AOE Spam Fest <Please remove it>

[Hyrist]

Biggs, I apologize. The first part of my post was directed at you, the rest was a rant in general and not.

Now onto the subject matter.

No matter what you do, the fights when repeated ad naseum will dissolve yourself into a grind. Any player with a modicum of experience in FFXI or any other grind-based MMO will understand this. Also, if you've enough sense to pay attention to the trends, you realize that no matter what fights are 'interesting' people will always pick the safest, most mundane, and most profitable means of gaining XP/Hr with the least amount of effort - period, end of discussion.

You do not grind for stimulation, you grind to push out XP and to get levels. That's it. It's never been and can never be an entertaining proposition as it is presented in any of your arguments.

To also speak on the subject of beastmen camps. It all depends on what beastmen camps you chose. For example, if you attack a NM surrounded by a pack of mages, and your tank is too close to your party, you're going to have a bad time due to Spell spam. The fights in lower end strongholds do wind up being chaotic, but to some, that's half the fun of it. Now, you do that for four hours on end, of course you're going to get bored of it. And if you do ONLY that, you're going to get bored sick of it and not want to do it again.

Some people, however, are find with those camps as is. And for good reason. For those who DO NOT AoE spam, due to availability (Say it's just a pair of people going in quick to grab a few tapers) the fights are much more involved, entertaining, an accessible. And the deeper you go in, the more difficult those fights even with parties, as more NMs, and stronger mob variants become available.

You make these fights any more in depth then the current trend, I guarantee you that they will get skipped for something easier. Look how quickly Castra Novum became a no-man's land, in spite of the valuables that are there.

You can't excerpt the level of control you're asking for in an open environment an expect it to be successful. Additionally attempting to create that in an open environment on the level which you are requesting, which is a global change for all monsters, would in fact be a game-breaker for many. Again, taking away options isn't healthy unless it's a blatant exploit. And I wouldn't call AoE Burns an exploit - especially seeming Yoshi has already stated support for power leveling, which is far more on the darker shade of grey.

I do agree that there should be an outlet for the desire to XP as a party, in situations that has you deeply engaged into the combat. I do not agree that it should come at the cost of current methods that players chose.