The Mog Log: Let's talk about EXP, baby
If there was one thing I always hated about Final Fantasy XI, it was the leveling process. Not the grouping for levels, which was fun and often a good distraction from the monotony of camping and grinding. (It was obnoxious trying to level Dragoon, sure, but that was excellent motivation to spend more time as a healer.) No, it was something much simpler -- the actual speed of the level-to-level process, or more accurately, the earth-shattering lag between levels that only increased as you got higher.
Both Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI are on the horns of an experience change, with the former having happened and the latter still to be seen as of this writing (I'm working fairly far ahead, so watch the patch drop this week). Seeing as how leveling is kind of a big deal until you've reached the level cap in everything, the changes are worth examining for what they add to the game and for whether or not the changes are actually worthwhile and useful.
Final Fantasy XIV: Good intentions, questionable outcome
Let me get the praise out of the way first. The buff to group leveling? Nice, and another instance of fixing things that were mildly problematic at launch. Grouping actually feels like a benefit for leves rather than a hindrance now, since the difficulty can be jacked up and skewed back down if necessary. It's a positive change, and I approve of it wholeheartedly.
That having been said, the reasons people weren't grouping before were only tangentially related to the leveling speed. Trying to get people to party up for leveling in a game where it's not mandatory is like trying to get a cat to play fetch. You can do it if you're really bound and determined to aim that way, but you need to have a really high tolerance for frustration.
Solo leveling is kind of a thing these days in MMOs. We've long since ditched the idea that in order to just level, you need a group. FFXIV makes almost every piece of content scale with group size, and while the increase in rewards is nice, you're not really forced to group for much. It's a flexible system, one in which you can do leves with two people you love or a dozen people you like. Part of the cost of that flexibility is going to be that people aren't going to group as reliably.
I feel odd criticizing this at all -- the scaling is one of the things I really like about the game, after all, and if Square-Enix rolled leveling back to forced grouping, I would be pretty resolutely unhappy. But with things as they stand, even if grouped leveling is faster, there's nothing to race toward in the first place. The sedate pace of the game isn't a bad thing, but it does tend to discourage running full-tilt toward the level cap. So it seems just a touch misguided.
On the other hand, I have a feeling that many of the people who wound up skipping out on the game didn't get to the higher levels and see the later quests and story installments. So maybe there's something to be said for leveling faster after all.
The other big pass in the experience changes was something of a normalization, making underleveled monsters less rewarding and overleveled monsters more rewarding. I'd seen a couple comments that this wound up killing solo experience, so I took it for a whirl. I honestly didn't notice much of a difference, although I hadn't been collecting any sort of empirical data, so take that with a grain of salt. Solo leves are still at about the same pace, with slightly better rewards if you crank up the difficulty. If you were grinding on blue targets outside of the leve cooldown, you might have found an experience dip, but otherwise you should still be cruising.
Final Fantasy XI
: Fixing what's broken with further breaks
We still don't know exactly how the experience changes will shake down in FFXI (I am convinced the development team is waiting for me to hand off this column and will push the patch live instantly when it happens), but the numbers that we've gotten are certainly encouraging. For this column, I'm going to assume that the vague figure given for Even Match targets is just a straight doubling, meaning an EM rewards 200 experience. Furthermore, to minimize the math related to level differences, I am going to assume that we're just seeing a doubling across the board, so an IT++ will net 400 as a base value and the very easiest of prey is worth 30.
This is, at least for lower levels, absolutely insane. When coupled with the removal of the Fields of Valor cooldown (and while you won't be getting tabs or gil except once per hour, the pinch will be pretty transparent), this is a huge increase in the amount of experience a player can gain per hour. Parties in the dunes, during the few times they actually exist, will be almost comically fast as Empress Bands and FoV completions send you up levels at maddening rates.
The downside -- there has to be one -- is that this is going to make solo leveling even more appealing than it currently is. For some classes, this isn't a problem. But classes like White Mage and Bard, already hard-pressed to level, are going to be even harder when these experience gains are put into place. Why even bother looking for a party when you can level insanely fast solo? It's the same problem that FFXIV faces, with the caveat that classes in FFXI aren't all made self-sufficient.
Of course, that's negativity for the sake of negativity. I look at the extant lack of parties at the lower levels and I can't help but think that this is a great step toward removing the game's unnecessary lower barriers. It comes with a small caveat, but just a small one, and I'm looking forward to the patch once it goes live.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments or via mail to eliot@massively.com. Leveling is always a tricky thing to balance, and we've all got a feeling about the speed of same, so I'm curious to compare notes. Next week, I think it's time to revisit some older topics that got glossed over in the past but deserve more expansion.
From Eorzea to Vana'diel, there is a constant: the moogles. And for analysis and opinions about the online portions of the Final Fantasy series, there is also a constant: The Mog Log. Longtime series fan Eliot Lefebvre serves up a new installment of the log every Saturday, covering almost anything related to Square-Enix's vibrant online worlds.
