For those of you complaining about EXP chains while soloing...

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Originally Posted by Bowen

/look of disapproval

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lol! Sorry, I meant that exp gain should be equal, but no one is asking that solo players get a leg-up in order to catch up with parties. As I've said, parties will always gain more experience. They kill faster, and can tackle tougher opponents. Parties get a buff as well as the ability to chain more efficiently.

The fact that you're in a party with multiple people is an advantage in and of itself. Anything else just seems to add insult to injury. Excuse my wording earlier.

I suppose my suggestion would be to raise chain timers while soloing, but not raise exp while soloing so that it equals the exp gain of a party.

Equal in one aspect, not equal in all.

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Originally Posted by ShinChuck

Amen, my friend. I have no problem with the people asking for balanced solo/party play, but the people who seem aggressively anti-solo entirely... geez, what do you have against people enjoying the game? Are you so incredibly closed minded that you can't possibly fathom the idea of gameplay that facilities the choices of the solo and party players?

As a theoretical, do you oppose things like, say, Chocobo Racing, Triple Triad or Blitzball in FFVII, VIII and X? After all, those are RPGs, not racing sims, card or sports games. Yet SE choose to put them in, and people enjoyed them - do you fault people for doing so?

You're stuck in an odd, archaic mindset of, "It's 'Massively Multiplayer Online', therefore it MUST force players to play together." But that's a very limiting view of a genre wide-ranging with possibilities. "Party play" is not the extent of it's definition. You are interacting with players everyday, by shopping, by typing /cheer at someone, chatting with a linkshell, hanging with a friend crafting.

Perhaps more important than "party play" in regards to the idea of an MMORPG is the idea of choice, and freedom, in a living, breathing world. The genre is ripe for innovation, of helping people connect in *new* ways, of living in a virtual world in accordance with their own will as much as that of the developer and the community, and will never advance if we have people foaming at the mouth every time somebody dares mention something that goes against the idea of "party play and party play only!"

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This is all that needs to be said. Many of you would do well to read it over, and possibly re-think your mentality of solo vs. party play.

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Originally Posted by viion

yes you do *pokes you with a stick*

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Ok you're right i do, the main thing wrong is that none of the classes were built for solo play.

Soloing doesn't need to be fixed, I think it's fine. I still want to group up to gain exp chains and bonuses which I think shouldn't be accessible when soloing. This is an MMORPG MMO action game/ strategy game (w/e you want to callit). If there's anything better than playing online in real time w/o a lobby of servers like other multiplayer games out there, let me know. You log on every day to look for party and play with others. Soloe'rs shouldn't even be given room to complain or state their opinions about how bad it is for them.

I think when two or more come together and fight mobs, it's the best way to gain exp. Develop exp chains and earn bonuses! DO it in a team and what SE should be promoting beside individualism. If you don't like this, go bad to "WoW", I wouldn't miss ya!

I like the idea of a longer timer for solo.

I don't think we need to change the leves we have now, but to add more that have a bit more excitement. I mean at times I really enjoy the leves we have now, but it would be great to have different ones to cater to people who don't want to grind mobs/synths.

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Originally Posted by Estellios

The "make soloing easier" suggestions were made back when 1.19 was released because it did make it tougher for some classes to solo (I think mostly Gladiator?). Self-combos and the new abilities in general seem to have bridged the solo vs party gap quite a bit, though.

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Yeah, that's why I stopped complaining about solo difficulty a month after 1.19 came out, because a friend of mine convinced me and helped me realize that the stat changes were probably one half of the battle mechanics overhaul. Yes we got "nerfed" a bit in 1.19 (minus MRD), but we both realized there had to be something coming along the woodworks to compensate for us feeling so gimped.

Now with 1.20, I actually feel like I can stand on my own no matter what class I play because of the combo and battle system changes. I still think the combo system needs to be tweaked more, but solo play is definitely more tolerable now. I'm trudging along from 35 - 40 on PGL through regular leves as we speak.

Leves still have a bit of a level discrepancy though. Because mobs only get stronger by 3 levels per star, there's this period where you're too high/strong to do the previous star leve, but a bit too gimped to do the next star version. Case in point: my PGL was level 37. Some of the 4* leves (with level 39 mobs) were kicking my butt. I took way too long to kill things between fights to get EXP chain bonuses. But if I do the 3*s, I don't get the EXP chain + Guardian's Aspect and mobs don't link, so I'm actually down on exp for that part. Once I hit level 38 - suddenly I was stronger and I could kill the 4* mobs with ease and get 3-4 EXP chains. At level 39, when I'm the same level as the mobs as the OP is in his screenshot, it'll be easy again. When I hit rank 41, I'll run into this problem again as I will be 1 level too high to do 1* rank 40 leves, but 2 levels too short for the 2* rank 43 leves to be time efficient.

Despite my gripes in my previous paragraph, I'm fine with the way the system is now. I'd prefer they made the link chain timer a little slower for solo players, but I think the anti-solo players that were talking earlier in the thread would have an aneurism if I suggested yet another thing that would make solo play easier.