…the more they stay the same.

Having a little time off between a handful of substantial updates seems to have renewed the game for me.

There’s a fair amount of discovery going on by me.  SE has moved around some of the NPCs so basic activities, like warping to outposts, meant hunting around the cites for the new locations.  Although I’m not a fan of the new locations, the hunt wasn’t a chore.  Having to wander through the cities again, like a newbie, a tiny bit like logging into Windurst the first time and discovering the joys of Windurst.

SE also introduced “Field Training.”  Essentially it’s the tired old MMO quest of “Go out and kill <n> beasts!”  The difference is that this isn’t delivered to the player as content — it’s simply a method of making the leveling process faster by allowing you hunt stuff that normally gives you XP and giving you an XP bonus at the end.  It’s funny that when delivered in such a honest method that this tired mechanism doesn’t seem so bad.  I’ve been level Red Mage (as a sub to my Paladin) to try out this system, and it works pretty nicely.  In 3 days I as able to go from level 1 to level 18.  I’m sure I could have done it faster, but I refuse to play this game in such a way that makes it a complete grind.

It’s not all without it’s bumps though.  First, many people now refuse to party until at least level 20.  It’s understandable why.  Solo’ing levels 1-20 is often faster than trying to party at such early levels.  Valkurm is reknowned for it’s ability to even make perfectly competent players teh suck, and one is often XP ahead going after “Easy Prey” and “Decent Challenge” monsters than getting stuck with a bad party.   There’s also fact that all my old Linkshells are defunct.  I’ve hooked up with an old LS mate from Paradigm, Marthamoonbeam, and her friend Mumble.  They’ve been great, but since we all play such skewed times, my time thus far has been a little secluded.

Finally SE cleaned up a few of things that bothered from earlier updates.  When “Treasure Chests” first showed up, they’d just spontaneously appear in random places.  That, and a few other new mechanics really ruined the game for me.  SE fixed a fair amount of these with easy modifications.  Chests now, for example, appear after you’ve killed a monster.  Simply by making the mechanic show up in a logic manner really changed the feeling of the game.

So with all those changes, it comes down to this;  I’ve been spending my early levels grinding solo on EP and DC prey while doing quests, and finding a party in Valkurm is hard.  Just like 2004.

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