Why should I be excited for Grind Parties?

[nasomi]

I love the grind. I hate solo play, and I hate quest xp. Quest are for goodies. You work hard, get high enough level, go do a questy thing, and poof, reward. The fact taht some games you can level on quest rewards alone by yourself disgusts me. kill 10, get 5k xp and 5gold, repeatable, kiss my ass. I'm 28 conjuror, 25 marauder, 17 fisher, and 10-11 of most everything else. It's about hte journey, exploring, and player interaction that i like, and is precisely why I odn't like other games.

[Charismatic]

I liked FFXI for what it was (a lot of what nasomi wants in a game to be honest) but I didn't bother with more than half of the quests in the game because the rewards weren't worthwhile. I didn't like the extreme grind the game had at the onset, luckily it was toned down.

Honestly, if FFXIV were to take exp away from all quests aside from the main story quests, class quests and company quests and replace the SP rewards from the other quests with items/money worth the time of doing the quests... I'd have no issues with that sort of system.
However, I do believe that there should be many more story and company quests than there currently are. Far more.
Just as is the case with offline Final Fantasy games, you should be able to progress to the appropriate level to do story content simply by going through said story content. I can't remember ever having to stop and kill random minions to level up to beat any offline FF game. There's always enough baddies to fight going from point A to point B. All these MMOs need is an incentive to fight them rather than to just rush right past em straight to point B and an incentive to group up with your fellow players when doing the story quests. Maybe even a public party option like Rift has. There's a lot about Rift I didn't like, but what I did like was the ease of grouping up with folks who had the same objective as you and not having to worry about competing for quest mobs and the like!
FF offline games only really have any notable sort of grinding at the endgame... why can't the online games be the same way?

[Neptune]

I'm with you man, adding grind incentives to this game is almost the craziest thing I've seen them do yet. Unfortunately I can see that it is probably easy to add and the FFXI-ers will enjoy it. They are nuts if they want this to be a grind game but I think Yoshi-P doesn't want that in the long term. Yoshi-P would probably say he hopes you play the game when it's finished.

[weeble]

ffxi is the only game i can think of with seperate quests and missions from grinding but it's also the only game with cut screens and real rpg game play. maybe alot don't care about that part but it is what makes it a rpg to me and why i have been put off by any other mmo since it. all other mmo's have a dinky little cutsceen at start of game and it's game over for most part nothing else. and no way in hell i'm cycling threw kill quests and ones they consider meaty story less they put an arrow on it saying so. i also new alot that didn't read quests, helll alot of people didn't even do them ..rather run back and forth handing in fame items to npc instead. but at least it seperated them for choice in what u was doing, when u was doing it.

[RickJames]

Poor raptors!

[Arlekiel]

Op speaks the truth....

This is FF... we shouldnt even be aware of our experience bar.... the story is supposed to be SOOO GOOOD... that our character needs to progress ACORDING to that story...

The way the game is designed (in a BAD and AWFUL way) is that you grind->you level up-> you have a small part of the story.

It should be:
You do the story -> you level up -> you have more story -> you level up

[nasomi]

I liked FFXI for what it was (a lot of what nasomi wants in a game to be honest) but I didn't bother with more than half of the quests in the game because the rewards weren't worthwhile. I didn't like the extreme grind the game had at the onset, luckily it was toned down.

But that's the thing, there was ALWAYS something to do if you weren't grinding. Even people that never played blm did sleepga2 quest, aspire, and countless more. Hell I did the adventurer's coupon for 50gil for every single time i made a new character, mules, etc. I had 3 accounts and 4 characters total, 2 mules and 2 mains. SE got a pile of money from me every month... People would make new characters just to do quests. And not just for money, but fun, too.

[Wolfie]

But that's the thing, there was ALWAYS something to do if you weren't grinding. Even people that never played blm did sleepga2 quest, aspire, and countless more. Hell I did the adventurer's coupon for 50gil for every single time i made a new character, mules, etc. I had 3 accounts and 4 characters total, 2 mules and 2 mains. SE got a pile of money from me every month... People would make new characters just to do quests. And not just for money, but fun, too.

And why wouldn't SE want to fold that "grinding" experience in with the fun stuff, so that people didn't have to spend any time doing something boring just so they could get to the fun stuff?

[AlphaDragoon]

Op speaks the truth....

This is FF... we shouldnt even be aware of our experience bar.... the story is supposed to be SOOO GOOOD... that our character needs to progress ACORDING to that story...

The way the game is designed (in a BAD and AWFUL way) is that you grind->you level up-> you have a small part of the story.

It should be:
You do the story -> you level up -> you have more story -> you level up

Agreed. The fact that party grinding is becoming the focus of the game is somewhat ridiculous to me, when FF games are known for their stories. Put a bunch of intensive, involving story-filled quests for both solo and parties as the main way of leveling, not "go here and kill this" leves/current quests or "lol grind the same mob for hours" party grinding.

Make it progress exactly as the plot of an offline FF game would.

[Pyrix]

I love the grind. I hate solo play, and I hate quest xp. Quest are for goodies. You work hard, get high enough level, go do a questy thing, and poof, reward. The fact taht some games you can level on quest rewards alone by yourself disgusts me. kill 10, get 5k xp and 5gold, repeatable, kiss my ass. I'm 28 conjuror, 25 marauder, 17 fisher, and 10-11 of most everything else. It's about hte journey, exploring, and player interaction that i like, and is precisely why I odn't like other games.

Hardcore leveling by your way is outdated, I think the only reason why you like that kind of leveling nonsense is some kind of EQ-era Stockholm syndrome for shitty monster grinding exp.