Petition against Level Sync

[Chardrizard]

im staring to think Rokien is the true face of gifthorse

Giftforce was more intelligent. While he doesnt like many ideas of FFXIV, he came with logical reasoning, not just "Oh well, i dont like it, so it should go away"

[KaplanHomahru]

I disagree with you OP, I think level sync would be a nice addition. I also think you are stupid for assuming 2 people on the same server will have the EXACT SAME experiences when trying to level up. The whole 'I had no problems, so you shouldn't either' line was a bit ridiculous.

[ChiefCurrahee]

you are a level 46 war, you see there are two parties shouting. One is a level 25 party, the other is a level 45+ party. The level 25 party is at 7/8 people, the 45 one is at 4/8. What one will you choose?

Do you really wanna re-level your levels?

Join the level 45+ PT.

You are a level 39 War and two parties are shouting. one is a level 25 PT, the other is a 45+ PT. The lv 25 party is 7/8, the 45 one you can't join. What will you do?

Do you really wanna not-level your levels?

[Resheph]

There just aren't even enough levels between 1 and 50 to even warrant a system like level sync. Do we need something more than Leves vs PL? Yes. Level sync maybe isn't the best solution.

[Dragon]

Don't think for one second you could've escaped the Ronfuare level synch parties by refusing to use the level synch option.

You are completely full of shit. I refused level sync all the time, and other people I know did also.

Once people found out about it (and similar level synch exploits) all other forms of XP vanished. Just like getting party in one of the old conquest areas together after the release of TOAU.

Maybe on your server, but of all the servers I've been to (Fairy, Sylph, Remora, Diabolos, and Phoenix), XP was just fine. Level Sync was nowhere near as abused as some here claim it to be, and most people eventually learned that Lv.Sync wasn't necessarily the best option outside of certain ranges.

I tried to take a party to Lufaise meadows for some fly action for nostalgia's sake. I want to say it was a level 70-ish group. Anyway, the Ninja couldn't get in because he hadn't touched the CoP content. We got brave and switched gears, decided to try Xarcabard for some demons. Oh God talk about a mistake. Within 6 months TOAU had done it's damage, only half the party had sneak and invis, and they were also the only ones that could perform simple tasks like following the leader and not aggroing everything in sight. Catastrophic failure doesn't even begin to describe it.

Now you're blaming Level Sync for the problems that may have possibly been at the fault of an expansion pack, and I say possibly because ToAU didn't start until you were Lv.55, which clearly gave plenty of time for people to learn about RoZ/CoP zones.

If you turned your back on conquest areas for toau zones and never looked back, and did the same thing with wotg and level synch you probably don't realize how those of us that liked the challenge of conquering the old RoZ/CoP zones felt when we'd walk through King Ranperre's tomb and not find a single party killing the insanely easy bats that lie down there. Cape Terrigan and Bibiki Bay devoid of life, no one going to East/Western Altepa because no one could be bothered to make the trek to pick up the apropriate teleport crystal. Too hard. Not worth the effort. Talking to an old friend of the good times, reminiscing about skill chains and magic bursts and hearing a TOAU baby utter the phrase, "I don't like doing SC, it's too hard." In the span of 2 patches our game was ripped from under us, gutted and turned into an empty husk of it's former self, even though the option to play the way we used to still exists to this day. Why?

Oh please. FFXI was never gutted until Abyssea.

Point blank, the vast majority of people are going to take the path of least resistance. We were even doing it before CoP and didn't even realize it. And once an easier way was found, people abandoned the more challenging routes. Sure there were some of us that pined for the glory days, and once in a while you could get a group to try something old school. But as time went by that section of the population got smaller and smaller, whether it was because we didn't like the new things and quit or because we got tired of trying to go against the grain and were forced to flow with the tide. Just try it if you don't believe me, reactivate your FFXI account or if you can't start a new one and just TRY leveling the way it was done before level synch, colibri in TOAU and Ronfuare (S), Field of Valor missions, and now Abbyssea which has even taken away ALL of that or so I've heard. You won't get passed level 10.

All that being said, Firon is probably right. The reason level synch destroyed FFXI was because from lvl 1 through 75 the xp cap was 200 a kill (before chains). Most groups up to 55-ish didn't see more than a chain 5, which was easily obtainable on worms. Which meant you could get the same XP/hr @ qufim as you could in any other zone with less risk and less travel time until you hit the TOAU areas with warps straight to the XP camps and 100+ chain counts. And once you got to the TOAU areas, it was Colibri until you were so sick of pink things just seeing the color would make you want to stab a kitten and kick a puppy. But in a game where xp/hr varies per level isntead of being unilaterally capped across the board until nearly end game it should be less of an issue. The fact that it destroyed one game doesn't mean that I think the idea can't work, though I will say I don't think it should've been so beneficial to the people synching down 20 levels.

Wow, that post turned out a LOT longer than I wanted it to.

FFXI was saved by Level Sync as it actually allowed veterans to play with newbies. ToAU actually saved FFXI by making melees more important than just mere sacrifices for the BLM bursts. WotG made the game interesting by introducing conquest and making older zones reusable. And all of these had certain level requirements (save for Lv.Sync, which still had a silent requirement), Abyssea was the only thing that didn't, and it'd have been fine if there were a high-level requirement for it.

P.S. ToAU was all about colibri? How about how pre-ToAU endgame grinding was all about... skeletons and requiring BLMs to be in every party for manabursts while melee DPS were just sacrificial meat?

[Levian]

You are completely full of shit. I refused level sync all the time, and other people I know did also.

My my, such venom and spite...clearly you and I have two widely varied opinions of the same game. Not quoting all of that, too long. But I'll start at the top and work my way down.

I refused to synch for a while, aside from a few rare occasions with shellmates. I'd say WotG is when things got extreme. Note that I specified Ronfuare synch parties, as in Ronfuare (S). I spent the majority of my FFXI playtime on Remora, among the first to migrate over when the server was put up actually, until it was recently merged with Leviathan. If you spent any time there about halfway through WotG you know as well as I do this next paragraph is spot on...

The occasional level range? This is a lovely trip down memory lane actually, the last time I played was Bard. We did worms in Qufim from 20-36, with some mandragoras in Yuhtunga Jungle intermittantly from 27-36 though I promise you that was 2 groups at best. Then it was off to Ronfuare (S) for those darling pink birdies, until 55 when you went to toau for more pink birdies until you hit 75 and merit off of yes, more pink birdies. That was IT. No Garliage citadel, Crawler's Nest, Yhoater jungle, East/West Altepa. You get the picture.

The third section you quoted there was actually intended to pin the blame for said issues on ToAU. Perhaps I should've been a little more clear, but that IS where things began to slide down that slippery slope of catering to the more casual crowd. As far as precisely when it was gutted clearly we have differing views. For me it started with ToAU and ended with Abbyssea.

I ask you this, if ToAU saved FFXI, why then did it's population spike at the release, then quickly drop back down below where it had settled prior to it's release? The same can be said for WotG. Granted they were updates and population spikes are expected. But the game continued to decline after the spikes petered out, and fell to levels below where it was before BOTH of those releases. Can you say with a straight face that you know for SURE had ToAU and WotG not come out, that the game would be dead by now?

For every player you can personally name that was brought in by one of those updates, I can name one that left. I'm not saying that the game would still be alive had nothing been done, but I'm not going to laud the updates as saviors of a dying game either. I can probably still dig up the MMO population graphs for comparison if you need me to backup this statement, but they hardly saved anything and were more like putting a comatose patient on life support.

And your last statement? I could have sworn I made it clear that SOME of us liked the old SC/MB playstyle. I liked my BLMs, and didn't find it fair that they were sitting on the sidelines, busting their @$$ to solo XP while the rest of us left them in the dust until we needed them again @ 75. Was the old way perfect? No, clearly melee DD needed some tweaking, and perhaps we needed some more options for closing Skillchains so womething other than BLM got that first seat in the party. Was the answer to obliterate the art of Skillchains in the process? I didn't, and still don't think so.

Edit: Perhaps it is unfair to say level synch destroyed the game as there were a myriad of factors involved, but it did add yet another thing that could be, and certainly was, exploited to death.

[Dragon]

My my, such venom and spite...clearly you and I have two widely varied opinions of the same game. Not quoting all of that, too long. But I'll start at the top and work my way down.

I refused to synch for a while, aside from a few rare occasions with shellmates. I'd say WotG is when things got extreme. Note that I specified Ronfuare synch parties, as in Ronfuare (S). I spent the majority of my FFXI playtime on Remora, among the first to migrate over when the server was put up actually, until it was recently merged with Leviathan. If you spent any time there about halfway through WotG you know as well as I do this next paragraph is spot on...

The occasional level range? This is a lovely trip down memory lane actually, the last time I played was Bard. We did worms in Qufim from 20-36, with some mandragoras in Yuhtunga Jungle intermittantly from 27-36 though I promise you that was 2 groups at best. Then it was off to Ronfuare (S) for those darling pink birdies, until 55 when you went to toau for more pink birdies until you hit 75 and merit off of yes, more pink birdies. That was IT. No Garliage citadel, Crawler's Nest, Yhoater jungle, East/West Altepa. You get the picture.

Well no wonder why Remora was a complete backwards server.

The third section you quoted there was actually intended to pin the blame for said issues on ToAU. Perhaps I should've been a little more clear, but that IS where things began to slide down that slippery slope of catering to the more casual crowd. As far as precisely when it was gutted clearly we have differing views. For me it started with ToAU and ended with Abbyssea.

ToAU didn't cater to the casuals or it wouldn't have had a Leveling requirement of +55, it wasn't something you could just enjoy right as you got into the game. It was about giving options to do different things.

I ask you this, if ToAU saved FFXI, why then did it's population spike at the release, then quickly drop back down below where it had settled prior to it's release? The same can be said for WotG. Granted they were updates and population spikes are expected. But the game continued to decline after the spikes petered out, and fell to levels below where it was before BOTH of those releases. Can you say with a straight face that you know for SURE had ToAU and WotG not come out, that the game would be dead by now?

The game was already experiencing population decline long before ToAU.

For every player you can personally name that was brought in by one of those updates, I can name one that left. I'm not saying that the game would still be alive had nothing been done, but I'm not going to laud the updates as saviors of a dying game either. I can probably still dig up the MMO population graphs for comparison if you need me to backup this statement, but they hardly saved anything and were more like putting a comatose patient on life support.

Graphs can be used to construe anything.

But for the record, I'm not talking about people being brought in by those expansions and their updates - I'm talking about people that were going to permanently leave with the game in the state it was pre-ToAU.

And your last statement? I could have sworn I made it clear that SOME of us liked the old SC/MB playstyle. I liked my BLMs, and didn't find it fair that they were sitting on the sidelines, busting their @$$ to solo XP while the rest of us left them in the dust until we needed them again @ 75. Was the old way perfect? No, clearly melee DD needed some tweaking, and perhaps we needed some more options for closing Skillchains so womething other than BLM got that first seat in the party. Was the answer to obliterate the art of Skillchains in the process? I didn't, and still don't think so.

No one obliterated skillchains in the process. But at least BLM was able to solo through almost anything and still was required at endgame. Not even Paladin nor Ninja had that much an advantage - it was usually possible to only require one or the other, and even then, one was simply able to use RDM/NIN or DRK tanks, but BLM? No alternative whatsoever, period. Even when Scholar came out, BLM was still the ultimate DPS. (And here, I'll give you some credit for admitting it needed some fix.)

But again, ToAU never interfered with anything between 1~55. Nearly every single place from 20 to 55 (Valkurm Dunes also, but that doesn't count because anyone that bothered getting EXP parties pre-Qufim was an idiot) still required sneak and invisible to get around properly and skillchains with magic bursts for higher EXP/HR: Qufim Island, Korroloka Tunnel, Garlaige Citadel, Crawlers' Nest, The Eldieme Necropolis, Quicksand Caves, East/West Altepa, Kuftal Tunnel, and so on.

Perhaps the problem were the Xbox 360 players that came with ToAU since the Xbox 360 player stereotype is typically a FPS fanboi that has no clue about RPG elements.

[Dargoth_Draconia]

There just aren't even enough levels between 1 and 50 to even warrant a system like level sync. Do we need something more than Leves vs PL? Yes. Level sync maybe isn't the best solution.

How can you say that? If I want to play with my friends who are just starting the game and I have all classes capped or close to the cap and I want to play with a friend without PL them because perhaps they want to enjoy this new game you saying that doesn't warrant it? I shouldn't be able to play with them because they have no class close enough for me to play with someone? The point of level sync is the ability to sync up with your friends and be able to tackle leveling or low level content of your choosing. It will not hurt this game in any possible way and will only bolster group play. That alone gives it all the warrant it needs to be implemented.

I'm totally against level sync as well...can't even express how much I'm against it.

People who think it didn't effect FFXI really that much, hence ruined it, have no fucking clue about how it destroyed the whole immersion with the world. On Lvl 20 you knew "ok now it's time to prepare for my departure to Jeuno", On lvl 18 you knew "now I gotta get the items for the SJ quest". On 25 you knew "I need to get to Rank 3 City Missions so I can start my airship pass quest so I can go on lvling in Kazham"...all your way from 1-75 the game was "forcing" you to go into all kinds of areas all over the world and that was how it SHOULD be, then lvl sync came...

BUT, in FFXI it became neccesarry at some point to implement such a system...but only for one stupid reason, cause it was impossible to lvl solo at a reasonable pace. Still it destroyed the world, might sound exaggerating but it did.

When I started FFXI, it took me 1 year to get my first Job to 75(including subjobs etc). You wanna know how many areas I visited in that time for lvling purposes? I remember each and every single one of em.

- Lvl 1-12: Ghelsba Outpost
- Lvl 12-14: La Theine Plateu
- Lvl 14-21: Valkurm Dunes
- Lvl 21-25: Qufim Island
- Lvl 25-28: Yuhtunga Jungle
- Lvl 28-33: Yhoator Jungle
- Lvl 33-37: Garlaige Citadel, Crawlers Nest
- Lvl 37-42: Crawlers Nest, Gustav Tunnel, Eastern Altepa Desert
- Lvl 42-46: Crawlers Nest, Kuftal Tunnel, Boyahda Tree, Western Altepa Desert
- Lvl 46-50: Crawlers Nest, Boyahda Tree, Kuftal Tunnel, Lufaise Meadows
- Lvl 50-52: Crawlers Nest, Cape Terrigan, Boyahda Tree, Quicksand Caves
- Lvl 52-56: Boyahda Tree, Cape Terrigan, Quicksand Caves, Misareux Coast


...and so forth and so on...there are still dozens of other places you could lvl and I have lvld, like Ro'Maeve, Sky, Sea, not to mention the Aht URghan Areas that came later on.

You wanna know how this changed after Lvl sync?

- Lvl 1-20: Start Areas+Valkurm Dunes
- Lvl 20-75: Qufim Island

Sounds awesome, right?

Yeah, now that I think about it, THAT is what I want in FFXIV...have dozens of areas with absolute no meaning to them(even less then they already do). Would make the world feel more alive too. /sarcasm

PS: I remember all the hate threads about people complaining they want to be able to solo efficiently for lvls...well now you got that and for quite some time. Lvling solo through leves is just way too fast(compared to what to do on the way to 50) but PT lvling is faster, so now people complain they want to be able to form PTs with anyone on any lvl, through lvl sync...get your priorities straight...before demanding change over change over change...

20-75 Qufim Island? LOL. Not quite true until way later after level sync was released and it only became that way because travel in FFXI was ridiculous at time to get to any other leveling spot. I remember for a good year after level sync came out all the old areas exploded with activity at least on popular servers though areas like Bibiki bay lost their touch but then again that place lost its touch after Rangers got nerfed anyways.

I do understand your point though, but I am pretty sure FFXIV will not suffer that same fate especially we brand new zones and mob distribution. Also XIV doesn't suffer the from the lack of good mobs to kill to get exp like XI did, in XI you killed the same type of mobs from 1-75 majority of the time because that was just the best think to kill as a group while other types of mobs were too hard or just wasn't worth it. Though there are still some mobs that are easier to kill than others on this game you still find yourself fighting a ton of different mobs to level up. With that said you won't be limited by convenience of camps or convenience of mobs and that nearly fixes that problem right there.

[JakeRoon]

20-75 Qufim Island? LOL. Not quite true until way later after level sync was released and it only became that way because travel in FFXI was ridiculous at time to get to any other leveling spot..

^^ THIS FTW^^

Level syc was not the problem, the problem was getting ANYWHERE else wasted half of the playtime of the ppl involed which were relatively few in number as server populations plummeted.

[Jynx]

^^ THIS FTW^^

Level syc was not the problem, the problem was getting ANYWHERE else wasted half of the playtime of the ppl involed which were relatively few in number as server populations plummeted.

Yeah because Colibri camps were such a hike right?

Take my teleport to Wajohm woodlands for 100 seals, walk 20 steps....camp. People really overestimate how long it took to actually get around in FFXI, you all pretend like if I wanted to party anywhere that I should have packed a lunch for the long haul.

The only time you "Wasted time" was when someone was a complete idiot and neglected to tell anyone he didn't have the craig they were headed too, or were just generally un-prepared to party. I guess people shouldn't have to actually do stuff to play the game though...right?

Only god can tell me what terrible fate awaits a FFXIV party that no members have Anima for.

"Sorry guys gotta disband we don't have anima, walking 5 minutes outside of Ul'dah is too much stress for me I have to work in 2 hours."