Do people really favor an FFXI grindfest format?

[Duelle]

I stopped reading the thread right there because this man said it all. I'm really into co-operative play and like it was said before, they are both grindfests (are quest-chain grind MMO's any different?). Might as well be the one heavy on co-op.

At least quest chains hide the grind enough to make it not bore you to tears. And gives you interesting story tid bits and information on the setting and lore.

Co-op during dungeon runs (instances) and raids are awesome. That's where guild solidarity comes into play. The leveling process has to be its own separate thing, though. XI's leveling was designed around being very time sink-ish between mob placement, class balance (surely you remember the parties held hostage in Jeuno because of no NIN tanks or RDM/BRDs looking for group), and exp lost. Those of us who sat through all of it and have been exposed to other leveling schemes now know that XI had a pretty bad system in place. As I said, several friends of mine want quest-based leveling because like me, they're no longer in positions in life where we can dedicate the amount of time partying took in FFXI. They saw XIV as a repeat of XI, so they left.

And I'll see your RO (used to be a knight. never made it past that XD) and raise you Lineage II. Good times, indeed. =P

[Draven]

I'll be happy to explain as soon as I finish cooking dinner for me and my fiance ;-)

[Nero]

To each his own but do you enjoy leve partying system and why?

There is more than just leves.. do a SP party. Where is the Prob? Of course the lfp functions are weird, but they work. If you dont feel comfortable with it, start shouting like in FFXI.. takes the same amount of Time like it did in FFXI.. Then go to a Camp and SP the hell out of the Mobs.. there are really good camps with 400 SP per Mob, which die in less than 25 seconds and that works for every levelrange. If people going to tell me you cant SP-Party like you EXP-Partie'd in FFXI then you didnt play FFXIV at all.

[Draven]

To each his own but do you enjoy leve partying system and why?

In any MMO, but in XI for example... Grinding is just meaningless grinding. A means only of getting to what I consider real content like story missions.

I enjoy the Leve system because its more than just grinding. Like it seems to already have been said, the Leves have a story to them, a view into the trouble of the region and a reason to fight.

My original problem with Leves was that they were the only leveling quests in the game and not a lot of variety. You're basically repeating them over and over again until you get to the next rank. I realized that if I wanted to experience different quests Leves, all I needed to do was go to a different city and do their leves. Also gives you different kinds of monsters sometimes and in a different location.

Also, they've added quite a number of side quests that you can also enjoy and get experience from with more planned in the near future.

Leves also give you materials, gear, Guild marks to unlock traits and of course Gil.


In XIV, I enjoy the freedom to solo or group. I didn't mind the grouping in XI at first but it quickly became a hassle when I realized it was my only option for ranking up (at the time, early XI)

With Leves I have the freedom to either solo or group and I love that. When I'm on prime time with my LS, we'll group together and leve link. Perhaps after that, we'll go grind something appropriate to our rank.

If I'm not on prime time or I feel like soloing, I can do that. Just grab my leves and go~!

I read the Leves, they're not all spectacularly written but at least I'm given a reason for doing what I'm doing other than for the sake of XP. XI, you just did it because that's how you got experience. Those poor Goblins in Valkurm weren't causing any trouble, they were just chillin having a Bar-B-Q and we killed them for no other reason than for XP.


Imo, there's nothing wrong with leves. They give us a lot of things that we would want from the game if they didn't exist at all.

When we have a working party search, a better or perhaps no fatigue system and a friendlier community, we'll have more grinding parties and people will stop bitching about Guild Leves hopfully

[Doho]

I enjoy the Leve system because its more than just grinding. Like it seems to already have been said, the Leves have a story to them, a view into the trouble of the region and a reason to fight.

just to reiterate, and not being facetious in any way, but a paragraph of officially (and sometimes ridiculously) written story, validates the same if not more monotonous existence of grinding within leves over grinding random mobs in the open world? I mean, I'm just making sure...

[Mack]

leves are worse than grinding. Leves have you repeating the same mundane and lame "stories" over and over again whereas at the very least grinding would typically have you moving around the world from time to time, it lets you "make your own fun" as a lot of people seem to be using that phrase for anything FFXIV lately. Grinding, if its viable, shouldn't necessarily be the best option but right up there...however leves should definitely not be it and I stick by wanting them nerfed...they are daily quests and they were advertised as casual content, instead they are the bulk of the game's content (whether or not more is coming its clear the maps are built with crystals all over to facilitate leves so more and more are coming) and they should be casual and solo only - they can give ridiculous SP but no leve sharing and no leve linking. They are a boring system, even worst than straight grinding. And if any of this paragraph is not legible I apologize my eyes are seeing double as I stayed up all night so....yea.

[Neptune]

It's very odd, just an observation not really decrying/commenting personally, but I've noticed a lot of people saying something along the lines of "Plz remove leves and get the party xp system back to ff11" and it hasn't just been just 1 or 2 people saying this but a vast majority and I don't understand how this is favorable. I don't know, I see the flaws in the leve system such as monotonous, repetitive cycles of doing dunesfolk/levinshower/cracked up etc, but was spending months and grinding for days and days of your life in ff11 really superior to any other alternative? Anyways, I just wanted to pose the topic and see what you guys thought .

It's actually kind of funny, because levequests are a huge grindfest compared to other MMOs. And obviously the pure grind option is still there, minus exp chains. But I don't consider the lack of EXP chains as terribly relevant because in FFXI for the bottom 70 or so levels you rarely got more than 5 chains before it reset.

[Physic]

just to reiterate, and not being facetious in any way, but a paragraph of officially (and sometimes ridiculously) written story, validates the same if not more monotonous existence of grinding within leves over grinding random mobs in the open world? I mean, I'm just making sure...

leves dont initially feel like grinding as much, because they have conditions and different monsters, sometimes little tricks, however most of that gets steam rolled by more than 5 people, and after 30 levels its pretty monotonous, the way they had it set up before made more sense, the right leves, on the right difficulty would give fairly good experience, but you could get a lot more in SP parties. I would have tweaked it to be a little more exp from leves than before, but i would have put SP parties slightly higher. The game needs more than leves and exp parties for progression though. Both of these only appeal moderately to players. i suggest quests, and dungeons.

Great sp party>dungeon sp=decent grind sp party>leves>quests is how i would balance sp gain.
make leves more varied and entertaining, and make quests multi tiered, interesting and linked to exploration, have some mini bosses and interesting events on quests.
the same order of sp pretty much matches how many people you should need for said content.
crafters need more interesting ways to get SP and some more actual goals maybe some rare ex crafting items, or recipes they have to unlock.

[Lionix]

At least quest chains hide the grind enough to make it not bore you to tears. And gives you interesting story tid bits and information on the setting and lore.

Co-op during dungeon runs (instances) and raids are awesome. That's where guild solidarity comes into play. The leveling process has to be its own separate thing, though. XI's leveling was designed around being very time sink-ish between mob placement, class balance (surely you remember the parties held hostage in Jeuno because of no NIN tanks or RDM/BRDs looking for group), and exp lost. Those of us who sat through all of it and have been exposed to other leveling schemes now know that XI had a pretty bad system in place. As I said, several friends of mine want quest-based leveling because like me, they're no longer in positions in life where we can dedicate the amount of time partying took in FFXI. They saw XIV as a repeat of XI, so they left.

And I'll see your RO (used to be a knight. never made it past that XD) and raise you Lineage II. Good times, indeed. =P

I do entirely agree that the system was "bad" practice, as it yielded less results because of those problems you've mentioned, compared to the other systems, but I thought finally getting it on was far more "fun". The time constraint is a very real one, I find myself in the same situation as you, I used to drop hours on end on the game and I can no longer do such a thing. What I think we need is:

-A working Looking for Party system (so we can do our things while we look, rather than standing on the Aetheryte), probably letting everyone that has the option on know when a person of a corresponding class and rank-range has turned on his LFP.
-For Christ's sake let me LFP on something I am not currently on. This would've made XI so much "easier" to work with.
-A proper search function. (Stop going backwards Square, for Christ's sake)
-Leve adjustment that really matter:
Seriously, they should be soloable for those days when you are low on time, but when I chose "Band", I HOPE it requires a BAND. You can crank up the stars and not even give a crap while being only a duo. It's important to note leves are underwhelming and even the story isn't entirely interesting, as if doing so many in the same zone isn't bad enough. They really need to spice up the story on them, perhaps make them more interactive sometimes, choosing different "paths" of the same leve ending in a different "boss" or culminating fight (because maybe your current small setup wouldn't do so good against the other kind of monster), involving NPC's (defend gathering NPC's, escorting, etc. This would be only on multi-star leves, of course). They need to up the difficulty in general, not just raise the mob's attack and defense proportionate to stars (give them new skills and behaviors, something worthy of a party).

So, all in all, I understand your situation entirely but I still enjoy the constant co-op and wish I had it accessible (rather than forced) at all times and what I think is that both options should be there, while the party being more beneficial, for those who can put the time to it (investing the same amount of time on the solo version and getting the same or more is pretty illogical, which would we chose?). The problem is that the leves are terribly unpolished and can't cater to both playstyles properly and our means of finding other people are terribly limited. We should cater to the solo as a choice, not make it the top choice. And we certainly shouldn't have to wait for hours upon hours for a party to show just because you chose to be a Puppetmaster rather than a Bard.

Hell, maybe even make special "party leves" that ask you to kill like 50 or more of a mobs, rather than just 5 or 8. Then everyone would be happy and we wouldn't be forced on it.

TL;DR: Would could have the best of both worlds because our quests are "difficulty" adjustable, so why don't we?

And I don't even know if raising you a PSO is fair game.

[Doho]

I think Physic has the right idea. But yeah, don't get me wrong, I don't hate leves.. it's just the way they've been implemented. If they could just spice them up a bit.. PSO style does come to mind, Monster Hunter style, hell FFXI Assault style. Just something to make them stand out. I personally believe leves, quests, dungeons, and partying for sp can coexist.