Repetitive grind parties should NOT be the main source of leveling

[Doho]

i disagree with the OP, grind parties should be a viable and respectable option for ranking up. that's all I have to say.

[SeleneVenizelos]

I remember when Final Fantasy use to mean that you could adventure throughout the story and level up appropriately based solely on how far you've traveled. That has never been the same in FFXI and it seems it will never be the same in FFXIV either. In these two games we seem to have to force ourselves to look, feel and act like any/every other MMO out there. It's quite pathetic and we've completely lost the feel of Final Fantasy. Is it really that hard to make "Final Fantasy" "online"?

We should NOT have to grind anything to progress in any game, period.

I often thought this about 11, but the significant difference is an MMORPG is about progression and developing your characters, more than exploring and working through a storyline. The focus of these games never has and probably never will be entirely on the story, unfortunately. I agree with you, though, it would be nice to have more of a story that combines the mandatory progression of an MMORPG with the steady progression necessary.

[ReapKarmah]

It's truly a shame because "Final Fantasy" "Online" has so much potential.

[Korbei]

I remember when Final Fantasy use to mean that you could adventure throughout the story and level up appropriately based solely on how far you've traveled.

You cannot compare a massively multiplayer game experience with that of a single player offline game experience. Is that not blatantly obvious?

You can beat any Final Fantasy, start to finish in 20 hours or less. If it only takes 1 day to get to the top level in an MMO, then whats the point of even having levels?

[Rhomagus]

I don't completely disagree with the OP, but he's not right on the mark. I do disagree with the second post though. I thought the "pull mob to camp" style grind was absolutely horrendous. The grind in XIV seems to be the, "run laps in a circuit". It may be similar but to me it's a world of difference. It actually requires everyone to be there.

The reason I don't completely disagree with the OP is that he's only for multiple ways to level. Surprisingly enough, you never had to grind in XI. Later in XI's life I started a new character and would only level it when I would play with two other people I introduced to the game. What we would do is get a list of quests to run each day, then find the most efficient path to complete those quests. I honestly could say not only did we level fairly quickly, it was only a 3 person party, and we never did the "grind" as we were always en route to a quest objective. I honestly think the game was designed in that way. If you look at the where the mob distributions in each zone and kept track of when and where you needed to fight mobs of a similar level, you ended up going to Jeuno with exp as a biproduct, not carefully sneaking your way through a dangerous zone you weren't ready for.

It's people who let everyone else figure out "the most efficient way to level" and wait for them to post their method somewhere. Sadly, that's a very large part of the XIV community. The fact remains that there are very many different ways to level. Just not, quickly. To some though, quickly isn't necessarily efficiently. I plan on doing Toto-Rak runs as soon as I'm 25 on my CON. That's better than a mindless grind and more efficient because I'm getting more than SP. I'm also getting access to gear and training how to fight tougher monsters in a light party setting. When I'm not doing Toto-Rak, I'll be doing leves, task board turn ins, quests, and company quests for SP.

The option to grind should still be there, but I agree it shouldn't be the only means of SP gain. Don't let the community decide how you play the game. The armoury gives enough freedom for you to figure out your own way. The game is in its infancy and there is still plenty enough stuff out there to figure out for yourself. It's up to each individual whether or not they want to waste their time on a classic grind when there are various ways to get SP and also accomplish other tasks simultaneously.

[Misha]

i disagree with the OP, grind parties should be a viable and respectable option for ranking up. that's all I have to say.

This^^ But there should also be enough/other options in the game to rank up aside from a 36 hour cd on leves for the ones not interested in grinding parties. (Not including dungeons in this cause the 45 one everyone skips all the mobs and the 25 one majority go in above rank 30 and 25-30 is just on stepping stone for 1-50 >.< Yoshi said he's adding more so it's possible could use dungeons to rank up decently in future. But as it stands, this isn't viable right NOW :P )

[Mortikhan]

You cannot compare a massively multiplayer game experience with that of a single player offline game experience. Is that not blatantly obvious?

You can beat any Final Fantasy, start to finish in 20 hours or less. If it only takes 1 day to get to the top level in an MMO, then whats the point of even having levels?

This is why I thought that point allotment should not be so open or based on Physical levels. I would have rather seen an "unlocking" system where your attributes would improve based on the classes you decide to level. Later they could have implemented a "swing" point system with a merit point progression. I think it makes sense that a 50 mage class should not be able to swing all of their attribute points into other areas to max out their caps at 1st level.

[OJtheLIONKing]

I'm definitely agreed with OP on this. I have tried to get many of my friends to play FFXI over the years, but to a man they have always been disgusted by the amount of mindless, boring grinding you have to do to level anything. It takes a lot of grinding to get to even the start of the marginally interesting content in FFXI, and you have to be level capped to do anything really fun. I, too, am tired of this--three years ago i was already getting bored with it, then Abyssea added even more incentive to not just grind on the same exact enemies, but to stay in the same place doing it for hours at a time. It wasn't long after Abyssea came along that I decided to quit.

While I guess there is something to be said for people to have an option to grind, I can't think of a single MMO besides FFXI and this one where people choose to grind when there's an option to do literally anything else, and I've played just about every other MMO out there at some point or another. I'd like to be able do quest content, or leves, or other stuff like, say, an instanced one on one fight with a mob ala lvl70 genkai to really test your skills. Or to do that with one or two friends. Dungeons/raids should stay with full parties, but that should be a "once every x amount of time" thing and not the primary thing you do. I don't think you should be forced to PUG or find a static to grind on mobs mindlessly to level up at an acceptable rate ala FFXI, because that is murder to anyone trying to bring in friends to the game who wasn't already into it, and what this game needs is more players brought in from outside the small insular FFXI community.

Bottom line, variety is the spice of life, and grind parties are as bland and boring as white bread.

[Sortis]

I agree, many of the coolest zones and coolest part of said zones got left un-touched in FFXI because all people did was sit in a corner and kill mobs. People never wanted to go to the Orc Stronghold and kill orcs and explore it just because it was a cool place. They wanted to fight beasts because they die quicker and easier. Not only did this affect the way people saw the game, but it also affected some classes in a harsh way like Thief. traits like treasure hunter, gil finder, and mug never got much use as a result and generally made the THF looked upon as nothing more than a puller and mild DPS or someone you used when farming for an item. We need more beastmen, we need a reason to explore and not sit in a camp and chain off leves, and we need more dungeons like what came in 1.18!

Fact of the matter is this is a Final Fantasy game, and in every Final Fantasy game I have ever played you explore the world, you get to see every part of it. In FFXI this wasn't part of the game, some zones were ignored completely, because they were "too hard to camp in" like we're some sort of cowards or have become to xp greedy. You lose sight of what a video game is about, it's about having fun. FFXIV tends to focus too much on aetheryte camps and not enough on this exploration and rewarding those who do explore. It's almost like if you don't want to chain off leves you have to make your own fun in the game, and gamers in this age have become spoiled and 90% of them aren't going to do anything unless you give them a prize behind each door. So I appeal to the developers, give the 90% a reason to explore, that is what being an adventurer is all about, adventuring!

[DeadRiser]

I agree, many of the coolest zones and coolest part of said zones got left un-touched in FFXI because all people did was sit in a corner and kill mobs. People never wanted to go to the Orc Stronghold and kill orcs and explore it just because it was a cool place. They wanted to fight beasts because they die quicker and easier. Not only did this affect the way people saw the game, but it also affected some classes in a harsh way like Thief. traits like treasure hunter, gil finder, and mug never got much use as a result and generally made the THF looked upon as nothing more than a puller and mild DPS or someone you used when farming for an item. We need more beastmen, we need a reason to explore and not sit in a camp and chain off leves, and we need more dungeons like what came in 1.18!

Fact of the matter is this is a Final Fantasy game, and in every Final Fantasy game I have ever played you explore the world, you get to see every part of it. In FFXI this wasn't part of the game, some zones were ignored completely, because they were "too hard to camp in" like we're some sort of cowards or have become to xp greedy. You lose sight of what a video game is about, it's about having fun. FFXIV tends to focus too much on aetheryte camps and not enough on this exploration and rewarding those who do explore. It's almost like if you don't want to chain off leves you have to make your own fun in the game, and gamers in this age have become spoiled and 90% of them aren't going to do anything unless you give them a prize behind each door. So I appeal to the developers, give the 90% a reason to explore, that is what being an adventurer is all about, adventuring!

Seeing by your signature, seems like your highest rank is 16. Before when a LOT of people were actually playing this game, not many people worried about leves because grinding crabs and adventuring was the right way to rank up. We traveled far from the aetheryte sometimes and everything was fine. It was the leves that restricted people to aetherytes after the sp changes. Now that sp and battle is different, people are slowly venturing out since leves isn't the most viable way to get sp, and honestly, I don't think it should be.