FFXIV Random Speculation/Question Thread XI: "How you liking that Beta Phase 5?"

[Ratatapa]

Ok and another dumb question

What is shield skill do, since it's separate

Does it help 'Block Rate' or only learn shield skill?

TLDR important to keep shield as close as sword?

[Sephiroth]

So it seems we solo grind on coblyns from 20 to 50 except when doing leves.

Anyone want to tell me the best coblyn camps from 20-27ish. I tried iron coblyns in Nanawa but they were too strong at 22 (red, killable but only 100 or so SP so not worth it). I assume I need lead cobylns but I'm not sure where the best camp is.

Which leads me to a complaint. Why does a red mob only give me around 100 SP? I should be getting 300 on that.

[miokomioko]

That's weird considering I'm rank-30 and they are stupid easy to kill (blue) and still yield 70~75 skill each. Also, I was recently soloing Plain Puddings (mostly red, barely falling into orange) and was getting 150~175 skill each.

I was originally going to say it was HP-related, but that doesn't seem to line up with what I'm still getting on coblyns. Or does it?

[Sephiroth]

I only tried one because my homepoint was Humblehearth and I couldn't be bothered to go set homepoint in the mines to try more. I guess it just takes a lot of levels for the SP to drop down to 70.

But yeah, where did you do 22-26? I can probably switch to iron around 25-26 I guess.

[miokomioko]

I'm thinking maybe give some standard shitty Dodos a shot and see if they are worth the skill/time as they should be pretty easy blue/green. I think once that got old I moved on to Arbor Squirrels in Coerthas or Cassiopeia in Cassiopeia Hollow... or something along those lines. I think the only time I really grinded on Coblyns was 27-ish.

[Sephiroth]

It's funny you say that because I stopped grinding on dodos at 20 when the SP started sucking. By sucking I mean 70-120 per kill. Little did I realise that's the amount of SP you grind per mob until 50. Not sure how they'll be at 22, might need to go to Coerthas. My last 2 ranks have come from leves.

[Cureslime]

At 22 you're probably better off slaughtering very weak mobs somewhere. 40-50sp and insta-kills is better than a slugfest for 100-110sp. The peninsula north of bloodshore with the bloodshore bells on it, the lone wolf circuit near the entrance to the mun-tuy cellars, the weakest kind of galago north of emerald moss, dodos/puks anywhere. It is awfully grindy no matter what you do. The only negative is you get sick of grinding sooner when fighting too weak mobs.

[jPuff]

It's funny you say that because I stopped grinding on dodos at 20 when the SP started sucking. By sucking I mean 70-120 per kill. Little did I realise that's the amount of SP you grind per mob until 50. Not sure how they'll be at 22, might need to go to Coerthas. My last 2 ranks have come from leves.

This was also my experience. I tried coblyn grinding last week and got 70ish per kill (mobs dying in 5ish seconds) and stopped because it was the most horrid grinding I'd ever experienced. I swear the xp bar was going backwards. God bless the people that can endure the current SP/battle system, but I'd rather spam standard for 12 hours straight while watching TV (and I do, because I hate my life).

[sruon]

Is your server so dead that there aren't any guildleves/behest party?
I'm not a big fan of them but it's pretty much 10k/hour guaranteed for watching TV, I did 23-31 and a million gil in like 3 (long) parties.
Cedarwood/Cassio seems to be a popular combo on Lindblum.


Edit: I'm the first one to want a party system and the adequate bonus as good as FFXI, I fucking despise sub 100 SP/mob, just saying the behest+leve combo isn't THAT bad.

Except when you do Lightsome Verdure 6 times in a row, then you may as well kill yourself.

[Lucavi]

^ Pretty much, but like anything, it depends on the time of the day. I still see people doing rank 20 behests, but its hard seeing any groups higher than that.

[jPuff]

Is your server so dead that there aren't any guildleves/behest party?

Behest is completely dead on my server (maybe 2 people doing it on a good day, which is never). I have people to do leves with, but the battle system itself stinks and feels almost as grindy as whacking coblyns to me (mobs die just as fast when 5 people are hitting them). And leves take ridiculously long for the SP you are getting out of them. I'm not saying it's impossible to rank battle classes in this game because people obviously are doing it somehow. It's just not for me.

Right now I am focusing on crafting and as much as my posts say otherwise, I'm ok with that for now. I just would really like to have a battle system that is actually fun/strategic at some point. I miss wearing sweet armor and having fun fighting shit in it.

[sruon]

Seems weird honestly on the Behest part, you pretty much have to bot the NPC during NA time on Lindblum

Maybe try crafting near Behest NPC, even if you are 3 it's 1-2k SP in 5 minutes and you can craft during downtime. Not omgwtf rate but still some progression.

Anyways, I feel ya, the battle system is wrong on so many levels and we can only hope that they'll eventually fix it. (I'm looking at you Akihiko Matsui)

[Lucavi]

Yeah but honestly, why? You've blown an hour, made barely any progress, and you could have been actually doing something else and having fun doing it.

Crafting, for me, just like most everything else in this game, was fun when there were people to do it with. Beta, and the first 2 weeks of retail. Now? 90% of my linkshell is gone, the rest are high level staticing (damn you Kurrrroooo~!!!), the "community" is non-existent, with people only partying with other LSmates, random pickups are nearly unheard of, and the only time I get people to join my party is if I'm taxing them somewhere for gil.

They need to make this game more fun when not in a group, or making it so you need to be in a group (IE. SUPER fun in a group), because right now, even a frustrating round of Black Ops or grinding B-spec in GT is more fun. Its to the point where if my LS is busy, I won't even play. Its just not fun knowing that no one is going to be at the crystals, no one is going to join a party if I try to start one, and really, no one is going to talk at all. Its just a bunch of pixeled characters standing around breathing and eventually one of them holds their hand up, gets a card icon, then trots off into the distance.

This game may not be dead, but fuck, it feels dead outside of LL and Uldah.

I said it before and I'll say it again. SE making a good soloing pet class would do wonders for this game, because you spend a ton of time alone right now, and there's no better way to cater to "casual" players (not casual mindsets) than to give them a bow, gun or axe, some true pet (not this charmable temporary shit or some summonable jug pet, but a TRUE companion from start to finish) to go off into the wilderness with.

[Sign]

Yeah but honestly, why? You've blown an hour, made barely any progress, and you could have been actually doing something else and having fun doing it.

Crafting, for me, just like most everything else in this game, was fun when there were people to do it with. Beta, and the first 2 weeks of retail. Now? 90% of my linkshell is gone, the rest are high level staticing (damn you Kurrrroooo~!!!), the "community" is non-existent, with people only partying with other LSmates, random pickups are nearly unheard of, and the only time I get people to join my party is if I'm taxing them somewhere for gil.

They need to make this game more fun when not in a group, or making it so you need to be in a group (IE. SUPER fun in a group), because right now, even a frustrating round of Black Ops or grinding B-spec in GT is more fun. Its to the point where if my LS is busy, I won't even play. Its just not fun knowing that no one is going to be at the crystals, no one is going to join a party if I try to start one, and really, no one is going to talk at all. Its just a bunch of pixeled characters standing around breathing and eventually one of them holds their hand up, gets a card icon, then trots off into the distance.

This game may not be dead, but fuck, it feels dead outside of LL and Uldah.

I said it before and I'll say it again. SE making a good soloing pet class would do wonders for this game, because you spend a ton of time alone right now, and there's no better way to cater to "casual" players (not casual mindsets) than to give them a bow, gun or axe, some true pet (not this charmable temporary shit or some summonable jug pet, but a TRUE companion from start to finish) to go off into the wilderness with.

I know exactly what you mean, our LS has lost all but a handful of members and though the remaining members are my friends they play at different hours so I am often on by myself grinding leves or crafting solo. The game is mind-numbingly boring solo and when I try to create a leve party or even start up simple conversation at a camp I am often greeted by silence. The only break to this is behest but all that creates is shouts for a party, and then once it starts everyone moves with quiet, robotic efficiency, finishes the behest and then splits.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

I tried the party thing today. After a few minutes with the search function I laughed an logged off. Going to gamestop to pick up monster hunter 3 and oblivion right now. I think I'll only log in to do battlecraft leves a few times a week until they change stuff. Grinding bloodshore bells at 25 getting 50-60 sp per kill(avg 7k/hr) solo is so boring that no content they add at 50 down the road could make this grind worth it. Power to the guys that actually got the job done, just hope you can wait it out now.

[Riposte]

I don't really see the rush. I suppose those NMs could be worth the experience, but aside from that not much is waiting. It is not like if you restrict your playtime you won't be getting your money's worth.

Partying also doesn't succeeding at being as interesting as it should be, but then again I am putting it up against almost unreachable standards as the game is. I want to play a fractured RTS or real time DnD4e. At the very least, they could make enemies act like players in terms of healers and tanks.

[Sephiroth]

I eventually figured out how to efficiently solo grind earlier. Had to use those abilities that boost attack and then stack them with Multishot to one hit kill everything. If a Djigga spawned on me I was dead. If one aggroed me before I had stacked everything up to take away half its HP, I was pretty much dead. Nanawa was also slowly filling up with those small bug mobs because they share spawns with the coblyns and are higher rank so you can't kill them.

It was boring. My only motivation to rank up DoW is so I can farm coral to skill up goldsmithing. I think I'd be better off taking up fishing...

I did a behest in the mines, the SP was only slightly better than solo grinding despite having about 12 people in the party. Considering it took 15 minutes plus 5 more waiting around for it to start I probably could have got more SP soloing coblyns. But at least it was fun.

I solo my leves because the SP system makes it so you can't do leves with friends unless you're within 5 ranks of them (if you want to get worthwhile SP), and it's too much effort to try find randoms when people ignore you.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Needs more global chat to find people. Seriously.

I hear even the XI community is clamoring for this now. Totally makes sense.

/2010

[Riposte]

There are less annoying ways than implementing a global chat. The current party system they have could have great potential. The whole idea of creating "ads" for people is perfect for this game and has potential to be more useful than anything we got in XI and much more efficient than a global chat. For one they need to make a 2-way street and two more information needs to be available. If they can nail it, you have a nearly flawless system. Here I'll give a sample:

Players should be able to set their status to something like seek for party, filling out a form similar to the one you have to fill to begin recruitment. If anyone begins recruiting for something the player wants and the player meets the prerequisites that players receives a message notifying that such a listing was posted. It is vital that players can seek on any number of classes at the same time. Also vital is that the search system is as helpful for quests as it is for ranking up. (XI lacked this, and it matters much more often in XIV)

Likewise Recruiters should be able to search for players who are seeking and match the prerequisites. They should also be able to see all of the player's classes and relevant quest and leve information. Mind you, except for the latter, you can already do this via the lodestone, outside of the game.

And there should be a feature, outside of recruitment, to search anyone who have the same leves you do. Allow players to set their leves to private if that bothers them.

And from there you just have to make battles more party based(that is if they want to make a good game, not just comfortably mediocre one). Especially linked-leves. (Party based crafting too... but lol)

[Lucavi]

I don't really see the rush. I suppose those NMs could be worth the experience, but aside from that not much is waiting. It is not like if you restrict your playtime you won't be getting your money's worth.

Partying also doesn't succeeding at being as interesting as it should be, but then again I am putting it up against almost unreachable standards as the game is. I want to play a fractured RTS or real time DnD4e. At the very least, they could make enemies act like players in terms of healers and tanks.

Would be nice, BRP. The AI in this game is incredibly basic, and mobs don't even interact with one another. Its just another version of "you vs. the world". I'm sick of it; shit's been old for well over a decade now.