What Tera taught me about the quest plans for ARR.

[Warlock]

So? I'm not sure what your point there is. I leveled one job to 50 pretty much solo in 1 week through leves, too. Was it fun? No. I only kept going in hopes that things would get better later on, or that maybe people did make parties at higher levels.
All I found along the way, though, were other old XI players that were pretty much as confused as I was because nobody at all made parties or even used the search function. Instead, most people seemed to prefer soloing mind numbing leves for whatever reason even though the option to party up and go kill stuff somewhere as a group was there (and was considerably faster).

Now they want to make that option pretty much pointless in favor of something just about as mind numbing as leves: short, shallow, repetitive quests, or pretty much leves in disguise.

Yes, they sure do, but those sidequests did serve other purposes, much like XI's, and weren't your main method of progression.

Ahh so the option was there and people still didn't do it? and you are not even from an empty server like me..what does this tell you?

[Klefth]

Ahh so the option was there and people still didn't do it? and you are not even from an empty server like me..what does this tell you?

It didn't tell me that much. Perhaps that almost nobody bothered?

I was lucky enough to be able to level another one of my jobs (my DRG) mostly through parties, and even though it took me about the same time, it all seemed to go by much faster because it wasn't nearly as boring as being alone from 1 to 50 doing the same tasks over and over again. I have no idea why most people didn't bother doing it.

[Coyohma]

Putting in some clusters of monsters so people can aoe party them, that isn't quality. Right there, they give you quantity - lots of monsters to kill in one spot, all the same species. In case you guys didn't notice from the video, some quests are going to involve interracting with the environment, not just going to kill whats already there and come back, and those were just low level quests. Quests add more interesting elements to leveling up, slaying the same monster camps then moving on to the next does not.

Weather or not you believe that 'doing the same questline' for each different character is going to be boring or not, camping and aoe killing is far more boring than that. I cant count how many times i've fallen asleep in those things. Certainly SE knows whats best and are straying away from the prehistoric MMO ways, and thats why its going to be quest-based leveling.

I'm pretty sure there is going to be some 'but, but, I like monster grinds' counter, but whatever. I really don't want to try to change any old minds, I'm just point out what is truely better. Quest based > monster grind based.

I know it was often the case in 1.0; AoE'ing down a large number of targets every minute is not a deep or fulfilling way to level. Not when you'd almost have to try to get yourself killed. There's nothing wrong with finding a decent concentration of things to fight, but aiming to fight one at a time due to how long they take to kill.

This heightens the importance of pulling; hopefully some interesting but fairly simple linking mechanics would have it require more concentration. Battles that last more than 15 or 20 seconds allow for enfeebles to have greater effect. That goes for both you and the mob(s). Sleeping something that linked could save a wipe. Or if you've been in the area for a few hours and they're dying faster as you've leveled up, you could strategically link or aggro an extra to save time.

Saying "SE knows best" is not a valid way to back up your argument. In fact, they knew 'worst' a couple years ago, and you'd have to be someone like Warlock to blindly believe that every decision they make is the right one.

Open world grinding provides (if you can't improve on what has become the standard fare of MMO questing for EXP):

• Easier and extended opportunity to socialize
• Greater understanding and appreciation of each zone
• Extended exposure allows people to fully understand the mechanics of a mob type
• Deeper fights as requiring more players can also mean requiring different jobs
• Allows for undeniably better quests

Also, I'm curious -what is the purpose of all the thousands of open world monsters if we shouldn't kill them for EXP? They're just window dressing? Something to look at but never interact with? Seems odd to only attack mobs that appear out of nowhere, instead of the ones that are actually present the entire time, don't you think?

[Firon]

Even in wow a quest based game lvling off monsters is still faster some of the first people to get lvl 90 in MoP got it off grinding mobs. Just because yoshi said standing in one spot killing mobs for no reason all day is not the best does not mean its not effective. Devs can never be 100% sure whats effective or not, even if they intended it a certain way (NIN XI). In ARR you can still grind mobs do quest do leves and have fun lvling in dungeons, that's plenty of options. One thing i love about he Xi purist the funniest thing about that game was lvling solo was the fastest XP if your job could do it.

[Reika]

I know it was often the case in 1.0; AoE'ing down a large number of targets every minute is not a deep or fulfilling way to level. Not when you'd almost have to try to get yourself killed. There's nothing wrong with finding a decent concentration of things to fight, but aiming to fight one at a time due to how long they take to kill.

This heightens the importance of pulling; hopefully some interesting but fairly simple linking mechanics would have it require more concentration. Battles that last more than 15 or 20 seconds allow for enfeebles to have greater effect. That goes for both you and the mob(s). Sleeping something that linked could save a wipe. Or if you've been in the area for a few hours and they're dying faster as you've leveled up, you could strategically link or aggro an extra to save time.

Saying "SE knows best" is not a valid way to back up your argument. In fact, they knew 'worst' a couple years ago, and you'd have to be someone like Warlock to blindly believe that every decision they make is the right one.


Open world grinding provides (if you can't improve on what has become the standard fare of MMO questing for EXP):

• Easier and extended opportunity to socialize
• Greater understanding and appreciation of each zone
• Extended exposure allows people to fully understand the mechanics of a mob type
• Deeper fights as requiring more players can also mean requiring different jobs
• Allows for undeniably better quests

Also, I'm curious -what is the purpose of all the thousands of open world monsters if we shouldn't kill them for EXP? They're just window dressing? Something to look at but never interact with? Seems odd to only attack mobs that appear out of nowhere, instead of the ones that are actually present the entire time, don't you think?

I don't like every single thing SE does with the game. I still believe auto attack and the changes to the combat system to revolve around that was needless and they could have done better, but I didn't quit because of it. I'm not saying you cant or shouldn't kill monsters in the overworld, especially the ones that attack you first or the ones that have materials you need, I'm sayin camping in an area that is just full with 20+ monsters just there as the primary way to get exp is plain boring, far more boring that having quests send you off to do various things. Go ahead and kill everything on the way to your quest objective it it makes you feel better.

And, for the 3rd or so time, you can still do quests with other party members. No one is sayin you have to go do quests alone. WoW had social guilds that did quest parties, TERA had quest parties too. People still did guildleves together after they were converted to solo content. The only thing that is going to prevent social interaction is you.

[Coyohma]

Even in wow a quest based game lvling off monsters is still faster some of the first people to get lvl 90 in MoP got it off grinding mobs. Just because yoshi said standing in one spot killing mobs for no reason all day is not the best does not mean its not effective. Devs can never be 100% sure whats effective or not, even if they intended it a certain way (NIN XI). In ARR you can still grind mobs do quest do leves and have fun lvling in dungeons, that's plenty of options. One thing i love about he Xi purist the funniest thing about that game was lvling solo was the fastest XP if your job could do it.

If it is noticably slower people will, by and large, not do it. A comparison to WoW makes little sense here. What matters is the rate of EXP by grinding versus the rate of EXP and sustainability of questing.

As it stands, even the "people can grind after their quests are used up" idea is compromised by Yoshida's opinion that extreme powerleveling should be a part of the game. By extreme I don't mean simply curing or casting protect, it means having things killed for you where you still get full credit.

The only thing that is going to prevent social interaction is you.

Maybe our difference in opinion comes down to this. I believe the game's structure should promote some amount of social interaction; not leave that responsibility solely up to the player.

[Firon]

I don't like every single thing SE does with the game. I still believe auto attack and the changes to the combat system to revolve around that was needless and they could have done better, but I didn't quit because of it. I'm not saying you cant or shouldn't kill monsters in the overworld, especially the ones that attack you first or the ones that have materials you need, I'm sayin camping in an area that is just full with 20+ monsters just there as the primary way to get exp is plain boring, far more boring that having quests send you off to do various things. Go ahead and kill everything on the way to your quest objective it it makes you feel better.

And, for the 3rd or so time, you can still do quests with other party members. No one is sayin you have to go do quests alone. WoW had social guilds that did quest parties, TERA had quest parties too. People still did guildleves together after they were converted to solo content. The only thing that is going to prevent social interaction is you.

This X100 people just wanna force things on people and not make it an option.

[Reika]

So? I'm not sure what your point there is. I leveled one job to 50 pretty much solo in 1 week through leves, too. Was it fun? No. I only kept going in hopes that things would get better later on, or that maybe people did make parties at higher levels.
All I found along the way, though, were other old XI players that were pretty much as confused as I was because nobody at all made parties or even used the search function. Instead, most people seemed to prefer soloing mind numbing leves for whatever reason even though the option to party up and go kill stuff somewhere as a group was there (and was considerably faster).

Now they want to make that option pretty much pointless in favor of something just about as mind numbing as leves: short, shallow, repetitive quests, or pretty much leves in disguise.

Yes, they sure do, but those sidequests did serve other purposes, much like XI's, and weren't your main method of progression.

Thats all a flaw of western way of thinking. JP all the time, way back at the beginning where there were 15m parties, made parties with the party recruit feature, and I joined in on them so easily. I think most of the people on the NA/EU side are inherintly anti-social, because they simply wouldn't use that easy-to-use feature to get together like JP players did. I doubt Western side would use it in ARR either, because about 90% of western players really dont like partying with random people.

[Reika]

Maybe our difference in opinion comes down to this. I believe the game's structure should promote some amount of social interaction; not leave that responsibility solely up to the player.

There will be. I highly doubt there will not be any kind of group quests as stand-alones or part of quest chains, and dungeons and raids will definantly not be solo and require interactions. The FATE system was described as something that gets people together to tackle the objective. There are plenty of things in the game that cant be soloed, but they want it so that leveling up is not one of those things that you must do in a group. Thats the conveniance quest based leveling has over monster grind leveling.

[Zumi]

If it is noticably slower people will, by and large, not do it. A comparison to WoW makes little sense here. What matters is the rate of EXP by grinding versus the rate of EXP and sustainability of questing.

As it stands, even the "people can grind after their quests are used up" idea is compromised by Yoshida's opinion that extreme powerleveling should be a part of the game. By extreme I don't mean simply curing or casting protect, it means having things killed for you where you still get full credit.


Maybe our difference in opinion comes down to this. I believe the game's structure should promote some amount of social interaction; not leave that responsibility solely up to the player.

Its not commonly known that in WoW grinding is the fastest way to level. Is it a pain in the ass to find people around your level to make a grind party yes it is. I know for a fact in Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria world firsts and most server first level 85 and 90 were obtained by grind parties. Doing that takes a level of coordination that most people in WoW do not want to deal with which is why quests/dungeons are the popular way to level, not many people at all are willing to grind it takes making your own group and finding specific roles. To go from 85 to 90 in a grind party takes about 12 hours in WoW if you do it with quests/dungeons you will take about 50-60 hours of gameplay or 2 weeks playing casually a few hours a day.

Not having to find a lot of people to make a party despite it taking much longer to quest shows that people will take solo and auto group over making an actual party.

WoW shows people won't go for whats fastest but whats easiest. In hardcore guilds people were making grind parties so they could cap faster to do the new raids

I am sure you could still make a grind party in a linkshell and get more exp faster then you can with quests, player skill how fast you can pull kill mobs plays a big deal in your exp rate.