LV42.. and there is such a small difference between the EXP reward..

I think we just miss the good old FFXI days.

EDIT: Also, My favorite thing was pulling/fisherman in FFXI, and yet in this game we won't see that anytime soon :/

I made a post a little while ago in Balmung http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...one-interested to see if there was actually any interest and realy only got 1 guy that said yay and one that trolled the idea completely. I hope it gets more popular because this is what I realy like to do.

I love this idea, it really did help you meet really fun people on your own server. It's also a great way to learn what your skills/abilities do ,and how they work in a party before going into a dungeon. I feel like it was a great learning tool. The lack of it seems to make bad players who have no idea what to do orwhat they are doing,or why! I doubt partying up will ever happen again sadly, it's like a penny waitin' for change! ^^

Yeah. They just need to make different ways of leveling viable again; leve's, dungeons, party grinding, Guild Leve's. They all need buffs.

At this point in time nothing really comes close to a good quick FATE party.

Ya they can't have intended FATES to be the way to level job 2+ can they? I've done most of the quests as my main, there are very few left for my alts. I do like being able to solo some things, but I really miss the exp party days.

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Originally Posted by misterrpg

@Andrien: You must have came from WoW, it is understandable.

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i really dont want to bump this thread, and i know this is late, but fyi, i've played ffxi for 8 years. WoW never.