Fatigue vs Large Parties: Exploit?

So, I had come to the conclusion that fatigue did not work. I could not have been more wrong. My sp party had been consistently running with 8-11 people, but one took a day off and stopped getting bonus from 2 people another wanted to take a day off and craft, and a third just doesn't want to faceplow into fatigue. So anyway tonight we only had 5 people, and let me tell you, IT SUCKED. First of all, same mobs we had been killing were giving a 1 dmg to .5 SP ratio instead of the normal .75-.8. Furthermore, we were all seeing extremely less frequent procs. Now that that is out of the way:

Is leveling in a large group with fatigue an exploit or intended to force people to not solo?

First point, the more people in the group the higher the dmg:sp ratio, which completely counters the ratio reduction from being in bonus. On Monday night this week, before bonus reset 4 ranks and 3 levels deep into bonus sword skill, tracking my sp/hr over 3 hours yielded 11.5, 13, and 10K sp/hr in a I believe we had a 9 person group that night. On Wednesday after it reset, my first 3 hours were 8K, 11.5K, and 9K sp/hr without bonus, in a 7 man party. Something is wrong with that. We know bonus works, we can clearly see it in gathering and crafting SP as well as physical level XP, so the variable must be party size.

Second point, I have been tracking my sp/hr for 3-5 hours a night every night since 25. All the way from 25-43 I have consistently been between 8-12K sp/hr, regardless of mob level. The only variable again here is party size, and adding more people will consistently increase your SP/hr until the point you are out killing the respawn of the camp.

Third point, the mobs with the best dmg:sp ratio have almost no HP and die after everyone in a 7-9 man party has gotten 2 hits, 3 tops. BUT, even on those mobs I almost always get a proc. Fighting those same mobs tonight in a 5 man party, I was seeing the same amount of procs getting 10 hits on a mob as I was when I was hitting it 3 times before it died with a bigger party and the 5K sp/hr proved this is not just me going "wow this sucks compared to last night" without proof to back it up. On the flip side, the mobs that give bad dmg:sp ratio and take a minute plus to kill even in 7-9 man groups give amazing debuff SP. Using weapon skills that put up debuffs or taunting and provoking yield excellent returns on those mobs, making them worth killing.

This should be noted that, at all times, everyone in the party is actively fighting every mob. Sure there are times where 1-2 people go afk to get a drink or use the bathroom but even if we wanted to, there are simply just not enough people our level to intentionally have people go AFK just to boost our bonus.

So do you think this is a gift from SE to allow the hard core players to reach level cap faster, or is it just something they overlooked and could possibly be considered an exploit?

I cross-posted this on both the zam and core forums for further discussion.

Glad storyline

So, according to the lodestone, I just finished my Glad storyline with the completion of the level 36 quest. To be honest, it left me a little disappointed that it is over. Granted, it did tie together everything from the previous missions, but using the power of the (which is explained during the level 20 main story quest) you find out some things about your opponents that will allow SE to put in more glad missions or tie the glad missions into the main story mission (which I think you will agree is the more likely when you see what it is). Honestly though that new story thread left me really disappointed knowing that this is the last class mission for a while because I really want to see how it ends.

From a gameplay perspective I was also very disappointed, I felt like the last story mission should have had you fight a lot of baddies and take a while to complete, it took me 10 minutes, 1 fight, and I never left the guild. I guess I just more expected something more like the epicness of unlocking new jobs in 11.

Please SE, you pride yourselves on story, it is why I got this game, and this one left a bad taste in my mouth, this one had a lot of steps, but a step should not be talk to this guy, get a short clip, talk to him again in an instance, get another short clip, and leave the instance and talk to him again. Please put in more glad and main story missions soon.

My Bookmarks

So the very first folder in my bookmarks is named "run this folder: FFXIV" (followed by "run this folder: WoW). In this folder are the following links:

• Eorzeapedia
• Zam's FFXIV page
• FFXIV Core
• The Lodestone
• FFXIV Origin
• FFXIV Archives
• FFXIV Pro
• Yellow Gremlin

The first thing I do (after logging in) is check all these sites for any new updates, Dev Q&A's, guides, or popular forum discussions.

New impossible solo of the day

http://ffxiv.yg.com/guildleve/necrologos-all-things-must-die?id=11706

Easy enough, it is a ground portal examine one (as opposed to the terrible get luck with drop rates running between 3 camps one) and it spawns pterocs which you pretty much 1shot. AND THEN THREE ZOMBIES SPAWN AND 1SHOT YOU.

Might just be because my weapon was broken but bring a healer for this one.

Obligitory Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Darksend Mercenare and I am currently leveling a gladiator on the Wutai server. If you randomly find this blog and recognize the name, that is because I am also the author at http://mother-bear.blogspot.com/. I had hoped to start this earlier but so far every second I have been awake and not at the gym has been spent leveling.

What to expect:

Basically a bunch of random bullshit I see wanting answered on the various fansites.



On the Beating Path

THIS LEVE REALLY SUCKS SOLO as a level 38 glad. First of all, when you get to the quest area, it is down a ramp into a valley filled with yarzons and a few elementals that are camping the spawn point, which you cannot clear out because the timer starts when you get close to it and not activated. And second, the final spawn of 3 ahriman ... you pretty much die before you know they spawned.

Anyway hopefully for monday I will have finished this post I was working on to post on the core and zam forums for discussion.