I cried when I saw leveling in 1.19.

Before I tell you why, let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Decatur, Alabama to a family of 6. I was the 4th of 5 kids. My oldest brother got into a gang in our small city and was shot by police in 1998. My two older brothers and sister didn't finish high school and currently work in factories in the Decatur area. I was the first person in my family to go to college and graduate with an associate's degree in business management. During college I worked at Taco Bell and became shift leader after 3 months. After I graduated I became general manager of the new Taco Bell that opened up on the other side of town. My mom is disabled and an alcoholic. My dad lives in Michigan and I didn't see him much growing up. I've come the farthest in life out of my family but my life isn't the greatest. I make enough to pay the bills and live in a decent apartment but I'm not rich or famous.

My first experience with an MMO was in 2001 with EverQuest. I was addicted right away. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. I played for hours almost every night. Dying and losing your body and sometimes getting stuck trying to get it back.. playing with dozens of other people at once.. let's just say I was hooked.

I had been a fan of Final Fantasy after playing Final Fantasy VII on my older brother's PlayStation. When Final Fantasy XI came out and I read about it in magazines, I was immediately intrigued. I bought the game upon release and I played it right up until the time Abyssea came out. That game used to be amazing. You could get lost in it for hours and everything felt like it had a purpose. I was one of the first non-Japanese to get the Maat's cap on my server. Everything in that game was perfectly balanced. You worked hard to get the best gear in that game and years later your hard work was still valid. I spent a long time farming sky, sea, and Dynamis to upgrade my relic bow and AFv2 armor. I even met my future husband around one of the campfires in Ronfaure and we got married in game. It was some of the best times I've had in my life. But when they came out with Abyssea they completely ruined the game. The whole game was balanced around level 75 and within a few weeks after Abyssea not only was the whole game on e-z mode but people were leveling off exp chains in Abyssea, going from level 30-75 in 2 days.

When FFXIV was announced I was very excited. I had been saving up money so I could afford to buy a good Alienware computer with a good graphics card to play it. I bought the Collector's Edition upon release. My whole linkshell from XI went to XIV, but after the bad reviews nearly everyone quit and went back to XI, some going to Aion, and others to WoW and Rift. I decided to stay with XIV and waited patiently for them to add content to the game. Darkhold was good, but it was too easy and I was really looking forward to this patch.

So 1.19 added exp chains and links, which are great, but the bonuses you get make leveling too easy, especially when you have 1 or 2 high level characters in pt. You should get at most 450 exp per mob. It used to take 2 weeks to level to 50 after the skill point patch but now you can level to 50 within a few days.

This totally breaks the game. I had to work hard to get to 50, playing every night for at least 2 weeks and sometimes putting aside things I needed to do. One time I let the trash pile up and I didn't take the trash out for 2 weeks. My house smelled a little bad but it was worth it. Try eating pizza for 2 weeks straight while you have the thrill of being one of the first people to 50, or taking your second character to 50. Or taking vacation time to be one of the first to do something and now someone can just power level to 50 in a few nights. It completely breaks the sense of all that I've accomplished in this game. My life has sucked enough SE, please don't take away the one thing that has brought a little happiness to it.