Letter from the Producer, XVIII (09/21/2011)

[Sephiroth]

They did address them in 1.19a, but they still suck.

[Aratharn]

I think they are fine now, still translate to approx a full rank per reset. Plus leves aren't the only means of exping anymore, with xp chains coming to even further help.

It was pretty ridiculous going 20-24 off of one leve run pre 1.18. Nice to get so many ranks, but a bit broken.

[Hyan]

Well yeah, they were supposed to become less relevant as Yoshi went ahead with his "multiple activities" plan. Anyone thinking that wouldn't translate to leves getting nerfed is out of his mind.

If you want one activity to handle all your ranking up needs, then perhaps this plan of his isn't what you really wanted after all.

[Sephiroth]

The problem is the dead period between when leves were nerfed and new SP methods being introduced. I don't consider SP chains a new SP method, rather an improvement to grinding. Why not nerf leves in 1.19 or 1.20 when new SP methods may exist?

[Hyan]

You could make a case like that for every adjustment in 1.18 or even before. 'Why now and not after?'

Because we wouldn't get shit implemented in any reasonable timeframe if they sat on every change until all the related features were done as well.

And it's really not like they didn't replace it with anything. Missions and quests give rather nice xp nowadays. Those don't particularly cater to your needs but I'd tell them to fuck themselves if anything did at this point. 9 rank 50's dude. You took advantage of the imbalanced sp gains early on and lost on the sp from missions and quests as a trade-off.

I don't really have any empathy for you on this 'issue'.

[Celeras]

The problem is the dead period between when leves were nerfed and new SP methods being introduced. I don't consider SP chains a new SP method, rather an improvement to grinding. Why not nerf leves in 1.19 or 1.20 when new SP methods may exist?

Oh, ok. Well I don't consider standing around waiting to grind for 5 of every 30 minutes a viable SP method either. Looks like its a wash.

[Sephiroth]

It depends what you call imbalanced SP gains. I've rushed ARM, BSM, MIN and BTN to 50 from 36, 39, 44 and 45 just since 1.18 due to the ridiculous SP gains crafting and gathering leves now give as well as some company manuals. So from that you can gather GLD and CRP were ranked up during hard times. That leaves 3 battle classes. I had to spam doblyns to rank up ARC for 80-100 SP per kill (before SP boost) to get that one up to 50. CON and THM were a result of the leve link system. I don't see what was unbalanced about any of that.

It's piss easy to rank up crafting and gathering now (which make up most of my classes) yet you don't see me complaining about people unfairly catching up to what I put in before 1.18. Likewise I don't care that some people managed to leve link every battle class to 50 within the space of months. I just want a workable system right now.

Getting 1600 SP for a leve that might take 10 minutes and involve two deaths is not fun or a reasonable speed. It might just be a 20 leve problem but there's some shitty leves out there and you are forced to take 8/9 of what you are given with 20s. There's one awful Bloodshore leve where you run through the tunnel and end up fighting 6 mobs at a time which are either higher rank than you or lower due to reducing your stars so much that your final SP is worthless. Horizon is full of shitty leves too. Cactuars and Wights can be hell to fight at those ranks. Not every leve can be a 2700 with aspect and over with in 5 minutes.

I'd probably not be whining at all if I was rank 40 and able to pull in 4-6k or whatever it is for leves that are much easier than 20s due to choice of leves and having more abilities on your bar. You shouldn't get over twice as much SP for a higher ranked leve that is easier to complete than the lower ranked leve. Balance is key here. Either make them all 1600-2700 depending on aspect or make them all 4-6k. And while you're at it balance the mob ranks in the leves. It's retarded that I could be up against rank 32 mobs on one leve and rank 37s on the next (forcing me to lower stars if I'm not close to 30). I've even found mobs in the low 20s in some leves. I'm guessing you don't have a class in the 20s and have never had to put up with soloing this tripe.

Forget that I've got 9 classes at 50, battle is what the game is about from now on and I've only got 3 of those at 50. SE is going to make 2 of those into something I don't wish to play in 1.21 or whatever when they introduce BRD and WHM, hence why I'd like to have fun ranking up another battle class or two. I've been working on LNC and MRD and they are going painfully slow.

[Celeras]

You shouldn't get over twice as much SP for a higher ranked leve that is easier to complete than the lower ranked leve. Balance is key here. Either make them all 1600-2700 depending on aspect or make them all 4-6k.

Let me get this straight. You're proposing either painfully slow high level ranking, or nauseatingly easy low level ranking instead of the current system: same amount of time per rank across the board? And you request this under the guise of balance? Thank god you're not in charge.

They finally did something right, deal with it.

[blythe]

The problem is the dead period between when leves were nerfed and new SP methods being introduced. I don't consider SP chains a new SP method, rather an improvement to grinding. Why not nerf leves in 1.19 or 1.20 when new SP methods may exist?

Trolls aside I don't think anyone can deny we're in a shitty period for SP. But we knew that from before the patch even dropped. So why even bother stressing yourself out trying to eek out reasonable SP gains now, when you know it's going to get better in the hopefully near future?

Do you really think that if you don't keep grinding, with 3 50s, including ARC and CON, you'll be behind when whatever new endgame content comes out? And if you have your eyes set on a job other than WHM or BRD, wouldn't you rather level with that job from 30ish on than just tack it on at 50 and have no idea how to play it?

There's other stuff to do in game, and if you're sick of crafting/gathering just log out until the next patch like everyone else. You're still going to be miles ahead trust me.

[Corrderio]

Nothing on Lodestone yet. Wondering if it did get knocked back a week or two ><

[Hyan]

Yoshida posted yesterday in a tone that could be seen as apologetic, followed by tons of "it's okay www" posts by JP's. (not sure what the subject was)

A week would be stretching it, but few days is pretty likely.

[Toth]

Why not just release what is finished on Thursday and the rest when ready? I rather get something new each week than wait weeks for a cluster of content.

[Kaiyoko]

Why not just release what is finished on Thursday and the rest when ready? I rather get something new each week than wait weeks for a cluster of content.

There might be major issues with them integrating it into the game right now.

[Hyan]

It's more efficient (and most likely cheaper) to release the content in clusters..

I'm sure you'd rather get something new each week tho!

EDIT: Now Reinheart said the patch isn't delayed. Okay.