So you get ONE wish...

[Mack]

I don't follow the mainstream a lot. I will go to Ul'dah at times, but when it comes to leve taking I will rotate around all 3 starting regions. Gridania is by far the emptiest, but I still see a couple people around in Limsa.

Yes, I do it funny that for FFXIV people are following similar patterns.

Let me put it this way. The way the game is set up now it sucks soloing leves...so I'm not gonna stand around LL and Gridania shouting for a leve party when its hard enough to make one in Ul'Dah. People aren't "following a pattern" their hand is pretty much forced in this case. I can't convince hordes of people to spread out over 3 cities, the game has to do that for you. My point that I was trying to make with you was that you said that FFXI forced you to go to the same areas to level up...FFXIV does a lot worse of a job.

[Vesperia]

Let me put it this way. The way the game is set up now it sucks soloing leves...so I'm not gonna stand around LL and Gridania shouting for a leve party when its hard enough to make one in Ul'Dah. People aren't "following a pattern" their hand is pretty much forced in this case. I can't convince hordes of people to spread out over 3 cities, the game has to do that for you. My point that I was trying to make with you was that you said that FFXI forced you to go to the same areas to level up...FFXIV does a lot worse of a job.

I wonder how you could possibly encourage people to level in a variety of places without limiting camping locations within each area (and with a guildleve system, no area can be "over camped"). With such a low population, I think it's human nature to congregate, and that's generally what people have proven to do even in the face of choice.

Perhaps if they made guildleves non-repeatable if failed, then people would have a tendency to do leves in more than one place simply to get their 8 leves worth of grinding out of every leve reset.

[Mack]

It was there in pre Abyssea FFXI and it's present now in FFXIV. They follow it because they don't see it as optimal to go to other areas now

This is having your hand forced. If I can do leves every reset that net me 10K SP or I have a choice to do other leves that net me 5K, who in their right mind will choose 5K over 10K? people only follow a pattern if its the best choice they have, give people better or more balanced choices and they will disperse. IMO leves shouldn't be so central anyway, they should be solo only for the person who doesn't have a lot of time on their hands to hop on the game and play a little, and there should be other options for party SP.

Perhaps if they made guildleves non-repeatable if failed, then people would have a tendency to do leves in more than one place simply to get their 8 leves worth of grinding out of every leve reset.

This could definitely help but I don't see people ditching Ul'Dah that quickly especially because of the Market Wards and since its convenient to level up around the city a lot of them wont leave.