Bring back the days of leveling up parties

[Moonwolfthegrey]

I miss the days back in ffxi when we used to form 6 man parties and level up by chaining mobs out in the environment. I think that has a lot of advantages:
Making friends, getting to know how to play ur class properly, also players needed to be well geared and fed to play effectively which will put more emphasis I guess on acquiring the low level cafted gear.
I haven't come across anyone who had tried that formation here, anyone with any experience on this??
What does everyone think?

[Calyanare]

It's doable here, up to a certain level, if you scout the right spots. But there's no need for it, and it is most definitely slower than any other leveling method, so it'll be hard to convince people to do it if they aren't nostalgic for the old slow-grind days like you are.

[Maelwys]

I've done it a few times to level up Chocobo Companions. There are some good "camp" sites as you level up across multiple zones, and Chocobos can fill in for a Healer and/or a DPS if they're built right.
The problem is going to be maintaining EXP skillchains - you can get to about chain 5 or 6 solo easily enough, but for any more than that you need good pulling coordination and heavy AoE damage.

It's always going to be slower than grinding fates or leves, but there's nothing to stop you doing it in-between fates...

[Nash20]

Used to have these in 1.0...would do Ants in Thanalan then head to Natalan.

Was actually quite fun.

[Enfarious]

I also miss having this as an option. I made alot of friends and had alot of entertaining conversations while in xp pts, more in XI cause of the /rest down time, but even in 1.0 there were some. If/when new classes are implemented I'd like to go out and grind them oldschool, if the xp rewards are there. I don't know what the level diff would have to be between the pt and the mobs to make it work though, I imagine 10+ to really see good xp/hr.

Like others said though, with fates, leves, and now dungeons providing the absolutely off the rails xp that they do, I don't know that you'll ever be able to convince people that sustained per mob xp can top the big instant gratification numbers they see in those things.

It's like trying to convince a pt in XI that the mobs you can get to chain 70000 for 300xp/mob actually provide better xp/hr than the ones that you can't get past chain 5 but give 700/mob. The big number makes people think they're getting something better even though the actual per hour xp is less, in dunes parties it was often far far less chasing the biggest xp/mob vs. the faster kills.

[Calyanare]

Like others said though, with fates, leves, and now dungeons providing the absolutely off the rails xp that they do, I don't know that you'll ever be able to convince people that sustained per mob xp can top the big instant gratification numbers they see in those things.

The biggest thing that works against XP parties in this game is the respawn rate. In every area I can think of, your chain will be severely limited by the lack of respawns. That, and you need mobs at least 10 levels above your current level to make it worthwhile, and mobs in this game have the same cap as players (you won't find any over level 50). XP party style play should be okay until about level 30ish and then have steeply diminishing returns thereafter. That is, if you can convince anyone to try it in the first place, for the reasons you mentioned.

[Kitru]

That, and you need mobs at least 10 levels above your current level to make it worthwhile

Actually, xp gained from kills is limited based upon your current level compared to the enemy's level such that enemies that are 10 levels higher than you give the same amount of experience as enemies 5 levels above you. The same happens with every single method of xp acquisition in the game (though, because you can't do dungeons or quests above your own level, it really only applies to FATEs and kills).

The way the game is designed, when doing kills for class xp, chocobo xp, or even spiritbonding, you really have to go for quantity rather than quality, a fact that is only made more distinct with the chain bonus. The limiting factors to this are respawn rate, as you already mentioned but also the proximity of high density spawn points. With a large group, your kill speed eclipses the respawn rate of enemies (for those enemies in regions where spawn points are close enough together to make grinding time effective) very quickly, so that you end up either standing around doing nothing for extended periods (which is what happens/happened? with groups camping the mines in North Than) or running to another high density node, assuming there is one. As far as I've seen, the highest number of close proximity (defined as "forming a closed circuit with itself with travel times of less than 10 seconds") high density (6+ enemies within range of a single pull) spawn nodes is 3 (in the back of the various Garlean strongholds). As such, even if your group was wont to move to a new spawn location, you'd either end up spending half of your time running around or having to settle for low density spawn points (e.g. running around the area north of CPS instead of fighting the mines) that provide substantially fewer kills per interval; either way, you're effectively limited on how much xp/min you can gain by just kill grinding.

When I'm kill grinding (choco xp and spiritbonding), I reach equilibrium on the aforementioned 3 close proximity high density spawn nodes with just one other player. The game just doesn't support the open world spawn rates/numbers to make traditional grinding viable. I get the feeling that this was actually an an explicit design decision on the part of the devs insofar as the did not want to have traditional grinding be a particularly effective method of gaining xp and fully intended FATE grinding to be the replacement playstyle for it (it follows a relatively similar model where you're running around with a group in the open world killing stuff together on a relatively constant basis) since it's (nominally) less repetitive and more varied.

Personally, I've never been fond of kill grinding in any game. It gets really boring really quickly, especially when you end up doing the same enemies over and over again so that you're really just doing it all by rote. I've always preferred it when dungeon grinding is the most efficient leveling path, not only because dungeons are, in my eyes, more fun but because they also teach people how to actually play their characters (e.g. proper rotations because they're not simply hiding amongst a slew of other DPS, dodging red zones, target priority and focus targeting on multi-target pulls), which is what the devs did with 2.1.

A reasonable compromise between the desire for old school grinding and the devs' desire to have leveling experiences be more goal/quest/content driven would be for the devs to mix up the guildhests a bit and add more that emulate the traditional grinding mindset (there are a few that do this already but not many) instead of each having a specific new type of mechanic to introduce to players so that those players that want to have non-dungeon "real" group based experiences could hest-grind instead of dungeon-grind.

[Enfarious]

wow 1000 chars ...

If the xp is reached at 5 levels then your target mobs should be 6~7 levels above your highest pt member to ensure always receiving maximum xp/kill even after a level is gained.

The "best" way to use the present system in a full party, this also goes for spiritbonding and chocoraising, is to have your full party for the bonuses, spread out as 2~4 groups, depending on the makeup of the pt, so that you each have your own "killzone". You will all gain the xp from one another's kills without completely depleting the mobs in your "killzone". Optimally mobs 6~7 levels above your highest level pt member in your "killzone" should be on a spawn cycle that makes it so that as you kill the last one the first has just respawned, your other "splinter" groups kills should sync so that you run an infinite chain. This would work best between levels 35 and 45 I'd think in the beastmen strongholds, I con't think of many places with mob concentrations comparable, but then I more or less ignore mobs as I go from A to B these days. There's probably many many other places that would work equally well.

@Kit, I can only assume that your kill speed comparison for SBing and Choco xp is with you as a 50, and if your with another player, also a 50. At which point your killspeeds really don't compare to a leveling xp groups kill speeds. There gear won't be anywhere near yours, they don't have all of the abilities, and they don't have the raw stats. What a single 50 can drop in <10 seconds takes a 45 30 seconds, so spawn rates and "killzones" will change significantly.

[Kitru]

wow 1000 chars ...

Seriously. If you can edit around it, what's the point of having it in the first place?

If the xp is reached at 5 levels then your target mobs should be 6~7 levels above your highest pt member to ensure always receiving maximum xp/kill even after a level is gained.

I'm not sure if it's 5 levels exactly. I know that for FATEs, you actually end up getting the same xp for a FATE 2-3 levels above you compared to a FATE 5+ levels above you, so, presumably, it's a similar construct for kill xp as well.

@Kit, I can only assume that your kill speed comparison for SBing and Choco xp is with you as a 50, and if your with another player, also a 50. At which point your killspeeds really don't compare to a leveling xp groups kill speeds. There gear won't be anywhere near yours, they don't have all of the abilities, and they don't have the raw stats. What a single 50 can drop in <10 seconds takes a 45 30 seconds, so spawn rates and "killzones" will change significantly.

That's true. Hadn't considered that, especially given that you're talking about fighting enemies of a substantially higher level. As I said before, never really been fond of straight grinding so it's not something I really give a lot of thought to optimizing.

[IONIC]

I know what you mean white having leveling parties, I also find myself seeking the nostalgia factor of FFXI.

I get my fix from FATE parties. To me each FATE seems like 1 or 2 mobs in FFXI.