Guildleves and the 48 Hour Cool Down

[Rips]

i didn't keep track actually. i remember i let my rdm sit at 74 for like a year just cause. took my time and explored other jobs. i always enjoyed exp parties so i never thought of them as a burden, or grind if you will. another edge that i had over many is that i made bout 90% of my exp parties.

That's good. Took me 3 years and 5 deleted characters to get a 52 THF and a 75 WHM.

 

[Reya]

How would it help solve the lack of tanks and healers? If anything, it will increase it. People loathe leveling healers and are unlikely to level them either way. The only thing it will do is prevent those that DO want to level healer classes, not do it, because they can no longer get any exp.

For the people who play 24/7 they will no choice but to level tanks and healers if that's how they want to play this game.

**edit**

Not in beta, but can't a few jobs tank and heal this time around?

 

[Uzor]

technically all can do it.

And I don't think they'll level a healer job just because their exp is slowed down. The hardcore people don't like it at all and might choose to not play FFXIV instead. Those that do might sitll not choose those jobs. Assuming you play 24/7 without eating, sleeping etc. it'd take 7 days to level all of the jobs at the same time for 8 hours straight. Not even hardcore people are THAT hardcore. So it doesn't really force them to do it. Additionally, you don't get a lot of class experience by throwing cures, so they're more likely to play as DD's instead of curing, assuming they do not choose to solo.

 

[Raesvelg]

The thresholds have nothing to do with time. It's important to realize that. It's not a "I can only exp for 8 hours a week", it's a "I can only gain X amount of exp per week".

And ultimately, the reason that this is an ill-thought-out measure is the fundamental nature of it. It's punitive. Boosts to people who don't get to play as much would be accepted with vastly more grace by the player base than forcibly restraining those with more time on their hands.

 

[Reya]

I think a lot of the complaining going on is silly and the thought of a change from the norm is scary for a lot of people. I think it is great, because we are seeing something different than the stagnant and lazy chemistry of MMOs released since the early 2000's.

Ask yourself this as a general question. Do you honestly think that you will reach this threshold of exp to the point of a 0%? How much actual time is that with the incorporation of everything else you can do in an MMO. It's a part, not its entire essence.

So far everyone I have talked to in beta have not run into an issue with exping on their main jobs. I think most people are jumping to negative conclusions too quickly without all the information they need.

 

[Raesvelg]

I'm in the beta, and have been in since the alpha, and I've already said that it has no effect on me.

I'm not talking about me though.

I'm talking about the people in the beta who are the ones who initiated this series of complaints on the issue. Nobody outside the beta knew about this until the people inside the beta started bitching about it. And yes, people are making it into more of an issue than it needs to be, but that doesn't affect the fact that, for those people, this is an issue.

This falls into the same category as the safe way to adjust job balance: If at all possible, buff rather than nerf. You never want to punish people, or take something away from them, if you can do it another way, because punitive measures always engender a certain amount of anger and can spawn more of a backlash than intended. I understand SE's intent with this particular measure, though I hope everyone else realizes that it's a measure that will not persist indefinitely in the game. I just think that they could find a better way to achieve the same basic goal.

Think back to Warhammer Online, and the mass ragequitting that followed the nerfs of Witch Elves and Bright Wizards. Sure, most of those people weren't the kind of folks that I particularly enjoy playing with, but nevertheless, that represented a loss of players to a game that was struggling to attain and maintain a sufficient player base to keep growing. Which happens to be something that the game failed at.

Life is tough in the MMO market at the moment, and a failed launch functionally dooms a game into a small niche market, one that it most likely will never escape, or equally likely results in the game shutting down a year or two after launch. SE should be scrambling for damage control on this issue, and they've begun to do so, but their initial response was the kind of thing that Steve Jobs would be proud of; specifically to say that ignorant foreigners were spreading lies about the system and that people should stop freaking out.

Which has significant elements of truth to it, but is incredibly stupid to say, since you're going to be relying on those foreigners to provide you with at least half of your sales.

 

[Strid]

I think a lot of the complaining going on is silly and the thought of a change from the norm is scary for a lot of people. I think it is great, because we are seeing something different than the stagnant and lazy chemistry of MMOs released since the early 2000's.

This has nothing to do with the chemistry of the game. It's simply a penalty for not "mixing it up". I should decide whether or not I mix it up, not the company I'm giving my money to, right?

Ask yourself this as a general question. Do you honestly think that you will reach this threshold of exp to the point of a 0%? How much actual time is that with the incorporation of everything else you can do in an MMO. It's a part, not its entire essence.

When EXP lowers even 1% from the base rate you are wasting time. Therefore, by their system after an estimated 8 hours you will be wasting time compared to if the fatigue system was not in play. Spending 8 hours a day in FFXI and WoW for me was childsplay and leveling 8+ hours a day in WoW was pretty standard when I was leveling up. I did what I wanted to and leveled up. It's not about what you -CAN- do, it is about what you -WANT- to do, in totally an events related topic (not talking about, "I can do what I want? Fine. HAX!"). It'd be a better fit if it was daily, but weekly people like myself would just destroy the time limits and paying for a game that a company has limited our options to what we can accomplish of our goals is not going to happen.

So far everyone I have talked to in beta have not run into an issue with exping on their main jobs. I think most people are jumping to negative conclusions too quickly without all the information they need.

No. People do not want to be punished for doing nothing wrong. People play games to enjoy them not to be told, "Hey, yeah, I'm really glad you like our Mage class and all but we also made a Tank, go play it or we'll have to fine your time, thanks and <3 -SE"

Also, the given reason for the "fatigue" is ridiculous. In essence it is punishing hardcore players for being hardcore to allow the "casual" gamer a more -fair pace-. This whole sentiment of making something -especially- for the "casual" gamer to be on par with the hardcore is retarded. It's a kin to someone who dropped out of high school and thinks their employment worth is that of an Economics graduate of Harvard University.

Finally, I'll say I don't buy their reason I just stated above. In WoW the majority of the players level up quickly, which you do in these types of games, and leave. They may leave forever, for a few months, etc., but they do, they stop paying forever or for an unspecified time, they are not steady money counts. This system slows down that process of leveling and leaving.

 

[Acutie]

Consider how long we all sat LFG before calling it wasting time.

 

[Rips]

Finally, I'll say I don't buy their reason I just stated above. In WoW the majority of the players level up quickly, which you do in these types of games, and leave. They may leave forever, for a few months, etc., but they do, they stop paying forever or for an unspecified time, they are not steady money counts. This system slows down that process of leveling and leaving.

You got it right here. It's a money thing to the company. They want the $$$ and sugar coat it with treating all players equally, casual and hard core. I'm in the middle of casual and hard core and consider myself hurt by this, but I craft and do other things so I won't be affected, but still, it's the principal. I don't want to give my money to a communist controled game.

 

[Rips]

Double post

 

[Lukas]

Meh, people will get over it. Level 2-3 classes, do some questing or harvesting, and then rinse and repeat. At the end of the day, your main may not be so high, but you have abilities from the other classes to play with. From my understanding, the party experience isn't quite so cookie-cutter in XIV anyway, and each job can hold their own, so would it really matter if someone switches?

And limitations are forced upon your personal gaming goals and experience all the time. When it comes from developers it's called... development. When it comes from the community it's called expectation. Could you play a DRK with full strength avatars in XI? No. What if that was your pre-release goal? Could you grind Dynamis? No. Could you spam Assaults for points all day long? No. But you really want your Pahluwan, and that's what you want to spend your game time doing... Sorry cookie, that's the game.

Could you rock up to a party as BRD/PUP and solely DD? No.

 

[Twinzero]

I *really* think the only problem with this system at all is the heavy penalty you get towards the end - 0%. But SE has stated they are working on this. But from my standpoint, I know I'm not going to be happy getting much under 50%. It would feel like a waste of time and I'd do something else. I think the max penalty should be around 50% of the total xp. I'm confident that SE notices the harsh penalty will affect them quite negatively, and will put this system into a more fair perspective.

By no means will I rush XIV, and I certainly didn't in the beta. The highest I got my main to was 18, and I had fun playing my main, and all the other jobs I did to help my main. I also got involved in crafting, which although very laggy (and they are fixing this too), is going to be a worthwhile experience, and one I didn't bother with in XI. And unlike XI, almost every craft is intertwined in someway. So you either need to know someone with the crafts to help you out, or you may need to dwindle in all aspects of crafting.

 

[Zaltana]

Meh, people will get over it. Level 2-3 classes, do some questing or harvesting, and then rinse and repeat. At the end of the day, your main may not be so high, but you have abilities from the other classes to play with. From my understanding, the party experience isn't quite so cookie-cutter in XIV anyway, and each job can hold their own, so would it really matter if someone switches?

And limitations are forced upon your personal gaming goals and experience all the time. When it comes from developers it's called... development. When it comes from the community it's called expectation. Could you play a DRK with full strength avatars in XI? No. What if that was your pre-release goal? Could you grind Dynamis? No. Could you spam Assaults for points all day long? No. But you really want your Pahluwan, and that's what you want to spend your game time doing... Sorry cookie, that's the game.

Could you rock up to a party as BRD/PUP and solely DD? No.

i know a young lady that would scoff at your example because she doesn't listen to others opinions anymore but i easily see the point you are making. the thing people have a problem with is that fact that they are paying for the game. this system flies in the face of the "I'm paying for it i should be able to do what i want." attitude of the spoiled generation. every system has restrictions of some form. in starcraft you cant build the strongest units right from the go. you have to work your way up to them. but no one complains because b.net is free to play.

its a bit funny, but maybe SE put this system in place to add an element of realism to the game. i mean if you go out fighting constantly irl you're eventually gonna get tired, lol. hmmm, in that case maybe they can make it so your fatigue limit increases over time.

 

[Tribalinius]

Okay so let me just understand this, because so far I don't think this is too bad.

One threshold = 1 hour of exp and you have a total of 8 thresholds a week to use up (8 hours) until your exp starts hitting 0. Any exp after 0 is stored as "bonus skill points" which we don't know what they do yet.

The thresholds reset each week. You can also manually reset them by doing other in game activities which we're not sure of what they are yet.

If you switch from your exhausted Lancer for example over to say, Conjurer, you can start from the first threshold again and start earning max skill points again because thresholds are specific to class only.

This sounds not that bad, imo. Just have leveling 2 jobs at once in your agenda and you should be fine. The real question here is what we have to do to adjust the timer and how long it takes.

I'm more concerned about down time above anything else. We all had our share of parties sitting around doing nothing while somebody move his ass from windy to the jungle for example. Your 8h are going to the drain pretty fast meanwhile.

 

[Rips]

I'm more concerned about down time above anything else. We all had our share of parties sitting around doing nothing while somebody move his ass from windy to the jungle for example. Your 8h are going to the drain pretty fast meanwhile.

The 8 hours wouldn't be ticking. If you're not doing anything, it's probably for the better because while you're waiting around, the timer may be ticking backwards in your favour. The timer only ticks down while you are fighting, not in a party.

 

[Raesvelg]

The challenge for SE here is striking the right balance between what they're trying to do (which, let's be honest, is slow down the leveling process to avoid a zerg rush to endgame that can kill an MMO without enough to do there) and what they're trying to appeal to, namely the broadest possible market, all without making their intent obvious. In FFXI they took the expedient route of making exp slow to come by, and level requirements almost punitively high, then coupled it with a very restrictive and competetive endgame system where actual progression would be very difficult.

With XIV they're trying to appeal to a broader market, and are couching their argument in those terms, but it's still fairly transparent, unfortunately. I don't envy them their task at the moment, honestly. I think there must be a better way to accomplish the same task, but if they've chosen the stick over the carrot, so be it.

 

[Raesvelg]

I'm more concerned about down time above anything else. We all had our share of parties sitting around doing nothing while somebody move his ass from windy to the jungle for example. Your 8h are going to the drain pretty fast meanwhile.

Again, IT'S NOT A TIMER.. It's simply a series of thresholds set at specific amounts of accrued skill/exp. It takes about 8 hours to hit it in beta, but supposedly exp gain will be slower at release. Sitting around neither helps nor hurts you, since it's calculated on a weekly basis.

 

[Hexx]

i know a young lady that would scoff at your example because she doesn't listen to others opinions anymore but i easily see the point you are making. the thing people have a problem with is that fact that they are paying for the game. this system flies in the face of the "I'm paying for it i should be able to do what i want." attitude of the spoiled generation. every system has restrictions of some form. in starcraft you cant build the strongest units right from the go. you have to work your way up to them. but no one complains because b.net is free to play.

its a bit funny, but maybe SE put this system in place to add an element of realism to the game. i mean if you go out fighting constantly irl you're eventually gonna get tired, lol. hmmm, in that case maybe they can make it so your fatigue limit increases over time.

The bolded part is key. I keep telling people, yeah its your money you pay, but its THEIR game, if you don't like it, dont buy it and go play something else instead of whining as to what you think the game SHOULD be like =P Make a statement with your pocket book, and they might just listen XD

 

[Tribalinius]

I touch myself at night

D:

But yeah, I'm reassured now that it's not a timer but an exp counter instead. I'd be totally cool with that. If you're leveling 2-3 jobs at once, it's still 24h/week of grinding non-stop and we're not even talking about quest/missions/events or w/e SE is planning in the upcoming months with xiv either.

 

[Eilistrae]

I personally think its a good thing, for someone like me, who can get so immersed in a game lol The cooldown, will give me time to focus on IRL things. I plan to play only 3 days out of the week, to strike a happy medium with my hubby, who has no interest in playing FFXIV. I am also the type that likes to focus on one job at a time, so rather than switching jobs, I'd just take a break Its personally win-win for me.