[dev1021]SP in non-leve parties

[Betelgeuzah]

What I mean is that there are not enough ways to get good SP.

I think that this is way too subjective and we need to specify this even further. What is considered "good SP", as it is quite an abstract term? Is our "good SP" the same as the developers' "good SP"? Does this mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is be able to gain the maximum possible SP per hour"? Or does it mean "it is too hard to build a set-up that is able to gain an average number of SP per hour" (the median from the lowest and the highest possible SP gain)?

The best way to get SP right now is through leve-linking.

This also depends quite a bit on what you consider "the best way". Do you mean "the maximum possible SP in the lowest amount of time possible"? Because if we want to get the best amount of SP on average and we have enough time to go through the leves more than once, leve-sharing is more efficient (you gain +100% more SP per leve when you share instead of +50% by linking).

pick-up-parties usually take a long time to get started.

We should also analyze what causes this. You mentioned the lack of proper search function, but that is not all. If the playerbase is divided between grouping for leves and grouping for "camping"/monster grinding or whatever you want to call it, there are roughly half the amount of people to party with at any given time for whatever activity you wish to do. Since both features' functionality depends on the participation of many people, this can hinder the gameplay quite a bit. And if the positives aren't enough to make up for the negatives (in this case, if the SP/hour by leve-sharing/linking is not worth the effort as you can solo or duo monsters instead for roughly the same SP), players will be less likely to make use of the system in place, thus making it even harder to build a pick-up group.

If you do not have any leves to contribute to the party, you are considered a leecher, and will probably not get invited.

Now, what causes this? As far as the party bonus goes, you do not suffer from any Sp penalty for having two people in your group. Therefore, it does not make sense to not invite a duo partner even if he has no leves, as you can A) finish the leve twice as fast for no penalty, and B) you may even be able to raise the difficulty of the leve. And the party bonus is very forgiving for up to 8 people, and you can raise the difficulty to make up for the losses (as well as finishing the leve faster of course), so why do people consider these players 'leechers'? This is a problem that needs be tackled, but unfortunately the hardest thing to change in this game is people's perception of it. We can not cure the problem with just the symptom alone, we need to know the disease too.

Furthermore, all this time spent creating a pick up party probably took you 30 minutes or more, which is a big waste of time.

What is it that makes these people focus on creating the party? Can they not use their time better? Does the game offer no alternative for such thing (soloing, etc.)? We need to know what causes this kind of mindset that when you build a party, you can do nothing else during the process.

One more thing - The base SP for only 4 mob types are good, while the rest suck, so that only those 4 mobs are really worth grinding on.

I don't think the monsters in this game are equal, and the base SP reflects this. SP per monster is not really as important as average SP gain per hour for example.

But as previously mentioned, dividing the playerbase can have negative consequences, and for the developers to be able to build a fun, balanced progression system, they need to be able to control how we play the game effectively instead of trying to guess how the players interpret the systems in place. If they want us to play the game a certain way, they need to make us play it that way. Right now they are only confusing the players with various ways to progress that we can choose from and we are all kind of drifting along, interpreting the game in various ways and none of them are that exciting or fun. In XI it was clear that monster grinding was the way to EXP, yet because the developers did not dictate exactly how we should monster grind aside from setting the proper party size to 6, we ended up fighting the easiest monsters in the most efficient places for every level range. The developers let us choose, and the end result was that they could not control how we ended up playing the game. Only Treasures of Aht Urhgan saw some kind of controlling process with clear camp spots for different party set-ups.

Granted, do not get me wrong- I don't want the Big Brother to watch my every step. But it is clear that right now, the developers need to enforce what they want us to do, for both the progression and the class system. Absolute control is not the answer, but neither is absolute freedom. We can find various MMO's that tend to focus on one more than the other, and the only solution for the development team is to find their own balance. I'm all for more freedom than control, but right now they have gone too far and we can see the consequences here.

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Make leves solo only, don't change SP/EXP boost rate, reduce the leve counter to 24 hrs.

With this change people would have to go out and party get increased rates of SP/EXP.

Leves when properly implemented will be better than simple monster party grinding by a mile. That is the last thing they should do. Grouping needs to happen, but not in an environment that doesn't take into account that the genre has evolved since 2002.