SP nerfed. We were lied to.

[Loony_BoB]

Perhaps you could look at it this way. The SP on average over multiple methods of gaining was balanced. At the same time, an exploit was fixed. If you were not exploiting, there was no nerfing. If you were exploiting, it was nerfed. I do believe that balancing will continue until we are at a point that is reasonable. Not everyone will agree on what is a nerf and what is a exploit-fix, but in the end some people will have to take more than 24 hours before they come up with a method that allows for maximum SP gain. It's entirely possible that there is simply a new method that you haven't figured out yet. But you made this thread at 12:50am this morning, which I believe is almost exactly 24 hours after the changes. I think it's impossible to try every possible method of gaining SP using every possible variation of level variance, group quantity, battle tactics etc. in that short a time to establish that it is a 100% positive nerf, especially if you've spent a large amount of that time making "Kensei mad!" posts in this thread.

Just go have another shot, see if you can come up with new methods, try new things, see how it all works out. And remember, in the end, the race is long, and it was this long race that Yoshi was talking of when he spoke of nerfing. He never said "in this specific patch we will not downgrade the amount of SP you can gain". He said he won't - over the complete time of development to the point that he is happy with where the game is at - nerf the ranking up process. So, give it time, be patient. If you are unable to do that, perhaps you should look elsewhere for a little while and come back in maybe a month or two. I hope you find enjoyment in the game by then, and I hope that enjoyment will not be dictated by the speed of your SP gains but by the amount of fun you have while developing your character and socialising. All the best, Kensei, although I do feel you are perhaps a little more angsty than you might think and perhaps you should just relax and see how things play out.

In short: The race is long, keep having a go and if you can't be happy with things as they stand, maybe come back after next patch and have another shot. It's cool, man, you and I both can do other things in this world if the game isn't ready for us yet.

[LuxLex]

I didn't see yoshi say "Solo SP will suck after the next update" he said "Ever since I posted on the forums, we’ve been receiving feedback from players worrying about whether or not we’re going to be nerfing the ranking up process. The simple and emphatic answer to this, just as I posted in the forums, is no. "

I don't know how you can look at that quote and claim yoshi didn't promise not to nerf SP.

[Aldarin]

So I'll be completely blunt about what I have found in the current situation. Before 1.18 the easiest way for me to level a level 20 character was by doing solo leves and behest. This was not using any sort of cheat, trick, or glitch. I simply would do a behest, wait 10 minutes, and do another one. With the amount of xp I earned I leveled pug 20 to 25 in about 8 hours. This was because behest gave an average of about 9-10k experience per run. Leves gave a similar amount of xp when soloing them with enemies 5-10 levels over my rank. Then the patch came. I am honestly quite pleased with many of the changes, and while I might not like the healing mp increase I can deal with that. On the other hand, I grabbed 3 leves and went to go do behest. behest now gives about 3k xp, as do the leves. this is actually about the same as if I simply was grinding on mobs, and is about 3 times slower than before. So whereas before the 4 hours I sent would have gotten me to about level 23, I'm sitting here at level 21 wondering what happened to all my sp. So please, enough with the random bullshit about how much sp you can earn if you do the leves the right way, or party correctly. Players should not need to figure out the secret of the game just to get decent experience.

And while I agree that the concept of moving the bonuses to the end of leves and behest is a good idea, the simple fact is that the sum of xp earned during a leve or behest is not equal to the that of a leve or behest before the patch. If SE simply balanced that then I would have no issues with the changes that were made.

For a simple breakdown

Pre-1.18
10 mobs/leve, 720sp per mob = 7200sp/leve
20 mobs/behest, 400sp/mob = 8000sp/behest

sp gained from 3 leves: 21600sp
sp/hour from behest: 16000sp

Post-1.18
10 mobs/leve, 200sp per mob + 2k bonus = 4000sp/leve
20 mobs/behest, 200sp/mob + 1k bonus = 5000sp/leve, + behest can only be done every other time.

sp gained from 3 leves: 12000sp
sp/hr from behest: 5000sp

so all in all, I gain sp at a rate about 2-3 times slower than before.

[Kensei]

So I'll be completely blunt about what I have found in the current situation. Before 1.18 the easiest way for me to level a level 20 character was by doing solo leves and behest. This was not using any sort of cheat, trick, or glitch. I simply would do a behest, wait 10 minutes, and do another one. With the amount of xp I earned I leveled pug 20 to 25 in about 8 hours. This was because behest gave an average of about 9-10k experience per run. Leves gave a similar amount of xp when soloing them with enemies 5-10 levels over my rank. Then the patch came. I am honestly quite pleased with many of the changes, and while I might not like the healing mp increase I can deal with that. On the other hand, I grabbed 3 leves and went to go do behest. behest now gives about 3k xp, as do the leves. this is actually about the same as if I simply was grinding on mobs, and is about 3 times slower than before. So whereas before the 4 hours I sent would have gotten me to about level 23, I'm sitting here at level 21 wondering what happened to all my sp. So please, enough with the random bullshit about how much sp you can earn if you do the leves the right way, or party correctly. Players should not need to figure out the secret of the game just to get decent experience.

And while I agree that the concept of moving the bonuses to the end of leves and behest is a good idea, the simple fact is that the sum of xp earned during a leve or behest is not equal to the that of a leve or behest before the patch. If SE simply balanced that then I would have no issues with the changes that were made.

For a simple breakdown

Pre-1.18
10 mobs/leve, 720sp per mob = 7200sp/leve
20 mobs/behest, 400sp/mob = 8000sp/behest

sp gained from 3 leves: 21600sp
sp/hour from behest: 16000sp

Post-1.18
10 mobs/leve, 200sp per mob + 2k bonus = 4000sp/leve
20 mobs/behest, 200sp/mob + 1k bonus = 5000sp/leve, + behest can only be done every other time.

sp gained from 3 leves: 12000sp
sp/hr from behest: 5000sp

so all in all, I gain sp at a rate about 2-3 times slower than before.

Thank you for posting that. I don't know how these people saying they are ranking up the same or faster are getting their SP. The nerf is undeniable.

[Loony_BoB]

Aldarin, have you considered raids/quest SP increases? Have you considered also that you could gain SP faster in different kinds of groups? I imagine solo content was always going to end up a little slower... although for me, at a lower level and duo-ing battles, it's not bad compared to before.

For me, I've not really got too deep with the leveling speeds over the past months, and I've played sporadically. I'm not a huge person on knowing the ins and outs of it all, that's for sure. I usually play with my girlfriend and that's about it, as many of my mates are waiting for PS3 release. But either way, my thoughts on the matter are that I'm having more fun playing than I ever have despite not being sure if I'm gaining more or less SP. The quests giving SP mean I have a more immersive experience, the storyline development in the entire world makes it feel much more like we're in a battle and I have time to talk while battling, allowing for better social aspects - although as my gf sits next to me perhaps that's not a huge change for now, but when we eventually play in groups, I'm sure it will be!

[Physic]

Thank you for posting that. I don't know how these people saying they are ranking up the same or faster are getting their SP. The nerf is undeniable.

i think one factor is people who say they are getting large bonuses at the end, are doing so on higher end leves only. so leves at 33+ may theoretically be a little better, from what i heard about behest, it is lower except possibly compared to how much you get when you are very over level.


Yes he lied, they did nerf sp, maybe they plan to change it later, but truth is, they probably wanted to lower sp, and thats why they did it. He assumes most people wont notice, or care, and since many people who came back have no frame of reference, they may never realize.

But lets be honest he knew it was going to nerf gains, just the mp change alone would slow down small groups sp gains on leves of 10 higher difficulty. This is somewhere around the new balance of SP gaining they want to people to have. If you have beef, i reccomend you complain as you are, so that they may choose to adjust it upwards while they are in the balancing phase, however my feeling is this will end up not being the case

[LuxLex]

Maybe duoing isn't as bad with downtime between mobs as soloing is? Cause soloing sucks atm, and while no soloer expects to be getting SP as fast as people in parties (or no rational soloer) it should be rewarding enough that people don't just say "f this" and quit.

Especially since so much of the playerbase is shut up in super exclusive LS that are not interested in helping players outside their group - (to a much larger extent than XI ever experienced) and because so many people quit, a lot of people, (like me) log in to an empty/broken LS and maybe solo a bit here and there.

If this game is going to grow you have to give people a decent way of participating in it, even before they can get into a "gated community" LS and have people to party with. People that say "why don't you party" while only partying with their LS mates need to take a long hard look at themselves for the answer to why we aren't partying.

Also, some people just like the freedom to solo a bit. Partying requires a large chunk of time and for people who say, have a small child at home and stuff to do, it is good to be able to do some stuff alone

[Physic]

Aldarin, have you considered raids/quest SP increases? Have you considered also that you could gain SP faster in different kinds of groups? I imagine solo content was always going to end up a little slower... although for me, at a lower level and duo-ing battles, it's not bad compared to before.

For me, I've not really got too deep with the leveling speeds over the past months, and I've played sporadically. I'm not a huge person on knowing the ins and outs of it all, that's for sure. I usually play with my girlfriend and that's about it, as many of my mates are waiting for PS3 release. But either way, my thoughts on the matter are that I'm having more fun playing than I ever have despite not being sure if I'm gaining more or less SP. The quests giving SP mean I have a more immersive experience, the storyline development in the entire world makes it feel much more like we're in a battle and I have time to talk while battling, allowing for better social aspects - although as my gf sits next to me perhaps that's not a huge change for now, but when we eventually play in groups, I'm sure it will be!

quest sp is not good, time wise, its an interesting side thing to do, now that you actually get sp, but 90% of the quests reward amounts are not going to balance out the travel time. Its fine as a thing that gives you little bonus SP and breaks the monotony, but its not a main form of progression, and is not repeatable, it can only be applied once, and there are 7 jobs

[Dreadnought]

i didnt have anyone to group with so i solod 2 leves at broken water at 2 stars each (three stars got me murdered) on my THM, did both in about 45 mins and got about 1.5k SP
thats marginally worse than before the patch.
should it have been nerfed? sure, itll promote grouping. but in my experience so far soloing leves for levels (which is what i did for about 10 of them post rank 25) is pretty much impossible now.
now in order to gain any actual levels grouping seems to be 100% required.
the search feature is not very user friendly, the community is miles away form what it could be and the populations still dont compare to any other game making it that much harder to find a decent group.

i officially call this era of FFXIV the "Thanalan dust bowl era" where we have more modes of messed up targeting than we do ways to level.

[Abriael]

I didn't see yoshi say "Solo SP will suck after the next update"

And in fact it didn't happen. What happens is that ONE method of gaining SP has been rebalanced, adn some mouthy newbie is falsely accusing a developer of lying because that ONE method happens to be his favourite.

Which of coure is completely illogical.