[Dev1001] Strategy or Exploit

Perhaps this has already been addressed so I will be brief.

I would like a definitive call from the devs and some feedback from the community on purposely failing battle leves so they will stay in your journal for the following leve reset cycle. I have come across quite a few people who have been getting all of the same leves in common, stacking those leves, killing all but the last mob and then returning to the aetheryte to abandon the leve.

Apparently this allows you to keep the SP you earned but counts as a failed leve. Square Enix changed the manner in which this was handled awhile back in a patch due to frequent DCs so that failed leves could be repeated the following reset because people were losing Faction Points they earned and not having a fair shot at getting the reward they wanted.

So the question is....is this a good strategy or a loop-hole exploit? My personal view is that leves have rewards for a reason, to be completed. So auto-failing a leve is something I don't do. I have just been hearing from incoming members to our LS about it and have seen it employed quite often so would like to see it addressed one way or the other.

PS- Not really sure about the Dev tagging system here so not sure if I am addressing the right person or not.

This has been addressed many, many times. Here's a link to one thread, with Alexia talking about the official response. (link in text)

Essentially, failing leves is not an exploit. The devs have said that it's ok because you have to accept a trade-off. You can intentionally fail the leves to max out your SP, but you won't get the leve rewards and faction points.

I know some people who refuse to fail leves out of principle, some people who want the faction points/leve rewards, and some people who have not completed a leve in months. Personally, I'm fine with whatever players want to do. As long as it doesn't hurt my gameplay, let players do what they want.

I can't say I am surprised, just disappointed. Oh well, thank you though for the clarification Vydarr.

I still disagree with this heavily. Intended or not, it's not very hero-like. And why can't the local leves be the same way then? IMO, the leve should just disappear from the journal when it is completed or failed/abandoned. Dont even try to pull the D/C card because you know thats not the reason why you support it.

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Originally Posted by JayvirDeforte

And why can't the local leves be the same way then?

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Local leves are the same way. Lots of players decide not to run for 45 minutes to 3 different camps -- or use 16 anima -- to turn their leves in to the appropriate NPC. So they just make all the requested goods to get all the SP possible, and then don't turn them in. When the leves reset, they pick up an entirely new set of local leves without completing their old ones. Again, they don't get the gil or guild points, but they get the SP.

Maybe that's not "heroic" crafting, but probably the enduring lesson of MMOs is that players will do anything to get themselves the most XP in the least amount of time possible. :)

Of course, Yoshi-P's latest letter discusses "balancing" guild leve rewards. So it's possible that the whole "failing leves" issue will be resolved by making all leves give the same amount of SP. We'll have to wait and see what they decide, though.

Can we sticky this, so it stops getting asked?

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Originally Posted by VydarrTyr

Local leves are the same way.

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1) I am not sure about this...I had a Bluefog leve I had to turn in a long while back but I could not reach there. I do not recall being able to overwrite it with another leve. Like I said though...I am not sure about that. You could however complete up to 1 item short of the goal and fail the rest of the synths purposely making the leve vanish. However, this would not be the same as autofailing a battle leve as you would not automatically receive the same leve again and would be required to choose a leve at the leve counter. It might be the very same leve but that leve would be subject to the same random possibility of popping up and not be guaranteed. With the battle leve it would simply lose the red check and be doable again.

2) I think he was referring more to the fact that local leves can not be party stacked or GAed. Gathering leves can only be GAed. 5-6k SP from a very difficult synth for crafting or a gathering leve is a bit different than the mass amounts of SP gained by leve linking and GAing battle leves. Even at levels 40-50 gaining a level with a single 8 optimal battle leve set is an easy task with this method. With crafting you would be lucky to find 8 leves of the same class at optimal levels and they would come nowhere near leveling you in a single set at 40-50. With gathering leves you can only obtain 6 leves maximum at optimal level for a single class.

I understand the concept of the grind being a hassle, but I am not sure that this method of leveling should be encouraged.

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Originally Posted by Mortikhan

1) I am not sure about this...I had a Bluefog leve I had to turn in a long while back but I could not reach there. I do not recall being able to overwrite it with another leve.

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This was true at launch, but it was changed several months ago. Now, you can complete all the synth attempts, not turn in the leve, and just go back to the leve counter and get new leves to overwrite it.

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However, this would not be the same as autofailing a battle leve as you would not automatically receive the same leve again and would be required to choose a leve at the leve counter.

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This is true. In fact, if you fail to turn in a local leve, you will definitely not be offered the same leve again until after the next reset. So it is different in that way.

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I think he was referring more to the fact that local leves can not be party stacked or GAed. Gathering leves can only be GAed.

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This is true. But because there's no party crafting currently in the game, there's no way to offer party-stacking or GA for crafting.

Why don't they simply award a SP bonus when a leve is completed?

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Originally Posted by Rinsui

Why don't they simply award a SP bonus when a leve is completed?

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Until they find a way to "continue" leves after a DC, I don't think they would put this into play. Playing for 25 mins in a leve only to have some of your SP gain snatched away from you because of a hiccup in your connection would only serve to aggravate players even if it was only a bonus. This would also still not solve the issue of mass auto-failing of leves and reusing them unless they scaled back the SP value during the leve and made the bonus at the end substantial but again as I stated above, people with poor connections would go insane.

I have thought about what you suggested and also about the possibility of SE limiting the leve linking values and attaching more weight to GA because of it being in short supply and having a longer resupply time. Both of these have merit but of course people would find a way around both.

My main concern here for this entire topic is the gap that is happening with the battle classes and all of the other classes. A pure crafting/gathering style character has to invest a great deal more time with their chosen class to progress. This would not be so bad, but the fact that battle class leveling seems to be more of an after thought than an accomplishment or a pinnacle in creating your overall character. I think getting level 50 in any battle, crafting or gathering class should be a pinnacle moment in that players progression in this game, at the very least you should have some stories about it. Those memories although at times painful to recall, are what define your experience in any game. Someone else pointing out that you have an ability on your class that you did not realize you had because you missed it due to blowing right by it is hardly "epic". Finding a use for all of your abilities and when and where to use them is how you truly learn your class and how to play it. It will be painfully obvious when more group content comes out that is more difficult who did what and how they did it. Faster and easier is not synonymous with efficient. Sorry for the sermon :).

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Until they find a way to "continue" leves after a DC...

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Well, it's plain ridiculous this isn't possible in the first place...

Regardless of what the devs think, I personally consider it an exploit and will never stay in a party that insists on doing it. I really wish they would treat them like local leves - you fail the leve, it's removed from your jounal.

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

Regardless of what the devs think, I personally consider it an exploit and will never stay in a party that insists on doing it. I really wish they would treat them like local leves - you fail the leve, it's removed from your jounal.

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But that's missing the entire reason they allowed us to retry failed leves. If you disconnect, you fail; and that's BS. Rather than fix the underlying problem, they allowed us to retry failed leves, and we got the system we have now.

Personally, I'm fine with the system the way it is now, minus the whole disconnect = fail part. But, then I only get to play on weekends, so getting a total of four ranks during one weekend is fine by me. . .

I think they need to make the rewards for completing leves more compelling, by adding in SP bonus's for completing the leve.

Say for dunesfolk you get 10,000 sp for completing the leve, and perhaps more if it is linked, abanding the leve means you walk away from that bonus.

Sure people might still fail the leve, but gil isn't so much a trade off. Perhaps they can add additional bonus to the mix, but the real issue is people use leves for SP, that is the real reward, so hopefully SE will introduce new ways to get SP, or new ways to reward players for compelting leves. Perhaps give players the ability to get more leves, or have more leves open for selection rather then just three per camp per reset.

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Originally Posted by Delmontyb

I think they need to make the rewards for completing leves more compelling, by adding in SP bonus's for completing the leve.

Say for dunesfolk you get 10,000 sp for completing the leve, and perhaps more if it is linked, abanding the leve means you walk away from that bonus.

Sure people might still fail the leve, but gil isn't so much a trade off. Perhaps they can add additional bonus to the mix, but the real issue is people use leves for SP, that is the real reward, so hopefully SE will introduce new ways to get SP, or new ways to reward players for compelting leves. Perhaps give players the ability to get more leves, or have more leves open for selection rather then just three per camp per reset.

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Except that abandoning the leve doesn't mean walking away from that bonus, it means pushing the bonus off until the next time you have double Dunes. All you've really done is add more SP to the pool. You could try to implement it so that retried leves aren't able to get the bonus SP, but then you'd have people complaining about losing leves when they d/c again. I'm not entirely sure there's a way to win this. . .

why not just take the timer off, once you activate the leve it wont be finished until you do what needs to be done if you DC and reconnect your leve dosent fail since there is no timer , if you step outside the leve zone you fail the leve, only one leve at a time if you D/c and dont log back before the leve reset you fail the leve

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Originally Posted by Delmontyb

I think they need to make the rewards for completing leves more compelling, by adding in SP bonus's for completing the leve.

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They already said that's what they're probably gonna do.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

But that's missing the entire reason they allowed us to retry failed leves. If you disconnect, you fail; and that's BS. Rather than fix the underlying problem, they allowed us to retry failed leves, and we got the system we have now.

Personally, I'm fine with the system the way it is now, minus the whole disconnect = fail part. But, then I only get to play on weekends, so getting a total of four ranks during one weekend is fine by me. . .

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Even though I'm going to sound like a cold-hearted b****h here, I'm sorry, but connection problems are your problem, not SE's. If you get DC'd during a leve and you fail it, sure it sucks, but that kind of thing happens.

I've been dc'd during a leve and failed it before. I've been dc'd and died because of it. It sucks. But I don't expect the game to design it's systems around the possibility that it may happen.

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

Even though I'm going to sound like a cold-hearted b****h here, I'm sorry, but connection problems are your problem, not SE's. If you get DC'd during a leve and you fail it, sure it sucks, but that kind of thing happens.

I've been dc'd during a leve and failed it before. I've been dc'd and died because of it. It sucks. But I don't expect the game to design it's systems around the possibility that it may happen.

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Then I guess it's my turn to sound like a cold-hearted a$$. It doesn't matter if it is connectivity issues or not, THIS IS NOT AN EXPLOIT. It doesn't matter if it is 'against your personal code of ethics' because the game developer's have stated as clear as day that this is not an exploit. You can consider it however you want, or call it anything you like, but doing so doesn't change the fact that this issue is BY DEFINITION not an exploit.

Not going to try to bash you but sadly dcing with a game that has so many issues with resources and such is a hard pill to swallow, especially when you consider how unforgiving the leve system is about dcing as it is.

To assume we should just suck up the loss as our fault and not SE even when over half the time its not a problem on our end would make the company look arrogant to assume we are held responsible.

Honestly SE should of developed a system that was far more forgiving with DCing be it from hardware crashing, the games software crashing, and the rare isp giving out on you.

A lot of people I know crash because the game is so poorly optimized that it put a strain on many system especially after a few hours of playing.

Why SE never even consider this a issue to consider when they made the leve system during development who can say, but for you to say we need to take the loss because SE is not responsible and its our fault well all I can say is that you must really love SE in a very weird way.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

They already said that's what they're probably gonna do.

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Did they? I'm not saying you're not trustworthy -- you definitely are -- but could you please provide a link to them saying that, if possible? I've seen this suggested several times, but don't remember seeing a moderator commenting on it. If it's out there, I'd love to see it, because I'd love to have an idea of what they're planning on this.

Thanks. :)

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Originally Posted by VydarrTyr

Did they? I'm not saying you're not trustworthy -- you definitely are -- but could you please provide a link to them saying that, if possible? I've seen this suggested several times, but don't remember seeing a moderator commenting on it. If it's out there, I'd love to see it, because I'd love to have an idea of what they're planning on this.

Thanks. :)

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Originally Posted by Triairy

皆さん、こんばんは。

引き続きフィードバックありがとうございます。頂いたコメントの中で気になった「特定のリーヴ以外人が集まらない」「リーヴ更新の際、3枚選ばれるのをすべての中から自由に選びたい」「リーヴリンクでペナルティなく修錬値が増加することもリーヴを放棄する原因の1つ」などのご意見を元に、再度担当者と話をしてきました。

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現在の仕様では、8パターンのリーヴのうち、数パターンしか選べないものとなっています。これについて開発チーム内でもその是非について検討を行いました が、ギルドリーヴごとのバランスを調整出来ていない今、その部分を変更すると、今まで以上に同じリーヴしか選択されなくなるという状況になると予想されま す（その事を要望していた人にとっては改善といえるかもしれませんが…）

そのため、現在の優先度としては、リーヴ間のバランス調整を行うことを先行するものとしています。攻略ルートを含め、様々な面から調整を行っています。

また、調整の中で最も重要なものの1つ、修錬値の調整も行っています。これは前述の失敗を繰り返して同じリーヴをプレイすることへの対策でもありますが、 リーヴをクリアした際に修錬値をもらえるようにして、クリアすることの意味を高めるようにするというものです。この点を踏まえたバランス調整を現在行って います。

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"As a counter measure against the problem of players failing their leves on purpose so they can repeat the same ones over again, you will receive SP upon completion of a leve so that there is more of a reason to finish."

As far as I can recall, I don't believe this was ever translated and posted on the English forums.

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

Even though I'm going to sound like a cold-hearted b****h here, I'm sorry, but connection problems are your problem, not SE's. If you get DC'd during a leve and you fail it, sure it sucks, but that kind of thing happens.

I've been dc'd during a leve and failed it before. I've been dc'd and died because of it. It sucks. But I don't expect the game to design it's systems around the possibility that it may happen.

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I realize the connection issue is my problem. Note that I'm not complaining about disconnecting. That's on my end, it's my issue to solve, and so forth. What is a problem, that I will complain about, is automatically failing a leve for no reason as soon as I d/c. There's literally no reason for this that I can see. Nor is there a good reason it should take me ten minutes to get back online. Honestly, if disconnecting meant that I just logged right back in and went about my business, I wouldn't even give a **** that I disconnected. Instead, it means I automatically fail a leve and lose SP. Not "Hey, your time ran out while you were d/c'ed." Not, "Hey, that mob killed you while you stood there and auto-attacked." No, just a straight up failure for no **** reason. That's nothing more than crappy decision-making on SE's part. I'm not even gonna call it crappy coding, because I'm certain it's working as intended. The intention behind it is just plain wrong, though.

Thanks, Renta! :D

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

"As a counter measure against the problem of players failing their leves on purpose so they can repeat the same ones over again, you will receive SP upon completion of a leve so that there is more of a reason to finish."

As far as I can recall, I don't believe this was ever translated and posted on the English forums.

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If this is so, then I also hope they allow us to choose what leves we want every reset and not just the randomized leves. The main reason I fail leves is so that I can continue to link with all my friends. It's too time consuming and not worth the sp for everyone to just grab all the leves they can and hope to get links. I'm sorry if some of you think this is unethical, but I'd like to have fun with my friends and not a headache from doing monotonous leves with little reward.

Edit: Even in the opening movie you see the adventurers looking through leves trying to decide which ones to do. Right now it's the same in the game. We look together and decide which ones we ALL want to do. If we could still do that and complete the leve, that would be excellent, but right now the game doesn't allow that.

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Originally Posted by Eldaena

If this is so, then I also hope they allow us to choose what leves we want every reset and not just the randomized leves. The main reason I fail leves is so that I can continue to link with all my friends. It's too time consuming and not worth the sp for everyone to just grab all the leves they can and hope to get links. I'm sorry if some of you think this is unethical, but I'd like to have fun with my friends and not a headache from doing monotonous leves with little reward.

Edit: Even in the opening movie you see the adventurers looking through leves trying to decide which ones to do. Right now it's the same in the game. We look together and decide which ones we ALL want to do. If we could still do that and complete the leve, that would be excellent, but right now the game doesn't allow that.

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Yep. If they just were to let people choose whatever leves they want, then there would be no reason at all to fail them.

I just hope that those guys over at SE realize this. Any possible "abuse" as a result of this change can be easily balanced.