1.19 Notes

[Kaylia]

Considering you don't have to do anything, not even kill a single monster implies those who get leeched will suck more than those who don't. Experience that you gain over 50 levels that tells you how to react in certain situations, when you're being hit, when your allies are taking damage, when you lose hate, when you want to lose hate, how to not go overboard/knowing your limits, targeting etc. You lose a lot of that when you don't play for yourself.

Sure, XIV isn't that complicated and you can pick it up quickly. You seem to think I'm implying you become a strategic genius from leveling from 1-50 by yourself, I'm implying you'll simply be incompetent.

And finally, I'm not against PL being in the game. Frankly, I don't give a shit because I can choose how I want to level.

I disagree that it's going to make a huge difference. I've seen shitty player be shitty on every job they leveled in FFXI and WoW, and good players be decent on everything they touched, including the two boxed account they never leveled.


Obviously, it can make a difference in the first few hours, but this is rather insignificant on a long run since you will spend a considerable amount of time at max level.

[Elcura]

And you gain the same experience leveling from 40-50. No one is being powerleveled at R40+ (it isn't even "powerleveling" at that point).

..for the hour of gameplay it takes you to learn your role?

I mean, how many hours do you think it takes to learn how to play a job correctly?

The fuck? This is the same shit, if you get PL'd from 1-40, you're going into the game fresh at 40. You think 50 levels of experience exceeds 10 levels? It doesn't. Simply put, the 1-50'er knows a lot more about the game and their class than the 40-50'er does. How you valuable you view that experience is irrelevant.

Sure you can probably learn the game by 50, but it doesn't mean there isn't a learning curve present, especially with the funky mechanics that are in flux. Regardless of how long it takes, it's there. And the depth of your experience won't be as comprehensive.

[Tomino]

Well, it could also be that the one person who spent hours to PL you may also help you out with battle mechanics and class tips.
If we do are debating about friends PLing each other, why wouldnt they share game knowledge as well?

Not to mention, "hardcore" MMO players have it easy to jump from one title to another, and would most probably "catch up" with skills and classes pretty efficently.

[solracht]

The fact that other people are leveling a bit faster than you because their friends are helping them in no way effects you. Therefore it should not bother you. Don't like PLing? Don't do it. Problem solved.

It's a group based game now. How does it not effect you if people aren't making real parties? How does it not effect you if crafters aren't making gear that's your level, because so many people are skipping buying it so there's no point in making it? How does it not effect you if new players don't stick with the game because the leveling system is a piece of shit?

Note that I'm not against easy lowman fast-leveling. It just makes absolutely no sense that it was added like this.

[Kurokikaze]

It's a group based game now. How does it not effect you if people aren't making real parties? How does it not effect you if crafters aren't making gear that's your level, because so many people are skipping buying it so there's no point in making it? How does it not effect you if new players don't stick with the game because the leveling system is a piece of shit?

Note that I'm not against fast-leveling. It just makes absolutely no sense that it was added like this.

I'm just saying you guys are exaggerating the situation... Do you really think that everyone is going to be getting PLed when PS3 release is launched. I can guarantee you not even half the new population will. You guys are just jumping to conclusions because a few people came back and now they're getting PLed by their old LSmates. This shit will be a non issue when PS3 version is released... Why? Because almost every MMO works/has PLing that way.

It's seriously a non-issue.

[Spider-Dan]

The fuck? This is the same shit, if you get PL'd from 1-40, you're going into the game fresh at 40. You think 50 levels of experience exceeds 10 levels? It doesn't. Simply put, the 1-50'er knows a lot more about the game and their class than the 40-50'er does. How you valuable you view that experience is irrelevant.

Does the person who takes months to level to 50 (at 5k/hr) literally have "more experience" than the person who gets PLed to 40 and then joins 100k/hr stronghold parties for the last ten ranks? Yes.

Is that experience more valuable than spending 1-50 in parties with experienced players that are actively showing you how the game should be played, first hand? I sincerely doubt it.

Sure you can probably learn the game by 50, but it doesn't mean there isn't a learning curve present, especially with the funky mechanics that are in flux.

read: Legit leveling from 1-50 isn't necessarily even a good thing for a game that is in a constant state of revision; just ask every GLA and ARC, who now have to unlearn everything they've learned

The bottom line is:

- some people will suck at R50, no matter how long it took them to get there
- some people (e.g. MMO veterans) can learn their jobs fully within a few hours
- some people actually need hundreds of hours of repetition to learn how to do their jobs, at which point they will become competent

The third category of people is simply not large enough for the developers to be concerned with. If you can't learn your job from 40-50, you'd almost certainly suck at 50 no matter how long it took you to get there.

[Elcura]

Is that experience more valuable than spending 1-50 in parties with experienced players that are actively showing you how the game should be played, first hand? I sincerely doubt it.

Is that experience more valuable than learning from 1-50 what's the right and wrong way to play the game? These people PL'ing you are showing you how to fight, sure, but in specific circumstances at a level you are not, with equipment and skills you may not possess. Besides that, you're implying these leechers are actually paying attention. Chances are they're off jerking off or watching TV or looking at the internet.

But you're right about people being people, and having different skills and levels of competence. Not everyone reacts the same way, and while the game is changing, it's easy to adjust to changes and depending on the person, more or less easier than learning something from scratch.

Again, I don't care if people are getting PL'ed and I do not care if it's in this game, via this method or any other. I just don't agree with it, I think games should be played blah blah blah.

[Hyan]

See, when you claim that something is already "as extreme as it gets," but in the next sentence, say that we "may as well go all the way", you're necessarily admitting that the current state is, in fact, NOT "as extreme as it gets."

So extreme that it becomes pointless to not take it all the way. They're essentially the same thing, aside from the other pissing you off and making you do shit even the devs don't care about for no reason whatsoever.

What the fuck do you gain from 2 days worth of PL? It's an annoyance to anyone at best.

I can guarantee you not even half the new population will.

Oh yeah, better than everyone getting PL'd is if some people are getting left out because they don't have the social contacts to pull it off. How fucking wonderful.

If you're going to let half the population get a free pass, might as well be equal for once.

[Alkar]

People did suck after 75 levels, but when you're forced to level with these people over a period of time, players become aware of who sucks, who's an asshole and who is really good. You know who to avoid and who you can rely on. This is another reason I dislike PL'ing, because it's hard to see how people really are in a party setting. Especially since they don't have to do dick, and likely can't do dick without getting squashed.

And if you don't think that actually playing a game, experiencing it and what not doesn't make you better, you're a damn fool. Or a damn genius who picks up everything at light speed. MMOs (and XIV in particular) isn't hard to play, but that doesn't mean you don't benefit from playing the game.

I'm not saying experience doesn't make you better but any experience you get from exp parties can be easily gained elsewhere. People who suck will suck after 50 levels and those that are good will still be good regardless. It's not a matter of experience but wether you use your brain or not.
It doesn't take a genius to play XIV when the game pretty much tells you everything you need to know already.
You don't learn party play by soloing either, should we remove any chance to solo as well?
If party experience was so good how come people managed to completely suck at their job and reach 75 in XI the slow way? I'm talking about WHMs not healing, SMN/BLMs and any other stupid combination.
LS mates PLing each other is simply a way to catch up, a scrub most likely won't have a LS so he'll party with other people.

[Elcura]

should we remove any chance to solo as well?

This part here is where I realized you didn't actually read what I wrote. I'm not saying it again, though in general this whole conversation is a waste of time so it doesn't really matter.

[Lordender]

Yeah, lots of people sucked on XI because of poor gear choices/terrible subjobs, the learning curves for both XI and XIV aren't as large as in other games.

[Kurokikaze]

Oh yeah, better than everyone getting PL'd is if some people are getting left out because they don't have the social contacts to pull it off. How fucking wonderful.

Do you not understand that thats the whole reason people are getting power leveled in the first place? Because they have a friend willing to do it... It's the reason why anyone gets powerleveled in ANY game.

[Cichy]

The fact that other people are leveling a bit faster than you because their friends are helping them in no way effects you. Therefore it should not bother you. Don't like PLing? Don't do it. Problem solved.

That's exact same way I look at it.

[solracht]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...pe.-Not-Broken.

[Lordender]

so much butthurt on those forums, the people whining over powerleveling on those forums could be in a party right now blowing through the levels instead of bitching over something where someones doing all the work for their friends.

[miokomioko]

It will probably get toned down just because of how easy it is to currently power-level. My guess is that they left this system the way it was, with the straight-forward power-leveling capabilities because it was easy. As in, it would take extra work to build some extra parameters to limit exp given to people who's mobs were killed by higher-level characters (which they are probably working on with low priority).

Either way, the amount of people getting power-leveled vs the entire population of the game and the effects of these players is completely negligible. In fact, most power-level groups I've seen require that you have a Lv.50 class so they can rotate the duties and one person doesn't have to sit there getting nothing out of it. In that situation, it's most likely not adding a mass of unexperienced morons to the player pool as they were generally already there.

[Corrderio]

Hard telling, both sides make some good points. It's nice being able to blaze a friend through their levels so you can do stuff together since the learning curve isn't too bad (Unless you're a healer/tank maybe, but that's something that can be remedied easily). However it does kill off some mid/early level content.

Either way can't really blame people. Leves and soloing feel like shit now (or at least for ARC) and without a decent search system trying to make a PT is annoying.

[Spider-Dan]

Oh yeah, better than everyone getting PL'd is if some people are getting left out because they don't have the social contacts to pull it off. How fucking wonderful.

Consider that the players who have the social contacts to get PLed also have access to people who can instruct them in strategy for that level.

If you hand a newbie an R50 account, they would (likely) have no idea what they should be doing. If you get PLed by an R50, chances are that said R50 player can at least instruct you on what you should be doing.

Furthermore, I will reiterate that a player will learn more going from 40-50 in LS stronghold parties than they would 1-50 in random pickups, for exactly the same reason high end XI merit parties taught you more than the 5k/hr SC/MB exp parties: fast-paced fighting better develops your skills for thinking on the fly.

[Kaiyoko]

That's exact same way I look at it.

Seconded. On top of that if it has a negative effect on the player being PLed then they shouldn't do it.

[Kensaki]

I love how people imply the classes in FFXIV are so complicated to play that you need 50 levels of experience to play them. When in fact they are among the most simple around. I suggest you guys go look at how it's to play endgame in other MMO's it'll blow your minds.