Stop the Grind-to-the-Endgame madness!

I really do hope Yoshida has found a way to advance through content that isn't the WoW quest grind. Final Fantasy is supposed to be an engaging story yes, but mob grinding has been an significant part of the series since the first game. Yes you can finish the game by just playing through the content, but you can not max out your character by doing so. I really do not want Yoshida to pollute this game with Walls of Text asking you to kill 9 guys only to proceed to the next wall of text asking you to kill nine guys. Its just Grinding XP, but you have to do it alone. If he has done what I hope he has, content will be very long quests that will advance your levels as you progress through them. Not 9 short quests to kill 9 guys full of text no one reads..

"I have 6 classes at Lv50, so by the time 2.0 hits all my jobs will be capped. In 2.0, SE should make it harder for other people to grind to 50 since it no longer affects me."

Edit: That said, I'm for the addition of more low level content, but not if it comes at the expense of significantly increasing the time people will need to spend grinding to 50 in comparison to the time we're required to spend to grind to 50.

This isn't FF11 clone, this is WoW clone, get over it already :D

Fact is 1-50 in FF11 was fairly fast if you knew what you were doing or had a string of good parties.

It didn't really start getting grindy until 50-75 and part of that was due to limit cap quests amongst other things, perhaps this dev team will bring that back when they raise the level cap who knows though.

In almost all MMO's including FF11 the fun really starts at end game, so why would you hinder players getting to the fun ?

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

I think we need to define what exactly constitutes 'normal' play here. Because what you are implying and what I am experiencing are heavily contrasted right now.'

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I consinder "Normal play" Being able to put your foot forward and gain experience.

Leves give exorbant ammount. Hell I solod my Thaumaturg to 50 in a week without even playing very hard/long and avoiding leves. Once you hit 40 if you ever join a single party "Normal" play dictates you go to a stronghold and faceroll the place for extreme exp but even outside of strongholds the only real form of exp is mass murdering groups of enemies.

There is no challenging fights that are worth the fight and it's sad. Fights should be a tad more rewarding and complex than "Gather them up and ignite them!"

To be honest an rpg is about the journey in which you level while taking in the story, so what would be so wrong to be able to do quest and follow a plot while you level? I can understand why he wants to get rid of the whole grind on x mobs and chain them to reach 50 because what kind of journey is that, that's just a Rocky montage cue the music! You train and train and train then bam you're ready for the big endgame but you didn't really do anything engaging to get to that point.

I think one thing that may be missed from the idea of progressing through story is the idea that more class quest will be added which test the users abilities with their current skillset so there could be challenges had with that in mind. Or perhaps even challenges where you start with less HP, MP, attribute, spell recast is doubled etc. They could be VERY creative with the leveling process through quest it doesn't have to be a straight line it could be a wavy line of multiple challenges and handicaps put on the user to really test their skills and make them a better player when endgame comes.

You have less HP, well you are more focused on keeping your HP up as well as dispatching the weakest enemies as quick as possible.
You have less MP, you are more cautious about using strong spell so you focus on the cheaper ones and figure out the best method to dispatch the foes in front of you.

There really is a lot they can do with it so hopefully they are creative with quest and it does have that "rpg" like story feel where sometimes you are handicapped in a given situation which would not only add tension in said fight but also help to make players better skillwise since it would challenge them to have to come up with different battle methods or to be able to perform certain battle strategies based on the guides they read.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

I consinder "Normal play" Being able to put your foot forward and gain experience.

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That could still mean anything, a small amount of xp is equal to a large one as long as you are making progress ? (I don't think so)

This is the problem some peoples idea of high levelling rate is completely different to someone else's, its all about perspective.

I don't think this games levelling curve is that bad considering we are only 1-50 and Yoshi-p already said they plan to slow it down (although that may have changed since the last players poll which was in favour of the current speed of levelling) I think all they need to do is address the power levelling in this game and it would be pretty good, there is no fun in continuous grinding.

What i somewhat dont understand is that if majority of the people who played this game for awhile have couple of 50"s on standby for 2.0, and the level cap will most likely not be raised, are those majority just going breeze through it until their is nothing left to do? and hence what i hear others are saying about maybe their will be a new form of leveling in 2.0, whats the point if everyone got couple 50"s already, and then we will get hit with endgame stuff "only" in future updates from 2.0. I know others dont like ffxi reference but atleast it had a progression up to endagme, and you where more tuned to your character, and it felt rewarding in the end.

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Originally Posted by Jinko

That could still mean anything, a small amount of xp is equal to a large one as long as you are making progress ? (I don't think so)

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Unless your going out of your way to gain slow exp it's pretty dang hard not to if your actually fighting stuff. Even outside of powerleveling you can still get some extremely fast exp.

I'm far from a hardcore player, and again I solod my thaumaturg to 50 without even doing many leves. Took me about a week and a half playing a 1-2 hours a day.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Unless your going out of your way to gain slow exp it's pretty dang hard not to if your actually fighting stuff. Even outside of powerleveling you can still get some extremely fast exp.

I'm far from a hardcore player, and again I solod my thaumaturg to 50 without even doing many leves. Took me about a week and a half playing a 1-2 hours a day.

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Edit: Oh, jeesus, i'm BLIND, my bad. Let me re-edit everything

I call BS on that, and I fully disbelieve you. Yes, I do, absolutely. I've been doing that, i've DONE that. About as much playtime as you, look at my sig, look at my THM's level.
My experience calls you a liar.

For note, the previous post here, not relevant since you DID indeed give times, sorry if you saw it:

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Originally Posted by Skies

Italics mine.

Define to me, in REAL ACTUAL NUMBERS, what that means, please?
One's definition of how much daily (alright, perhaps weekly is better) playtime defines Hardcore can be pretty different. I want to ensure that your definition of 'easy' fits mine before I call you on your BS about levelling rapidly.

I mean, I almost quit the game in rage when I had to take my first class to 50 (it was lancer, before the major class reforms, I finished levelling it JUST in time for the class reform patch). It's been a gruelling experience to level my Archer or Thaumaturge, to the point that I'd rather pick up any of my many other games than do that. Take note those were majorly done on leves, which as you mentioned is possible.
My wild guess as to why i'm being so slow there is because, in comparison to people like you, I simply have a lot less weekly playtime, but you say you're not a 'hardcore' player, so now i'm confused.

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Originally Posted by Skies

look at my THM's level.
My experience calls you a liar.

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So tell me what have you been soloing? I can generally 2-3 shot most monsters that are weak to thunder and chain them by myself with relative ease, this was back before Blackmage was out so Using thaum it was pretty easy to avoid taking any damage.

Between Featherfoot and stoneskin you don't really have issues with HP unless you try to over-extend and even then MP tends to be your limiter of how fast you can kill things. Best bet is to find some non-agro monsters like Slugs that are easy to take out and wander around in. Agressive monsters are a bit of a pain as you can't chain them as easilly for fear of being eaten by the entire group. (40+ on toads gets a bit tricky).

I will admit I did do spurts of Duoing sessions but the majority of my time was Solo with a few leves thrown inbetween to get me through patches where I couldn't find level apropriate monsters weak to thunder.

But yeah...I must be a fibber....my pants are even on fire and everything.