Leve Balancing: Can I Have it?

[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.