Quote Originally Posted by Kiara View Post
Hi Vydarr,

You bring up some great points. I agree with most of them, but a few things to consider:

Re: Party Diversity - At first I was thinking of this as well, but remember one key thing Yoshida-san said - that Guildleves are going to be Solo-focused - there isn't going to be a need for Guildleve Parties the way we're used to, now.

So it's not going to be as much of an issue for Party Diversity for Guildleves, because they're going to be refocused to be more Solo activities.

In addition, people will get to a point where they don't need / want Guild Marks any more for their class. At that point, if they want to still do Leves with friends, they can go wherever suits them (but again it's more of a Solo activity now).

So for SP Parties (out in the open world), we can still have parties as they are and diversified just fine.


Re: the other changes and spreading the players out, I agree that right now, it's tough (with low populations), but at the same time, *something* needs to change. The game is stagnating, there are 2 entire Nations (LL, Gridania) that are ghost towns and abandoned, wasting away.

It'll be good to get some traffic and incentivize people to move about.

The status quo of everyone on the server sitting, crowded in Ul'dah all day and going to Broken Water only is making for a stagnant, boring and dying gameplay experience (even with its many conveniences).
Good point, Kiara. You're right. Since leves are going to be primarily solo-content, party diversity in leves is not a concern. (Thanks for correcting me. )

I guess I'm mostly concerned about the timing of these changes.

They're taking away leves as party content before they add in other party content. They're (potentially) nerfing SP from leves before they add in other ways to get SP. They're forcing us to travel before they implement new ways to travel. They're sub-dividing the economy before they fix the economy. They're spreading out the population before the population increases.

I realize we should all be looking long term. And I hope to be here long term. I'm just concerned that the short term might end up being a drag. At least until they implement more stuff to fill the holes in content.

My primary problem with the game is lack of content. I understand that they can't add too much content until they fix the basic battle system. But they're taking away content before they add new stuff in to replace it. They're adding 2 dungeons, but they're taking away leves. Maybe the 2 dungeons will be more content than all the leves, but that would be pretty surprising.

Another example -- In the gathering Q&A, lots of people mentioned that fishing has grade 6 - 10 gathering nodes, but Mining and Botany only go up to grade 5. So people were asking for grades 6 to 10 for Mining and Botany. Instead, SE said they were going to be getting rid of the grades 6 -10 fishing nodes. So instead of adding in more content, they're taking it away.

Of course, 1.18 may have some surprises. Maybe it will actually increase the amount of content. So maybe I'm worried over nothing. Man, I really hope that's the case. We'll probably just have to wait and see.