One thing I liked about FFXI was that for the most part Power Leveling was limited. Yes, a PL could help someone in FFXI gain experience faster, but not THAT much faster. I hate it in MMOs when there are ways for people to get PLed in a way that gets them experience at MUCH faster rate than without a PL.

It is possible to pretty much eliminate PLing. For example in FFXI, if someone heals you while you are in combat, then that person could be considered part of your party and your XP would be adjusted accordingly.

What are your guys thoughts about PLing? I see 3 choices:

1) No PLing - Let everyone do the work themselves
2) Limited PLing - like FFXI
3) Let people PL as much as they want!!! Like this:

FFXI - PL gone mad!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lXu7wkzaC8
or
WOW - PL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN7KfJ7ZKXc

If SE wants to limit PL somehow I wont complain nor will I complain if they decided not to limit it. I don't much care either way. The only problem I see with PLing is players getting to level cap before they know how to play their class which is easily solved by a kick button.

I don't mind it as long as it requires another person actively sitting there and doing it. Some one multi-boxing or whatever is iffy for me but if it's some program or automated script then that's crossing the line.

I'm assuming SE are going to be anti-PL this time round
They've already said that a much more "skilled" player can easily party with a less skilled person -- presuming skill is the new level here too. Now this is obviously easily exploited, so surely they'll have a system in place to stop it happening?

I'm not bothered with PL. I don't PL people, people don't PL me. If people PL other people, it's their business, not mine. I'm not going QQ over someone else leveling up quicker than me.

I remember being in a few parties that were being powerleveled also. I think it was nice to not have to worry about dieing, but I didnt do it so often that I would lose my ability to play my job well. Its good to just have for a small boost, seeing as how grind intensive FFXI was.

If they allow it I will do my best to avoid it.
I think it's not so bad if you already have a healer in your party, learning their trade and the PL just steps in if it goes bad or you get links.

It's nice to cure someone as you run past.
I put up with my party being PL'ed sometimes (mainly as BLM when invites tailed off) but wasn't keen.
Especially hated it when I was WHM as it left me little to do and I loved the balancing act of risk/reward and MP conservation. Had a few levels in the dunes where we were PL'ed but felt embarrassed 'cos it felt like I was leaching.
Met too many WHM that never learned to play well and it's really annoying having a poor healer in party if there's no one else on you can use.

I imagine it will be similar to FFXI in most cases, but for instanced guildleves, I suspect you won't be able to bring PLs unless they are in your party, which will of course limit your growth.

No one learns how to play their job @75 by doing exp pts, certainly not whm. Exping in this game is a means to an end, nothing more. Quite honestly there wouldn't have been such a need or desire for PL'ing if the exping aspect of FFXI wasn't so tedious and absolutely time consuming; especially if you're playing a less than favored job.

Hopefully the "leveling" system in FFXIV won't be set up to be as mind numbingly boring and will have better options for gaining those skill levels.

The biggest mystery is why you can't all fight the mob too. If everyone can help cure, why not help damage?

Something like "It would be too easy if you killed the mob, but it isn't not too easy if you are unable to die"

A PL won't matter for FFXIV because there are no levels. Sure you can have a friend sorta help you out during your "skill up" party, but I don't think it will be as helpful. The main reason this is true is because you won't need the cookie cutter setup for parties. So it will be very easy to grab a person to heal, or maybe 2 if needed. No negative bonus according to SE by the number of people in party simply removes the point of PLing. If someone wants to heal, they can simply join your party and heal. There won't be job levels so it's not like the party is lv50 and the healer is lv75.

So no, PLing won't be in FFXIV. Your possible PL won't have the level advantage and won't detract from "skill points" even if they wanted to join party.

Remember the old days of everyone joining a party for skill ups in the tree. You'd usually find a WHM joining and other support classes because they never get a chance to melee. That's essentially what FFXIV will be like. Because XP won't be an issue, the novelty of a PL is moot. You can bring 2 healers if you know the camp for your party is rough. SE stated there was no penalty for extra members. So your "skill ups" will be the same with 1 or 3 WHM's, it doesn't matter. Think about it for a moment, the reason why FFXI has niche setups has to do with the almighty max XP per hour quota. Upon review of "skill up" parties, XP isn't a factor so let's examine that formula in more detail. The more healing in a party, the more mobs, the more skill ups you'll receive as a result.

If you combine FF2 and FFV, you have FFXIV. FFV offers the classes which feature the different abilities and skill sets. FF2 provides the model for increasing your healing, melee, defense, etc. just by using that skill.

The system that SE has developed is beyond the limits of FFXI. Again, XP per hour killed the balance of this game. You don't want X job because Y equals more XP. You don't ask a PLD to merit, however you want them to tank your HNM's. Now you can party on PLD(Gladiator) in FFXIV and always be optimal. No stupid XP per quota to get in the way. That's why this system is so appealing to me and why PL is useless. Look at how hard it is for BST to be excepted in FFXI, now it's harmless to bring another DD in FFXIV.

ShadowedgeFFXI, I see what you're saying. But if Skill up parties in FFXI are what FFXIV is going to be like, then it seems like it will be extremely boring. You'll be killing the monsters that have the most armor but the least attack, just so that you'll be hitting the thing longer before needing to pull another monsters (I think the general consensus is no more crabs!).

I'm hoping there will still be danger of dying while in combat. If they have no experience penalty for large parties, then wont people just mob up in like a 20 person party and just clear out an entire zone? With a huge party you have a low risk of dying, and you'll still get plenty of skill ups by following the huge party around and hitting whatever they hit.

I kind of liked it in FFXI that experience parties were limited to 6 players, because it required more strategy that way. If you throw in 15 players you wouldn't care about strategy because you have enough people to just beat up the enemy.

Alright, I used the "skill up" party in FFXI to give you an example of how it would play out if we adapted FFXIV to FFXI mechanics. However, the reverse isn't true. FFXIV won't consist of pulling a single mob back to camp or sleeping everything in range similar to meripo parties. I agree though, it would be boring if the standard FFXI mechanics were in effect for the "level up" system in FFXIV.

SE has showed many screen shots of parties surrounded by tons of mobs. In FFXI, you just sleepga everything and one tank calls the targets. FFXIV looks to approach this horde mechanic with more tactics. That's probably why the game doesn't penalize you for having more than your normal party size. You wouldn't worry about mobs in FFXI if you had 15 people like you mentioned, but again, FFXIV isn't the same engine as FFXI. You can have a duo/trio party or have a small alliance. FFXI rarely offered that kind of choice unless you do FoV or have a specialized job like BST. In FFXIV, you'll do most of your daily "XP" in Guildeves. From what SE has confirmed so far, Guildeves appears to be FoV, Assault, Einherjar, Limbus, ZNM, and Campaign OPs all in one.

The Campaign OP's is easy to explain. You know how some of them allow you to solo or take 5 friends with you. The same goes for Assault. You can either take 3 people or take 3~6 people, your choice. The reason why this is relevant is because you'll be doing more low-man XPing to coin a phrase. However, should you wish to join a larger group, you're free to do that as well. The thing to remember here is SE is focusing on providing content for all players. Your average XP party wait time in FFXI doesn't mesh well with everyone. The best part is partying with say 3 people in FFXIV won't be a handicap or less efficient than 6 people grouping together because there is no XP quota. So the benefit of grouping with cookie cutter setups and numbers doesn't give you any advantage. That's what I call balance. Of course a hardcore person will "level up" faster due to more playing time, but not in the time allocated.

Lastly, I don't agree with you that FFXI's 6-man system takes any skill nowadays. In FFXI pre-ToAU, the game took quite a bit of skill to play in a party. Now all you do is spam macros to TP and WS on pink birds with no defense. RDM's don't enfeeble(enfeebling consists of more than Dia II) anymore, instead they play Pink mage. BLM's aren't wanted anymore when in 2003-05, you wouldn't dream of not grabbing a seeking BLM. The party system in FFXI is mundane and set on easy mode. The only challenge left in XP parties is if you're playing a support class and you have a MP sink in your party.

Your ideas work Cyiode, but only in FFXI which already has the option to turn off outside assistance.

Anyway, you really should read up on what we already know about the game. You'd probably realize that there won't be a need for PL. All of the skills and abilities available to your character come through the use of a weapon. I'm not 100% sure on this, but most likely you level up your skills or gain new ones by using your abilities granted through these weapons. They've said that instead of grinding exp you grind skill for the abilities you want to learn. I don't really think there is a way to PL your way to these abilities due to this type of interaction.

I really wonder how they are going to scale HP/MP/Def/etc. I don't really like the idea of "Hey, I just got even better with my sword, so NATURALLY that giant chicken can hit me for less!" I'm thinking either the community has the wrong impression of this "skill up" system, or we'll be gaining most of our stats(HP/MP/STR/DEF/etc) through armor, similar to FFTactics giving HP through armor.

people will do it regardless of how effective or ineffective it is. WoW it was super easy, FFXI... it was ineffective but doable.

I like the idea and hate it.

Great for getting through those 5 or 10 levels of a job where no one wants to see your ugly face(like thief pre-20 in FFXI, or BLM 55-65?).

But at the same time people seem obsessed with having the maximum level. With the way 14 is derived i hope it will be a little less intense and be more about progression. Games have all turned into this though, be the best and the highest...

People really don't understand how FFXIV is shaping up. The ONLY reason we don't bring more support in FFXI parties is because of the XP per hour. In the old days, you could easily find a RDM and WHM party. Now because of ToAU and the signet changes, we tend to come DD heavy now. But if you removed the XP quota out of the picture, it would serve no purpose to kill faster. It's not like you gain more skill points for faster kills. You do however gain skill ups(levels) for curing your party more or blocking on a tank job. So it really serves no purpose to have an outside PL when you could have an army of people in your party, yet no negative penalty. So seriously, why would you need a PL ever? You can just join the group and skill up yourself. You can't do that in FFXI because a lv75 WHM would destroy XP for a low level party. So I don't understand why some people continue to think otherwise.

Well this thread is about PL, not inviting higher skilled(weapon skills) DD's to kill faster. You can already do this in FFXI without level sync, yet the XP is ruined. For example, say you have a party in Qufim that a Lv75 WHM joined. Unless your group synced, you would get screwed on XP. However in FFXIV, you receive no penalty according to SE, so the uses of a PL aren't the same. Level sync will exist in FFXIV too, but it seems for missions and other stuff where you can cap your skills.

Speaking of PLing, I know a lot of mages used to PL because their healing skill wasn't capped. So they would head to the dunes etc. to skill up. As you probably already know, the JP aren't fond of Power levels. I've had many of them disband over the years because our leader had a PL. I'm positive that this system is in place to remove the need for PL's. You don't gain anything by having a 2nd account healing unless you were just too damn impatient to invite a few healers if the situation called for it prior to leaving the hub city. IMO, SE has figured out a way to remove the threat of PLing without Instancing. I'm not saying a healer can't walk by and cure your group, only that the healer walking by can just as easy be invited to the group.

I expect that SE will set balances to keep you on mobs that are appropriate to your skill level. For example, say at skill level 100, mobs in zone A are equally matched. We'll pretend you get a skill-up every time you do something.

Then say you come back at skill level 150. The mobs are considered too easy at that point, so you might only get a skill-up on every 4th or 5th action, and if you check out the timing, the skill-ups are rolling in noticeably slower.

Then pretend you come back at skill level 200. The mobs are "so easy", that you stop getting skill-ups. You have to fight something more challenging.

Mechanic-wise, it makes sense, is scalable, maps to your skill rather than your kills...

I think power-levelling will be forgotten, as it's currently defined. If it's capped appropriately at both ends, you'll get the best returns - not from fighting super-hard mobs - but from fighting the ones that match your skill-level. From what we've seen of the game, one-person can handle multiple equal-level mobs simultaneously, so there should be no concern over tackling whatever crowd with whatever party makeup; having more people just means the things die faster, without any reduction in each person's skill-per-hour; things dying faster should be no big deal if SE continues with the goal of vast sweeping vistas (and hopefully scales respawns to the number of mobs remaining in the zone); and party makeup won't matter, since your skill-per-hour depends solely on what YOU do.

What's a power-level for? Maybe slightly reduced resting time for melee classes, if nobody wants to play healer for the day... But it's not really a power-level at that point. Your skill-per-hour remains basically the same.

So my opinion is, skill-based system means power-levelling will provide insignificant return for either side. I expect it more likely that more experienced players will group with their friends in a role with equivalent skill, and skill-up together.

I don't agree and I'm going to leave it at that. I suspect that if a high "leveled" person wanted to PL, they would instead be invited and synced. I'll also assume you will continue to gain skill ups because if not, it would serve no purpose. In FFXI's sync, you can't go past the blue cap for that level so skilling up is pointless unless you're far below the cap. I don't think we will have PL's in any sense because they serve no purpose. No XP levels and carefree soloing doesn't inspire PL's to flourish. I don't count an an escort as a PL either. But the funny thing is, none of this matters. If you're going somewhere dangerous, bring more people. Simple, yet effective. You don't get penalized for bringing more people so why wouldn't you want to is the question. The best part of this is thanks to the lack of XP per hour, no job class can be shunned. If only BST were in FFXIV, we would actually get a party :P

Because it's less opportunity to get skill ups. More people fight more monsters, less people fight less monsters. I don't foresee groups of 10 people ganging up on 2-3 monsters, cuz they would die so fast there wouldn't be an opportunity to skill up.

While it's fun and cute to say "don't limit me! let me play how I want to play!" I've seen the harm it does.

I vowed long ago to never be PLed. I've stuck by that to this day. I've left numerous parties that got PLs and turned down hundreds of invites because of them. And you know what? I'm proud of myself for doing so. I don't care if you want a PL. You're right. That's YOUR decision, and good for you.

But when PLing is the norm... you know how hard it is to level for those of us who don't want to feel like we're cheating? It's very hard. Your insistence on 'playing how you want to play' has made it almost impossible to level at times if you would rather take the honorable route.

I'm sorry, but I hope they make it so any form of powerleveling isn't possible in ffxiv.

So on one hand you're upset because you can't play the way you want to play but would have it so others can't play the way they want to? Ok.

Honorable? This is a video game, and you're leveling. Where is there honor? If any at all, be honorable by not stealing people's loot or screwing others over.

Yes. I'm sure that seems hypocritical to you, but then, you don't see powerleveling as a problem, so you're already biased.



Well, you're entitled to your opinion, as I am mine. Just because you don't have a sense of pride about such things in no way means that I am a lesser person for feeling that way.

Some people... believe it or not... feel that playing by the intended rules of the game IS honorable. That taking shortcuts and cutting corners is something that the lazy or the weak do. As I've said before, this is my opinion... and I know, while I'm in the minority, there ARE others who feel the way I do. I've spoken with them. To you, cutting corners is okay. Good for you. I hope you have fun doing it. But I'm not going to pretend your accomplishments even compare to mine if I do it 'the right way.'

Really, I feel that if anything, you're attempting to troll me, and so I'm going to stop there. Trust me when I say I've had this conversation about a hundred times. Rarely is it because I wish to spread my honorable intentions. It's usually to defend myself against verbal assaults by people such as yourself who a) don't understand and b) don't give a damn.

Edited, Nov 11th 2009 10:01am by shanecf

Very well said, AureliusSir! ^^