Before you power level noobs

[Lacard]

I agree with this. Though in FFXI I had my fair share of PLing and being PLed. But in XI I NEVER needed it. I am the kind of guy that will figure things out and learn from others. I sure as hell would never pay for it. PLing just makes the idiots get to higher levels and then you wonder why the people you play with sometimes are so bad. In XI I acted as sort of a mentor for new players. I'd give them a small amount of gil and teach them how to play and make more. XI was a tough game to start in and often turned players away. I tried to be the guy who helped people along. In this game (when Im a veteran player, still a bit new) I will act the same way.

[Blossoming]

There will always be bad players in games no matter if they are PLed or not. I have had my fair experience with bad players with certain events and learned to avoid them in the future, I have a friend who has probably only been playing a week and their first 50 was WHM. They were PL'ed a few levels and they did ifrit first time on whm and did better than most people who consider themselves an EG pro with 7/7 weapons on mog/ifrit. Had multiple people in the LS explaining and answering all his questions. The problem I see is alot of "veteran" players not taking the time to explain strats to newcomers and just expect them to know with comments like "meh too much to explain you will figure it out."

[Keith_Dragoon]

I had my Lancer PL'd to 30 when I remade my character and I do just fine in end-game. my Monk was also PL'd to like 36 and I do a damn great job as a Monk. I leveled my Conjurer 1-50 in grind parties and low man leves, I am no better on White Mage then I am on Dragoon or Monk.

In XI I was a party whore, I knew damn near EVERYONE on my server due to me always being in parties, always helping on missions and others event shouts. I have run accross people who were completely trash at their jobs who weren't PL'd and those who were untouchable who were PL'd. Learning your job takes something called common sense and reading comprehension, all your skills have a description that tells you what they do, how they can be combo'd and the direction you use them from. If you combine that information with common sense you can play a job just fine.

I have a friend who plays MMOs with me, he lacks the common sense but can read ok I guess. In most games we got to max level grinding it out and without me around shouldering his fail he would be a terrible player. I have tried to teach him basic things but he never catches on, I direct him to online guides and discussions on his class, nothing helps.

Example: He played SWTOR with me, I was a Commando Trooper(dps/heals) and he was a Jedi Shadow(dps/tank). after getting his specialization (10) he was still running around using level one skills at 15, using the lightsaber from the starting story mission and wondering why he died so much. I told him he needed to upgrade his skills, open his inventory and open the bag containing his Shadow gear and equip it. It took him about 35 minutes to open the bag and equip the 2 pieces of gear inside of it.

TL;DR: Bad players will be bad regardless of their upbringing.

[Lacard]

I see PLing as an "easy way out". it makes challenging battles or even battles that are normal, even more easy. And to the point, no one has to try. Granted, I'm still fairly new to FFXIV even though I've had it for a while (kind of on and off). In FFXI, if there was a PL, the tank didn't have to learn to keep hate, the WHM didn't have to learn restraint and how to balance MP, The Puller didn't have to be careful with links, and so on. In some rare cases, parties were made up of nothing but random classes, no healer and relied heavily on the PL. Didnt always work as planned. Now I agree that it takes common sense to use your character effectively and some research too. (I did a lot of research to play a THF well with the right gear.) And PL isn't such a horrible thing, but to me it feels like people being lazy. And if you're PLed all the time, then you can become "spoiled". I saw a lot of that in FFXI, I would actually turn down invites because people would think that if they had a PL, they could take on anything and not need a decent party set up. I just think people should not rely on PLing too much.

[Keith_Dragoon]

I see PLing as an "easy way out". it makes challenging battles or even battles that are normal, even more easy. And to the point, no one has to try. Granted, I'm still fairly new to FFXIV even though I've had it for a while (kind of on and off). In FFXI, if there was a PL, the tank didn't have to learn to keep hate, the WHM didn't have to learn restraint and how to balance MP, The Puller didn't have to be careful with links, and so on. In some rare cases, parties were made up of nothing but random classes, no healer and relied heavily on the PL. Didnt always work as planned. Now I agree that it takes common sense to use your character effectively and some research too. (I did a lot of research to play a THF well with the right gear.) And PL isn't such a horrible thing, but to me it feels like people being lazy. And if you're PLed all the time, then you can become "spoiled". I saw a lot of that in FFXI, I would actually turn down invites because people would think that if they had a PL, they could take on anything and not need a decent party set up. I just think people should not rely on PLing too much.

This is all true but in FFXI leveling content was equally spread out you just needed people who could learn from their mistakes and work as a team. In FFXIV the leveling is mostly solo until 30 where you grab seemingly random classes and pull/aoe mobs until 50. When leveling Monk in groups I might aswell been PL'd because i barely got to hit a mob before the mage/archer storm killed them. Leveling has no structure its just the same with and without a PL only difference is it goes from 2-3 people doing all the work to just 1 person doing all the work.

There is little learning involved in XIV's parties which is unfortunate and hopefully fixed one day. When leveling conjurer I went 1-50 playing the class like a BLM because there was nothing but Conjurers seeking and we just stonara/aerora everything down in seconds over and over until 50. How does this teach me how to heal CC/AV/Moogle/Ifrit/Garuda/DH?

[Lacard]

I agree. Though I had no idea the battle system was so poorly constructed for parties. How does one fight in a coordinated manner? Is it just plain do whatever until it's dead? It seems kind of all over the place. Same goes for small things I have done in this game (like behests). Just seems really sloppy.

[Masamune1004]

I agree. Though I had no idea the battle system was so poorly constructed for parties. How does one fight in a coordinated manner? Is it just plain do whatever until it's dead? It seems kind of all over the place. Same goes for small things I have done in this game (like behests). Just seems really sloppy.

Welcome to FFXIV!

[Keith_Dragoon]

I agree. Though I had no idea the battle system was so poorly constructed for parties. How does one fight in a coordinated manner? Is it just plain do whatever until it's dead? It seems kind of all over the place. Same goes for small things I have done in this game (like behests). Just seems really sloppy.

There is none until End Game, all parties consist of agroing as much as possible within a undefined limit (until party suffers lots of deaths or wipes) and then proceed to slaughter said mobs in a chaotic flash of magic, arrows and maybe a few hits from a melee or 2. most mobs last less then 10 secs and are pulled by the 3s-6s and sometimes more depending on level and ammount of mages in group and mob repops.

I JUST got out a party on my 19 MRD and all I did was run around voking mobs linking them then bringing them to a central location and our thms and conjs nuked them in 2 shots, repeat until 25. I felt totally useless cept for the few times I was able to pull a mob away from aoe and solo it down on the side.

[Teia]

When leveling Monk in groups I might aswell been PL'd because i barely got to hit a mob before the mage/archer storm killed them.

When I was leveling Monk 40+, the party decided to go to Natalan, which lags me unfathomably badly. The end result was that I'd routinely target a mob and try to engage it, only to discover it was already dead. Like you, I might as well have been PLed just based on how little I actually contributed—not that I'd have fared better even if I wasn't lagging, since the BLMs did most of the killing anyway.

Then again I don't really use MNK for much outside of running around town because of Fists of Wind. But I'm reasonably confident that if the situation called for it, I could pick it up and play it competently in short order.

[Keith_Dragoon]

When I was leveling Monk 40+, the party decided to go to Natalan, which lags me unfathomably badly. The end result was that I'd routinely target a mob and try to engage it, only to discover it was already dead. Like you, I might as well have been PLed just based on how little I actually contributed—not that I'd have fared better even if I wasn't lagging, since the BLMs did most of the killing anyway.

Then again I don't really use MNK for much outside of running around town because of Fists of Wind. But I'm reasonably confident that if the situation called for it, I could pick it up and play it competently in short order.

I was puller in my Natalan party cause that was only way i could land a hit on stuff. I pulled and before I got back to camp BLMs had already killed what I pulled and we continued this until 50. I learned how to run around agroing stuff if that helps in end-game.

@Yuri: again those people would have been lolDDs with or without PL. Most of what you posted about the abilities fall within the common sense category.

Example: A friend of mine whose character was shipped off to Ragnarok remade another one on Hyperion. I PL'd him to like 36ish and that was higher then his first character ever was. Him and his fiance hit 50 while I was out of town, he did Ifrit with us last night for his first time. He listened to the run down, and ran 2 flawless fights, never got hit once outside of his blowback move.

After he left we replaced him with a random who was claiming to be a Ifrit Vet, came in start trying to call the shots (full LS run) and in the end he died about 3-4 times while NOBODY else was hit by anything. He lacked common sense and cooperation. My friend on the other hand had this and even though he was PL'd over halfway to cap he performed better then most at his job, using the right skills at the right time, stacking buffs and comboing all which you claim can only be done by people who don't PL.

Bad player will always be bad regardless of the method they choose to level.