Grand Company leves are extremely boring

[AngryNixon]

That's it really. They're boring and tedious. I do them often and every time I do my only thought is to try to do 10 but I only ever make it part of the way before logging out and not wanting to log back in.

Standing around and running the clock is not enjoyable for me. I know how to "cheat" the system by spam abandoning them until the shorter ones come up but that does not fix the larger issue.

I don't speak for anyone else I speak only for myself but I do not understand how standing around and waiting for 10+ minutes for a timer to end can be construed as enjoyable.

In order that this not be a complaint without any suggestion of a solution (because I'm a game designer that should know the answers to the problems I perceive apparently) I suggest removing/restructuring all the GC leves that involve being forced to wait out a timer and replace them with leves where the objective is not on a fixed timer and involves doing something and not simply waiting out the clock.

Thanks for reading.

[Fated]

The only one I enjoy is the Sergeant one (/poke mobs then kill for Ul'dah). The "Defeat all Enemies" and "Protect NPC who stands around doing nothing for 15 minutes" are tedious.

[Estellios]

I wouldn't mind the kill race one if you could somehow end it early if you meet the quota ahead of time.

IMO the defense one is the most exciting but it is the easiest one to fail if you get unlucky with enemy waves. I wouldn't mind if the number of attacking enemies was limited at 1 or two but they attacked more frequently. Also would be nice if it didn't last as long as it did or if there also was a way to finish it early. I also feel difficulty and "extra credit" rewards should be larger so they feel more worth pursuing on the chance that they do let us finish them ahead of time.

(Also I would love some group Company Leves, perhaps separate from the current ones so they can be balanced accordingly)

[Rane]

I've never done a leve that I didn't find boring. I really don't want that to be true, but it is.

Well, I guess I found the system interesting for the first few days I played the game, but levequests quickly became repetitive. Once I realized that they strip an MMO of all the elements I enjoy most--story, exploration, and a feeling that what I'm doing is actually occurring in the world--I really began to actively dislike them.

I give the development team credit for making Grand Company leves different from the incredibly repetitive "templates" that all other leves follow. However, I agree with all of you that waiting on the timer gets tedious. As boring as regular leves are, you can at least race to finish them in the shortest time possible. I find that even though the GC leves feel slightly more dynamic than regular leves, I don't want to initiate them because I know I'm going to be locked into fifteen minutes of killing wave after wave of enemies, with a very minor reward at the end.

I'm happy I didn't know how much I would end up disliking leves back when I first started playing FFXIV. At release, the game's vision was for leves to be THE content of XIV, at least as far as groups were concerned. It seemed like the game's creators were interested in adding new content, but wanted to shoehorn it into the guildleve structure. Yoshida's announcement last summer that XIV's new development vision no longer centered on leves really saved the game for me.

[Fated]

A guildleve is simply an instance. All the Tanaka team ever said was that they can create instanced content structured in the form of a guildleve. It'd probably be no different than entering an instanced dungeon and fighting bosses. Obviously the in game examples clearly show a poor initial effort, but, they never had any kind of prolonged opportunity to illustrate just what they were talking about (just like many other things in this game).

[Jinrya-Geki]

It's not just the leve's, it's the missions too. It's like CoP... get your butt whooped, then find out trivial information that you already knew because it's already been repeated in the last few scenes in previous missions.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I was disappointed that hamlet defense was delayed (again), because it meant that I'd have to grind out seals in 1.21 for chocobo armors, rank ups, new gears, etc using the current methods (e.g these boring leves and/or the camped supply/provision missions)

The mere thought of how many seals I'm going to have to get by doing these leves is enough to make me want to drown my chocobo and burn down the GC HQ.

[elreed]

nice you brought it out, i was about to post something about those leves, theres only 2 types of leves in limsa company "defeat as many as you can" and "protect the scholar", well at least the first one gives a lot more exp than any leve, well dunesfolk gives good amount, but these one give a lot especially for low levels and of course u dont needto go to town to get it, the only thing that i have against those leves is that are really boring and yeah i skip the scholar one to get the other one, i really hope they change this leves into something more interesting like if u're the bodyguard of the scholar he needs to be moving gathering stuff, make more spawn and feel like you're about to lose because all the action u need to do, i would prefer for the other one to be more like assaults missions, like go to the stronghold and bring this from this mobs and have boss battles like the one in broken water that after defeating certain mobs a big frog spawns, if u're at the stronghold well maybe an officer spawns at the end to kill you, i dont know but they need to do this more interesting and we need more company leves not just 2.

[Fated]

nice you brought it out, i was about to post something about those leves, theres only 2 types of leves in limsa company "defeat as many as you can" and "protect the scholar", ....... i dont know but they need to do this more interesting and we need more company leves not just 2.

The third grand company leve opens up when you become a Sergeant. It's 10x better than the other two because it can be finished very quickly.

[BlaiseLallaise]

Although I agree that the tedium of the clock is annoying at best, has anyone bothered to use the GC leves to XP? I decided to grind leves to rank up while on my lv 40 Lancer. I was shocked at the XP I was raking in from killing the mobs. It was much more than a typical leve mob, maybe double or more. This, I believe, is a hidden bonus to the GC leves which makes going the entire 15 minutes worthwhile, especially on the 'kill as many as you can' leves. Granted, the 'defense' leves needs a few more mobs, but the point stands. Can't wait to see that 3rd leve now that I am Sergeant.