Remembrance of Old; A Galka's Tale of Experience Chain's

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my second thread! This time I would like to discuss something rather simple that would easily make it's way back into the light. Experience Chain's! Now most of us remember the good old days where there were some things we took for granted. But now that those things are void, do we really want to keep it that way? This is just one more suggestion from a loyal fan of this great franchise.

Remember when you first obtained a party in Valkurm Dunes? Everything was so new, and fresh. No longer were you running around fending off your lands from simple tasks of Quadav, Orc, or Yagudo Regiments all by your lonesome. You were part of a group. The sole task to better yourself by vanquishing a foe no one man could take down by himself. You might even say it was rather enjoyable. One thing you might not have taken into consideration was the EXP Chain!

This game is new, and refreshing at times. Sadly, however, being in a party is still a a rare phenomenon for me. So I think it's safe to assume that if we just implement the EXP Chain bonus back into the game, it would go a long way into helping us to redefine what a party once was, and how we could see more instances where people get together again to make the game more fun again. It's always better to play with others than to sit alone by yourself.

Now I'm glad you read this post, and I really hope you like it and respond in good tastes about it. This seems to me like an innocent suggestion that everyone can benefit from. I would really love to see a bonus for vaporizing monsters in a rapid succession once more. Thank you.

While i'm glad that solo play is functioning in this game, the lack of party play is a problem. it is a very real problem. How many people who are 'waiting' to play the game later would be playing right now if they had the party experience available to them as easily as it is in FFXI. A great many i think.

As for Exp chains, i agree. A simple, but very fun and effective addition.

They sort of went to far..

In 11, you had to party. If you played a class that was undesirable you had to make your own party or sit and wait. And worse if your healer/tank left.

Now in 14 we have a system where you can solo all you want, and making a party is a pain. I would of been fine with being able to take even matches 1v1 while waiting for a party. Thats why i loved leveling drg, as this was actually possible :).

I love that this game is welcoming solo but I am a strong believer that party play should be the most rewarding. Since ff games is always about a group of people on a adventure. I should be able to solo to the cap with no problems(like XI). However, partying should be the faster way and most rewarding(like dungeons) overall. Solo shouldn't be horribly slow either but would be faster with a party. For example I can get about 1 level in maybe a hour but in a party get 1 level in about 35 mins(im thinking of mid range level curves).

EXP chains would be a great addition. They would motivate players to be as efficient as possible during grind sessions.

However.. I have difficulty seeing EXP chains having much effect in FFXIV at the moment. Most players only XP while doing guildleves, and guildleves almost always involve running from one small group of monsters to another. Making EXP chains a moot point.

A couple other factors...

#1 - Mages almost never run out of MP. The only down-time that generally exists between fights is running to the monster.

#2 - You can't really "camp" and "pull" monsters in order to keep a chain going. Monsters reset too easily.

Party efficiency is really downplayed in FFXIV. I believe a lot of other adjustments would need to be made for EXP chains to be worthwhile. This game definitely isn't the same as FFXI.

Yes, Blitz, those were some prime concerns over obtaining a party with certain jobs in FFXI. The thing is, there was more than one avenue to obtaining a party for some of the lackluster jobs down the line. Let's use Black Mage for example. At first it was a job optional to a party. Down the line it became common to just all out, "Zerg" the prey. That didn't mean Black Mage became a dead job. You could find groups of people doing what they called, "BLM Burn Party." Also down the line at that time it became possible to just go out with a friend(or yourself only) and level Black Mage easier than waiting for a party.

While there is some chief concerns over FFXIV's party system,(Example: A party search function?) right now I'm only trying to express the suggestion of EXP Chain bonus to be implemented back into the enviroment. If we all put our heads together and come up with an idea, suggestion, or debate at whether or not these suggestions would really make FFXIV a more enjoyable experience, then everyone could benefit from it. This forum was made by the designers to use our opinions as a whole to expand this game. Let's give them the idea's we have and hope for the best. After all if we didn't have hope for this game, why would we even waste our time to blog about it?

That's some great points of argument, Grit. I also have another idea which would help out with a party system. I'm not sure what it's called, but when you're in Behest and you're fighting a claimed monster but someone hit an Aldgoat Nanny with an AoE and ends up resulting in less SP than normal? Whatever that claiming feature is.....Needs to be abolished.

Mikhalia the Picky had the follwing to say about EXP Chains in FFXI:

"It would be one thing if the difference between the high end players and the average players was semi significant, but negligible. Let's say a difference of 9k xp/hr vs 10k xp/hr. This doesn't breed as much necessity for having the best of the best because the difference is minor. More realistically, the difference between a party of average playerss vs a party of high ends is something closer to half the performance or less. Where a party of average players in average gear would make average xp, a party of good players in good gear make great xp. And a party of great players in great gear make awesome xp.

I'm not saying that reward shouldn't scale with performance; it should. I'm saying that reward scales with performance on a pretty steep scale in FFXI. Too steep for some. The difference between inviting a WAR/WHM vs a WAR/SAM for ONE spot in your party could very well mean the difference between 8k/hr vs 14-15k/hr because if it's taking you 40 seconds to kill a mob due to their lower damage and you need 30 to make the chain, you're going to keep losing chains. If you can't kill fast enough to maintain a CONSTANT chain, you're losing out on massive amounts of xp because the chain bonus keeps resetting to chain 0. A party that can only get to chain 3 and keep resetting vs a party that will get to 5+ and maintain the chain will have a HUGE discrepancy in XP over time.

That's a fundamental flaw with XI; if even one single member of your party is not performing sufficiently, the other five will have to perform more work to carry them, or the entire party will suffer. If they can't put out enough killing over time to compensate for the weak link, the group will struggle.

I've seen more than my share of parties that had one member leave and get replaced by someone else, and seen the xp/hr jump or fall by 2-3k/hr, sometimes as much as 4-5k/hr. I've had groups where we were getting chain 50, 60, 70+ without much trouble; one person leaves and is replaced and all of the sudden we can't get past 5 or 6. I've had groups in middle levels where we're stuck on chain 3 and one person leaves, is replaced, and chain 5 every time.

That's exactly the problem: When one person can make that big of a difference in the overall party's xp, many players do not want to fill any of the party spots with anything that would be less than optimal. It's not fair, but it's because the game's mechanics practically force you to do so.

I'll close with an overload of math.

Let's say we have seven parties. Party A can not chain. Party B only gets chain 1 (so chain 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1...). Party C only gets chain 2 (0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2...). D gets chain 3, E gets 4, F gets chain 5 and resets, G gets chain 5 and keeps going infinitely.

Let's assume they get a base XP of 100 XP/kill, to make the math easier.

Let's assume they kill exactly 100 mobs.

Party A's total XP is 100 x 100, or 10,000.
Party B's total XP is (100 + 120) x 50, or 11,000.
Party C's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125) x 33 + 100, or 11,485
Party D's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130) x 25, or 11,875
Party E's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140) x 20, or 12,300
Party F's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140 + 150) x 16 + (100 + 120 + 125 + 130), or 12,715

Seems pretty gradual, right? Watch:

Party G's total XP is (100 + 120 + 125 + 130 + 140) + (150 x 95), or 29,465.

The difference between a party that can only get chain 5 vs a party that can chain infinitely is OVER DOUBLE. The difference between killing a mob in 61 seconds vs killing a mob in 59 seconds is MASSIVE.

-That's- what I mean about the game turning players into elitists. When the difference between "good party" and "great party" is THAT SEVERE, it all but forces you to be critical of other people who aren't pulling their weight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being an XP Nazi and attacking the notion of "having fun in a party, even if it isn't the best XP". I've done so myself and would do it again under the right circumstances. I'm just saying that when you want to hunker down and get XP, there is a huge discrepancy between the amount you can get based on your performance. And that -is- at least partially the game's fault.

I'm not saying I don't like XP chains, but I am saying that if there were no XP chains, people would be a lot less critical of other people not performing as well, because it wouldn't have as large an effect."

I find this to be doubly fascinating because I saw its effect on the community first hand. A very observative explaination of the EXP Chain system's flaws.

All of that is very true of the FFXI EXP chain system. There are flaws that should be corrected if they are to introduce a similar system to FFXIV. Still, a lot of the math that's going into that explanation is referring to Merit Point parties.. and those with powerlevelers.

Here's what I'd like to see:

A party chooses to enter an instanced dungeon at a certain level of difficulty (possibly level-capped).

That party is able to kill monsters fast enough that they keep an EXP chain going and get more SP per kill.

EXP chain #10! You gain the effect of protect.

Gladiator: "Damn.. I think that's as high as we can get until I get my new sword"

Party kills NMs throughout the dungeon, then a final boss.

Fin.

If there is EXP chain..i hope it would just be either a linear or ,even better, a logathrim function, but not exponential-alike in FFXI. This would prevent elitism.