Repetitive grind parties should NOT be the main source of leveling

[Betelgeuzah]

In the hopes that the reps are listening, here's my general analysis on open world grinding vs everything else.

A) The monsters aren't semi-phased/instanced as in the guildleve system.

The result: groups fighting for the right to camp on a specific spot, overcrowding issues and constant tweaking of monster placement.

B) The lack of bite-sized goals to work for unlike with the guildleve system.

The only goal you achieve is the level up-fanfare you hear after perhaps hours of monster slaughter. No 'kill ten monsters to receive a bit of extra SP and some money'. Instead 'kill hundred and fiftysix monsters for 0.74% of progression per kill for two hours'.

C) The bane of repeatable content: repetitiveness

Beyond different camps and monsters on different level ranges, there is no cure for repetition. The monsters aren't particularly tough; the gameplay isn't particularly challenging or even entertaining. There is no added randomness to make the activity more unpredictable and, as such, more interesting. I wonder if the name 'Nyzul Isle' rings a bell to anyone (reps)? For some reason, that event stayed fresh for quite a bit longer than the others. Master Matsui knows what I'm saying.

D) Good luck trying to predict and balance the monsters to be 'equal' in the eyes of the players

The developers don't know which mob we choose to grind on. There is no guildleve system to regulate what we kill and where. All they can do is guess, tweak, all the while we just pick the next best thing until the next patch.

Or they could just introduce colibris and ladybugs.

These are the four main reasons why I'm not particularly fond of the current direction. They are giving away too much for the sake of decentralizing the game, and I hope they would at the very least take the good sides of leves and make them universal.

Because fighting for camps and mobs (and not just any mobs- crabs and crawlers of the month's flavor) is so much fun

[Dargoth_Draconia]

In the hopes that the reps are listening, here's my general analysis on open world grinding vs everything else.

A) The monsters aren't semi-phased/instanced as in the guildleve system.

The result: groups fighting for the right to camp on a specific spot, overcrowding issues and constant tweaking of monster placement.

B) The lack of bite-sized goals to work for unlike with the guildleve system.

The only goal you achieve is the level up-fanfare you hear after perhaps hours of monster slaughter. No 'kill ten monsters to receive a bit of extra SP and some money'. Instead 'kill hundred and fiftysix monsters for 0.74% of progression per kill for two hours'.

C) The bane of repeatable content: repetitiveness

Beyond different camps and monsters on different level ranges, there is no cure for repetition. The monsters aren't particularly tough; the gameplay isn't particularly challenging or even entertaining. There is no added randomness to make the activity more unpredictable and, as such, more interesting. I wonder if the name 'Nyzul Isle' rings a bell to anyone (reps)? For some reason, that event stayed fresh for quite a bit longer than the others. Master Matsui knows what I'm saying.

D) Good luck trying to predict and balance the monsters to be 'equal' in the eyes of the players

The developers don't know which mob we choose to grind on. There is no guildleve system to regulate what we kill and where. All they can do is guess, tweak, all the while we just pick the next best thing until the next patch.

Or they could just introduce colibris and ladybugs.

These are the four main reasons why I'm not particularly fond of the current direction. They are giving away too much for the sake of decentralizing the game, and I hope they would at the very least take the good sides of leves and make them universal.

Because fighting for camps and mobs (and not just any mobs- crabs and crawlers of the month's flavor) is so much fun

Personally I don't see how you can say you don't like the direction, instead of forcing us to be able to level up only two ways they give us more options and there should be no complain whatsoever now. We will be getting more content and with the way the game is currently I seriously don't see how anyone could complain on ways to level up. You can do camp grinds, roaming grinds, Leve grinds, dungeon grinds and now quests give fair SP for something to do on the side.
Bane of repetitive content, problem is an MMORPG is nothing but repetitive content that the sole purpose of an MMO, do the same crap over and over and over til you mastered it and got all the gear you could get from it and then they bring you a new something to do an rinse & repeat. I have yet to play an MMORPG where the content isn't repetitive to some extent or another. Also for fighting for grind spots, you don't have to and I can say this because people only choose to go to spots they have heard about and don't try anything new. Back when everyone was around level 20 at the beginning I took a group to somewhere they thought wouldn't be good SP, yet it turned out to be two times better gain than the best crab party. There is 5 zones that are massive in this game at the moment and 3 of which has content/areas for people to level up on from R1-50, then Coerthas from what R20 or 30+ mobs and Mor Dhona 40+ can grind here and in these different zones there are underground caves or lower levels where there are monsters for people to kill yet you never see people utilizing these places. So don't blame SE for having to fight for camps and blame yourselves for not trying new stuff out.

[Dragonlord]

Well, I have a some ideas, but none of them seem to be within the scope of FFXIV's potential.

Here's a defense scenario.

Invasions within the main cities. Mobs don't "spawn" but literally storm the entrances of the cities. They destroy buildings, kill npcs, set things on fire, the whole 9 yards.

We protect the city, obviously. There would be a limit as to how far outside the city gates we can stand and be able to participate in events like this. We try our best to halt their advance into the city, usually unsuccessful, but still work to force the invaders to retreat with their tails between their legs.

Throughout the event, anyone and everyone can be a target. You would form parties to help ensure your survival. Mobs can drop rare loot, and that rare loot can drop in multiple persons' parties at once (though very rarely, of course.) All mobs reward experience as we defeat them in relation to the amount of actions, damage, enmity you generate per mob (good use of the new enmity algorithms here.) The better we fare at the end of the invasion, the more bonus exp we get for completing it.

After all is said and done, we change to our crafting classes and begin to rebuild the broken walls and burned homes, and heal the injured NPCs. We can also change to our gathering classes and, just outside the city, gather materials to help rebuild our city that is now in shambles. Again, throughout this, we will also have a chance of receiving rare items, the chance of which depends on how well we did with defending the city.

So there you go. One way to progress, that doesn't feel like a grind, and includes EVERY CLASS IN THE GAME.

But ask yourself this. Do any of you really think that this could be possible in FFXIV? I don't know.. but I have my doubts.

I am totally impressed with this idea Meowy! This should be forwarded to the devolpement team for consideration. Brilliant idea.

[KitCat]

If they could make combat and partying as fun as it was in FFXI i'd be fine with "repetitive grind parties". (Because repeating the same stupid guildleves over and over isn't just repetitively grinding mobs, with a bunch of inefficient walking in between)

If they can make quest rewards actually worth the time spent running around that would be another good way to get some SP. Right now you can grind 10 mobs and get just as much SP as spending thrice that amount of time running around in circles for some npcs.

Haven't done the dungeons yet, maybe on the weekend. Sounds like people are getting some good SP there. Though it's really just another grind party with the prospect of gear and some bosses to fight.

Anyhow.. If I could have half as much fun in this game as I had doing some insane 9+ hour grinding parties in FFXI I could die happy. 1.18 is stepping in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. Some more tweaking/revisions, new content/zones/enemies, all the missing stuff like chocobos, airships, housing of sorts, and some epic missions like that of FFXI's CoP and I'll be happy.

Right now, and no offence meant to DoL players, the missions are shallow and only half interesting. There are no epic battles like the ultima/omega fight in ffxi, or ouryu, diabolos, or the last cop battle.

Anyhow got off topic there sortof. We should have the option of choosing several ways to level, even though in reality they're all just XP grinds disguised as other things :P. I had loads of fun making friends and trying different things in grind parties. Evasion/blink tanking as thief while the ninja did all the pulling was always fun hah.

Anyway, it is what you make it.

[Fensfield]

If I have to grind, I'd prefer it be field monsters rather than some sort of quest. I know you lot are going to beat me with the Gameplay > Immersion stick, for this, but grinding is grinding, and while grinding in the field lets me imagine a few variations, repeating the same quest and the same bit of lore over and over and over just kicks immersion in the teeth.

What's needed is dynamic or emergent content of some form, and right now, the closest thing to that is the simple random factor generated by having other players in your party whilst running about the fields killing monsters. Leves are okay, however - the whole guild counter / camp / etc system sort of blurs the line. But .. well, I just came back from trying Aion. Being stuck in this infinite quest chain was just.. urgh, so much for your own adventure. I got bored knowing that whatever happened, it was totally scripted.

Long, rambly rant over.

TL:dR? - Don't make following quest chains the only way to level up; having my character's actions, nature, and path taken out of my hands, and being forced to accept that by it being the only way to get anywhere, is even more painful than just running about grinding random monsters.

[captainpicard]

I would rather do FFXI style grinding (which was so much fun circa 2004) than leve's. If they deleted leve's, I would probably play more, I would definitely start to take the game more seriously.

[zaviermhigo]

I prefer grinding mobs, it makes it feel like those mobs are there for a reason. In XI it wasn't "get six people and kill any mob" we killed "incredibly toughs", and it was based on there characteristics. In this game every mob has a a ranged, and a lot have awful tp moves. Open world grinding still requires more mob diversification in my opinion. I would rather play a game where we grinded on mobs in the open world, then have those mobs just be there for quest "oh kill 10 puks here", so we only kill those puks for a quests? Why are the mobs even there. guildleves were retarded and open world grinding is what the majority of people want so too bad.

[Murugan]

I wish I could just burn this thread to the ground. I've never seen Ul'dah or the community more active than since 1.18 with groups forming for XP parties at all level ranges.

While the patch wasn't perfect, it was by far the best thing to happen to this game to date. Some people complain about anything, but the revitalization of XP parties were a wonderful and necessary addition to the game.

Other MMO's should take notes, this is how you foster a good community in your game.

[zaviermhigo]

I wish I could just burn this thread to the ground. I've never seen Ul'dah or the community more active than since 1.18 with groups forming for XP parties at all level ranges.

While the patch wasn't perfect, it was by far the best thing to happen to this game to date. Some people complain about anything, but the revitalization of XP parties were a wonderful and necessary addition to the game.

Other MMO's should take notes, this is how you foster a good community in your game.

Exactly. But you know Selbina is a unique server, we're all unique servers, but on Selbina the game is alive, Gridania and LL were alive for a whole two days after the patch. I bet with 1.19 if companies offer enough content it could liven up the other two cities again. Loss of guildleve sp has lead to more shout groups to grind at multiple party levels, not just the common grass raptor grind. Totally agree with you Murugan

[Bloodwolfe]

FF has always been a grind fest, from FF1 to FFXIV, part of the grinding experience is exploring new areas, fighting new monsters, making new friends, or even dragging your friends onto the game to play with you, the leve system and quest system is boring, repeating the same quests with the same mobs over and over, kill X here, kill Y over there.

Be happy with the grind, get out there and finally explore, find a strong mob and put yer foot in its arse