Exp parties & community?Follow

I purchased ARR last night and haven't had a chance to play yet (due to incredibly slow download speed) so please be gentle with the flaming!

After browsing thru the forums here and the Lodestone I have few questions... Hoping to ease future disappointment and better understand what I can look forward too. I keep reading about this DF system and was wondering if anything like "oldskool" exp parties exist? Does grouping with friends or other random people (in my same server only) and going to random places in the world to "grind" on mobs exist? Or are we stuck with this DF system, which from what I've read is horribly implemented? Or is the DF system specifically for dungeon raids and there's still viable options for exp parties?

Next question; reading thru the forums here and Lodestone it seems that this community has become rude since the days of FFXI. I've come across disrespectful rude comments on every forum I've been browsing... Is this same "atmosphere" portrayed in game?

Again, please forgive me if these questions are repeats or irrelevant. Just trying to get a feel for ARR community and play style.

Edited, Oct 30th 2013 11:57am by dradenmathias

Duty Finder's structural and functional problems have been largely fixed. (No more error 90000 as soon as a raid starts.)

Duty Finder is only for dungeons and boss fights - anything that is instanced that requires a group. (There are lots of other instanced solo duties that don't require using Duty Finder.) It removes the tedium of shouting for hours to find other people with the same objective as you, and simply queues you up with other people who are flagged for the stated objective.

The limitation is that everyone wants to play as DPS and far fewer people are on healer jobs or tank jobs. So if you are signing into Duty Finder as a DPS, you're going to be waiting a while. (Tanks have a virtually non-existent wait. Healers usually have to wait for a tank, too.) You can bypass Duty Finder and build a party of friends outside to dramatically reduce the wait time, too. (Then, you're only waiting on the server to find you an open slot.)

All that said, the instanced dungeons are good old fashioned dungeon crawls, with treasure chests and bosses and all the goodies associated with a classic dungeon. You earn a lot of exp per mob in dungeons, too. They're fun as long as you're not paired with jerks. That is the real tragedy of DF: You're paired with random people who may or may not be civil human beings.

There's nothing stopping you from forming a party and just going and slaying monsters in the open world, though. If you find other people with the same desire, it'd be fun. It may not, however, be as efficient exp-wise as a comparable dungeon raid or FATE party.

Grinding away on open world mobs is fairly unrewarding in FFXIV. You would probably be better off doing repeats of story line dungeons that are appropriate to your level. That way, you get exp for not just the mobs you kill inside the dungeon, but you'll also get exp when you clear the dungeon (with a significant bonus of anyone in the group is clearing it for the first time) and loot (which even if you can't use, you can turn in for Grand Company points or sell on the Market Board).

not surw if this helps but:

1. in xiv the bulk of the interaction no longer happens during exp parties but in organised, instanced fights like dungeons and boss fights.

2. many of such fights can be accessed via duty finder and in essence they are similar to exp parties back in old school ffxi (at least the pre-75 era) where you meet strangers, team up and try to get things done.

3. like in ffxi, you could form the team with your friends also. in the event you cant, just use the duty finder.

4. earning exp is a very different process compared to ffxi. it's much easier now - earned via quests; random world events called FATE, and dungeons. running dungeons repeatedly is the closest thing you can find to exp parties in ffxi, and imo they are almost the same thing - you interact, you learn your roles, and you do proper fights. nonetheless, it is not the fastest way to earn exp - the fastest being FATE - but you do get to interact and get some decent loot from dungeons. whether or not the trade off is worth it is for yourself to decide, but just know that you have options.

finally, the game is designed in such a way that earning levels is not the bulk of the game experience (certainly not as much as in ffxi). it does still take you time if you wanna level everything to 50, but it is much more forgiving than ffxi, and it is much easier to jump into actions as compared to ffxi.

Good info. Congrats on scholar.


Edit: My thanks to whoever rated me down. I forgot the first rule of Karma Club: Do not talk about Karma Club...


Edited, Oct 31st 2013 1:45pm by Pickins

As said pre 50 the game is fun, after 50 however it can be full of trolls, and ****** Even level 50 DF dungeons are getting bad, atleast for me. If you dont have atlest relic as soon as you hit 50 people will run you down no matter how good you are. Its making me seroiously consider droping the game because I cant get anything done because I dont have my relic, and people drop parties, or scream because I dont have it, but refuse to help get it. Maybe its just me tho. If you have a few friends to play with that will make things more enjoyable, and easier later in the game.

Was able to put in a good 3 or 4 hours of play time last night! I must say; this game has come a LONG way from 1.0! Made it to lvl 9 w/ con on Siren. If you're on Siren, please look me up - Jupiter Starshine.

After playing for a bit I can totally see that most xp is gained thru quests (on your first play thru). Even though I had absolutely no interaction with a single PC; I had fun and was enticed to stay up a 1/2 hr past my normal "bedtime" to complete another quest or two ;) All in all, definitely an enjoyable experience thus far.

Thanks again for the advice and tips!

Edited, Oct 31st 2013 9:15am by dradenmathias

I'm on Siren (Miss Pickins), hit me up if you want to join our FC. We're friendly and have a wide level range of players.

My whole plan was to grind on mobs to 50. And there are some FATEs that no one bothers with, that are pretty easy to solo.

on hindsight i think its better to:

1. level a dps clasd via quest
2. meanwhile lvl a healer/tank class on dungeons

because dps have long queue time for dungeons, and repeatedly grinding fate could be boring. by doing this, ubcan have a dps class at 50 as well as get through story dungeons easily because u have tht healer/tank class, and running dungeons is really really fun.

just make sure u familiarize urself with the dps rotations.

Started doing this in Aleport. So much more fun to just blow up gobbies and hedgehogs. The resting xp isn't even enough to bother with because of how quick FATEs repop.