Leve Balancing: Can I Have it?

[Deminia]

First, I am loving the recent changes to the way we can accept leves. I no longer feel like I must rush to log on in time to catch the next leve reset, and I can actually enjoy completing leves on my own schedule. Thank you for this wonderful adjustment!

However, there are still some lingering problems, which I especially notice with the local leves. Many times I will approach the leve counter, select the craft I wish to work on, select my level range... and only one leve is offered or sometimes, not even a single leve is available. This is especially frustrating if I have just made a trip to a city specifically to select leves there. Why is this happening? I feel that any player should be able to walk up to select a leve of any type and be able to select something.

Another major problem is the huge level range of leves in each category. For a DoW/DoM class, if you select a leve in the 20s range, and you are already lvl 27, for example, you at least have an option to increase the difficulty. For local leves, we do not have this option and often the leves offered are well below the level range of the player. Why as a level 31 leathercrafter am I still only getting offered the exact same three level 20 leves in Ul'Dah? When I go to Gridania, where the leather guild is, I am still almost always offered level 20 leves and sometimes level 25 leves. Once in a blue moon I get offered a level 30 leve. Why am I not being offered level 30-35 leves regularly? In fact, I have not yet been offered a level 35 leve for leather.

All players accepting leves should be able to select from the same number of leves for any category they select. The level of the leves offered should be appropriate for the level of the player. I hope this is something that will be addressed in the next patch.

[Arcell]

Gathering has a similar problem. Only 2 leves per camp, one camp per city. So in any given city you can really only do 2 leves for your level range. At least bring every other class up to the level of DoW/M and give them 4 leves per level range.

Edit: But yeah I agree on the crafting bit. It's really frustrating to only get leves for the level range under yours, or only a single leve for your range.

[Deminia]

Gathering has a similar problem. Only 2 leves per camp, one camp per city. So in any given city you can really only do 2 leves for your level range. At least bring every other class up to the level of DoW/M and give them 4 leves per level range.

Edit: But yeah I agree on the crafting bit. It's really frustrating to only get leves for the level range under yours, or only a single leve for your range.

Thank you for mentioning that - I actually had intended to myself and forgot. I absolutely agree. Every class should have the same number of leves offered.

[Dallie]

There have been numerous official suggestions about this, and they've yet to do anything about it for almost a year. People have been asking for relief on leve variety and level availability since like...oh..two months after launch?

Perhaps the evaluation system will alleviate some of this, since the overall process isn't complete; but, if that were the case, you'd think new recipes would have taken over local leves vs. leaving 'dated' on all of them. I understand it's to help transition, but it's also bordering on lazy.

[Jinko]

Totally agree.

1) Can we get 6 more field leves for each level group in each city.
(I think it would be neat if you could only pic up Fishing leves in Limsa, Logging in Gridania and Mining in Uldah)

2) As mentioned above make sure that there are at least 4 (preferable 8) leves avalible to pick up each time for all types of leves.

3) I would like to see local leves picked up and handed in to the actual crafting guild instead.
(this would mean that for example a leather worker could only pick up leves in Gridania, but would help spread the population to other cities a bit)

4) As mentioned above also, give local leves more level categories 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50

5) Please update the local leve recipes, they are still using the dated recipes which need multiple class skills and guild crafting assistant.

[Dallie]

Totally agree.

1) Can we get 6 more field leves for each level group in each city. (I think it would be neat if you could only pic up Fishing leves in Limsa, Logging in Gridania and Mining in Uldah)

2) As mentioned above make sure that there are at least 4 (preferable 8) leves avalible to pick up each time for all types of leves.

3) I would like to see local leves picked up and handed in to the actual crafting guild instead. (this would mean only getting certain leves from certain cities, but would help spread the population to other cities a bit)

4) As mentioned above also, give local leves more level categories 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50

Re #3: One can only hope this is what they meant by 'streamlining':
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...hlight=dev1134

[AamesxDavid]

First, OP: THANK YOU. It's really frustrating to see so many people complaining about battle being too easy to level when crafters still can't get reasonable leves. To put this into perspective, there are more crafting classes than there are battle ones. Yet crafting gets screwed over in ways that would never be acceptable for battle classes. Speaking of...

5) Please update the local leve recipes, they are still using the dated recipes which need multiple class skills and guild crafting assistant.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou. Why is this not in every post that has anything to do with crafting?

I mean, let's translate this into the battle system: imagine if your chance of being able to kill particular monsters was based on the traits/abilities you bought from the Thaumaturge's Guild (or insert other DoW/DoM guild) - oh, and also some of those monsters are below level 20, when you can even start getting those guild marks. People would have gathered outside the SE offices with torches and pitchforks. Then an update comes along that abolishes that system.. but leves still use the old monsters, so that when you're doing your leves, it's as if the update never happened.

More important than the outrage that would come from these systems is the fact that they're not in place because the developers know what a convoluted nonsense system that would be. So what makes it acceptable for crafting?

Sorry if I'm going over the top a bit, but I am doing a local leve as I type this.. seriously.

[AamesxDavid]

I was so ecstatic about your last point that I skimmed over these before, and I wanted to address them.. because I don't understand them.

(I think it would be neat if you could only pic up Fishing leves in Limsa, Logging in Gridania and Mining in Uldah)

3) I would like to see local leves picked up and handed in to the actual crafting guild instead.
(this would mean that for example a leather worker could only pick up leves in Gridania, but would help spread the population to other cities a bit)

Not to be dramatic about this but.. GOOD GOD, WHY?!

On one hand, you seem to be about equal and reasonable distribution of leves, and then you want to restrict it by city. From a storyline mode, this makes no sense - why does no one have any goldsmithing needs in Limsa Lominsa or Gridania? Now, I wouldn't sacrifice gameplay for the sake of story.. but it has no gameplay benefit either. In fact, in the case of fieldcraft, it's worse, as you can only gather particular materials in certain regions.

I mean, do you think that Archers should only be able to do battlecraft leves in Gridania simply because the guild is there? I don't really see any jump in logic there. Sure, all of the DoW/DoM leves are grouped now, but using your ideal local leve system, it should use the guild instead, and therefore should only be available in that city.

It's also not so much spreading people out as it is segregating them. Many people focus on one or two crafts, and if they can only get leves in one city, it doesn't do them much good to hang around the others. So you won't see many weavers in Gridania the same way you won't see many carpenters in Limsa Lominsa. Then you just end up with everyone in the same place, looking the same, doing the same thing. And I doubt that's what you had in mind when you wanted to spread out the population. There may be other, more subtle ways to accomplish that, but I don't think this is it.

[Jinko]

I was so ecstatic about your last point that I skimmed over these before, and I wanted to address them.. because I don't understand them.



Not to be dramatic about this but.. GOOD GOD, WHY?!

On one hand, you seem to be about equal and reasonable distribution of leves, and then you want to restrict it by city. From a storyline mode, this makes no sense - why does no one have any goldsmithing needs in Limsa Lominsa or Gridania? Now, I wouldn't sacrifice gameplay for the sake of story.. but it has no gameplay benefit either. In fact, in the case of fieldcraft, it's worse, as you can only gather particular materials in certain regions.

I mean, do you think that Archers should only be able to do battlecraft leves in Gridania simply because the guild is there? I don't really see any jump in logic there. Sure, all of the DoW/DoM leves are grouped now, but using your ideal local leve system, it should use the guild instead, and therefore should only be available in that city.

Firstly you can only get guildmarks from the city that houses the guild, so why would you do leves anywhere else anyway ?

Granted you could argue that guildmarks are near useless now, but its down to SE to make them more interesting.

It's also not so much spreading people out as it is segregating them. Many people focus on one or two crafts, and if they can only get leves in one city, it doesn't do them much good to hang around the others. So you won't see many weavers in Gridania the same way you won't see many carpenters in Limsa Lominsa. Then you just end up with everyone in the same place, looking the same, doing the same thing. And I doubt that's what you had in mind when you wanted to spread out the population. There may be other, more subtle ways to accomplish that, but I don't think this is it.

Oh come on we have airships now its less than 2 mins to get from one city to the other there is no restriction other than people being lazy.

Just because the guild is in Gridania doesn't mean that other city states don't requests for items to be crafted. (if I wanted to buy a new TV I wouldn't request one from my local butcher)

So how about a weaver who is also a Con, he will be in Uldah doing his weaving leves and in Gridania doing his Conjurer leves.

Gladitor guild is in Ul'dah and BSM & ARM guild is in Limsa, It would even out perfectly.

SE could further ease this problem by making all marketwards linked across cities so that people didn't have to worry about not being able to find the items they are after.

Further more right now everyone (and i mean everyone) gathers in Ul'dah so we need some way of spreading out people into other cities and giving Limsa and Gridania a purpose.

This has gotten way off topic :S

[AamesxDavid]

Firstly you can only get guildmarks from the city that houses the guild, so why would you do leves anywhere else anyway ?

Translation: I only do leves that acquire guild marks, so other people shouldn't be allowed to do ones that don't. Nice.

Granted you could argue that guildmarks are near useless now, but its down to SE to make them more interesting.

I would, in fact, argue that. But that's a temporary problem, the bigger reason is that I care more about experience than I do the things you get with guild marks, even once they make them worth something again.

But you know what, all that aside, all I'm talking about is having more options. Maybe I want to do my goldsmithing and my armorcraft one day. It's convenient that I can get leves for those in the same city. And your argument for making that less convenient.. is that you think it's neat. Fine, you can go on about how it's not that big of a deal, but the point is that the restriction is completely unnecessary. I could petition for an extra NPC you have to talk to by the exit from the city before you start a battle leve. I could go on about how it's not that inconvenient because it's on the way out to the camp anyway.. but it wouldn't make the feature make any more sense.

Just because the guild is in Gridania doesn't mean that other city states don't requests for items to be crafted. (if I wanted to buy a new TV I wouldn't request one from my local butcher)

You're right. While we're at it, let's take out the NPC vendors from the cities - it people want something, they can just go to the city that has the appropriate guild. Let's limit the market wards in each city to only sell materials relevant to the guilds there. The guild isn't the end-all be-all of that class. It can exist elsewhere, and should.

So how about a weaver who is also a Con, he will be in Uldah doing his weaving leves and in Gridania doing his Conjurer leves.

So either all leves will be done solo, or the party will consist of all the same two classes. Is that supposed to be a good thing?

Gladitor guild is in Ul'dah and BSM & ARM guild is in Limsa, It would even out perfectly.

And the conjurer's guild is in Gridania, but the weaver's guild is in Ul'dah. It doesn't even out perfectly. One example of something kind of making sense isn't great support for unnecessary restrictions on all classes.

SE could further ease this problem by making all marketwards linked across cities so that people didn't have to worry about not being able to find the items they are after.

I completely agree with this, I'd love it if this happened. However, it flies in the face of everything you've said up to now. After all, by your logic, why is someone buying a fishing rod in Ul'dah in the first place? The guild isn't there, so they have no business fishing in that area. They should know that fishermen go to Limsa Lominsa, end of story. You see, I love the above idea because it's all about making things more accessible, and I'm all for that. And it's the same reason I disagree with everything else - when it comes to leves, you don't like that universal access, and I just don't understand why.

Further more right now everyone (and i mean everyone) gathers in Ul'dah so we need some way of spreading out people into other cities and giving Limsa and Gridania a purpose.

I go to Gridania all the time. It yields different materials when gathering. I like the look of it. And when I exhaust particular leves elsewhere, it has others for me. I just don't go there for the market wards, just as most people don't. And that's because of the lack of universal access. I don't want to extend that problem to leves.

I think the problem is that you're taking the FFXI approach to this issue - nerf everything until people play the way you want them to. Personally, I think that's a terrible way to go about it. There should be benefits for doing things a certain way - guild marks are a perfect example of that - but you shouldn't be punished for (much less restricted altogether from) doing it another way. I'm not claiming to have the answer to it, but I think there are better ways of spreading people to other cities that don't involve arbitrary restrictions. And you know what, with the market ward access in every city, people would probably just spread out a bit more anyway.

Ugh, sorry this was so long, but I really think it's an important conversation to have. And maybe I'm way off base, and someone can set me straight.