Let's have a round of applause for bringing grind parties front and center in FFXIV

[Neptune]

Man, I really wish people would stop saying that grind parties promote skillful play. There was nothing demanding about FFXI's grind parties. All you needed was the right items, right job, and following a guide someone posted on Campistarus. All of the mobs picked for grinding were the least dangerous mobs, in the least dangerous camps. TP skills were spammed at will, few people used utility/enfeeble spells, and people stocked up on bard, red mages, and other buffing classes so that they wouldn't have to deal with MP management and whatever.

People had that s*** down to a science. Ironically, the only time leveling in FFXI demanded skill was when you were playing one of the solo classes.

Exactly man. It's just a myth invented by people to justify the things they regret doing deep down.

Stop misrepresenting your opinions.

Stop misrepresenting my opinions? How? Why don't you stop misrepresenting English? At least give me a decent reply and I will reply to it.

What the hell is wrong with quests? I for one play jrpgs for their stories (even the bad ones). Whats wrong with starting off in a zone, starting with a story on why i'm there and giving me a fun ff story doing things within the zone leading up to a big bad arse boss or dungeon at the end of the zone, then leading me into the next area. Throw in the grind in the middle of it. Hell, throw in grp grinds. But give me a f'ing story. The ff sp games do this, why the hell can't it be here?

Thats right..... ffxi didn't do it.

Thank you, thank you so much. I'm with you. What's wrong with story progression? That's what you're saying. That's what every other FF has, and what FFXI would have had if Tanaka hadn't been one to simply copy Everquest instead of making an original game based on Final Fantasy gameplay.

You have got to be kidding me. FFXI has multiple massive main story quests with cutscenes.

He's talking about progressing through story.. Imagine an FF game where you go through new areas and beat bosses.. but are awarded no exp.. and instead, to gain exp for your character, you have to go to someplace else and grind. You would be imagining FFXI, not FF1-10.

Sounds like MMO is the wrong genre for you....also: XI *did* do it.

XI didn't have character progression through story, as stated above.

Sounds like your idea of an MMO is not the genre for me.

FFXI had cutscenes and they were done wonderfully. But you didn't progress through the zones doing those quests. There were no stories to the zones, you just moved there and camped the 1 spot till you moved to the next zone.

What i am saying is give us a story on why we are there. Right now we get a cutscene and for no other purpose then to lvl our char so we can get another cutscene. There's no meaning behind it at all. Why do we need to run to lvl 50 when their could be a journey reaching every lvl.

Exactly man. Even WoW gave you a sense of progressing through different zones and there was a trivial story to every little thing. It was nice. FF should be doing it on a grander scale.

Party grinding isn't about killing the same mob over and over again in the same place, its about learning the class you're playing, and learning strategies to do with others. If fostering better relationships with other players becomes boring to people then why even play an mmo?

It only takes a few hours to learn your class.. not months. It's just ridiculous that you think you learn anything important over that huge stretch of time. The truth is you could be building relationships just as well without the grind as with it.

Bringing up FFXI again, but sorry, nothing in FFXI's party grind taught me how to be a good player.


There was never any real challenge thrown at people while leveling in FFXI. Grinds of any kind are always, always reduced to the easiest and fastest ways to do something. It's the complete opposite of challenge, sprinkled with a lot of tedium.

Exactly. You learned it all at endgame. Just like everyone else. Even if they imagine myths to justify something Tanaka pushed on them from Everquest.

[zaviermhigo]

This is still a FF game, name a FF game you didn't have to grind mobs outside of towns, or right outside dungeons, or in the first corridor of a dungeon, just so you could finally get through the dungeon. FFXIII cause that game was streamlined and made for the masses who didn't really like what FF games had to offer, they corrected that though with FFXIII-2.

As a rdm I learned everything I needed to know about how to work my job by level 50, there wasn't much more to learn, and it wasn't learned in end game. There are basic strategies you learn while leveling with people, that you expand upon during endgame. Come to endgame having not partied with people and watch yourself epic fail, because you have no sense of listening to people, you don't know vernacular, and you don't even know our basic strategies to expand upon. There are few strategies you don't learn while partying but guess what, you still have to be able to communicate with other players in a manner they will understand to be able to get this, if you don't get what we're talking about you can't do it, or it takes longer to convey it, and that i'm not ok with because I have no patience for ignorance when it comes to things that are time based.

[Tsukino]

This is a good post. First, the assumption is only as flawed as that method is for attracting attention from gamers willing to purchase the game and support it. In that case its only flaw is that it doesn't innovate.

When you say a large number of people support FFXI, let's take a look at that concept. A lot of those people can't run this game but they could maybe get on the PS3 version. If they all played FFXIV it might be enough to perpetuate this game. I've always seen it as a problem for FFXIV to develop into a niche title like FFXI. You say large, but we are talking about less than 100K people. I believe FFXIV can have broader appeal.. part of that is appealing to FFXI players, the rest to the mass market. They still have a chance but I really believe counting on FFXI players will be throwing that chance away. It sounds like a big risk. Those FFXI players will probably never quit FFXI.

I meant the some 500k that played it during most of its life, not the 200k or whatever that remain. Although I guess at that point we're all just speculating on details no one can predict.

I would definitely love to see FFXIV be a better game, one that can capture both the casual modern MMO player and the hardcore party lovers, and of course the serious endgamers that are in all MMOs. Even more than that, I'd love to see it expand into areas that no one, not EQ and FFXI nor WoW and its series of "clones" have. To get people who don't like either of those styles, and maybe just like the FF series or RPGs in general to have an MMO they love.

Unfortunately, as I think I pointed at a little, I think the ship for that has sailed. The original team had such a vision - replacing the generic MMO auction house with a newer personal system, having progression based neither on party grinding nor on repetitive quests but some new system, and throwing away the typical class systems of other games for something more freeform and unique to your character. Those were all bold ideas that did not see the light of day because the game was released too quickly and they were crap in the state people got them in. It's obvious the current team has no intention to try and fix those systems up now and are instead replacing them. And I agree with that decision because it's impossible to put in the work needed to do that while everyone has abandoned the game and those that remain want every feature copied from FFXI or WoW anyway.

If they could make it the best, most unique game around that would be by far the best solution, but if the choice is to make it FFXI-2 or a "WoW clone" I think they have a better chance going with the former. Basically, I agree with your sentiments, but I think you are being too idealistic at this stage of the game.

I should have known someone would start quoting me on this out of context. 30k SP is about what I've been hearing you get out of 1 hour of grinding in a party. So yeah, it should be about equal. The reward for time is what should be equal. It isn't about a certain number.

It absolutely cannot be equal for party grinding (or progression in any way) to be viable. If they are equal in terms of time investment to progress ratio no one will make parties because they are too much work - even the people who enjoy them more. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into building a party, picking an empty camp, and getting there, and that has to be accounted for. Beyond just the extra work that takes, you have to account for the fact that multiple people are committing to giving up multiple hours of their day in succession and that too must be compensated.

It's the same reason they don't allow me to go through and fight a raid boss by myself. Gear is progression at endgame, and you can't give a single person the same rewards as a large group of people for the same amount of time taken. You can, however, have alternate means to get the same or equivalent rewards that take more time and can be completeled on one's own.

He's talking about progressing through story.. Imagine an FF game where you go through new areas and beat bosses.. but are awarded no exp.. and instead, to gain exp for your character, you have to go to someplace else and grind. You would be imagining FFXI, not FF1-10.

Then I think he worded it poorly, because I wasn't the only one who thought he meant that FFXI had no story compared to previous games, when in fact it had the most.

I definitely agree that story should be more involved in progression, and in a way that allows them to do more than just the SP rewards that main story quests give now. If I had to describe it using previous examples, I'd say the storyline and dungeons from FFXI's Chains of Promathia expansion with actual good SP rewards along the way (instead of avoiding mobs whenever possible) would be pretty ideal. You could also think of it as like the dungeons we have now, or that are in other MMOs, but with actual cutscenes to describe the story, and put them in the main story instead of just for loot. Say much later on we track down an ascian, and follow it into a dungeon where we see it run within, then we have to fight through the dungeon, maybe meet an NPC along the way where you can do a sidequest right there inside it, and at the end have to confront the ascian in another cutscene leading to a boss showdown, then get to witness another main story scene where you get information from it before it escapes again. That would be pretty damned great and I totally support it.

However, I do think that it's somewhat infeasible for any development team to make this the sole means of progression in an MMO. As awesome as that would be, you can't take the 40 hours of gameplay intertwined with story in a single-player FF game and apply it over the hundreds of days people log in an MMO. This is why EQ/FFXI has grind parties and WoW and later games have terribly uninspired grind quests, and also why FFXIV had levequests to start.

It only takes a few hours to learn your class.. not months. It's just ridiculous that you think you learn anything important over that huge stretch of time. The truth is you could be building relationships just as well without the grind as with it.

While I'd rather not join the debate on "learning" for either side, I will say that one of the biggest draws of RPGs for me and many players is visible progression. I don't like games like Guild Wars where they try to remove character progression from the game entirely; if someone wants that they can go play some other genre.

Because of that, I think that partying for progression helps a lot. Not only is it a bit more entertaining with company, but when I solo in any MMO I don't end up using many of my abilities. Again, not going to say whether or not I think this impacts endgame ability, I just like to see my new abilities get some use in the regular game before I get to endgame. Before I tried really partying in FFXIV after this latest patch, I only used around four or five of the 20 abilities I set regularly. Some that I had learned got zero use whatsover, and it makes it boring when you learn something in a game at level 30 that isn't used until endgame at, say, 50. Whether you think it helps you learn your role or not, it does help you actually have fun with all your new toys.


I think I should probably stop replying after this. Not to be one of those "I'm leaving and now nothing you say will get to me!" jerks, but the length of my posts is getting absurd and I can't expect anyone to want to read it. I wish I could "sage" with it.

[SuzakuCMX]

Crying is something you do when you can't change something.. the fact that you feel this way about the game makes me feel bad for you. Why do you accept this game as it is? That really calls into question your self-worth! Come on man, at least stand up for yourself; take a little pride in what you do, and try to do your part to make this a better game while we have the opportunity.

? I try to improve this game in ways other than making multiple threads about "issues" that are being addressed or aren't issues at all. The first sentence is strange because you sure do cry a lot.

[Doctor_Jekyll]

I for one haven't been invited to go and kill monsters by any other people since September. Lame.

I want to be sought out for my sick archer damage. Sought out to go and kill things, lots of things, so I can get stronger.

Things I can't kill by myself, because they are too strong.

I think as long we keep the "Kill things with other people because you can't kill it yourself" dynamic alive the game will be just fine.

ps. One of the tags for this thread is "uss butthurt"

Hilarious, and RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

[SuzakuCMX]

I for one haven't been invited to go and kill monsters by any other people since September. Lame.

I want to be sought out for my sick archer damage. Sought out to go and kill things, lots of things, so I can get stronger.

Things I can't kill by myself, because they are too strong.

I think as long we keep the "Kill things with other people because you can't kill it yourself" dynamic alive the game will be just fine.

ps. One of the tags for this thread is "uss butthurt"

Hilarious, and RIGHT ON THE MONEY.

Now sailing: uss butthurt.

The tag system, abused.

[Jennestia]

So the gist of the OP is:

"Make the game yet another boring, monotonous quest grind for progression."

Am I getting warm? You can make quests "fun" but they're just as monotonous since you do them over and over and over again to cap your level, kind of like what you do with party grinding.

[Preypacer]

So the gist of the OP is:

"Make the game yet another boring, monotonous quest grind for progression."

Am I getting warm? You can make quests "fun" but they're just as monotonous since you do them over and over and over again to cap your level, kind of like what you do with party grinding.

Meh... It's Neptune being Neptune... again.

His entire logic is "I have ideas that I know for a fact would be the best for the game. And I know they'd be best for the game, because they're my ideas." That's every one of his OPs in a nutshell.

Two of his favorite retorts to dissenting opinion are:

1. "You obviously are happy with the game the way it is and don't feel it needs to improve". This is a classic false dichotomy, a logical fallacy Neptune resorts to in practically every single post he makes.
2. "You just don't understand how much better his idea would be for the game". In other words, you can't possibly understand his point and simply *disagree* with it.. no no.. Surely its brilliance is simply beyond your understanding, because if you did understand" it, you would certainly agree with it.

The problem with Nep is he's completely in love with his own ideas and assumes that whatever he suggests is "right". And so, when you respond to him, you can only fall into two categories: 1) You agree with him, or 2) You're wrong.

This is why none of his threads can ever develop into a normal conversation and typically result in people basically ripping his posts apart, pointing out the flaws in his logic, calling him out on how he twists or distorts the facts and generally making him look like a complete fool. Eventually, he gives up on that thread and wanders off to start a new one to complain about something else and start the process all over again.

Perhaps if people just all ignored him and stop giving him the attention he obviously craves constantly... he'd get the picture and give it up.

[Charismatic]

if you are getting 100-150 a pop you are doing it wrong.Been repeating myself over and over so dont bother asking me how.
Also leves rank 30 are broken.

There are words there in parenthesis, perhaps you will read them next time.

[Wolfie]

This is still a FF game, name a FF game you didn't have to grind mobs outside of towns, or right outside dungeons, or in the first corridor of a dungeon, just so you could finally get through the dungeon. FFXIII cause that game was streamlined and made for the masses who didn't really like what FF games had to offer, they corrected that though with FFXIII-2.

I didn't grind in 1, 8 or 10. And actually, FF13 made some pretty good money and got good reviews, despite being the most realistic hallway simulator on PS3. But that doesn't make your point a good one; the reason people dislike this game is because of the grind. The vast majority of customers do not like grinding anymore, they want to progress through the story without having to stop to catch up in levels. Grinding is something devs put in games in the 90's to artificially inflate game time, because you couldn't give games content updates at all.

As a rdm I learned everything I needed to know about how to work my job by level 50, there wasn't much more to learn, and it wasn't learned in end game. There are basic strategies you learn while leveling with people, that you expand upon during endgame. Come to endgame having not partied with people and watch yourself epic fail, because you have no sense of listening to people, you don't know vernacular, and you don't even know our basic strategies to expand upon. There are few strategies you don't learn while partying but guess what, you still have to be able to communicate with other players in a manner they will understand to be able to get this, if you don't get what we're talking about you can't do it, or it takes longer to convey it, and that i'm not ok with because I have no patience for ignorance when it comes to things that are time based.

You don't need to group grind your whole way to the level cap to learn how to be a team player or how to communicate. Making grouping optional, yet accessible is the only thing that people need to learn how to play together. Forcing people to group achieves nothing besides pissing them off.