Final Fantasy XI Then...

[C']

While I don't agree with exp requirements per level being reduced, I'm happy with this 8% or no more than 2400 xp loss on death. Under the old system, if you died at around level 70 for example, that would probably be a few days worth of work lost. These games are meant as entertainment. There is nothing fun about an over-zealous death penalty. Now all that needs to happen is for SE to remove the remaining few members of Chairman Mao's elite force of campers and gil sellers and the game can reclaim its greatness.

There was actually a cap in place for the EXP you lost at higher levels. I can't remember the exact figure so don't know if the new 2400 cap is lower.

[?pint]

The original cap was 2400 as well, but the 8% exp loss is a lower rate than the original rate of exp loss, so basically until you reach the cap, you lose less exp than you otherwise would.

[?pint]

Oh, and Daragon, if you died at level 70 and got a Raise 3, you would lose 180 exp. Raise 2 you lose 600, and Raise 1 you lose 1800. 2400 is lost with no raise.

[bokawel]

hi guys been playing this game for a bit now.

currently on lvl 6. died alot but still up and running. ill be on most of today(sun) and hopefully i can meet anyone who can give a linkshell. my char name is Kleng(fem hume) and my country is Bastok. looks like ill be hanging there for a while so if anyone around pls send me a /tell.

[Tobal]

I should be on at some point day, lvling in Dunes so flying back to jeuno->bastok and walk from there.

[Irons]

As a 56 PLD I've begun to fell the "grind" an awful lot lately. For me the lowering of exp requirements is a good thing and most people I speak with, including level70+, agree with me.

Playing FFXI after level50 is almost a different game to pre 50, the TNLs shoot up,the mobs get more HP and take a lot longer to kill, the pool of players you have to exp party with reduces a lot as well so if this increases that player pool it's a welcome change for me as it should mean less time lfg.

A lot of people don't level past 60 because they simply can't put in the required time if they have a family and a full time job as well as a social life to juggle not because they don't want a challanging game.

I've leveled nunerous jobs and once you get the hang of a job and know when to use your spells/abilites exping is easy and not much challange imo, all it really takes is a bit of concentration on the players part.

Promyvions and missions etc are a challange but ordinary exp parties are a breeze imo. Just because it takes a long time to do something doesn't mean it was a challange.

I'm behind SE all the way on this one.

[Darwock]

Good point Irons. Surely it is the limit break quests etc that put the challenge in to achieving the higher levels, the amount of time it takes on top of that does not increase the difficulty per se.

[vwilsonuk]

Good point Irons. Surely it is the limit break quests etc that put the challenge in to achieving the higher levels, the amount of time it takes on top of that does not increase the difficulty per se.

I hadn't really thought much about the limit breaks. I will be very interested to see how much of a modification they make, as a percentage of the current requirement. Their current announcement is almost completely devoid of specifics about anything.

[?pint]

The problem is, with more and more 'casual' players becoming high levels, there is not enough endgame activity to support everyone. Missons/BC's at this level last a good few hours, and if you don't have the time to spare to party for these lengths of time, why would you have the time to do missions/bc's, and camp NM's for hours on end? IMO it is pandering to the casuals. If you want an easy game, go play WoW. In a few months you will have rinsed it for all it's worth, and be back on FFXI.

[Irons]

The old "hardcore vs casual gamer" argument raises it's head again

Where does the line between hardcore and casual be drawn? Due to work commitments and other real life things I can join exp parties in FFXI 3 nights a week and that leaves me a total recluse with no time to ever go out

Most JPN players don't want to play with English speaking players, at least on Garuda, whether that is due to the language barrier or something else I don't know. That leaves other EU players, haven't met any that aren't in my LS, and Americans. With the time differences being what they are it can be 12 midnight, 7pm EST, before a lot of them come on meaning 3-4 AM finishes if you want to put a dent in your tnl.

I'd say the average exp/hour for pickup parties is about 3.5-4k exp/hour. If I play 2 nights a week that's say 20k exp at the most with travel times, LFG, AFKs etc. So if I'm lucky that's a level a week at least until the tnl goes up again. Add in the time you spend farming, limit breaks, AF quests etc and I might hit level75 this time next year.

Just because I can't spend 30 hours a week playing FFXI doesn't mean I want an "easy" game for "casual" players. Making time for a NM hunt 2 times a week if you get to the level cap is not much different than making time for an exp party except you are doing the fun things in the game, not grinding experience points.

Pandering to the casuals or giving the majiority of the player base what they want?

At the end of the day SE is a business and it's there to make money and I'm sure they're envious of WoW's subscriber numbers which topped 1.5 million the last I heard. If FFXI is losing a lot of players to WoW maybe it's because you can play WoW and have a life as well? and SE will try things to get those players back.

Pandering to casuals or is it SE making a business decision to give the majiority of players what they want? and of course to keep the Dollars rolling into SE's bank account.

I've put a 1000 hours into FFXI so far and if my not wanting to put another 1000 hours to get to the end game makes me a casual player who likes easy games then so be it.

[Tsingtao]

Fair play Irons I'm in pretty much the same place as you how ever I'd rather take the next 18 months to reach 75 than have the requirement lowered. I've recently lowered my playing time quite a bit to around 10 - 20 hours a week tops. Like you I've got a job, a partner, the gym, hockey / cricket / kart racing, friends and other assorted fun like eating to fit in with FFXI.

I just don't want to see the change, I knew what I was facing when I started and was happy to go for it. I have to say having spent 9 months playing to reach where I am I'm not doing bad as my expectation was 2 years to reach 75 in 1 job with others to follow. To me the lowering of the exp is the first time I've ever reconsidered playing, I really do need to see what the changes are. Like you say I doubt they're going o be massive. Probably in the order of 10% per level tops, this I suppose could be said to balance the lack of players in these levelling bands and take into account the subsequent time spent LFP.

What I don't want this to do is to encourage the WoW mentality that we already see to much of on the servers further. To be honest though there the problem is the power levelers, if those folks left the idiots to fail in the Dunes we probably wouldn't have so many still playing.

As for nationality of parties, I've found the Japanese to be quite good once you're known to them. I've spent a long time in JP only parties from 32 to 44, it all started by spending time talking to 1 or 2 in /tell. Eventually they partied up as not all say no thanks, particularly the unfasionable jobs will except (MNKs, DRGs, DRKs, SAMs etc). Once you have one the rest is easy, some will come via tells others if you ask your JP members to ask will come join after some debate. A few words of very basic japanese can work to, please / thank you / yes and no etc.

NA parties can be dicey as we get a lot of kids on at our times but then again I don't play much past midnight for anything other than quest or BCNMs so I take what I can find. If you're really unlucky that means people like Rydus, the biggest halfwit I've ever seen ^^

[Darwock]

if you don't have the time to spare to party for these lengths of time, why would you have the time to do missions/bc's, and camp NM's for hours on end? .

Surely the difference is that for a mission, you only need to find that time *once*. For levelling you need to find that time day after day, week in/week out. I don't see the logic in saying that having more 'casual' players at high levels will reduce the opportunities to do endgame activities.

[Tsingtao]

Think the point is once you reach the end game the time commitments are even larger than that required for xp. So people simply reaching the end game will be faced with the same problems. This in turn has a knock on effect for any pick up party events though at this level they're almost all LS from what I see with ArchAngelz.

For example the last 3 weekends they've been out farming and killing the HNM for optical hats for everyone in the shell that needs one. These runs are taking hours on end, entire days at times let alone when they dissapear off on missions etc. This is what I'm seeing of the end game so far, these are people just starting to prepare for dynamis and sky. These guys are running skill up parties longer than most xp parties I'm in!

Think all that 1/2 pint is saying is that with xp you can break it up do it in small runs or parties of less than 4 hours. With the end game set up it seems less able to support this so expressing people there is not going to help much. That and when you get there reputation counts for a lot, I know certain players that are never used for their job even if they are the only ones there.

[Tobal]

who says SE won't release more end game content, or another expansion disk??? they won't let those at lvl75 already have nothing to do.

[Tsingtao]

They will release more content, probably another expansion maybe 2, it's a MMORPG they do that. Not sure how that impacts the simple fact that end game activites are massivley time consuming as far as I have seen from the LS and very much dependant on people finding an end game LS that will take them.

Be interesting to see how the patch affects xp, pretty much resigned to it, but I suspect that end game LS entry criteria will be tightened.

After 75 it's the quest for merit points etc, end game armour. Currently the economy doesn't contain enough end game gear for all, prices will rise significantly if people get there faster than the economy can support it.

One last point HNMs competition is already ferocious at current levels just think of the joys if people are fast tracked to there. There'll be zones with hundreds in waiting for pops of Vtra etc.