Now that leves will be gone from our main exp function...

[Physic]

Grinding is grinding either way.
You still believe everything SE says? ^-^ I go by their actions, not alone by their words. I love how you all know how the content will be when it isn't even released yet. I wish I was a dev too ^-^

grinding is not grinding either way. in most RPgs they design the amount of exp you receive to equal what level you should be at certain gates, the either alter the base exp, or the encounter rate to balance this. In this model you level as you play, you play and level up while progressing through the story, which is why you are really playing the game. With that model there is no grind, unless by grind you mean anything which gives you exp, which is not really what grind means.

though i will say in this model, there are those that camp in early zones, and kill random encounters until they are op, just looking for monsters to kill, I would say that is the equivalent of grinding, but most rpg players prefer not to do this. Its some what interesting that the norm of MMO is the opposite.

there are many different ways to get exp, if your purpose is only to get exp then to you, anything you do will be a grind.(if for example you play through offline rpg missions/story/quests, just because it will give you greater exp over time, but once again this is not the norm for offline rpg players, even though it seems to be for the standard MMO player)

but even within the "grinding" there is variations, which can make it more entertaining. some people enjoy quests, some people enjoy having missions and objectives, some just want to annihilate everything, some want to explore, some want a variety of things.
the more variety the better i say, and hopefully if they are really good they can make some methods where you dont even feel like you are grinding(because exp is just what happens when you go out to have fun/explore)

[AlexiaKidd]

Some good idea's there Gath I will throw a few of my own into the hat so to speak:

Guildleves

Solo SP/EXP from Leves would be king here. Leves should be adjusted so that the mobs give normal SP/EXP and then if you started or linked the Leve you will then get a lump sum at the end. The base lump sum will start with the Rank of the Leve so R20 Leve's give a lump sum of say for example 5,000 SP/EXP while R40 Leve could give 10,000 SP/EXP. From that base you add multipliers that can add or subtract from that total. Things like time taken, star ranking, your current rank, amount in party if not solo. These could add an extra 50% to the base if you do the Leve correctly and skilfully based on the parameters to take that total to 15,000 SP/EXP for a R40 Leve.

Now people might be sore that they can no longer get the great SP just by being in the Leve but these are designed for Solo really and also to be quick content for people without much time so your just going to have to let the Leve abandoning go. You can still link the Leve but you would not gain more SP in the way that we do now instead you would gain more by setting the Leve on a higher difficulty and it would be a smaller boost than what we are accustomed to. This would make Leves still a good option for a small Party but still not create the huge gap there is now between Party and Solo for Leves. Then there is GA also which can give a boost to the total as well, this is a great tool for Casual players as they will always have lots of it for that SP/EXP boost when doing Leve's allowing them to make good progress in the time they have.

Party Grind

I think you covered most of this already Gath but basically changes to Mob distribution, respawn time and removing the 10 Rank SP cap on Mobs. Also of course add SP/EXP chains into the mix to give that extra keep going incentive. There should be plenty of camps available for all leve ranges throughout the land with Coerthas and Mor Dhona being aimed at higher Ranks.

Dungeon Grind

Here I was thinking mobs within the Dungeon would grant there usual SP/EXP but the Bosses would have huge bonuses also if you manage to complete the Dungeon maybe one of the rewards could be an SP/EXP scroll to use on any class.

Quest Grind

This one is tricky as they could easily fall into the Leve category. I think it would take a long time to implement but a kind of flowing quest line could work with SP/EXP rewards upon completion of each stage. What I mean is the quests kind of follow each other on telling a story, so you are not repeating the same quests over and over again. As a basic example it could start with helping an NPC get an item, you do that quest complete. Then he asks you to deliver the item, you take it to new NPC quest complete. New NPC ask for your help with some dodo's that have been causing havoc in his lettuce patch. The quests keep building up and getting more challenging with NM/Boss fights further down the road telling a story all the way along.

Company Grind

This is what I would most be looking forward to if it is anything like Campaign from FFXI but brought up to date and with new idea's. I won't post all the idea's I had for this here though as it would be a rather long post and I have a thread for it located below:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...at-do-you-want

If they could do anything in there I would be more than happy regardless of anything else they did with the game.

[ClashBlades]

Anything that adds variety to the game will be good. Having the ability to choose between different options is the beauty of this system. You can choose something that you want to do. Adding different aspects to the game will allow for choice. No matter whether you are hardcore or casual, you can scarcely argue against choice. Currently levequests mean that you have to wait 36 hours. With this kind of system there is no waiting. You can always be on the go if you want to. You can choose to jump from one thing to another.

[kukurumei]

Unless you're going to spend a total of 10hrs a month on a ~$15 subscription fee, there's going to be grinding. It's like asking why taco bell doesn't give you 100% beef.

They have options for xp since...FF14 is a big black hole still unfilled with that aspect.
they can have it funneled through "paths" like WoW's quest system and thus the "end game" becomes the adventure
or
they can have it free roaming aka FF11, lineage, everquest style. And they did mention going back to everquest style.

Basically it's a opposite set of theories. WoW is a "SP theory" where your adventure is a straight line, and Sandbox endgame is the optional, or "Sandbox theory" where running around is the adventure, and the "quests" are the optional part.

They could add a lot of spice along the way, but it has to be distinct.

[Gath]

Some good idea's there Gath I will throw a few of my own into the hat so to speak:

Guildleves

Solo SP/EXP from Leves would be king here. Leves should be adjusted so that the mobs give normal SP/EXP and then if you started or linked the Leve you will then get a lump sum at the end. The base lump sum will start with the Rank of the Leve so R20 Leve's give a lump sum of say for example 5,000 SP/EXP while R40 Leve could give 10,000 SP/EXP. From that base you add multipliers that can add or subtract from that total. Things like time taken, star ranking, your current rank, amount in party if not solo. These could add an extra 50% to the base if you do the Leve correctly and skilfully based on the parameters to take that total to 15,000 SP/EXP for a R40 Leve.

Now people might be sore that they can no longer get the great SP just by being in the Leve but these are designed for Solo really and also to be quick content for people without much time so your just going to have to let the Leve abandoning go. You can still link the Leve but you would not gain more SP in the way that we do now instead you would gain more by setting the Leve on a higher difficulty and it would be a smaller boost than what we are accustomed to. This would make Leves still a good option for a small Party but still not create the huge gap there is now between Party and Solo for Leves. Then there is GA also which can give a boost to the total as well, this is a great tool for Casual players as they will always have lots of it for that SP/EXP boost when doing Leve's allowing them to make good progress in the time they have.

Party Grind

I think you covered most of this already Gath but basically changes to Mob distribution, respawn time and removing the 10 Rank SP cap on Mobs. Also of course add SP/EXP chains into the mix to give that extra keep going incentive. There should be plenty of camps available for all leve ranges throughout the land with Coerthas and Mor Dhona being aimed at higher Ranks.

Dungeon Grind

Here I was thinking mobs within the Dungeon would grant there usual SP/EXP but the Bosses would have huge bonuses also if you manage to complete the Dungeon maybe one of the rewards could be an SP/EXP scroll to use on any class.

Quest Grind

This one is tricky as they could easily fall into the Leve category. I think it would take a long time to implement but a kind of flowing quest line could work with SP/EXP rewards upon completion of each stage. What I mean is the quests kind of follow each other on telling a story, so you are not repeating the same quests over and over again. As a basic example it could start with helping an NPC get an item, you do that quest complete. Then he asks you to deliver the item, you take it to new NPC quest complete. New NPC ask for your help with some dodo's that have been causing havoc in his lettuce patch. The quests keep building up and getting more challenging with NM/Boss fights further down the road telling a story all the way along.

Company Grind

This is what I would most be looking forward to if it is anything like Campaign from FFXI but brought up to date and with new idea's. I won't post all the idea's I had for this here though as it would be a rather long post and I have a thread for it located below:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...at-do-you-want

If they could do anything in there I would be more than happy regardless of anything else they did with the game.

I actually like your solo idea, and your companies grinding idea. I'm going to add those in, because it would add yet ANOTHER way to level without things getting out of hand.

[AlexiaKidd]

I actually like your solo idea, and your companies grinding idea. I'm going to add those in, because it would add yet ANOTHER way to level without things getting out of hand.

Hehe thanks, oh another thing for Solo Grind would be to allow you to call your Companion to fight alongside yourself and fulfil a role. So if you are a GLA you take care of the tanking and DD and they will cure and nuke for you. If you play a mage then they will fill the role of tank/dd and you can cure/nuke. They could even allow you to gear your companion I suppose so if you had time you could kit it out with some awesome stuff.

[Gath]

Hehe thanks, oh another thing for Solo Grind would be to allow you to call your Companion to fight alongside yourself and fulfil a role. So if you are a GLA you take care of the tanking and DD and they will cure and nuke for you. If you play a mage then they will fill the role of tank/dd and you can cure/nuke. They could even allow you to gear your companion I suppose so if you had time you could kit it out with some awesome stuff.

That would actually work how the FFXI "personal" NPC you could quest to get, you could gear it, level it, and give it a role that you want it to fulfill.

Could also be used as a filler for a party, or something. Anybody could call their companion to help with certain things, like grinding on mobs for a short amount of time.

[AlexiaKidd]

That would actually work how the FFXI "personal" NPC you could quest to get, you could gear it, level it, and give it a role that you want it to fulfill.

Yep I am shamelessly stealing from FFXI but did not want to say it aloud in case the "THIS IS NOT FFXI" brigade hunted me down ; ;

[Gath]

Yep I am shamelessly stealing from FFXI but did not want to say it aloud in case the "THIS IS NOT FFXI" brigade hunted me down ; ;

I believe we can take the better ideas in FFXI and put them into this game without it actually "stealing" the idea like a copy/paste.

There is ALWAYS ways to make it unique, even though it is similar.

[AlexiaKidd]

I believe we can take the better ideas in FFXI and put them into this game without it actually "stealing" the idea like a copy/paste.

There is ALWAYS ways to make it unique, even though it is similar.

Exactly but for some people the mere mention of FFXI puts them into a fit of blind rage ^^ There is nothing wrong with taking good things that worked well and revamping them and making them even better for FFXIV.