Plan to remove benefit for failing leves?

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Originally Posted by Galoot

To OP: How about the fact that I purchased my game with my own funds and I will continue to play how I see fit. If you do not like the current system or the way certain people play I suggest you find another game. This is the dumbest thread ever, your basically crying because people aren't worrying about faction credits or class marks by finishing the leves. How about you play the game the way you want to play it and I will play it my way. I don't complain about you completing them do I? This is the dumbest argument ever put on these forums, it's basically you whining that you want more for completing them. If they fix it, I will complete them, but as it is now I want levels more than completing a quest...I'm sorry but I don't give a **** what you call it, cheating, exploiting, whatever...it's avaiable and I'm going to do it, because I paid my money.

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I never called it cheating. The first paragraph of my post stated that I didn't care whether it was considered cheating or not. An exploit merely means to take advantage of something to get ahead - which is what this is - taking advantage of a broken system. Defending a broken system because you benefit from it doesn't change the fact that it's broken and needs to be fixed. Go ahead and exploit it all you want - the point of this thread wasn't to call out those who are doing it, but rather to ensure there was a plan to get it fixed in the future. We got an answer from Bayohne so the thread was hardly the 'dumbest thread ever', but thanks for your opinion.

Your "I paid my money, I do what I want!" attitude isn't really helping the game get any better either.

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Originally Posted by Jaide

I never called it cheating. The first paragraph of my post stated that I didn't care whether it was considered cheating or not. An exploit merely means to take advantage of something to get ahead - which is what this is - taking advantage of a broken system. Defending a broken system because you benefit from it doesn't change the fact that it's broken and needs to be fixed. Go ahead and exploit it all you want - the point of this thread wasn't to call out those who are doing it, but rather to ensure there was a plan to get it fixed in the future. We got an answer from Bayohne so the thread was hardly the 'dumbest thread ever', but thanks for your opinion.

Your "I paid my money, I do what I want!" attitude isn't really helping the game get any better either.

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The problem is your use of the word "exploit." You are not using it in a neutral sense, and, in fact, the way you are presenting it clearly has a pejorative connotation. Moreover, you have simply declared this to be a broken system without proving it, yet you have plenty of people on the other side who see it as working fine. Sure it can be refined, but many people do not see it needing to be "fixed," in the sense of some grand overhaul. You have presumed from the outset that your stance is the correct one and that labeled anybody who disagrees with you as defending and/or exploiting a broken system to get ahead of everybody else (who presumably is ethical in your opinion). That's the problem.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Oh god yes. Whoever designed defense leves should be fired and then publicly shamed.

That kind of horrible game design is completely mind boggling.

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Sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure. What is a defense leve?

EDIT: Missed the follow up posts about them. So, it's no Expeditionary Force from FFXI then?

Yes. Lets please do something (positive or negative reinforcement) to stop people from failing leves on purpose.

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Originally Posted by Altano

The problem is your use of the word "exploit." You are not using it in a neutral sense, and, in fact, the way you are presenting it clearly has a pejorative connotation. Moreover, you have simply declared this to be a broken system without proving it, yet you have plenty of people on the other side who see it as working fine. Sure it can be refined, but many people do not see it needing to be "fixed," in the sense of some grand overhaul. You have presumed from the outset that your stance is the correct one and that labeled anybody who disagrees with you as defending and/or exploiting a broken system to get ahead of everybody else (who presumably is ethical in your opinion). That's the problem.

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First, not attacking you Altano - your opinion is a valid observation.

but..

Who intentionally designs a system where failing is preferable to succeeding? I just thought it would require a little common sense to understand SE didn't intend for this behavior when they designed the system, and therefore I wouldn't need to prove anything. Regardless, the fact that they are working on a fix has provided the proof since I wrote my original post and before the post I just responded to previously. I could go into further detail as to why leaving things the way they are is bad for the game, but since I already know they're working on it there's really no point.

It has nothing to do with ethics, but rather with people who argue against fixing the game because they're benefiting from pieces of it that were poorly implemented. Those people irritate me yes, so maybe the tone of my posts is slanted, but I never called them cheaters. Whenever this issue gets brought up there's always people who immediately jump on it in an attempt to defend their actions regardless of what you say. "It's not cheating, SE said so!" Give me a break.

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Originally Posted by normalforce

Sorry, I don't think I've had the pleasure. What is a defense leve?

EDIT: Missed the follow up posts about them. So, it's no Expeditionary Force from FFXI then?

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You stand in one place for about five minutes waiting for waves of enemies to attack you. The problem is, the intervals are too far apart and frequently you're left standing around for several minutes waiting for the leve to end after you've finished off the last wave. I think they'd be more interesting if you were attacked by more often and something always spawned at the end.

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Originally Posted by Jaide

First, not attacking you Altano - your opinion is a valid observation.

but..

Who intentionally designs a system where failing is preferable to succeeding? I just thought it would require a little common sense to understand SE didn't intend for this behavior when they designed the system, and therefore I wouldn't need to prove anything. Regardless, the fact that they are working on a fix has provided the proof since I wrote my original post and before the post I just responded to previously. I could go into further detail as to why leaving things the way they are is bad for the game, but since I already know they're working on it there's really no point.

It has nothing to do with ethics, but rather with people who argue against fixing the game because they're benefiting from pieces of it that were poorly implemented. Those people irritate me yes, so maybe the tone of my posts is slanted, but I never called them cheaters. Whenever this issue gets brought up there's always people who immediately jump on it in an attempt to defend their actions regardless of what you say. "It's not cheating, SE said so!" Give me a break.

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The question is, why does it bother you so much if they're using a system in a way it wasn't intended? Plenty of systems have been used in plenty of MMOs in ways they were never intended. What makes something an exploit of a broken system as opposed to creative thinking? You don't like the concept of people failing on purpose. But as I've pointed out in an earlier post, it's been done before and not in just isolated circumstances and people have had no problems with it. You disliking it doesn't alone make the system broken, even if you think it is "common sense." If SE has come out and said it isn't cheating, then really what leg do you have to stand on?

Again, I don't think the term "fixing" is appropriate, because adding a bonus more like an adjustment, for the following reason: I honestly doubt a SP bonus for finishing the leves will change this behavior because the problem is, as many have pointed out, in linking leves. SP comes incredibly quickly when you link the hyper-profitable leves, and being guaranteed the same leves with a static group every 36 hours is almost surely going to still be a better tradeoff than taking the completion bonus. Unless the bonus is so large that it breaks leve-linking. At which point we're back to the "nobody ever parties in FFXIV" problem.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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Thank you so much! Finally someone from SE agrees that this doesn't foster a good game environment. It's good to know that they feel this way and are doing something to change it.

EDIT: well, token effort to change it anyways.

EDIT EDIT: but, they did at least acknowledge the problem. half the battle yay!

I agree with every post Jaide made in this thread.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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If the Guildleve completion reward was 2-5 Anima each, i bet there will be A LOT of people completing them.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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The problem is not bonuses, failing does not reward item gil marks or other rewards, the issue lies in the balance of the sp obtained from leves
the sp can range from 1,000-20,000sp between r40 leves, that's a huge variance
Another issue is with the randomness of the leves, and the time to perform many different leves vs repeating the same sets that can be failed

failing insures that all members in a static group have the same leve next time, thus allowing for full links
while completing means that each member will be issued a new random set of 3 out of the 9 for each camp
gil, currently has very little value, and is very easy to obtain, marks do nothing for anyone once all guild items are purchased for a class, and can't be used or traded in for a different class.
the items rewarded are often gear that has been so vastly obtained, and so pitiful that you can barely give it away

players that are using this method on leves are looking to level quickly

leves currently allow 30 mins to complete
but vary from 1-30 mins to complete
and reward varies from mob to mob regardless of rank
balance should be in time and sp, you don't want the completion time too short, as it would create an imbalance if the sp is the same

as for removing this problem, bonus for completion time, fixed sp amount based on stars, aspect player level number of party members, to be rewarded at the end

or, simply make leves solo content, make parties go do grind parties
honestly, i'm so sick of leves if i never performed another one, it would still be too soon

What kind of bonus are we talking about, here? Purposefully failing leves is the ONLY (I repeat, ONLY) way for a static party to maintain the same set of levequests and thus maintain the very linking bonus the system was built to use. At the cost of a gil reward and faction points, you obtain the ability to SP more efficiently with the same group of people. That is a fair trade, and a choice we should be allowed to make.

The static party I run with is the first activity in this game that really made me want to play it, and one of the only reasons I haven't given up on FFXIV.

Is the DevTeam truly prepared to offer a Leve-Completion bonus that rivals the benefits of being able to ensure that your party has the ability to sync their sets and grind at a bearable pace? It would take quite a bit of benefit to make my group give up the ability to sync our sets, and not having the ability to (if that option were never on the table) would have quite a negative affect on the social fabric of statics like us.

Can't SE just give us back grinding parties?

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Originally Posted by Icopico

If the Guildleve completion reward was 2-5 Anima each, i bet there will be A LOT of people completing them.

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Yeah but then anima becomes so worthless that you may as well just get rid of it entirely and make all teleports free.

SE deciding to not penalize players and provide bonus's for playing correctly is the best thing since French toast! I am very happy they decided that.

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Originally Posted by viion

SE deciding to not penalize players and provide bonus's for playing correctly is the best thing since French toast! I am very happy they decided that.

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I agree, that's the way to go about it. And hopefully they understand why people are failing leves in the first place.

Offering us all leves instead of just 3 would solve this. Faction leves do so why not battle.

The bonus's would have to be something worthwhile or we'll just be back to square one, something that can compete with possibility of not getting that awesome 10-15k leve next cycle. 10k gil is not worth it, some silly item we dont need is not worth it, it'd have to be something good. I mean we're already losing out on the main gil reward and the faction points, and we dont care as we see SP more worth it.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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I really appreciate this line of thinking. People respond to incentives.

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Originally Posted by Enma

Can't SE just give us back grinding parties?

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I hope they do one day as Leves are boring as hell right now doing exactly the same ones from 30-50

If every person that hates this tactic posted their own thread each....... O wait, this happens already...

Seriously, stop complaining about this already. They are working to balance leve rewards, and apparently give benefit for success too. If you think everyone that does it is a total shitbag, then just be the 'better person' and just complete all of your leves. Then go to sleep feeling you've done Eorzia some good.

As an added incentive...

Why can't they allow people to choose from a list of leves so they can keep the ones they want for a static? Plus, it would give people some variety instead of doing the same few all the time (ie, the static does the same set for a week, then they all choose a new set next week, etc). Why are they forced random? To keep people from linking the same ones? Sorry, people already found a workaround. Try again, SE.

They should just fail the leve, non-repeatable, like local levequests.

im bored of leves. they are boring. why are dreamtoads in the desert, keep them in the forest. i actually like adventuring to some far away area to grind and chat with new people in your grind party. Leves require too much running around. boooring. A lot of people are going to say they hate grinding.. which is fine.. but i didnt mind it. I prefer it over mass running level hell.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

the benefit is that you can get 10k sp more per hour, once an hour, once per 36 hours
its not the end of the world


also this topc is like the 20th or so on the topic, we didnt need another

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Heaven forbid you take another week to get all your classes to R50.

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Some people just can't be told. /shrug

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

As an added incentive...

Why can't they allow people to choose from a list of leves so they can keep the ones they want for a static? Plus, it would give people some variety instead of doing the same few all the time (ie, the static does the same set for a week, then they all choose a new set next week, etc). Why are they forced random? To keep people from linking the same ones? Sorry, people already found a workaround. Try again, SE.

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Like Dailies in WoW everyone gets the same quests that day even if the quest giver has random variations everyone is still on the same quest, unlike here you may have Dunes but I only have Ranine.

I Like.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Why can't they allow people to choose from a list of leves so they can keep the ones they want for a static?

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To be honest, unless SE does this, or makes it impossible to retry failed leves, I doubt that people will stop leve failing. One benefit of failing leves is that everyone has the same ones, so you finish in much, much less time. In fact, if you didn't link, you'd actually get more SP than linking. So if time wasn't a factor, people wouldn't link at all.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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Why not just allow players the option to hang onto their completed guildleves so they can do them again and upon reset instead of hoping to God the counter has them again?

1 good reason players all choose to fail their leves is so they have them again upon reset. The guildleve counter forces you to hand them in when you complete them without any choice of what leve you can select. They instead give you 3 random leves that can either suck balls or be they end up being the $!@#ing awesome leves you just competed that gave you and your party excellent sp for the leve links.

The other reason players like to hang onto them is that, if the counter indeed ends up having the same leve that the player is currently holding, they can do them twice. Granting double sp if they can find a good party to do them with. Taking this joy away would piss a lot of people off, believe me.

I understand why players do this, and I do it too. Its smart and easier for us to earn sp. So, instead of teasing the players to complete their leves for a larger bonus AND making them lose their leves for Broken Water, give them the option to choose whether they want to renew the current leves they completed or hand them in for another new set. Therefore, you accomplish getting players to complete their leves for a bonus AND allowing them to hold onto all their favorite leves again, and again, and again.

That's my 2 cents, make of it what you will. Thanks for the all updates also!

How about they give us leves that actually take up to 30 minutes to complete. Instead of a leve saying, for example, "You need to collect X cactuar legs", and end once all the required items have been collected, have that as the minimum amount needed. Any additional amount of legs collected improves the final bonus. And after the first X are completed, the difficulty increases, as do the rewards and SP. That's just a simple way to expand a leve.

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Originally Posted by Leonesaurus

Why not just allow players the option to hang onto their completed guildleves so they can do them again

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Is that sarcasm? I can't tell. Why not just keep the leves that give good sp. scrap the rest, then everyone can just cash in constantly on SP?

I agree with normalforce's post as well.

why not get rid of Leves cuz they suck.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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If we actually would be able to "choose" our leves out of all leves available by ourselves, instead of hoping for a random lucky day, people wouldn't even think of failing them anymore.

This would obviously cause the problem that people would pick the good leves only though, which is why leves in general need to be adjusted so EACH and EVERY leve is worth the same doing them (SP and rewards wise)
As long as there are leves that will give you twice or three times the amount of SP others do, people will go on failing them, even if the reward for completing them will be raised...people don't do leves for rewards right now and they won't do them for rewards anytime soon. They are merely a way to rank your character and players won't stop doing it that way just cause there will be some extra reward if that means their character progression will suffer from it.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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In those same future plans do you intend on letting players pick up the same set of leves without having to resort to get around the "current game design" in order to play together, in this MMO?

The reason a lot of people do this is so they can consistently play together. The current leve system does not foster a healthy MMO environment.

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Originally Posted by Meridian

In those same future plans do you intend on letting players pick up the same set of leves without having to resort to get around the "current game design" in order to play together, in this MMO?

The reason a lot of people do this is so they can consistently play together. The current leve system does not foster a healthy MMO environment.

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I strongly agree with this statement.

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Originally Posted by Meridian

In those same future plans do you intend on letting players pick up the same set of leves without having to resort to get around the "current game design" in order to play together, in this MMO?

The reason a lot of people do this is so they can consistently play together. The current leve system does not foster a healthy MMO environment.

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this is the reason my static group does the same set of leves every reset. we have a few people that only get to play around an 1 1/2 - 2 hours during the week. by running statics and leve linking we can get the majority of their leves done every reset. at least this way they get to see their classes advancing. it's the one thing we get to do each day that is party related. if they couldn't link with us they'd come in and do them solo and then log out. that would not be enjoyable to them nor the group of people that enjoys playing with them.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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Thank God for that. Take it out completely. The game has already been heavily polluted almost beyond repair (in certain aspects by this). The fact of the matter is, no matter which way people try and cut it, it was reward for failure. A completely ass-backwards concept.

Someone named Aiko Jun on these forums gave the best solution to this plague. As you're doing leves you generate a bank of SP gains. That bank is added to everyone and a bonus added if completed. I thought that was a good idea. If you fail you shouldn't even get the full collected "bank" but most of it. The bonus should be good but not great on top of it.

Also simply taking out the leve being saved if you fail it in your leve cycle chambering would also totally erase this problem. Either or get rid of this junk, its ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Meridian

In those same future plans do you intend on letting players pick up the same set of leves without having to resort to get around the "current game design" in order to play together, in this MMO?

The reason a lot of people do this is so they can consistently play together. The current leve system does not foster a healthy MMO environment.

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Plus a lot of the Leves are awful. The Devilet Inside at Broken Water? Holy fuck but that leve is offensive.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

While the current situation where players intentionally fail leves is not against the rules of the current game design, it obviously doesn't foster a healthy game environment. In our future plans for Guildleves, we don't plan on adding a penalty for failing, but instead plan to include a bonus for completion.

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i can get 20,000sp for failing one leve, i wonder if these bonuses wil be able to compare with that.

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Originally Posted by Grundy

Plus a lot of the Leves are awful. The Devilet Inside at Broken Water? Holy fuck but that leve is offensive.

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I laugh at such leves, and the people that actually waste a leve slot on it. Leves like that need to just disappear. OR maybe add like.... 28 more devlits to kill! ^^

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Originally Posted by syntaxlies

i can get 20,000sp for failing one leve, i wonder if these bonuses wil be able to compare with that.

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Probably not. The only way the system can be fixed is to do away with the random nature of how leves become available. A 5k sp boost for completion alone won't do it. As long as there is a larger benefit for everyone in the party to have the same leve than to actually complete it, I will fail leves.