There will be new main content to rank up?

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

This is one of the reasons I've mostly halted my play, and what little time I spend is spent on evening out the spread of my levels.

Same, hell I might reroll/make an alt for PS3 release if the game changes drastically between then and now (which I somewhat expect).

[Xatsh]

Square needs to be careful with removing the main leveling focus in the game atm they are removing 3-4hrs of leveling content a reset from the game and adding in 60mins worth... so we are losing 3hrs of party based content.

Then again we have to see how Leves are, if Party is still > Solo or not. If leves are not worth doing as groups or Solo > Groups SE has in tern removed alot of content for many of the players in the game atm.

The majority of people I see in game prefere group content and group leveling focus throughout the game not just endgame/dungeons. In fact it is one of the main reason I hear for them choosing FFXIV over Rift and WoW atm.

I have a feeling this is going to a grass is always greener on the other side scenario. Just like the aboloshing of the orriginal SP system was cheered on... but in the end it all but destroyed party gameplay and stopped people from using the party search and making outside partys on normal mobs.... YES hard to believe but even NAs where using the party feature at one time.

In short forcing players to solo will in the end kill this game. And not being able to party easily and have people prefer to do it is as good as removing party content all together.

Atm each major Grind Camp outside leves can hold 1-2 partys max... anymore the that and you are looking at sp gains around 12-14/hr which I can get solo. SE needs to increase respawn rates massively or rebalanced the whole SP equation before changing leves as a primary leveling source....

I sure hope SE realizes this and are doing what they know will work... not what they "think" will. SE has a bad habit of not playing their own games before making changes. Sorta like how Nin was treated like a main DD for over a year and SE ended up being shocked when they learned people where using it as a tank for the past year.

[Rydin]

In short forcing players to solo will in the end kill this game.

Kill your gaming experience or kill the game from a business standpoint?
I don't know if that is true but it would be an interesting experiment...
Can a solo MMORPG thrive... If done right I think it could, although I wouldn't really want to play it
I think the PS3 crowd might welcome a solo-centric experience even though I personally prefer party content
I think we all should get away from "I wouldn't like this change so no one would" mentality a little bit
personally, I'd like to think I'm NOT your average gamer and sometimes I go against the grain....

[kanjitai]

I hope they add rank up content that isn't forced group based. penalizing people for not having to play for long periods isn't right. The system used for XI was fun but they should not bring back this type of system. Even if it's slower a way to get max rank should be made available to the solo and or casual player.

[Bayohne]

I know that there have been a lot of questions regarding ranking up, and how earning SP will be changing with the shift in guildleves that are coming in 1.18. So we posed your questions to Yoshida to try and get some more details about the future changes.

Hi, this is Producer/Director Yoshida.

In regards to the questions cropping up about what will be done to party content now that leves are being made for solo play, we are thinking about the below for the future of FFXIV.
(Keep in mind that these are just examples and we’ll be adding unique new features and upgrading them.)

Casual Party Content

• Behest
• Public dungeons
• Instanced dungeons
• Variety of defense battles/Chocobo escort-related features
  

We are planning to make adjustments to behest to make it more of a completion-type battle. We plan on improving Behest in stages beyond its current form.

Party Content

• Hunting NMs
• Beast tribe settlement battles
• Instanced raid battles
  

End-game content
Along with PvP, we are also envisioning a large-scale PvE, but since we are not really at the stage where we can release information, I’d appreciate it if you just take this as "They're gonna do it!!" for now.

For soloing as well, we are planning to increase the amount of content that can be enjoyed constantly while placing emphasis on quests and leves, being mindful to maintain a balance between the two.

In the future, I would like to keep on enhancing the experience point gains through quest completion and exp. parties in public fields. This is because at the very least, I feel this is "normal." However, I think the work will continue up to about 1.20 until the game reaches a point where I think the balance of ranking up methods is normal.

I wanted to mention this in the letter, but from patch 1.18 we will begin reforms to remove the current feeling that players are being bound to specific play styles. Travel-wise anima is a bit hard to touch on right now (as I've referenced in another thread), but we will be making edits to the return costs and surplus system in the same fashion. Especially in regards to the feeling that a loss will be incurred if you don't do leves every day, we are looking into implementing a type of ticket system that will let you store them up, and heading into 1.19 we will be starting the specification edits of this. (I will talk about the details of this in the letter following the release of patch 1.18.)

I deeply apologize for the current lack of content and focus on the core fixes, but we have solidified our plans, so please look forward to the future!

[Malakhim]

Variety of defense battles/Chocobo escort-related features

Looks like somebody HAS been reading my posts about this!

[Leonesaurus]

Variety of defense battles/Chocobo escort-related features

Beast tribe settlement battles

Sweet! Glad to know they've been reading our post! It's funny, because just the the other day I was talking again about Chocobo carriage escorts and protecting them on future leve quests with a party or solo around a zone.

They have these escort missions already in the descriptions of current existing guildleves but lack the actual chocobos and NPC's from the description in the actual quest. So hearing this news has made be that much happier! ^__^

Also, hearing them bring up the talk of previously discussed beast tribe battles, lairs and content always brings me great joy, since I love soloing them and collecting their coins whenever I have free time on my hands.

Looking forward to more updates and news in those areas and more! =D

[Roaran]

I like this idea of a ticket system. Feeling compelled to log on for short periods of time each day is no fun.

[Kiara]

I know that there have been a lot of questions regarding ranking up, and how earning SP will be changing with the shift in guildleves that are coming in 1.18. So we posed your questions to Yoshida to try and get some more details about the future changes.

In the future, I would like to keep on enhancing the experience point gains through quest completion and exp. parties in public fields. This is because at the very least, I feel this is "normal." However, I think the work will continue up to about 1.20 until the game reaches a point where I think the balance of ranking up methods is normal.

Hi Bayohne,

Thanks for asking Yoshida-san about this pressing question of ours. Much appreciated!

It looks like there are going to be a lot of interesting regular Party SP-gaining methods. If you could pass along one hope that we have (regarding the highlight in blue):

* Can you let them know that we hope they can get some of the work done on "enhancing... exp. parties in public fields" (i.e., more areas and more monsters for Parties of all ranks to fight) for Patch 1.18?

Because without some increase in places/methods to SP on for Parties, the changes in 1.18 will mean some heavy downtime / crowding / fighting for SP in a Party Situation in fields (or going Solo in Guildleves more often).

Thanks.

[Kafeen]

Along with PvP

NOOOOooooo