Why should I be excited for Grind Parties?

[Tibian]

Gosh, Let's all sit in one area killing the same thing over and over again.

I am still fascinated why it seems the FF community somehow finds this type of play so engaging -- when the FF series as a whole is about progression and story. You don't literally progress while undergoing monotonous grinding.

How about instead of feigning excitement for this let's get some quests that are worth completing. Not a quest that sends you to some obscure location to kill 3 mobs, then return for as much xp as 1 mob gave you.

Agreed. With guildleves being demoted to a non-centric part of the game (which is good), I can't understand why they are putting in so much support for grind camps. I would rather them spend more time developing those quest hubs which they said would have so much content that you'd never want to leave them. (I am trying to find this quote, but it has availed me :S)

I know they are adding more quests and sub-quests to the game in future patches, but I do think it needs to be developed better. We need more engaging quests rather than killing 5 squirrels in 1 minute -- when it takes 40 minutes to walk to the spot. The quests need a significantly higher bonus SP, and they need to have real meaning within the world. Also, daily quests are not that popular -.- I think guildleves is a prime example of how people hate daily quests.

Caravan system + beast camps should help with content --- and admittedly they still need to develop core systems before the content can get REALLY good... but it seems such a shame that the game is reversing to such an unengaging, boring, monotonous, and archaic gameplay system.

I am glad the exp chains are being developed.... but there needs to be more to do other than grind my life away.

Let's compare that to your average "modern MMO" in which your progress is determined by how fast can I run between quest givers and stay awake while I am handed XP for little to no effort, or how effectively can I leach from this Rift/"public quest"/dynamic event that is virtually impossible to fail or really even impact at all through skill full play without having to actually coordinate my efforts with anyone else. Yeah no thanks, I'll take grinding over that crap any day when leveling in an MMO.

I'll be the first one to admit that World of Warcraft, Rift, even Everquest II all have a very obtuse form of questing. World of Warcraft however used to have a very good questing system that developed the lore in each zone, and made the inevitable grind bearable and interesting. Unfortunately it has succumbed to the latest fad of "lets just add more daily quests and lets go kill 4 bears." We need to encourage SE to implement quests that matter, rather than just mindlessly running from NPC to NPC for the next quest: because that in essence is almost worse than flat out grinding.

Furthermore, there are some quests in WoW that are ridiculously fun due to mechanics being refined or used in new ways rather than just flat out killing mobs. What comes to mind right away most recently is the jumping from drakes while flying in WotLK, the giant Katamari Damacy ball from Cataclysm, the putting out the fire on the inns for the Halloween event, the flying jousting quest from Cataclysm... these are all relatively interesting mechanics that were utilized to make the game slightly more engaging.

That's what XIV really needs from quests.