Why should I be excited for Grind Parties?

[Charismatic]

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. And it's exactly what Yoshi is trying to push from the looks of it. Of course, we only have two right now, but he said he's planning on adding more.



Why shouldn't they award at least equal experience to grinding if done at the appropriate level? Why not more? Why does grinding have to be the ultimate solution?



That's why the devs need to be constantly looking at balancing things, because you can't get everything in one go. If people are not doing quests or dungeons (or leves, or behests, or whatever else the devs will make) while leveling, it means that they need to become more accessible, shorter, easier, more rewarding, or a combination of those four.

If grinding continues to be the #1 method of leveling for the majority of players, it means that content that the devs make is wasted. If the devs are making dungeons, leves, quests, behests, beastman camps, and whatever else into things that award experience, grinding should be a last resort. It should be something for people who can't put together the correct party to get those done, who aren't geared or skilled enough to do them, who have already done them and must wait for a reset, or who may not have time to do them. Anything less than that means that the devs are wasting their time creating content that people ultimately don't care about and might not ever see.

Wolfie, stop trying to kill my hate of bronies by consistently making sense. By all rights, you are supposed to be retarded.

[Murugan]

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. And it's exactly what Yoshi is trying to push from the looks of it. Of course, we only have two right now, but he said he's planning on adding more.



Why shouldn't they award at least equal experience to grinding if done at the appropriate level? Why not more? Why does grinding have to be the ultimate solution?



That's why the devs need to be constantly looking at balancing things, because you can't get everything in one go. If people are not doing quests or dungeons (or leves, or behests, or whatever else the devs will make) while leveling, it means that they need to become more accessible, shorter, easier, more rewarding, or a combination of those four.

If grinding continues to be the #1 method of leveling for the majority of players, it means that content that the devs make is wasted. If the devs are making dungeons, leves, quests, behests, beastman camps, and whatever else into things that award experience, grinding should be a last resort. It should be something for people who can't put together the correct party to get those done, who aren't geared or skilled enough to do them, who have already done them and must wait for a reset, or who may not have time to do them. Anything less than that means that the devs are wasting their time creating content that people ultimately don't care about and might not ever see.

Nice attempt to make Grinding seem easier than guildleves/behests/quests. That is not the case, and never will be. Those things will never be balanced for leveling purposes as anything that could possibly pose a challenge. It won't happen, it never has happened in the history of MMO's. Never has this "content" been done by the majority for XP at a level or severely undergeared state that would make the deliberately dumbed down low/mid level XP "content" a challenge. There has been challenging mid level content in games of the past, but it was never used as a primary form of leveling, only easy repetitive insultingly menial tasks have been used. That's why people prefer grinding to your "content", because at least with Grinding (under the new system) those of us who want to seek a challenge through leveling can be rewarded for that.

People will always do content for the content's rewards, they do Toto-Rak now for the drops/quest completion. They do quests for the rewards or the story if they are bored/role players/lore enthusiasts, if quests become the fastest way to level (like in WoW) then people will do quests for XP, but that is still a grind and in many's opinion a much worse form of grinding since skill/grouping plays no or a very small part in the experience.

[SirOleas]

Because it's a matter of how quickly it can be done. I can only assume that all players want to be on even terms no matter how they wish to gain exp. Time spent vs rewarded exp is a big deal. I also understand not wanting to camp/grind mobs. I just happen to enjoy being part of a well organized group that maximizes exp gained through grinding. There are also times I would like to still gain exp without grinding. In which I do side quests/behests/instances. All of which provide exp... But not at the same rate.

Grinding: Show up with party members, Kill mobs; The better you and your members are the faster you gain experience points there's no middle man (running to NPC's, traveling to multiple locations etc.)

Long group quests obviously means you're dealing with multiple NPC's, Traveling to multiple locations to kill mobs. There is a lot of time spent not gaining exp. The time spent doing all these things can not be done any quicker, it always takes a specific amount of time to get from NPC 1 to NPC 2 etc until you finish your quest.

You cannot balance "empty time" with a grind party that's constantly killing/chaining/linking mobs for exp.

Would long group quests be a great addition? Hell yes!... But as fast/effective as a grind? IDK.

Edit: I am not offending anyone or tossing names around so I would very much like it if the previous poster could try and be constructive. It's not my intention to cause trouble. Just continue this discussion with elaboration on what people want. Being specific and elaborating goes a long way in discussion. Calling people scrubs does not.

[SnowTiger]

Some people like grind parties. Sure, it's repetitive, but so is like every FPS, RPG, or sports game on the market.

And those 'quests' were far more annoying to me personally... In a grind party, I can just relax, play, and have fun with a party of other players. Quests in this game are kind of tiresome, with lots of running around and npc spam that I really don't care about, plus overly weak mobs that are really just boring and not challenging at all.

And quests in certain other mmo's I've played were just horrible. Rift and WoW for example. There was no parties, people just quest grinded... And my god it was awful... Run all over the place through crummy looking areas and with crummy game mechanics, get aggro'd by like a billion trash mobs EVERY EFFING STEP, and it's like, they're just ****ing strong enough to kill you if you try to run through a pack of them... And of course, every inch of the zone is covered with packs of them... But they aren't anywhere near strong enough to be worth fighting, nor are any of the quest mobs.

To sum it up, it sucked ass. It sucked a LOT of ass. I loved FFXI, and I'm so thankful there is another FF MMO that is a successor to XI, because I've tried other MMO's... They all use that ****-eating quest grind system, and they all sucked ass to play. Needless to say I didn't stick around very long in them.

So, my best advice? If you're not interested in a game that offers a different niche style, go play one of the other games that offer billions of tedious quests. Because believe it or not, there are players who don't want a game built around that trash. We're a niche, sure... But even a niche crowd deserves at least one game per decade.

And honestly, I don't understand how quest grinding got so popular to begin with... Wtf is the point of playing an MMO if you're gonna solo it? My biggest complaint with this game is that it's not rigidly party based like FFXI was. Shouldn't be able to do hardly anything solo, save for crafting and gathering. But, I cope, and I still enjoy it, because it still offers party based leveling.

Meh. Screw quests imo. I mean, not altogether... But they shouldn't give exp at all if you ask me.

[Pandastirfry]

Some people like grind parties. Sure, it's repetitive, but so is like every FPS, RPG, or sports game on the market.

And those 'quests' were far more annoying to me personally... In a grind party, I can just relax, play, and have fun with a party of other players. Quests in this game are kind of tiresome, with lots of running around and npc spam that I really don't care about, plus overly weak mobs that are really just boring and not challenging at all.

And quests in certain other mmo's I've played were just horrible. Rift and WoW for example. There was no parties, people just quest grinded... And my god it was awful... Run all over the place through crummy looking areas and with crummy game mechanics, get aggro'd by like a billion trash mobs EVERY EFFING STEP, and it's like, they're just ****ing strong enough to kill you if you try to run through a pack of them... And of course, every inch of the zone is covered with packs of them... But they aren't anywhere near strong enough to be worth fighting, nor are any of the quest mobs.

To sum it up, it sucked ass. It sucked a LOT of ass. I loved FFXI, and I'm so thankful there is another FF MMO that is a successor to XI, because I've tried other MMO's... They all use that ****-eating quest grind system, and they all sucked ass to play. Needless to say I didn't stick around very long in them.

So, my best advice? If you're not interested in a game that offers a different niche style, go play one of the other games that offer billions of tedious quests. Because believe it or not, there are players who don't want a game built around that trash. We're a niche, sure... But even a niche crowd deserves at least one game per decade.

And honestly, I don't understand how quest grinding got so popular to begin with... Wtf is the point of playing an MMO if you're gonna solo it? My biggest complaint with this game is that it's not rigidly party based like FFXI was. Shouldn't be able to do hardly anything solo, save for crafting and gathering. But, I cope, and I still enjoy it, because it still offers party based leveling.

Meh. Screw quests imo. I mean, not altogether... But they shouldn't give exp at all if you ask me.

why is it that everyone seems to think questing = solo...is it a learning disability, just poor reading comprehension here it is again so maybe it won't sail over your heads

QUESTING DOES NOT EQUAL SOLO!!

good lord, how many times do we have to say it, we want group content, things to actually do, If all I really wanted was to do something repetitive, dull, and came with an increasing number, I'd turn on a stopwatch and stare at it as my life slowly ticked away...not play a video game,

if you couldn't find any group quests to do in WoW then I have to ask if you ever actually played it, there where tons of them, even had recommended party sizes in parentheses next to the title. I used to run them all the time with my guild.

there is a difference between engaging party play and dynamics and grinding... One is working together to accomplish a goal, the other is skinner box nonsense that we have successfully trained rats to do. (press button, get pellet...whee fun)

[SnowTiger]

why is it that everyone seems to think questing = solo...is it a learning disability


good lord, how many times do we have to say it, we want group content, things to actually do, If all I really wanted was to do something repetitive, dull, and came with an increasing number, I'd turn on a stopwatch and stare at it as my life slowly ticked away...not play a video game,

if you couldn't find any group quests to do in WoW then I have to ask if you ever actually played it, there where tons of them, even had recommended party sizes in parentheses next to the title. I used to run them all the time with my guild.

there is a difference between engaging party play and dynamics and grinding... One is working together to accomplish a goal, the other is skinner box nonsense that we have successfully trained rats to do. (press button, get pellet...whee fun)

Why does everyone think questing for exp = solo? Hrmm, gee, I dunno... Maybe because that's exactly what it devolves into in like every game that uses that model? And when you see people asking for quest based exp, most of them aren't asking for some innovative new design... They're asking for that same damn overused model...

I'm all for tweaking the combat to make exp parties more engaging and fun, and there's a hundred ways to go about doing that.. But questing is just meh for exp. It inherently involves a lot of running around and other such stuff that just isn't fun to do for every single exp point you earn. I don't mind some adventure involving getting to a far off exotic camp like the occasional exp party in FFXI involved, but once you get to it, I wanna be able to focus on battling with a party for steady exp, rather than lots of running, tele'ing, bs'ing, etc, and then a lump sum of exp after some weak or scripted fight.

So yeah, I'm not against the idea of challenging, engaging, etc. experiences in the leveling process... I just don't think quests fall into that category, they end up being tedious.... Could they completely reinvent questing as we know it? Make it totally different from all the other games and truly innovate to make it not suck? Yeah, probably... But it'd be incredibly hard for them to do that, and they would probably fail and make it tedious like other games did. Much better bet to focus on making the combat mechanics better, so that traditional grind parties aren't too tedious or lacking in challenge. Chains, links, jobs, and battle/regiment overhauls are a good place to start with that... We'll see how it goes from there, and I'm sure they'll add to it later on.

And yes, I did actually play WoW... But it was very late in the games lifespan, and I couldn't find people do to the party quests for squat. Plus, by party, I assume you mean 2-3 ppl, because that's what 90% of those group quests were... 6-8 people leveling stuff was very very rare, minus dungeons, which were very meh after a few of them. Global chat was full of obnoxious brats and 4channers incessantly spewing toilet humor and the least funny memes in existence, dungeons as I said were meh, zones where I leveled were desolate save for people who refused to talk and only wanted to solo... And since my friend pestering me to play the game with him was in a raiding guild, I joined that... And with the 1 guild limit, which was stupid btw... I couldn't find people to level with like you can in your linkshells for this game.

Don't get me wrong... I liked the fireworks that game had, kitty druids were awesome, some of the mounts were cool, and it had a few other minor things past that going for it... But the combat, crafting, endgame, leveling, quests and community were all terrible, so yeah... I'd rather not see those things get cloned into this game.

Anyways.. I'll leave it at that... You wanna keep pestering SE to add quest leveling, and -hoping- that it'll be innovative and fun... Well GL... If they ever actually do, it's like a 90% chance that it'll be just like every other game that tried, and it'll be tedious. So careful what you wish for. :P

[Murugan]

why is it that everyone seems to think questing = solo...is it a learning disability, just poor reading comprehension here it is again so maybe it won't sail over your heads

QUESTING DOES NOT EQUAL SOLO!!

good lord, how many times do we have to say it, we want group content, things to actually do, If all I really wanted was to do something repetitive, dull, and came with an increasing number, I'd turn on a stopwatch and stare at it as my life slowly ticked away...not play a video game,

if you couldn't find any group quests to do in WoW then I have to ask if you ever actually played it, there where tons of them, even had recommended party sizes in parentheses next to the title. I used to run them all the time with my guild.

there is a difference between engaging party play and dynamics and grinding... One is working together to accomplish a goal, the other is skinner box nonsense that we have successfully trained rats to do. (press button, get pellet...whee fun)

Kill 15 Marmots, or free 10 villagers from their evil kidnappers. Wee fun "goals". Group quests in most MMO's (especially WoW) pretty much amount to solo quests against mobs a few levels higher. It's still just a chore to run between quest givers and the pointless "objectives", rarely does it ever require actual teamplay and since most of the time and effort is spent running to the objective and back if I want to do these (and most people just skip them rather than hope they coincidently run into people to do them with) I merely need to find 2-(however many) warm bodies near me who happen to be on the same quest doesn't really matter who/what class/whether they are RMT bots whatever because it's not like having a good party or hell even being a good player myself is going to make the experience go by any faster/smoother/more enjoyably.

But hey congratulations on learning about "Skinner boxes", and then coming to the conclusion that you are the only one in the world who isn't just trapped in one in some way or another. Really refreshing to hear someone finally overcome that "learning disability" and use that concept in relation to the type of leveling they prefer when playing a video game. Clearly the underlying purpose of such experiments was to inspire the conclusion that "I AM NOT A RAT" among certain video game players.

I however much like the rat (unfortunately I guess?), can appreciate without loud acclaim that I am strangely motivated towards goals, and that this is pretty much the crux of "video games" or hell really just the concept of any type of game.

So I join a party capable of coordinating together well, and can be rewarded for that? Sounds good to me, I'm going to go form the best damn group I can and try my hardest so that I(we) can be rewarded as much as possible! I'll enjoy that, I'll use that challenge to help me improve at my role, and it will help me level faster/play my character better all because I have an incentive for me to improve/try harder.

Have fun being such a "free spirit" you wild rebel, free thinker you. I just wish I wasn't so blindly fooled by my puppet masters into such predictable behavior!!!!!!

[SirOleas]

So, I will skip the pointless bickering in the post and move onto the actual information you provided.

Group content that gives everyone something to do and is not repetitive/dull/etc.
And then you use WoW as an example. I played WoW for all of 6 months (not a fair amount of time in some peoples eyes.) But in all that time I ran into...maybe 5 group quests during my repetitive/dull quest grind in pursuit of level 85. 1-85...and I only had to interact with other people 5 times IF I could even get them to interact with me.

Grinding quests, group content or solo, can be just as dull and repetitive as a grind party. Mainly because the developers seem to think that "Go out an kill 10 of these" is a fun quest, especially if they just rename the mobs and increase the "difficulty" as you gain levels. Most of the group questing I ran into on WoW were those mini-arena battles where you defeat a few tougher than normal foes and you get gear at the end. All of those followed the same outline, just different dialog and different mobs.

And in the time I was partied with those few people for that...20-30 minutes...I made no friends, everyone got what they wanted and off they went.

So I ask you kindly: What kind of group content would actually be engaging and fun and not a grind? Because if you do quest after quest after quest...that's just a different form of grinding. It's no more engaging or fulfilling than grinding mobs for exp...because really the only difference is that there's a quest NPC to start and finish it with. You're still killing mobs. lol

Don't bother mentioning Raids. It's fairly obvious FFXIV is going the raid rout.

[XxOstiaxX]

So, I will skip the pointless bickering in the post and move onto the actual information you provided.

Group content that gives everyone something to do and is not repetitive/dull/etc.
And then you use WoW as an example. I played WoW for all of 6 months (not a fair amount of time in some peoples eyes.) But in all that time I ran into...maybe 5 group quests during my repetitive/dull quest grind in pursuit of level 85. 1-85...and I only had to interact with other people 5 times IF I could even get them to interact with me.

Grinding quests, group content or solo, can be just as dull and repetitive as a grind party. Mainly because the developers seem to think that "Go out an kill 10 of these" is a fun quest, especially if they just rename the mobs and increase the "difficulty" as you gain levels. Most of the group questing I ran into on WoW were those mini-arena battles where you defeat a few tougher than normal foes and you get gear at the end. All of those followed the same outline, just different dialog and different mobs.

And in the time I was partied with those few people for that...20-30 minutes...I made no friends, everyone got what they wanted and off they went.

So I ask you kindly: What kind of group content would actually be engaging and fun and not a grind? Because if you do quest after quest after quest...that's just a different form of grinding. It's no more engaging or fulfilling than grinding mobs for exp...because really the only difference is that there's a quest NPC to start and finish it with. You're still killing mobs. lol

Don't bother mentioning Raids. It's fairly obvious FFXIV is going the raid rout.

Thats actually impossible to be true, for there are group quest at each starting zone, from lvl 1-10 there are at minimum 3 group quest, not to mention lvl 10 to Cap! If you played 6 month's from everybody's perspective on this forums you should have been what lvl 60-70-80(Whatever the cap was when you played) by a month or Two. Do you know how many dungeons there are in azeroth ? More than 15 and those are divided from 1-60, there are multiple group quest for each dungeon, and each zone has a storyline that is developed by quest's etc etc. Sure there are lots and lots of quests that are just fetch and kill, but there are lots of quests that are not too.

[Viridiana]

Thats actually impossible to be true, for there are group quest at each starting zone, from lvl 1-10 there are at minimum 3 group quest, not to mention lvl 10 to Cap! If you played 6 month's from everybody's perspective on this forums you should have been what lvl 60-70-80(Whatever the cap was when you played) by a month or Two. Do you know how many dungeons there are in azeroth ? More than 15 and those are divided from 1-60, there are multiple group quest for each dungeon, and each zone has a storyline that is developed by quest's etc etc. Sure there are lots and lots of quests that are just fetch and kill, but there are lots of quests that are not too.

Umm. . . from what I recall, levels one through. . . whatever level Hogger was were all very much soloable. And again, if you were the right class and knew what you were doing, so was Hogger.