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Blade · **08-26-2010, 05:32 PM**

I suppose the issue I have with this is while I agree with the intent behind this decision, and making life better for the casual player, I disagree with the method and I don't think that this will have the effect that they are desiring at all.

The problem with FFXI was not the grind. Sure, the long, long exp parties that we all know about for those of us who played it will argue that it was not always fun. But the central issue behind a lot of FFXI's problems was that 90% of the game took place at level 75. Want to do some fun events? Dynamis starts at 65. Assault? I think it was like 50. Missions? Chains of Promathia is your friend here for the lower level people, or at least was, and nation missions leading up to 5.1. But the majority of the game's content was out of people's reach. That's what motivated the push and makes your first 75 so miserable in FFXI, there's nothing really to do until you get there. Starter nations barren, Jeuno pretty empty too and if you get to Whitegate you can really only watch shouts of what you might be able to do someday in the future.

Yes, for newbies there was an event called Garrison, which I actually enjoy. Quick, easy, cheap to do and you can get some good stuff from it. But what SE failed to do is give upper level characters much incentive to participate in these events. It ends up being trash for them. And when the majority of the gaming population is in the upper level category that creates a problem. My LS does Garrisons to give the new people some fun stuff to do and you should see how pumped they get. They want to go out and grind out some new levels to do the tougher Garrisons. But say, for example, if SE offered tiered rewards for Garrisons, for example, if you do a 20 sync garrison and you are level 20, you get access to a potential item of a certain category, but if you are level 80, you get to choose from different, premier items. Heck, if Garrisons dropped Dynamis currency everyone would be doing them, and the lowbies would have something to do.

But that's what I am worried about with this strategy. Limiting the time you can exp on a job does not mean that the lower levels will be more enjoyable. That's not going to make it the funner game. You need a lot of stuff to do on your way to the upper levels. If you give the upper levels a good reason to do these events with newbies, with good rewards, the exp grind won't matter.

I do hope they do a lot better job with how they choose to manage their community. I think that SE's biggest failure with FFXI was drop rates and NM pops. It might sound weird but what I've seen is this: people generally are willing to help each other, especially for mutual gain. They don't mind taking a couple hours to hang with friends and camp some monster for the chance at some high level gear. But once you are 0/6 that seems less appealing. You don't want to really sit around and help your friend anymore because the time vs. reward just isn't turning out to be worth it, you are getting frustrated. So you bail, because you want to do other things. Your friend decides he has to solo this thing, and so on and so forth, it promotes a very, very "every man for himself" mentality. People don't mind a challenge, or a hard battle, so long as they know the rules and know that when they put their time into it and they accomplish the goal, they will be rewarded. In FFXI, that wasn't necessarily the case, and actually, it was more often that you were not rewarded despite having "beaten" the boss, or monster, or whatever. You won, fair and square, but SE's internal /random generator decided that you don't get your item today. And that isn't going to keep people playing. SE's argument is that unless they keep drop rates low you won't keep playing, but all I can say is, people are already playing another game (WOW) and they aren't maintaining subscriptions with that strategy.

The other big problem was how they managed HNMs. 24 hour repops and they sit and monitor their server and what as several elite linkshells comprised of people with too much free time sit and catch every Fafnir, Behemoth, or whatever spawn. And SE just sat there and more or less encouraged this, even though there was the whole botting problem. How much more enjoyable would it have been if Fafnir was a force pop? Shout for a group in whitegate, put it together, go pop him, and get to fight the beast. It would've been fun, and manageable for all.

I hope that they head into FFXIV with more of this mindset, but I have to say I'm not so hopeful. I love the FF lore that backs the game but they never did fix these problems with XI. And reading that their way of solving it is by putting an 8 hour exp cap to make things more friendly for the casual user? That won't help... if anything it will just make more of a disparity. Think of the PS3 users, who will start out behind and will *stay* behind...

Satrina · **08-26-2010, 06:23 PM**

People need to calm down and understand that SE has even said that the system in Beta 3 was not working properly, which is what the uproar is about and based off of. They have said too that they are listening to feedback, tweaking their methods and looking into options. People can just take a breather.

Siben · **08-26-2010, 07:00 PM**

Satrina Wrote:People can just take a breather.

People can, MMO players can't ;P

Satrina · **08-26-2010, 08:07 PM**

Best quote on a forum so far that i've seen was someone claiming they were part of the "hardcore" crowd because they could grind up faster then other people...

That doesnt make you hardcore, leveling in an MMO is the easiest part of every MMO, you arnt hardcore for going faster then someone else. Everyone gets to level cap, there's nothing hardcore about it.

Midge · **08-26-2010, 08:26 PM**

When I used to rp on Kujata in FFXI, I think I ended up logging nearly 320 days...without ever getting to level 75. Was I hardcore? o.O Or maybe I just had too much time on my hands during highschool...
(I mean...I eventually did get 75, with a new account, a few years later, but that's a different story)

Satrina · **08-26-2010, 09:15 PM**

Midge Wrote:When I used to rp on Kujata in FFXI, I think I ended up logging nearly 320 days...without ever getting to level 75. Was I hardcore? o.O Or maybe I just had too much time on my hands during highschool...
(I mean...I eventually did get 75, with a new account, a few years later, but that's a different story)

I usually log tons and tons of days spent in game...and I think to myself "shit how did I spend that much time?" then I realize that I often just go afk and leave myself in game, or in FFXI I would go to bed/work and leave myself with a bazaar open. In WoW I would just afk in the city while reading, or dick around outside a town dueling or doing something else not constructive at all.

foxfirestorm · **08-27-2010, 11:11 AM**

Honestly, I liked the wards. I found it fun shopping around, but that is probably cause I have the patience of a saint and found it sorta fun. That and spent most of my time crafting within the wards cause it was much quieter.

The no mana Regen, also never bugged me. The mages have a 30 min ability which gives them back mana, at least when I ran around on mage, he had it. So I found soloing very enjoyable on a mage and wasn't bothered by the mana thing at all.
However, that was my experience with it. *shrugs* Again, I apparently have the patience of a saint and played games that done, far, far worse to me.

Now, the guildleves thing, that sorta annoys me lol.
I don't mind if it was 24 hrs, or maybe 32, like day and half, but 2 days is sort of annoying. Not that I don't mind chasing down stuff, or doing missions during the downtime, but it still is sorta of like: -_-;;;
But probably something, like everything, I'll manage to find away around.

Yay crafting!

RcknShdw · **08-27-2010, 09:13 PM**

Remember, SE stated multiple times there would be other quest systems besides the main story and guildleves. I honestly don't think SE is going to leave us without stuff to do since that's counter productive for a MMO. It'll be interesting to see what SE decides to do when open beta starts on Monday!

I also agree with handling my MP. It was no problem at all. Besides having a decent pool to start with, you have (for conjurers) Radiance which refills MP based on the damage it inflicts, and Tranquility which gives you roughly 50% MP every 30 minutes. Full blown aetheryte crystals and smaller nodes are plentiful on the map and usually only a five minute run in between each so it's not very hard to refill your HP and MP. Just remember that you cannnot refill during leves Sad

, but I understand that's part of the challenge.

Jaytyr · **08-28-2010, 12:44 AM**

My lil 2 gil ^^

Well the 48 hour cool down gives us more time to RP Tongue

hehe

I played a caster in XI and Aion so I decided to go with something different this time. My friend who was playing a mage in beta said it could be a pain if you were trying to head out away from the Crystal.

Honestly, I think SE is trying a lil TOO hard to make this casual player friendly.. but at the same time it helps me go study when I should be.

Plus >.> I can go play XI if I get too bored Big Grin

Trine · **09-01-2010, 05:14 AM**

I'm sorry I'm sure this is the wrong place and I know it's a total newb question but what is a leve/guildleve? I've just heard it mentioned so many times (and complained about) while reading though all these posts and then I realized I didn't know what anyone was talking about lol

As far as the limitations on casters, I've always felt it was unrealistic (and unfair) for spellcasters to stand there and hurl spell after spell while chugging mana potion after mana potion... Sure it cost money but never enough to really matter, any spellcaster I knew in any other MMO (at least the ones that knew what they were doing) always had at least 1 slot filled with 99 mana pots... At that point it's like... why even have MP? The final fantasy serious has always made magical recovery items rare, like usually you had to find them. I think in some games you could buy the weakest Ether at an expensive price but still... I'm not sure SE's current system is the answer, but at least they're trying to balance things a bit I think.

Tadir · **09-01-2010, 09:03 AM**

But it's not balance really. Mages hit really hard and have mp, but if we get hit we die. Straight up dead. With the way people are talking about the mp it is like saying warriors are never allowed to get healed.

The truth is that it's not really an issue. By the time you run out of mana it has usually been at least half an hour. You can use your mana recovery spell. If not then you always have your spirit dart and whatever the thaum one is.

Iroh · **09-01-2010, 03:54 PM**

Tadir Wrote:The truth is that it's not really an issue. By the time you run out of mana it has usually been at least half an hour. You can use your mana recovery spell. If not then you always have your spirit dart and whatever the thaum one is.

That's not entirely how it happens as I got higher. I would run out of mana pretty much at the end of EVERY leve, and if I wanted to try to skill up because I had no leves? I'd run out of it fast and have to run back to the crystal constantly.

The answer sometimes to that was always "just use spirit dart more." ... well, far be it from me to complain but... spirit dart is probably the most boring attack EVER... and it's kind of annoying that so far one of the class mechanics is to just spam "1" a lot. >.>

It might balance out later once you get past rank 10 and get more and more mp regen skills, but around 7-10 and perhaps a few ranks beyond that, it's actually kinda' difficult to balance at all. For a Thaum.

One thing I don't like so much is how careful you DO need to balance it all right now. Because mp NEVER regens, ever... it's not like after a tough fight you can just take a break and heal up like every other class. You literally have to run back, until food and/or potions are commonplace, of course. I think I'd like the system slightly more if we had the same kind of MP regen out of combat that people get for their health.

Combat was still fun as a magic user, but I sure as heck understand why they've only released 2 so far... Magic Users need a bit more tweaking before they are "as fun" or "as polished" I think as the other classes.

Tadir · **09-01-2010, 03:59 PM**

Well, all my experience was with Conjurer. Maybe Thaum is different.

Aveline · **09-01-2010, 04:01 PM**

I tried to see how well I did as a conjurer with a pack of orange juices I'd made.. only to find out that in Beta 3 orange juice does not regen mana. Hopefully that changes in OB and release >_>

I ran in to the same problem as Iroh: at earlier levels the MP thing was fine, but higher up and I was running back to camp far more often than I had to on pugilist or gladiator. PUG I could basically stray as far away from the aether as I wanted. And in fact, in the earlier betas when every monster area was overcamped, the only places I could find to level up in peace were far away in hidden caves. I would never have had the patience to keep running back and forth between my leveling caves and the aether.

We'll see how well it works in OB though..

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