FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Schedule (12/26/2012)

[Kami]

Leveling in XI sucked, we want it to be better. Why is there even a discussion on this now?

I don't know about you, but pretty much everyone i've played with: Endgame LS, social LS, IRL friends, friends I made along the way etc actually ENJOYED leveling. Now of course it depends a lot of who you're doing it with.
Nightmare groups with people taking 1h to leave down, dying on the way to camp, leaving/disconnecting after 30min etc could make it an hell, but like I said above it was all about playing with people you know are reliable.
With the right people I would say that leveling jobs in FFXI was probably my favorite MMORPG experience amongst 10 years and 3-4 games I played for quite some time.

Later on the level sync option turned out to be a great addition too. Made everything easier.

[Kelenae]

How many years ago was that?
The fact is, things have improved... that sort of LFG time and those crap tools for party organization were acceptable then but many better options have been introduced in the decade since FFXI's JP release.

Leveling in XI sucked, we want it to be better. Why is there even a discussion on this now?

I have no idea why we are discussing this ether in a ffxiv thread. But we are. Its good FFXI has better option now then it did then. I havent kept up with the stuff since i quit for good.

[Trocian]

If you were leveling THF or DRK, then just give your NIN or BRD friend the lead so he's the one that sends out the /tells.

Rofl.

[Lucavi]

No shit, but we still played ffxi

And this ain't XI, nor the XI thread, so when homers start talking about how much they fucking want 2.0 to mandate parties for everything so they can have some vain attempt at recapturing the rush of feels they had every time they LFGed as Rng/Nin and got an insta-party, some of us are gonna start shaking our goddamn heads at the stupidity.

This shouldn't even be up for discussion. If 2.0 wants to succeed, it'll allow for soloing of solo content (like fucking progressing your character through levels) and mandate parties for advanced content ala instances and raids. End of story. Its already doing this. End of story.

If you wanna grind XP in some static hole in the wall camp for hours, go for it, but don't force the rest of us into having to do it to gain a level because you want XI all over again. Hell, Alpha testers will be able to tell you all about how it worked once the NDA is up, or you could have gotten in Alpha and tried it yourself.

[Elcura]

I don't know about you, but pretty much everyone i've played with: Endgame LS, social LS, IRL friends, friends I made along the way etc actually ENJOYED leveling. Now of course it depends a lot of who you're doing it with.
Nightmare groups with people taking 1h to leave down, dying on the way to camp, leaving/disconnecting after 30min etc could make it an hell, but like I said above it was all about playing with people you know are reliable.
With the right people I would say that leveling jobs in FFXI was probably my favorite MMORPG experience amongst 10 years and 3-4 games I played for quite some time.

Later on the level sync option turned out to be a great addition too. Made everything easier.

I love comments like these. FFXI was good if you had this and did this and this was juuuuuuust right. THEN IT WAS FUN AND GOOD GUYS!

[Lucavi]

I love comments like these. FFXI was good if you had this and did this and this was juuuuuuust right. THEN IT WAS FUN AND GOOD GUYS!

"When I played the right class (insert flavor-of-the-half-decade class) and had the right friends (those who dropped everything and partied with me, for me) on at the right time (whenever I was online and wanting to party), XI's party system was the best of any MMO ever."

Well no shit, sherlock. Thank you for your irrelevant opinion.

[Grey Jorildyn]

and that is also why the term "PUG" never really hit FFXI. Because they didn't exist. We had "statics" instead because it was the only way to play the fucking game.

[Kelenae]

And this ain't XI, nor the XI thread, so when homers start talking about how much they fucking want 2.0 to mandate parties for everything so they can have some vain attempt at recapturing the rush of feels they had every time they LFGed as Rng/Nin and got an insta-party, some of us are gonna start shaking our goddamn heads at the stupidity.

This shouldn't even be up for discussion. If 2.0 wants to succeed, it'll allow for soloing of solo content (like fucking progressing your character through levels) and mandate parties for advanced content ala instances and raids. End of story. Its already doing this. End of story.

If you wanna grind XP in some static hole in the wall camp for hours, go for it, but don't force the rest of us into having to do it to gain a level because you want XI all over again. Hell, Alpha testers will be able to tell you all about how it worked once the NDA is up, or you could have gotten in Alpha and tried it yourself.

Uh, not sure why i'm being labeled as a homer but whatever. I never did say ffxi leveling system was the best nor did i like it. I just tolerated it to the point where i just didnt care anymore about leveling because there were better systems out there to do it which yoshida is implementing for AAR.

Edit: Just adding that i liked making parties doesnt mean i liked the LFG system nor did i like going to camps.

[Sephiroth]

Even linkshells were fail in XI when it came to EXP. "No we can't bring you as DRK because it won't work in our 10k/hour super EXP party, do you have BRD or WAR?! Oh well go find a PUG then!". Or maybe it was just mine, but pretty much all end-game linkshells on my server were shit. Of course it's going to be fun in perfect parameters, but that existed for a very small minority. I enjoyed leveling until around level 12 when you're forced to put up with extreme retardation by people who haven't a clue how to play. That was way too low to be forcing 6 man parties on to people. The early leveling zones were horribly designed too, bogies raping everyone at night etc and that's before you get to the tunnel hell mentioned earlier in the thread.

[Kami]

"When I played the right class (insert flavor-of-the-half-decade class) and had the right friends (those who dropped everything and partied with me, for me) on at the right time (whenever I was online and wanting to party), XI's party system was the best of any MMO ever."

Well no shit, sherlock. Thank you for your irrelevant opinion.

In what world do people level "for you" lol. Why so dramatic? You have friends and LS you enjoy leveling with, you meet people you get along with and try to play with them as much as possible and that's it. As long as you have a long enough friendlist you'll always find people to start a group with. And just fill the blanks with a couple randoms if needed.

I do agree FFXI was taking too many "if" and "when" to be enjoyable at 100%, even though I somehow managed to not go through too much problems to be in such conditions, but still the level of bitterness toward oldschool FFXI is too damn high.

Comon guys, leveling sucked, end game sucked, is there anything at all you enjoyed pre cap raise ? Or did you just all play the shit out of it out of boredom ?

[Churchill]

I enjoyed being an asshole to people and claim raping everything in sight personally.

[Charismatic]

I enjoyed being an asshole to people and claim raping everything in sight personally.

This.
Also, never once did I say that endgame sucked... I did say that leveling sucked though.
Though I guess endgame did kinda suck at first until there was enough diversity to do more than camp shit or do sky all day.

That took some years, but before ToAU I guess I stayed for fun with buds. Two of my best friends in high school played on my server in addition to people I met online and a few random folks who I just happened to find out played there as well.
Like... this one guy who was a friend of a friend, found out he was on my server and our minds were blown.


In short, the people are what made some of us stay more than the game itself. That was the case for me without a doubt until at least ToAU (though I did really and truly enjoy CoP missions, though I had a static for that too of course)

[Yoli]

And this ain't XI, nor the XI thread, so when homers start talking about how much they fucking want 2.0 to mandate parties for everything so they can have some vain attempt at recapturing the rush of feels they had every time they LFGed as Rng/Nin and got an insta-party, some of us are gonna start shaking our goddamn heads at the stupidity.

Why are you equating trying to mandate parties with trying to mandate the reintroduction of "the rush of feels" from lfg problems? They were tied together in XI, but there's no reason whatsoever they have to (or should) remain tied together in any newer game. That doesn't mean partying itself had problems though. Just the process of starting one. Which is pretty simply fixed. I don't think anyone here was trying to suggest that 14 should have 4 hour LFG sessions, or horribly balanced jobs that get constantly passed over. I certainly never was.

As for the making your own party stuff, that really did help. I made about 80% of my parties on both Whm and Drg. And yeah, it didn't always work perfectly. But if you had a friend or two it wasn't too bad. Even if you didn't have a friend or two, you could usually start something. I was always a bit amazed by the amount of people who simply didn't have the initiative to start one (not accusing anyone here of having this problem.... but it was a pretty common problem). If your "friends" wouldn't xp with your subpar jobs, that's kind of sad though. I never had that problem. They complained in passing sometimes, but they'd never actually tell me to GTFO. Although my sub par job was pretty well geared. And when I wasn't playing my subpar job I was inviting them on my whm. So maybe it was just a balancing act on my part.

But that's entirely irrelevant - I'm not saying XI's party system should have been used in 14 at all. I'm saying /a/ party system should be. One that works well, equitably, and relatively quickly for all involved. Because I think you can have leveling itself be as fun a process as anything you'd do at the cap, so why not take advantage of that? Is spamming an instance really that much more fun than partying for xp over a sustained period of time? They're both goals to do. And... I mean... have instances to. Have quests. Have crafting. Have player housing. Have chocobos. Have a billion fun things. But there's no need to kill partying, it was awesome. It's only the process of starting one that wasn't. Alternatively, if everyone somehow really does hate leveling, kill it. Have everyone start at the cap, and skip the fake "feel good" charade of getting there. I think there's a reason the leveling process hasn't entirely been killed in most games though. I think most people really do like it. And I think there's a lot to game from stretching it out (a bit) so that your character has a little bit of a journey between zero and hero. A lot of the job quests and AF quests and coffers were terribly terribly designed, but the idea itself wasn't bad.

And I'm not sold that "grindy" xp is bad either. If you're not grinding on XP, what are you doing? You're probably going to be "grinding" on something. Spamming instances, spamming crafting, spamming quests, spamming leves, spamming... whatever. There's always something to sink your time into. Why are any of those other grinds better than grinding xp? Again, not saying this other stuff is bad. The more things to do there are the better the game will (probably) be. But yeah.

[millionsknives]

@Knives: It took you 2 years to hit 75. At $15 bucks a pop, it took you $360 until you finally reached level cap of XI. SE absolutely loves people like you, who are perfectly happy to spend $360 on getting a single job (of many, MANY jobs) to level cap. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy parts of the ride along the way, but christ, there's no way I could ever feel satisfied in today's market about the prospect of either spending 2 years to take one out of many, many jobs to 75, or spending $360 to do so.

But again, every MMO company needs players like you; players that will pay and pay and pay and have no problems and still absolutely love the product. Its just a shame that SE couldn't recapture that "FF Feeling" with 1.0.: they'd have made so much money.

Ehhh, we all paid our monthly fee to have fun. It took me nearly two years because I pissed about, helped others and levelled a few jobs half way before I settled on RDM. It didn't make a difference to me if I hit the cap sooner or later because I always had something to do and was having fun. Money well spent.

The years afterwards where I spent time in endgame, going after my RDM AFv2 hat was time and money wasted. It was boring as hell and pointless in the end, because I never got it before I left the game. Endgame in XI mostly sucked, so I'm not nuts and don't think it was a faultless game.

Based on my experience I can't understand why people want to be at the level cap within a week of starting. People who think like that don't seem to ever actually have fun no matter what MMO they're playing. My play style seems to have left me with fonder memories than some people here, so I'd say I was doing something right. Half the people here jump on anyone who mentions they had fun in XI. It was possible and it's not our fault you're bitter about the time you wasted.

Edit: I pretty much agree with everything Yoli said above, too. And having level sync removes so many problems related to partying.

[Jamison]

and that is also why the term "PUG" never really hit FFXI. Because they didn't exist. We had "statics" instead because it was the only way to play the fucking game.

You aren't wrong, but I'd like to say this has lead to me meeting a number of extremely close friends (transcending the game and becoming rl friends) and has been a net positive experience in my life.

[Spider-Dan]

You guys waited for a party?... why didnt you make your own?

This x1000... lots of stories in this thread about Number Of Consecutive Hours Without Invite. I made nearly all my parties on THF; what's the big deal?

That being said, although I am probably the most frequent proponent of XI meriting, I hated leveling in XI (and most every game) because I don't like being a feeble lowbie (which is, not coincidentally, why I despise level caps). As the saying goes, "I didn't level to 75 just to be LV30."

[Lucavi]

Why are you equating trying to mandate parties with trying to mandate the reintroduction of "the rush of feels" from lfg problems? They were tied together in XI, but there's no reason whatsoever they have to (or should) remain tied together in any newer game. That doesn't mean partying itself had problems though. Just the process of starting one. Which is pretty simply fixed. I don't think anyone here was trying to suggest that 14 should have 4 hour LFG sessions, or horribly balanced jobs that get constantly passed over. I certainly never was.

As for the making your own party stuff, that really did help. I made about 80% of my parties on both Whm and Drg. And yeah, it didn't always work perfectly. But if you had a friend or two it wasn't too bad. Even if you didn't have a friend or two, you could usually start something. I was always a bit amazed by the amount of people who simply didn't have the initiative to start one (not accusing anyone here of having this problem.... but it was a pretty common problem). If your "friends" wouldn't xp with your subpar jobs, that's kind of sad though. I never had that problem. They complained in passing sometimes, but they'd never actually tell me to GTFO. Although my sub par job was pretty well geared. And when I wasn't playing my subpar job I was inviting them on my whm. So maybe it was just a balancing act on my part.

But that's entirely irrelevant - I'm not saying XI's party system should have been used in 14 at all. I'm saying /a/ party system should be. One that works well, equitably, and relatively quickly for all involved. Because I think you can have leveling itself be as fun a process as anything you'd do at the cap, so why not take advantage of that? Is spamming an instance really that much more fun than partying for xp over a sustained period of time? They're both goals to do. And... I mean... have instances to. Have quests. Have crafting. Have player housing. Have chocobos. Have a billion fun things. But there's no need to kill partying, it was awesome. It's only the process of starting one that wasn't. Alternatively, if everyone somehow really does hate leveling, kill it. Have everyone start at the cap, and skip the fake "feel good" charade of getting there. I think there's a reason the leveling process hasn't entirely been killed in most games though. I think most people really do like it. And I think there's a lot to game from stretching it out (a bit) so that your character has a little bit of a journey between zero and hero. A lot of the job quests and AF quests and coffers were terribly terribly designed, but the idea itself wasn't bad.

And I'm not sold that "grindy" xp is bad either. If you're not grinding on XP, what are you doing? You're probably going to be "grinding" on something. Spamming instances, spamming crafting, spamming quests, spamming leves, spamming... whatever. There's always something to sink your time into. Why are any of those other grinds better than grinding xp? Again, not saying this other stuff is bad. The more things to do there are the better the game will (probably) be. But yeah.

Hey. Good luck with that with SE's current reputation. Honestly, good luck.

[Cichy]

Took me like a year to get my 1st 75 on DRG when XI first came out but hell I don't regret it. Waiting for a party aside, exp parties in XI have been some of the most fun times I've had in a MMO.

[Rocl]

Holy shit does Lucavi hate Ranger.

Also ToAU was 2006, so I do believe Ranger's heyday was over not long after that but I can't even recall when the 2-handed buff was. (And jesus christ mythic WS weren't released until 2008? lol) The point being made here is that FFXI's leveling system, whether you loved or hated it, is antiquated. That's why when you boot up FFXI today you don't make six person parties and grind crawlers and colibri for hours. Now you get in an Alliance and do repeatable quests based on killing X number of mobs--holy shit it's just like WoW except 18 people for maximum efficiency. Honestly, you should be able to max out level in one class in like two, maybe three, weeks. Even then that's a bit ridiculous; in XI you can do it now in like a day or two (and it's still kind of ridiculous, I really hope XIV doesn't end up with the expectation of everyone having all jobs maxed cuz I hated that shit).

Here's the issue with OMG MAKE UR OWN PT NOOBS: how often are the holy trinity on and looking for party? Without a tank, healer, and refresh most often you were shit out of luck--and don't give me this shit "oh man i totally used four Scholars before Sublimation and Addendums were added." You could form a party without one of the three normally, but all that did was drag out your leveling.

Oh man but some EXP is better than no EXP! Fuck no it wasn't. Having a party get 4k/hr and you're there for 4 hours and then you have a 9k/hr party for like 2 hours and guess which one you made more EXP in? Not to mention while you're sitting around jacking off with one hand and clicking enter for four hours in the shitty party you're incapable of receiving better EXP offers so you're locked into this awful party. You could leave the party true, but most people in XI were chickenshit and worried about their "reputation" and being "blackballed" for so long it was retarded (myself incl).

I would have never finished leveling Blue Mage if it wasn't for Elcura and another LS mate. Why? Because Blue Mage was fucking garbage in EXP parties. The entire appeal of having the job at 75 was to solo merits comparable to a decent/average merit party on Imps (10k/hr or so?) and fucking Elcura was on PUP and the other bro (Barada) was on SMN. BLU PUP SMN is a TERRIBLE combination, but yeah, it worked--but that's because SMN was utilized as a ghetto ass healer at the time. So we already had one third (really more like one sixth) of the perfect 3, plus by the time you got high enough to level in ToAU you could /kind of/ live with Sanction refresh. What I'm saying is yeah I get it, friends help friends level. That's cool, that's good, unfortunately my friends can't cast a spell on me to make us all useful. (What happens when you & your bros are all leveling DD jobs? I mean... how many fucking damage dealers did XI have? Too fucking many.)

btw it sounds like Sephiroth had a shitty linkshell or everyone hated him there too, that's totally what my Elcura example was getting at (besides high5ing him for being awesome and QQ we used to be so good together)

Listen, I loved jacking off between Fafnir windows as much as the next guy, but doing homework while looking for party isn't a game. Maybe it's the fact I'm almost a real live boy now instead of being in high school but I ain't got time for that shit. I also don't want to spend four fucking years or level Beastmaster because I want to play solo.

What am I talking about again? Anyways, FFXI had an awful leveling system and you should all be ashamed. There is no reason there can't be incentives to party together in XIV AND having a comparable solo alternative. Hey man, I can party and get max level in a week, or I could solo and get max level in two weeks! (Even then it's a bit eh) Give me the option to dick around with friends and level while allowing me to EXP reasonably well when I have forty minutes to play in between class. C'mon.

C'mon.

Just options man, options. Multiple choice tests are everyone's favourite for a reason.

[Cichy]

There is no reason why they couldn't just allow us to share quests, adjust difficulty, and go through an area with friends. I hope we atleast get that much out of the beta cuz I'm pretty sure right now you can only share leves.