@dev team ->> Thanks for bringing back party grinding, -really-

[Misha]

dude ........

PEOPLE LIKE OPTIONS!

i leave it at that....

Ya but you gotta remember how selfish our community has, been stated more than once that they don't want people to have freedom and only want what they like to do in the game and NOTHING ELSE! lmao >.< *Sigh* ... Besides grinding should ALWAYS be an option... this is an rpg/mmo people, get over it LoL

[Baelari]

I'm happy more people are starting to grind. I like going out and seeing how fast my party can kill things sometimes. Other times I want to do quests and read little bits of lore, though, so keep the quests. Leves... I hate most the leves; especially the ones where the mobs run away. I only do them for the guild marks.

[captainpicard]

The WoW quest grind, instanced raiding experience is available in 100 other MMOs. Its a trite, tired, boring approach to online gaming. This style of MMO amounts to quest grinding to level cap, culminating in endless repition of the same tired raids/dungeons across 6 alternate characters, for the ultimate reward of an epic shirt with a purple outline that you can't even sell for a profit.

If 70% of you enjoy that style of MMO, then there are plenty of them out there, pick one and roll with it.

This game still has a chance to do something different.

MMO gaming should be about the journey, not the destination. The current mentality in MMO world seems to be the game starts when you hit level cap and raid. I can't think of a more dreadful outcome.

MMO gaming for me, is about grouping with other people to level up, and having fun doing it. I don't need the content to be instanced to protect me from risks other players introduce. I don't need the content to be instanced so I can get those sought after drops either. That experience is available elsewhere.

Now - With 1.18, they gave me a reason to log back into the game. It has improved now that partying actually works, but lets take a look at the history of the game.

I started in beta.

Main mechanics for leveling included

Leve's (8 every 48 hours)
Behest
Solo for very unpredicable experience points
Form a party with the maximum number of people allowed, and kill the hardest mobs you could find with the shear brute force of your party, for better, but still unpredictable experience points.

-none- of these modes of play were fun.

The partying lacked any strategy or tactic. Soloing is soloing (aka boring) and Leve's were limited (and not particularly fun for that matter)

Patches Came, Patches Went

Experience points were made predictable. That killed the raid sized grind parties.
New mode of leveling

Leve's
Behest
Soloing

I don't remember if they had reduced the timer on Leve's at this point as I had stopped doing them completely for a time period.

Patches Came, Patches Went.. Not alot changed.

I joined a static group and we leve-linked our leve's every reset.
This was the new primary mode of leveling, other than soloing during this era.

This is when I quit playing the game.

Leve's were not the camp and pull fun I was looking for. They were very short experiences that included lots of timesinks (get leve's, compare leves, figure out what links, spend anima, do leves, run to next camp, do more leves)

What they felt like were some kind of weird twilight zone version of what group play where every bad concept was adopted and implemented, and any good concept was discarded.

More time passes 1.18 comes out

Well Well, we can actually party again. The game is finally showing some progress in the right direction.

I see no reason to continue with the leve system, it reminds me of MMO welfare/Food stamps, and it also serves as a constant reminder of how totally sorry this game was up until just a couple of weeks ago.




Casual players should go play casual games. This game needs to figure out what it wants to be. If it wants to WoW or one of its many clones, then it has already failed at that.

So the obvious choice to focus on a different style.

Removing the remnants of the old is a good way to move on to something better.

Leaving systems like the leve system in place only serve to keep the game unfocused in my opinion.

[thepinksupervisor]

Wait if we take that all out what are we going to do?

[captainpicard]

Start having fun

[Zelas]

Start having fun

I wish this post of yours was a long as the previous one.

[captainpicard]

I wish this post of yours was a long as the previous one.

I can only put so much wisdom on the page at once man.

[Dreadnought]

I don't see why anyone would prefer that over a good old fashioned camp and pull party in a non instanced dungeon where there is some real risk and excitement associated with playing with other, real people.

here are some actual reasons:
monotony in several ways
no change of scenery compared to running to different areas of the same map
standing around during pulls is safe and boring
having to maneuver around undesirable mobs adds to the difficulty
attracts a wider range of gamers to add to the games lifesource
potentially allows you break of the monotony of the same mob if there are the same SP yielding yet different species of mob scattered throughout
all i cant think of right now.
most people who prefer old fashioned party camping seem to say all of the above are just excessive and unnecessary, but then again so is dying your crafts and so many other things we do in game.
we need options to level, if people want to party grind, great, but that shouldnt effect my option to level through dungeon and quest grinding which is what i and millions of other gamers enjoy and prefer over standing in one spot for hours.

[Saiph]

i agree on some parts with OP.
I would rather grind in a party then grind through exp quest. Juat played yesterday AION with some friends and the only thing you do is accept 1000 quest in a city run out of city do what is needed for quest and run back to get your gold and exp rewards. At least it is all i have done from lvl 1-20.
Thats why i like FFxiv quest more. they are about the story and lore and not about click through text as fast as possible and do the quest for exp.

On the other hand its nice to have several options so some bigger quest could be added with good exp rewards (i mean quest out of storyline and companies).

[Starlord]

I'm not trolling anything. I am just expressing my opinion, like everyone else on here does. Just because you don't agree, doesn't make me a troll.

And the the guy above talking about making that fast SP.. well guy its about the journey, not the destination. I've done the leve-link static crap and all that, its what finally caused me to quit playing the game altogether for 6 months. My utter disgust with the system, the lack of fun involved, and so forth.

True FF11 style party grinding on the other hand is most fun. I don't need an SP bonus or Reward to succeed. I only need some people to party with, a camp that my group chooses to pull from, and some mobs to kill.

I agree man, Its what caused me to stop playing for 3 months ( more like casual on and off type deal. Quest are fine I'm all for quests, but for a system that gives you 120k tops per leve run? Getting to R50 in 1-3 weeks.. IN AN MMO?!?!? I say its a pretty flawed system, and Yoshi-P realized this and put leves on the back wheel but still making them a part of the game ( 5k sp reward for linked leves) + mobs killed sounds more right then this 120k leve fest that I couldnt believe it came into this game. In fact I never seen a Grind party.... at all... since Launch because everyone did it the easy way after they buffed leves.

Anyways, the past is the past and now this game is starting to have a FFMMORPG feel to it, No I do not want a FFXI clone, as much as I loved that game to tear and miss my character my server and everything thats in it, I don't want to play the same game. That's not saying that I want some of the elements that should be in a FF in general, Classic grinding, Chocobos, Airships those things should have been in the game, Yes classic grinding was in the game, but their really wasn't any motivation to do them. So, I agree with the OP that I'm glad party grinding is now back and I can't wait for whats in store!