[dev1021]SP in non-leve parties

[Betelgeuzah]

It's not hard. In my previous post that I quoted, I specifically stated that you can get anywhere from 10-20k/hr in a grinding party.

So, we can quite easily get the SP the developers consider "good"- no problems there. You don't seem to agree with that, but I think the grind is just fine the way it is now.

You can leve or you can grind, but there are fewer ways to do it to get at least 10k/hour, and more ways to screw it up (more so at later ranks. 1-30 is now a cakewalk after patch 1.15).

But you just said it's not hard to achieve 10k per hour? I don't think so either. So you aren't really making much sense here.

If you want to maximize SP gain for 5 hours, you use the exact same method for maximizing SP gain for 1 hour: get a bunch of people with leves and then link them all.

I just told you that sharing leves is better for a 5 hour party than linking them; +100% SP instead of +50%. Leve-linking is detrimental for a 5 hour party because when you run out of leves, your SP gain drops. With leve-sharing, you don't run out of leves as fast, and can achieve more total SP than if you linked them. This is not rocket science and I don't understand how you have such a hard time understanding.

Wasting time is not efficient. Time is always a concern.

This is silly. No, time is not a concern for some people. You can't talk for everyone out there.

No. If you want the most SP over-all, you leve-link. Then when you run out of leves, you find more people who do have leves they are willing to link with you. If you can't find more people with links, then you go grind some normal mobs. This strategy will gain more total SP than a party that just shares each link individually and wastes all of their guardians favor.

This doesn't make any sense. You run out of leves but can still link "them" with others? If you can't find people to link with (=leech, which doesn't work according to you, so this plan is even dumber), you go get inferior SP while the people who share their leves are still getting more SP for a longer period of time, eventually passing the leve-link group by a mile.

I can see what the problem here is now. People don't grasp what is efficient and what isn't and resort to this kind of stupidity and then bitch when things don't go their way. Too bad, because the system works fine.

the difficulty involved in "building a set-up"

In the games current state, yes, it's good enough. There is much more incentive to party than there is to solo. If there wasn't, you wouldn't see so many shouts for leve parties in Uldah.

If you have "difficulty in building a set-up", then clearly it isn't good enough.

You misunderstand. I'm talking about the uselessness of increasing stars if it takes the mob's level over the dlvl 10 cap. Read my blog post that I linked earlier. It shows you how SP is calculated in this game.

Ah yes, I did. And how many people is needed to take a dlvl10 monster down effectively?

The 30 minutes is a waste of time, but once you get a decent party started, it is not a waste of time.

You can solo for 5k/hr during those 30 minutes. What's the waste in that?

I think we're arguing for more or less similar means, it's just that you're calling it "control", and I'm calling it "freedom"

Actually, you are arguing for freedom in solving the problem, while I am arguing for control to solve the problem. Both approaches can take us somewhere, but only with enough control can the developers make the progression easy to understand, expand on the parts that need expanding and create a more tighter community that isn't divided between three+ different progression methods, while S-E has to balance between them for ages to come.

You aren't all about freedom either, but there are no extremes here. Only emphasizing different sides.

[Rentahamster]

So, we can quite easily get the SP the developers consider "good"- no problems there. You don't seem to agree with that, but I think the grind is just fine the way it is now.

But you just said it's not hard to achieve 10k per hour? I don't think so either. So you aren't really making much sense here.

I don't agree that 10k-20k SP per hour is good? When did I say that? Stop responding to what you "think" I say, and respond to what I "actually" say, please. The only reason I don't "make sense" is because you are reading what I'm writing but somehow not understanding what I'm talking about.

We just need to make a larger variety of mobs more grindable, primarily by increasing respawn rates, mob populations, and increasing base SP to 150 for more mobs.

What I mean is that there are not enough ways to get good SP. There are not enough options available to the player if he wants to get at least 10k/hour, and a lot of the options that are available have various negative qualities.

If you know how to grind, you can get 10-20k/hour (easy part). But it requires a lot of knowledge about the game, which not a lot of people have (hard part).

I just told you that sharing leves is better for a 5 hour party than linking them; +100% SP instead of +50%. Leve-linking is detrimental for a 5 hour party because when you run out of leves, your SP gain drops. With leve-sharing, you don't run out of leves as fast, and can achieve more total SP than if you linked them. This is not rocket science and I don't understand how you have such a hard time understanding.

- and I just explained how leve-linking is better for a 5 hour party than leve-sharing. Did you read that, or just dismiss it outright because you assume you're always right?

Remember how I mentioned that I frame SP gain as a derivative of time? Remember why I did that?

When you leve-link, you get anywhere from 50-75k/hour
When you leve-share, you get anywhere from 20-30k/hour. (2.5x less)

If you leve link for 5 hours, you get 250-375k SP.
If you leve share for 5 hours, you get 100-150k SP.

With leve-sharing, you don't run out of leves as fast

I'm operating under the assumption that you always have leve links for the whole 5 hours. When you compare two different things, you have to keep external variables as constant as possible.

This is silly. No, time is not a concern for some people. You can't talk for everyone out there.

Time is always a concern, even if you don't perceive it to be. If we're talking about maximizing SP, then yes, I can speak for them because if they're ignoring time, then by definition, they are not trying to maximize SP.

If I have 20 hours a day to play I'm going to use all 20 of those hours using the SP gain method that has the best SP/hr RATE.

This doesn't make any sense. You run out of leves but can still link "them" with others? If you can't find people to link with (=leech, which doesn't work according to you, so this plan is even dumber), you go get inferior SP while the people who share their leves are still getting more SP for a longer period of time, eventually passing the leve-link group by a mile.

In my leve-link example, you do your best to get as many leves as you can. When you run out, you get more. Yes, that is leeching. I said this is the best way to get SP, not a way I agree with and like to do. This is also why I gave the secondary option of grinding mobs instead.

It seems I'm just going to have to show you through math why you're wrong, since you don't understand the concepts I'm explaining to you. I was hoping you could conceptualize the numbers without having to type them all out, but I guess not.

Scenario: Two different 8-players parties. Each player has one leve: Dunesfolk for Dinner. Both parties have 5 hours to play. Party A does the leve twice, with full links both times; Party B does the leve 8 times, sharing the leve each time and not linking. Once out of leves, each party resorts to normal mob grinding for 10kSP/hour.

Constant Variables:

- Each leve takes 10 minutes to complete.

- There are 14 dogs and 3 peistes on every leve.

- All mobs hit the dlvl 10 cap for maximum rank difference bonus.

- Both parties use as much Guardian's Favor as possible to get as much SP as they can.

SP = [base SP] x [dlvl modifier] x [party modifier] x [Guardian Aspect] x [link bonus]

SP gained on a Dunesfolk leve with 3 links:
1 dog = [125] x [3] x [0.65] x [1.5] x [2.5] = 915 SP per person.

1 peiste = [100] x [3] x [0.65] x [1.5] x [2.5] = 732 SP per person

14 dogs + 3 peistes = (915 x 14) + (732 x 3) = 15,006 SP

SP gained on a Dunesfolk leve with 0 links:
1 dog = [125] x [3] x [0.65] x [1.5] = 366 SP per person.

1 peiste = [100] x [3] x [0.65] x [1.5] = 293 SP per person

14 dogs + 3 peistes = (366 x 14) + (293 x 3) = 6003 SP

SP gained by Party A in 5 hours:
15,006 SP x 2 leves (0.33 hours) + 10,000SP/hour x 4.66 hours = 30,012 SP + 46,000 SP = 76,612 SP (20 guardians favor used)

SP gained by Party B in 5 hours:
6003 SP x 8 leves (2.66 hours) + 10,000SP/hr x 2.33 hours = 71,324 SP (80 guardians favor used - big fat waste)

Does it make sense to you now? I even used the lowest grinding SP/hr to make it more favorable for your leve-share scenario. In reality, my parties exceed 10k SP/hour grinding normal mobs. Not to mention that it's very difficult to keep all 8 leve-holders in a party for 2.66 hours.

I can see what the problem here is now. People don't grasp what is efficient and what isn't and resort to this kind of stupidity and then bitch when things don't go their way. Too bad, because the system works fine.

It doesn't reflect well upon you if you have to resort to insults in order to prove your point. I know what's efficient and what isn't through testing, not feelings.

If you have "difficulty in building a set-up", then clearly it isn't good enough.

I said it was "difficult" (especially for newbies). I didn't say it was "impossible". It was difficult to build a party in FF11 too, yet that was good enough for most people.

You can solo for 5k/hr during those 30 minutes. What's the waste in that?

If you solo for 2,500 SP, you're wasting time that you could have used making a party so that you can solo for much better SP gains as a party.