Is the game built based on the wrong perspective?

[Physic]

In many of the biggest areas, you have my assent. I should clarify that what I'm referring to are the little things - the handling of the mechanics that are required of an online game to be social-multiplayer experience.

Check out the questions asked in the current hot topics:

• Why can't I solo anything?
• Why so much downtime?
• How are new players going to function?
• How can the non-rich get by anymore?
• Why can people power-level other so fast?
• Why am I not having fun?

These are all things related to how to function through the phase of the game that opens the gateway to actual content, like that to which you refer.

It's not the the grind is the focus, it's that the mechanics used to do it now are balanced in respect to the wrong perceptions and thus incredibly difficult to achieve and maintain without a specific set of resources that not everyone wants to put in / has time it put in the effort to monotonously grind out - all to balance Hardcore v. Casual instead of what parts of the game people find fun, meaningful, and integral to the MMO experience.

i think this is a big misconception due to the shift in difficulty, and shift in exp curve and formulas

first off

the overal exp curve has been shifted, to a much flatter curve, they did this by not changing the tnls, but making exp scale with your overall tnl.
The end result is the trip is a much more balanced one, instead of spending 5 hours on 1-20 and 2-4 weeks on 20-50, its a more balanced ride. In fact as you learn the game and meet people you can probably get a bit of acceleration at the end there.

And next, you dont solo the same things, they made it so an even match is closer to an even match, you dont attack something 10 levels higher, you aim for things equal to 1 level higher.

far as downtime, in actuality, its less, your mp recovers faster than before, and you still get it while moving, outside of battle.

far as the economy, i dont really know how that will work out, because its a lot of changes at once, we really wont know what the real ecomony is, until a lot of the new things settle. Yeah people need more gear, but they also get materia people might want to buy, and gear is a lot cheaper to make for most crafts, even the good ones. Its really still to early to tell.

The plevel issue is weird, i kind of get it, but why on one side make it pretty balanced to level, and then have a way where you can just get super sp super fast, I can definitely see catching people up, but ehhh kinda defeats a bunch of the other work they did.


I think one big issue, is this is all a huge change, its turns the game on its head, in a lot of ways its start over, and people dont know what is what, but exp wise, i think we are sitting prettier than we have been for a long time. Overall grind time is down. Even solo, especially compared to 1.18.

Anyhow im really having more fun here than in a long time, even the travel time sinks are gone, and the desire to immediately turn off the game after doing a leve, Doing long quests is a lot less tedious with personal chocobos, and fast airships, combined with judicous, or non judicious anima use.


long post but really, i think people are getting caught up on changes, and not seeing the new direction is actually a pretty hassle freeish one. (comparitively)