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

[Murugan]

Grinding monsters in a party is not more skill demanding than killing them solo, because grind parties deliberately look for the lowest risk, highest reward mobs to grind on. Questing, on the other hand, actually forces you into situations you might not be familiar with, fighting monsters you've never fought before, and you're completely alone. You CAN have difficult questing; WOW did a long, long time ago, and so do some typical WOW clones.

Take off your rosy nostalgia glasses for a moment and really think about how leveling went in FFXI. I died less and was challenged less than in any other MMO I've played. The cost of dying or making a mistake was so steep, that people made it a point to stick to the weakest, easiest to kill monsters. Your exp/hour wasn't determined by the skill of your group, it was determined by your gear, your party makeup, and if you picked the weakest mobs to grind on.

No people do that exact same thing when questing. They go for least risk for the highest reward, so your entire argument doesn't work. If you didn't then you simply weren't caring about your xp rate in which case why do you have to argue against people getting good xp for grouping?

The difference is even in a "low risk" situations (which aren't the best XP) good xp is determined by a good party, while soloing grind quests is only determined by one person's capability and quest grouping/ proximity to the quest giver. So even in "high risk" solo questing (extremely rare in MMO's) it is still less risk and effort than it takes doing similar level content in a party. So people should be rewarded for party content. WoW and most clones are just lacking in good enough party content to level on, FFXI had that. A lot of people liked FFXI because that.