What are your plans for leveling?

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Just because there is new management, doesn't mean they are going to dump all the work and classes ready or waiting so far.

They won't dump it but they'll put things on hold. They need to figure out what they want to do and what direction they want to take the game. Because you're not playing the game right now I'll explain a couple of things that is an issue with the game currently.

-The game is (for better or worse) reverting back to how it was in FFXI. That is, rewarding the LS, punishing the "soloer" or casual players. It's very subtle because the game IS casual friendly in the sense that you're not frustrated with "zero" progress. But where the similarities are drawn is how richly rewarded those in LS, especially active and strong LS, are and how quickly they can progress. They progress at a pace that's actually alarming because the game hasn't been out that long yet and people have already reached rank caps on not just one class, but multiple classes, as many as 3 "battle" and 3 crafting classes. That is unheard of even in "easy" games like WoW (when it was first released)

This is a problem that SE has agreed should be corrected before PS3 release. But the cats are out of the bag and I'm not sure how they're going to "fix" this.

-Economy is near dead. Gil is flowing too quickly into the game and not leaving it fast enough. So much so that RMT is stymied (yay) but economy is just not existing (boo) When players get to a point that the only thing selling are stuff for holiday events and frilly-moe outfits and coupled with the first point (above) where players can just work in groups and not have to buy proper gear ... Houston, we have a problem.

SE, again, has recognized this as an issue, but even the JP players are getting restless about this and when SE is going to actually address it is up in the air after the recent management changes.

EVERYTHING in this game is in limbo at this point. There's even a slim chance that SE may just scrap FFXIV altogether (and it's not like players can complain since no one has paid a single cent in subscription fees yet)

[jenova_9]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

sigh.... the solutions are simple but the problem is that SE overcomplicates and overexaggerates the situation, so they lose focus on what needs to be done and they waste more time talking while keeping the people waiting, and the result being they will lose more money and reputation.


Putting things on hold is one of the biggest errors they have made. Withholding content makes it look like a much smaller and incomplete mmorpg. That's the mistake Sega did with Phantasy Star Universe and many gave up after the first two months.

If it works, put it in there, and fix it if any problems arise, mew. They will have to face those unexpected problems eventually so why not fill FFXIV with all the ready content already instead of holding off on content that will possibly need rebalancing anyway? At least that would give players more war/magic classes to level instead of running out of classes they wanna level.

The other error is staying too close to tradition. One of the things placing economy and crafting above adventuring and fun. If their most popular single player final fantasies had those things, hardly anyone would want to keep playing,
it works in mmorpgs because it's become a trend, but it's still tediously done. Crafting should take less time, be more rewarding, and people should be able to buy what they want from NPCs, not other players necessarily. If NPC manage buying and selling of stuff, people can't sell things too high, and people won't pay for things more than they're worth.

Laying the economy on players laps is allowing corruption to take over, and that defeats any chance of getting more people to subscribe.
The economy would again result in only benefitting the few.

The other error was placing crafting in the role of classes. That really degrading the quests and making them too easy and boring and stuff. There are more crafting classes then there are Magic classes! That's just miffed up. Crafting could be there but they don't need to be promoted to "Class"/job based roles.

If they give up and cancel FFXIV, then that further proves SE is being too incompetent and foolish with handling this properly.
They are talking to the wrong advisors and stuff or leading themselves in wrong directions.

Maybe this new management will think smart and act fast, but we have to see how they will fix this.

[awesomeOmnislashing]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

CRP,TAN,WVR,ALC,BTN,CON

CRP / TAN / WVR first, then go and level my battlecraft

CONJ, probably going to get THM for some spells as well.

almost 10 on all my crafters now, or should be after this round of leves. Looking to be able to craft/repair my outfits for leveling up. I find getting the right crystals for all of the different crafts is hard.

I'm also hoping to see the bard come into play soon. Was definitely my favorite class in FFXI. Although with all this samurai talk, maybe I can find a stylish use for my Usagi Kabuto. ^^!

I am year of the rabbit, after all.

[Freelancer]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Current plan.

Get ARM to 50 with its 3 subs TAN/WVR/GLD to 25-35

Get GLA to 50 with its 3 subs BSM/CON/THM to 25-37

Maybe play ALC a bit, incase SE throws me a curve ball like the bladed lantern shield again...

[Luna Flower]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Current plan.

Get ARM to 50 with its 3 subs TAN/WVR/GLD to 25-35

Get GLA to 50 with its 3 subs BSM/CON/THM to 25-37

Maybe play ALC a bit, incase SE throws me a curve ball like the bladed lantern shield again...

ALC is so nice I decided im taking ALC,FSH,and CUL to 50 as my 3 main crafts!!

[Maju]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

-The game is (for better or worse) reverting back to how it was in FFXI. That is, rewarding the LS, punishing the "soloer" or casual players. It's very subtle because the game IS casual friendly in the sense that you're not frustrated with "zero" progress. But where the similarities are drawn is how richly rewarded those in LS, especially active and strong LS, are and how quickly they can progress. They progress at a pace that's actually alarming because the game hasn't been out that long yet and people have already reached rank caps on not just one class, but multiple classes, as many as 3 "battle" and 3 crafting classes. That is unheard of even in "easy" games like WoW (when it was first released)

Are you referring to mass linking of high-yield guildleves? It's definitely a problem for several reasons: 1) Leves offer really bad gameplay (targeting sucks, mobs die too fast relative to their offensive power, etc, etc) and are not what you want to have as your main leveling mechanism. 2) It incentivizes gaming, if not exploiting, the system in a way that was not intended. 3) Only an organized group of players such as an active LS or a set party can expect to do it properly. If only my LS wasn't almost completely dead... oh well, I'm so inactive I'm actually contributing to the problem myself.

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Are you referring to mass linking of high-yield guildleves? It's definitely a problem for several reasons: 1) Leves offer really bad gameplay (targeting sucks, mobs die too fast relative to their offensive power, etc, etc) and are not what you want to have as your main leveling mechanism. 2) It incentivizes gaming, if not exploiting, the system in a way that was not intended. 3) Only an organized group of players such as an active LS or a set party can expect to do it properly. If only my LS wasn't almost completely dead... oh well, I'm so inactive I'm actually contributing to the problem myself.

Maju, I agree with every single one of your points. It's exactly what I was thinking. People think that's the "appropriate" way to use the leve system. It's not. It's bugged (because I've already written numerous detailed reports to SE's Bug Reporting system on this in just the past week) with certain "awarding" mechanics and leve linking is an exploitation in the current form rather than a proper reward system.

Behest is the only game in town for "casual" and small-LS/friends in order to progress meaningfully. Even then, this is also random and subject to player honesty (I've seen R32-35 players inserting themselves into R20 Behest in order to "screw with others" and they do it on purpose knowing the SP rate goes into gutter for all)

[awesomeOmnislashing]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

At the moment ( and low level) I feel its more entertaining to level up crafts and gathering classes than to be working on a battle class. The latter seems pretty boring, and also dependent on the former, so I don't care for it much at the moment.

crafting/gathering until I'm sick of it or they change up fighting grinds. I am sure big things are coming, but right now if you aren't into crafting... I feel bad for you.

then again, battle leves are a great way to supplement your cash if you find yourself in a bind ^^

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

At the moment ( and low level) I feel its more entertaining to level up crafts and gathering classes than to be working on a battle class. The latter seems pretty boring, and also dependent on the former, so I don't care for it much at the moment.

crafting/gathering until I'm sick of it or they change up fighting grinds. I am sure big things are coming, but right now if you aren't into crafting... I feel bad for you.

then again, battle leves are a great way to supplement your cash if you find yourself in a bind ^^

Crafting is basically the only way to progress Physical ranks which enables you to do battlecrafts better and efficiently ... then at around R35-40, you have to seek out other players to leve link and/or do behests because if you don't level yourself like mayo (i.e., level all classes together) you won't be able to equip yourself with the best spells and abilities cross-class to augment any one class you would like to focus on.

Group work eliminates some of the need to bother leveling up other classes but you have to ask yourself if that's really being a bonus to other players (esp in your LS/group) or an impediment.

I think my plan for now is to rank GLA to 30 and then hit the pause button to get CRP, TAN, WVR, BSM and ARM to 30 and ALC to at least 25. I'm gonna ignore CUL and GLD atm since they have marginal benefits and I'll just rely on the community at large for repairs on weapons and accessories (or an LS mate who is very lax on leveling his GLD but insists he wants it to hit 50)

I'm gonna level MRD alongside two buddies (but they're both casual, so it's not important for me) and if they get caught up to my PGL, I'll switch focus then. But my main will still be GLA and gonna take it up independently.

Hint: If you are ARC or LNC ... you will find yourself needing to level more classes than any other because your abilities within the two classes are useful ONLY to your class. If you are any of the other combat & magic classes, you can totally ignore ARC and LNC because you don't miss anything from those and can get by quite handily without those abilities. Unless they strengthen accuracy/evasion dynamics and make enmity issues more prominent for melee classes (it's already an issue for THAU/CON) then it's not important to get ARC & LNC abilities.

[awesomeOmnislashing]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Isn't there still a problem with rank points and having more than one class at a high level? My friend has decided to do only archer for this reason, but I am not sure how serious the problem is 0.o

you see though!? Having it necessary for everyone to be crafters is such a bad idea. Why should someone have to stop being a GLA to switch over and level in a completely different way. Maybe they just have to take away repair stuff. it honestly doesn't seem like such a good idea. Otherwise everyone needs to level like 5 classes.

is soloing really that bad? something tells me you exaggerate how hard it is to solo 1 class without any mixed spells -.-v

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

Isn't there still a problem with rank points and having more than one class at a high level? My friend has decided to do only archer for this reason, but I am not sure how serious the problem is 0.o

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You need to elaborate more.

you see though!? Having it necessary for everyone to be crafters is such a bad idea. Why should someone have to stop being a GLA to switch over and level in a completely different way. Maybe they just have to take away repair stuff. it honestly doesn't seem like such a good idea. Otherwise everyone needs to level like 5 classes.

But why shouldn't they level crafting? In FFXI, many players leveled crafting. I didn't know a single player in that game that didn't participate in something besides leveling his job/subjob. Even if it was fishing or mining. Especially during the Great Inflation, you could not just simply farm mobs to progress in that game. You required food, prism powders, silent oils, etc ... needing to get to exp camps to replace someone who is leaving and then making sure you're able to participate fully in that exp session means you need to be fully prepared. Fully prepared means a lot of money. A lot of money means that farming isn't going to cut it so you had to dibble and dabble with HELM in some measure. FFXIV is no different.

is soloing really that bad? something tells me you exaggerate how hard it is to solo 1 class without any mixed spells -.-v

I dare you to solo a class like MRD without Stoneskin, heals and other support abilities. My guess is that by R25, you're gonna get eaten alive so badly by things that only gives you 30sp and your TNL is gonna be at 25,000 SP (and continue to get larger and larger all the way to 50)

[awesomeOmnislashing]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

I mean, when you get to a certain level with battle classes you get the option to take on leves with guild marks as rewards. When you hit the level, it triggers the game to give you them at random. If you have more classes over a certain level, the distribution of leves can become uneven and leave you without your "main" classes guild mark leves. This might have been addressed in a patch, i'm not sure.

Maybe not MRD, but CON? :3

I'm still not sure if I agree with the idea of interlinking combat and the crafts. They're two totally different game experiences, and in almost every other MMO that I have played, they were completely optional and supplemental to your character. Of course it's optimal to choose to craft and level up at the same time, and I am usually inclined to do so when I play an MMO, but I think that forcing players to do it is... simply asking too much.

Whats the point of having totally different class trees, when we need to dive into all of them to progress? Can't we choose to make our character how we want to play, and if so then why can't I go out and be a god damn healer from 10 to 50 without grinding a fishing, alchemy, carpentry, and possibly weaving and another class JUST so I can make sure I don't pay out my ass for the items and repairs I am going to need. Not to mention, I have to look around for 2 hours just to make that payment. That's another argument altogether though.

for the record: I love fishing, and alchemy. that's some beautiful synergy there

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

I mean, when you get to a certain level with battle classes you get the option to take on leves with guild marks as rewards. When you hit the level, it triggers the game to give you them at random. If you have more classes over a certain level, the distribution of leves can become uneven and leave you without your "main" classes guild mark leves. This might have been addressed in a patch, i'm not sure.

I got 14,000 marks in GLA and 12,000 with PGL. Guess what? I can't spend any because I already bought the stuff I want so I have wait till R30 to get new stuff. Mark gains isn't a problem ... it's rank gains. Especially skill points to gain ranks. It slows down to almost non-progression at 40 and most players (hard core, mind you) AFK and check their characters every hour. Presumably they play FFXI or some other games in the meantime and don't have school or work or other IRL duties to deal with.

Maybe not MRD, but CON? :3

I think I said (maybe in another post) that both CON and THAU are self sufficient and so are the exceptions to the rule. I think it was above the previous post I made.

I'm still not sure if I agree with the idea of interlinking combat and the crafts. They're two totally different game experiences, and in almost every other MMO that I have played, they were completely optional and supplemental to your character. Of course it's optimal to choose to craft and level up at the same time, and I am usually inclined to do so when I play an MMO, but I think that forcing players to do it is... simply asking too much.

Whats the point of having totally different class trees, when we need to dive into all of them to progress? Can't we choose to make our character how we want to play, and if so then why can't I go out and be a god damn healer from 10 to 50 without grinding a fishing, alchemy, carpentry, and possibly weaving and another class JUST so I can make sure I don't pay out my ass for the items and repairs I am going to need. Not to mention, I have to look around for 2 hours just to make that payment. That's another argument altogether though.

for the record: I love fishing, and alchemy. that's some beautiful synergy there

I never said you're required to level a craft. All I'm saying is that crafts are a good and efficient way to get your physical rank up. Players who can devote 8-12 hrs a day to playing this game could just grind and grnid and hop around different classes and gain physical rank that way. For players who can only log on 3 or 4 times a week at 2 hrs each, crafting is a blessing because it allows them a keen sense of their own progression and that enables them to be able to play the game casually and not be forced to feel they HAVE to log on everyday like FFXI did. In that sense, SE took that page out of Blizzard's book and put it in a unique manner in the game. I'm not upset about that.

I'll put up a bigger post later when I have time.

---------- Post added at 12:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 PM ----------

These are some changes I want to see in the game that involves the combat system and battlecraft/faction systems. These are easily implemented and do not require something drastic like nuking the database to “start from scratch” which would just about kill the game.

Scale SP gains from mobs to be more in-line with the scaling attributes of the mobs relative to their rank.

The combat system in FFXIV is a lot more easier to understand than in FFXI (with the exception of Battle Regimens -- but that discussion is not for this post) It is also unique because when you kill a monster, you not only receive the standard experience points that go towards your main, but you receive skill points which increases your rank with a particular skill (or class) and thus “unlocks” better and stronger spells and abilities.

Right now in the game, the attributes of the monster scales very rapidly with rank in comparison to the SP gains you receive from killing the monster. I’ve noticed this with different skills (Conjurer, Gladiator, Marauder and Pugilist) and will try to express this experience into a rough numerical valuation on the averages of the classes and in appropriate relation with my physical rank and gear against a Yellow “even matched” monster (I’m leaving Coblyns out of this because they are currently an anomaly in the game and may be a result of a bug and/or subjected to a future scrutinizing by SE)

Rank || Elapsed Combat Time || SP Awarded

R01-10 || 10s || 300-350 sp
R11-20 || 20s || 250-300 sp
R20-?? || 45s || 125-150 sp

Looking over at anecdotal evidence by respected posters over at Core and other fansites, R30-40 on yellow mobs are about 1 min or thereabouts with about 90-110sp gains. The penalty gets really steep after R20 and either this is an oversight or there is a bug in the game. IF it is intentional, then SE just reversed their policy on making the game more casual friendly compared with FFXI. To rectify the situation, I thought about a few things, including bending the curve downward on monster attribute scaling with the ranks and as well as increasing the curve for SP award.

Note: The current SP reward system was not in place when the game launched. This was a direct result of a subsequent patch in the weeks after launch that replaced the system which awarded skill points randomly during combat and made it an award after killing a monster. This means that it is no longer possible to fight difficult mobs to get SP and then retreat out of combat to avoid death -- activities which ranged classes (Conj, Thau, Arc) used to engage in.

Rank || Elapsed Combat Time || SP Awarded

R01-10 || 10s || 325 sp
R11-20 || 20s || 300 sp
R21-30 || 30s || 275 sp
R31-40 || 40s || 250 sp
R41-50 || 50s || 225 sp

This can be adjusted with level cap extension so that the awards can be appropriately scaled in which top rank monsters at the level cap can never go below 200sp gained on a yellow “even matched” monster. It would be a base in the same way that 100 xp per EM mobs in FFXI used to be. Elapsed combat time can either be shortend or lengthened by making direct adjustments to monster attributes. If they feel a certain mob should be more friendly to melee than magic, they can do that and vice versa. But overall, this combat table should reflect a type of fairness in the game that is missing and also allow for a very real possibility for solo grinding. The rank (TNL) requirements for leveling can also be adjusted if need be.

This table can also become the core value in which it can be applied to all level of difficulties of monsters and even including NM/HNM type of monsters.


Battlecraft/Faction (and to a lesser extent, Fieldcraft) Leves Need Adjusting


Battlecraft Leves seem to fail at evenly distributing SP gains across the range of players, from solo players to large raids. Let me caveat this statement by saying that I do not wish the game to reward solo players to the point that soloing is a better option than grouping up. That is not my intent and I only wish for an appropriate distribution of SP gain and that the system should reward skill and not social networking (SP = skill points and not social points)

First of all, the appropriation system will need some rework. This is basically the system which controls the environment that a player is placed in (Duty Calls) when a leve is activated. Monsters spawned from Leves and Behest should always scale to the players current skill rank (Therefore a warning should be given out before a player activates a Faction or Battlecraft leve that they should be the appropriate skill (or class) much as they already do for leves that reward Guild Marks and should fail to activate those particular leves with players who are currently a Hand or Land skill) Because leves are special this is not an inconvenience to players and anyone who is careless shouldn’t be given limitless opportunities to continue to be careless.

All camps (and Sub Crystals) should be assigned optimal rank ranges. These become the determinant factor in how the appropriation system will activate. Players who exceed the rank range can continue to participate for rewards but should be awarded SP gains at the same rate it is being awarded for grinding blue “easy prey” monsters and will stop awarding SP after a certain threshold. Any player below the rank range will not be allowed to participate and this will help in thwarting power leveling and other types of abuse.

The only camp exceptions here are R1 camps. All leve gains will be fixed at 300 SP per kill and no bonuses will be allowed for groups at these camps. I strongly feel that the low ranks must be equalized and not be open to any type of abuse by either players or RMT. Behest at these camps will also have SP gains fixed up to R12 and the system should encourage players to “leave” the R1 camps to tackle challenges from R10 camps and explore the wider area of Eorzea. To that end, I also think that as long as a player does not have a skill (Combat or Magic) above R15, they should have their anima regenerated at a much higher rate, say twice as fast, than other players. This helps them to seek out new camps and also explore the game a bit and may avoid issues with camp congestions.

For all other camps (sub crystals), the rank ranges are as follows:

R10 Camp (Range Rank 10-15)
R20 Camp (Range Rank 15-25)
R30 Camp (Range Rank 25-35)
R40 Camp (Range Rank 35-45)
R50 Camp (Range Rank 45-55)

Evenly distributing ranked players helps to avoid having high rank players perpetually “leeching” off low rank camps and ruin Behest for everyone and also avoids over-ranked camping on popular grinding areas.

With the appropriate system set, we can talk about leve difficulty adjustments. I propose the following set for how leve linking and difficulty should work. Note SP gain is set the same because bonuses will affect how much you will receive. Also note that there is a penalty for not only overgrouping but also undergrouping. This is to avoid a situation where someone finds a way to “exploit” against certain monsters and take advantage of leve linking bonuses and also impose a small “tax” to keep players from over-reaching. This will eliminate the need for weekly rank caps which was a terrible idea anyway. The penalty for “overpowering” leves reduces when groups become larger which makes large groups “slightly more” attractive which is similar to the current system but does not overly compensate large groups (which it is doing now)

Rules for Camps R10-50+

1 Star [1 player] - Yellow (EM) Mobs
300 sp - Mob stat reduction from leve activation of 20%

2 Stars [2-3 players] - Gold (T) Mobs
300 sp - Mob stat reduction from leve activation of 15%
25% sp penalty for being attempted by less than 2 players
50% sp penalty for being attempted by more than 3 players
LEVE LINKING BONUS +20%

3 Stars [4-6 players] - Orange (VT) Mobs
300sp - Mob stat reduction from leve activation of 10%
25% sp penalty for being attempted by less than 4 players
40% sp penalty for being attempted by more than 6 players
LEVE LINKING BONUS +30%

4 Stars [7-11 players] - Orange-Red (VT+) Mobs
300sp - Mob stat reduction from leve activation of 5%
25% sp penalty for being attempted by less than 7 players
30% sp penalty for being attempted by more than 10 players
LEVE LINKING BONUS +40%

5 Stars [12+ players] - Red (IT) Mobs
300sp - Mob stat reduction from leve activation of 0%
25% sp penalty for being attempted by less than 12 players
LEVE LINKING BONUS +50%

Two things from this change. First, you raise the difficulty bar for larger groups by quite a lot because it should be much more difficult. You want to reap large bonuses? You have to work your ass off more than the solo player. Secondly, and more importantly, this gives a better option with leves. You don’t need to feel pressured to add additional players just to get “good bonuses”. If you want to do it with just your 5 friends, go for it. If you want to solo, it’s still not too bad.


(I’ll add more later)

[Aeni]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

If you have more classes over a certain level, the distribution of leves can become uneven and leave you without your "main" classes guild mark leves.

This is what I have so far and at least for both PGL and GLA, I purchased what I could after hitting 20 and this is the remainder of the marks to spend. Granted, I could pick up those stat conversion items, but it's rather pointless for me.

[awesomeOmnislashing]

Re: What are your plans for leveling?

ah I see, maybe there isn't a problem then. I guess my friend may be full of bull haha

Your ideas are interesting, I agree that the leve system needs tweaking and most likely in the form of "who goes where, when, and how much exp will they get". Adding a concrete and reliable system would probably help the flow of the game a lot.

The SP gain is OK. To me, if it takes a god awful long time to reach to maximum level, or the grind starts to get really hard, I am not that concerned. I realize that people have lives and that you don't want your player base struggling in the mid levels forever. Making things faster just doesn't seem like an appropriate way to deal with it though. I think making things more fun would be a better solution. Which can be done by making party-leveling ideal.

regardless of how the leves end up, I still cant help but see them in a supplemental light. Maybe I am just being stubborn in that I want the game's combat to end up a lot like FFXI was.

Ah IDK anymore.. Maybe it's time to just wait and see what the hell their big changes are going to be.

btw, nice sig. I never noticed that, but I laughed pretty hard when I did!