Possible level/story jumps....really?

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

Not having to level a character and gain exp in a MMORPG is blasphemy.

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Its ok though new players apparently hate leveling and doing MSQs so they deserve an INSTAIWINBUTTON! Otherwise they won't play and we can't have that......

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

Not having to level a character and gain exp in a MMORPG is blasphemy.

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It's just a different design direction.

More focused on a skill based game rather than a stats based one.

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Originally Posted by TaranTatsuuchi

It's just a different design direction.

More focused on a skill based game rather than a stats based one.

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Skill based game ? Do you know the amount of people that don't even try to play decently ?

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

Not having to level a character and gain exp in a MMORPG is blasphemy.

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Are MUDs not considered MMOs?

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Originally Posted by Watachy

Skill based game ? Do you know the amount of people that don't even try to play decently ?

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I was speaking of a hypothetical game designed around not having a leveling system. ;P

No , no and no !
New players need to do all we did since beginning. Step by step and learn.
Why rush ... ? To have all and boring after ?
Its how i feel it.

The biggest reason I don't see the need for a leveling potion is that this game doesn't have NEARLY a robust enough endgame scene to support the mentality of, "the true game starts at endgame". It works for WoW (kind of) because a.) factions actually significantly impact gameplay, b.) they place a heavy emphasis on endgame raiding and difficult dungeoneering to keep your character in the best gear, and c.) you actually have to level a brand new character to play another class, all of which are race-locked to boot.

XIV doesn't do any of those things, really. The best thing they could do is remove the MSQ gating for every little thing, and make things level-gated instead, so that once players get to the level where the "fun" starts they can jump right in.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Its ok though new players apparently hate leveling and doing MSQs so they deserve an INSTAIWINBUTTON! Otherwise they won't play and we can't have that......

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Way to misconstrue an argument.

I enjoy leveling (that's why I have a bazillion alts in every mmo I play). What I don't enjoy are things being arbitrarily locked behind hours and hours of mandatory story quest, especially when that story is boring as heck. >_<

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

Not having to level a character and gain exp in a MMORPG is blasphemy.

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I remember in 1.0, they said before the game was released that they were going to get rid of levels and progressed in a new manner. Then we get the game and turned out they gave us -two- bars to level up. Physical Level and Class Level, and the EXP was RNG. Good going, old FFXIV team!

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Originally Posted by Velhart

I remember in 1.0, they said before the game was released that they were going to get rid of levels and progressed in a new manner. Then we get the game and turned out they gave us -two- bars to level up. Physical Level and Class Level, and the EXP was RNG. Good going, old FFXIV team!

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The system was pretty interesting since it was more of a rank up system rather then levels. I understood why they wanted to award rank points in the way they did but from what we saw it was pretty abused in the beginning and switching it to after a kill was a better option. I wish they still called them ranks since it was more about the weapons we used.

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Originally Posted by LalafellDown

It keeps the bots out and as long as SE keeps implementing requirements to enter new expansion areas, eventually the Gil sellers will find it harder to sell Gil because the new items will be the more demanding and not Gil. Perhaps they introduce a new type of currency in 4.0 Gil seller will never be able to get their hands on it with their bots. I hope 4.0 has some kind of restriction to prevent bots from entering like 3.0 does.

Not seeing a bot in 3.0 is nice, no one spamming for you to buy their Gil.

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I said remove the 50 lock, the bots are still going to have to do the entire quest chain and learn every single flight pathin each zone. ¬_'

How about a potion or boost that ONLY works when you've completed every single story quest to date and have at least 1 of each class type at max level, like for mentoring. That way noobs have to progress as normal and those who are lazy can boost the classes they don't want to dungeon or fate grind on... TBH, if I could boost all my tank classes to 60 I would, I hate tanking but I want all classes at 60. :P

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Originally Posted by Lokier

How about a potion or boost that ONLY works when you've completed every single story quest to date and have at least 1 of each class type at max level, like for mentoring. That way noobs have to progress as normal and those who are lazy can boost the classes they don't want to dungeon or fate grind on... TBH, if I could boost all my tank classes to 60 I would, I hate tanking but I want all classes at 60. :P

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so only tie to accounts, for alts? Not sure how i feel about it really

I still think they should just bend story after copperbell mines, much like unlocking palace of the dead to direct them to 4.0. Would be really nice for vets to have something cool and rare like the legacy tattoos, and just have story go from like idk 30-70, or even lower. Thats assuming the new jobs start at 30 again, also assuming theyre going to increase the max level to 70. I guess theres a lot of simple ways they can do it, worst would be to have to have new people buy a max out level pot, and cheese the learning process past instances like nidhogg, etc. then agaom tjeu could just make normal enemies in the expac have raid tier mechanics or even simple ones like "look away from gaze" probably quit the game a few hours after buying it

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

so only tie to accounts, for alts? Not sure how i feel about it really

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Nah, not alts, some people don't want to spend that extra pound to unlock all 7/8 slots, I just mean the classes on one character. Maybe you can only use the potion once every 3 months or something.

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Originally Posted by Lokier

Nah, not alts, some people don't want to spend that extra pound to unlock all 7/8 slots, I just mean the classes on one character. Maybe you can only use the potion once every 3 months or something.

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you mean if it applied to a class in a role you levelled up? like say paladin is 60 you want to get war to 60 to be flexible?

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

you mean if it applied to a class in a role you levelled up? like say paladin is 60 you want to get war to 60 to be flexible?

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Yeah, so say you've met the requirements by leveling ninja, WHM and DRK to 60, but you want a PLA at 60, then you can use the boost on your PLA (provided you've got both required classes at 30)

When they add an item like this to the game I will be moving onto my next game and coming back when the game is shutting down to just do story.

RPG are meant to be a journey.. Not about just getting to the end but the journey to the end. If the player base doesn't want a journey they will not stay the long hall anyways. Please don't cater to people that are here for 6 months and leave just because you can make a quick $50 off them. Wouldn't you sooner not piss off people like me. Who has been around from 1.xx till now and will be around for another 10 years unless you do something that breaks the game for me.

My hubby and I played FFXI for 7 years in that time FFXI got broken and better a few times. And we left came back and left again in it current state because all the updates in the world can't fix a solo online game.

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Originally Posted by CrystalRainbow

When they add an item like this to the game I will be moving onto my next game and coming back when the game is shutting down to just do story.

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Pretty much this, And with only 2 more jobs supposedly to play as and level doesnt sound like a really great long term investment if people can just buy max level pots, imean most of mine are 60 anyway idk about the rest of the players in here though

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Originally Posted by ADVSS

Pretty much this, And with only 2 more jobs supposedly to play as and level doesnt sound like a really great long term investment if people can just buy max level pots, imean most of mine are 60 anyway idk about the rest of the players in here though

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I have every job at 60 including DoL and DoH. Summoner I rushed because its my main and the rest I just did through roulettes. Its not hard at all to level in this game

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Originally Posted by bass9020

I have every job at 60 including DoL and DoH. Summoner I rushed because its my main and the rest I just did through roulettes. Its not hard at all to level in this game

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i even managed to start HW with only one doh at 30ish, youre absolutely right, levelling alternate classes isnt bad horrible or impossible. I dont see a need for level potions

I wouldn't be in such a rush if I were them. Endgame is pretty limited. If they want to pay money so they can start farming tomestones earlier I guess let them.

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Originally Posted by CrystalRainbow

When they add an item like this to the game I will be moving onto my next game and coming back when the game is shutting down to just do story.

RPG are meant to be a journey.. Not about just getting to the end but the journey to the end. If the player base doesn't want a journey they will not stay the long hall anyways. Please don't cater to people that are here for 6 months and leave just because you can make a quick $50 off them. Wouldn't you sooner not piss off people like me. Who has been around from 1.xx till now and will be around for another 10 years unless you do something that breaks the game for me.

My hubby and I played FFXI for 7 years in that time FFXI got broken and better a few times. And we left came back and left again in it current state because all the updates in the world can't fix a solo online game.

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I have to wonder. Why do you care? Players who did opt into a potion jump won't impact how you play the game nor will their lack of interest in the journey. I leveled Dragoon in a single day doing nothing else but fate grinding for 10+ hours. There was no journey is my experience, I just had a ton of new skills I later googled to build a proper rotation around. What of people who skip every bit of dialogue or cut scenes just to speed through? They're not experiencing the story either. To some, the endgame is all they care for. Why does it matter to you how they go about getting there?

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Another thing we’re debating internally is whether or not to have something like World of Warcraft’s jumping potion that would work with both levels an story. I’m trying to decide if something like this should be timed with 4.0.

WoW would have players pay to jump over and skip levels and it’s something that can be considered for FFXIV as well...
...there has always been the debate of when we bring in new players, or if an existing player wants to bring in a new player, there’s disparity with the level gap between them, especially if the player has gone through all the content and their friend is just starting. It would be such an effort for the new player to catch up.

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Ex WoW player here. The fact is, WoW's questing is a confusing mess that is face-roll easy but unsatisfying to play. Some of the side-quests are brilliant story-wise but the main story is jumbled and skips back and forth in time so much that it is practically impossible for a new player to follow, add in Heirloom gear which was not available to new players but gave older players a huge advantage and it's easy to see why so many new players didn't stick around and why people didn't want to level conventionally.

FF does things so much better imo. The story makes sense. Synching means you can play with your friends and help them out while they are levelling. The gear from Hall of the Novice helps put new players on par with those of us who are synched and the tutorials help them learn the basics of their role. Levelling is fairly fast up to HW and you have several routes you can take to do it.

I didn't like the levelling potion in WoW, I used it, dumped the character shortly afterwards and went back to levelling an alt.
Personally, I'd much rather they trimmed some of the padding from the MSQ and gave more xp from HW quests (and around lvl 48ish where I seem to remember having to grind fates to level up).
It won't please everyone, but often the people who want to hop straight to max level don't stick around as was shown by WoD. The WoW devs even stated that their market was cyclical (in other words they expected to lose a large amount of players fairly shortly after their expansion released), though I'm not sure they expected as many of their long-term subscribers to move on as well.

When you go too far with streamlining a game becomes very easy but ultimately unsatisfying to play for any length of time.
While looking at WoW, it might be an idea to consider that while WoD was floundering, Nostralius (unofficial Vanilla WoW server) was proving so successful Blizzard decided to take legal action to shut it down.

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Originally Posted by bass9020

Why do people play games if they don't want to work for anything.
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Asked and answered really. They are "playing a game" because they don't want to "work". If they wanted to "work", there's far more constructive things to do than play games. A reasonable balance is required.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

When you go too far with streamlining a game becomes very easy but ultimately unsatisfying to play for any length of time.
While looking at WoW, it might be an idea to consider that while WoD was floundering, Nostralius (unofficial Vanilla WoW server) was proving so successful Blizzard decided to take legal action to shut it down.

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Are you sure they didn't take legal action to shut it down because it was illegal? lol. People deem WoW:WoD a failure even though the expansion clocked at least 10M. Now I wont attribute sales because of it actually being good but more to the hype it built up. Blizzard has changed how they deem success from an expansion. They no longer show sub rates because as you said, they know they can't hold solid retention rates. From a player base perspective, yes WoD did fail, but it sold well so from a business perspective it was a success. People can argue all they want that Blizzard 'could've made more money' but when you multiply 10M by 49.99 minimum, that makes honestly alot more money than most MMOs combined. You also have to factor in that the token wasn't added yet, so that's an addition 14.99 multiplied by 10M which again is alot more than many MMORPGs make even in their life time.

Am I defending wow's approach to gaming? No. I honestly always found wow pretty weak and on the decline since Cata tbh (I know I'm a heathen for liking Cata) but they get revenue. "Could've" is never on the the primary focus of any business, only absolutes. With that said, Legion has already hit the same pre-order sales as WoD, which you can find out all the information as to the exact financials under the event section of the blizzard site.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

When you go too far with streamlining a game becomes very easy but ultimately unsatisfying to play for any length of time.
While looking at WoW, it might be an idea to consider that while WoD was floundering, Nostralius (unofficial Vanilla WoW server) was proving so successful Blizzard decided to take legal action to shut it down.

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Nost was taken down for accepting money from its players in the form of donations. Blizz doesn't like you making money from its ideas (and that's how it should be for any one's hard-earned work.) The second you start accepting money for things you don't own that company has every right to take legal actions.
It's like fan-art, I love drawing it and the companies and owners don't mind me, or anyone, doing so; however, you start selling that art work you, technically, don't own the rights to, you can have your art removed and a fine or law-suit on your hands. If Nost wanted to stay up it should never have been accepting money in any way.

Yes, I agree with both of you about why Nostralius was closed down, and while I suspect it's success at a time when the current expansion was failing must have been an embarrassment at the very least, maybe mentioning it wasn't the best way of making my point.

WoD was the expansion that introduced the level boost and while it saw the highest sales figures ever it then suffered the biggest ever drop, and judging from the forums, sales figures etc. they lost a lot of long-term subscribers (including me) who were looking for a more traditional mmo, and who felt WoW no longer offered an experience that was satisfying for long-term play.
Since FFXIV levelling is at worst a little tedious (imo), I think introducing a levelling potion and encouraging players to skip much of the lower game completely is too drastic a solution and could be detrimental in the long-term.

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Originally Posted by JimmyDean

This is like putting Mike Tyson Punch out in a Nintendo and turning it on and being like "Wait. I have to learn this game and beat all these other people to be able to fight Mike Tyson?" "No thanks. Im out" Is this really what gamers want these days? omg

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007 373 5963 :-p even those older games had level skip codes and cheats.


Anyway, as for the topic I'm pretty much neutral on the whole thing but leaning to the side of understanding the need for it especially with literally everything being gated behind the MSQ. It may work for the base game but once expansions start coming into play, the novelty of it may soon wear off fast for players. Just me personally but I'd be happier if the game matched the other story driven MMO's. Where the story was still the focal point but still allowed players something to do if the story wasn't their cup of tea at the time. If dungeons were kept as its own thing as well as side content like treasure hunts (zone unlocks) that's all that would be needed. With story dungeons having their own designated story mode when its time for story, other times they're all unlocked and free to come and go in as you please with friends. I don't need to know why I'm there, why I'm in Ishgard or anywhere, let me cross that bridge when I want to get to it. Cos I can speak from personal experience there is nothing more soul crushing then being asked to come do fun things with friends only to tell them you can't because you still have weeks/months of story to plod through.

I know I can't be the only one that has happened too and I know I'm not the only one that resorted to fast forwarding through it. Cause at that point a game could have the best story in the world, but what does it matter when players reach a point where they feel they start skipping dialogue and cut scenes just to get it over with. Along side the ones that get burned out from the ordeal and go to seek greener fields.

They should just actually make the leveling experience fun instead of allowing players with level jumps. In my opinion, right now it's boring and such a pushover. Probably it's one of the reasons why the game has a lot of incompetent players, especially when people do FATEs or the MSQ/side quests alone, because they learn nothing from it. Fetch quests make the experience tedious as well.

For story jumps, just make the MSQ less filled with pointless fetch or kill quests and/or replace them with more story. Also PLEASE fix Minfilia from being that annoying quest giver that asks you to go back and forth so many times. So many people hate her for this.
Also side quests need some change from being boring fetch/kill quests too imo. More story, less boring tasks.

I don't know why SE keeps on with their band-aid fixes. I really hope they don't consider those skip potions.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

They should just actually make the leveling experience fun instead of allowing players with level jumps. In my opinion, right now it's boring and such a pushover. Probably it's one of the reasons why the game has a lot of incompetent players, especially when people do FATEs or the MSQ/side quests alone, because they learn nothing from it. Fetch quests make the experience tedious as well.

For story jumps, just make the MSQ less filled with pointless fetch or kill quests and/or replace them with more story. Also PLEASE fix Minfilia from being that annoying quest giver that asks you to go back and forth so many times. So many people hate her for this.
Also side quests need some change from being boring fetch/kill quests too imo. More story, less boring tasks.

I don't know why SE keeps on with their band-aid fixes. I really hope they don't consider those skip potions.

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Rewriting and tweaking whole quest chains would be enormously expensive, thereby sapping resources away from making content for all of us to enjoy. The only reason I've somewhat come around to the jump potion is it allows the devs a cost efficient means of abandoning old content without impacting new ideas for the expansion. It's far from an ideal solution, I'll admit. But it is one I prefer to the alternative.

Yoshi answered this in his response....; the western audience complained about it so this is our solution. Instead of accepting that reality as a part of the western society, I see people offering the most absurd counters. "Make two year old content more engaging," "Cut out aspects of the content for future implementation." Why not stop knee jerking everything related to playing a game in order to play more of the game. And instead of complaining about a low population of people you may never run into, help them when you do run into them.

I'm fine with whatever the game developers feel is necessary to curb new people leaving in droves after their free trial is over.

Is it new players leaving in droves or players done with the end game treadmill ?

My opinion on a jumping potion depends entirely on the details about how they work that we(I) don't know. If it worked like an super-EXP-Bonus buff, rewarded after certain initial MSQ quests that let you jump directly over the hours MSQ fetch quests straight to the next instance quest (complete Sastasha, defeat Ifrit in the Bowl of Embers, etc), then I'm all for it. Does it do more, do less? Don't really know what to expect.

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Originally Posted by Kaizencorr

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I think the "part of the western society" bit is severely generalized. If literally everyone in my society rejects any game that involves some kind of grinding or mundane tasks, then why are games like The Sims series, Minecraft or Terraria so successful?

There is nothing wrong with analyzing old content, btw, because I believe this is an issue with the core of the game. Generally, players need to be convinced that whatever their doing is worth their time, and it's a difficult thing to pull off because people typically turn to games as a means for escapism or passing by free time, and when you have a game that's difficult to distinguish from doing a household chore, people get turned away.

The problem with this "level jump" or "make it like WoW" solution is that it really doesn't come across as being fully thought-through.

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Originally Posted by MeiUshu

The only thing that I would like to see changed, like some suggested, to give access to classes that are currently available only in Ishgard from the regular cities of ARR. Anything else, doesnt really matter as far as I am concerned.

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That much even I agree with, and I'm against any kind of skipping or streamlining of levels or story. The story gating should be limited to not allowing the later story and content until completing the earlier story. Job unlocks shouldn't depend on it. The Heavensward jobs and the next expansion's jobs as well should be moved/placed into ARR regions and available to anyone of a suitable level and with the corresponding expansion on their account.

I started this game 2 weeks after 2.0 launch. I am currently working on my 3rd playthrough of the game after taking breaks here and there. I've played all the mainstream MMOs including wow. Yoshi is talking with people who play wow but there's a problem.. This idea works ONLY in 1 class per character games (like wow) you know why? Because there's no real reason to level multiple characters here, exept to experience the content again. In wow You can jump into an expansion there and know what's going on. This game, the story is linear and all interconnected. The level boost is not really a necessity here. Your char saves all the levels of other classes you've leveled. Having a class at 30/50/60 gives you an exp boost to all others you level. You've got leves, fates, dungeons, roulette, TONS of quests... there's lots of ways to level. The only reason I do multiple playthroughs is to play with friends I've made and converted to the game.

So tell me, why are people so concerned with "incompetent" players? Is it really so hard to take 30 seconds to say "use your stun ability here" or "run when they cast this". Novice Network exists too, if you really don't want a new player in your L337 circle for endgame content, then explain why and teach them or you can always leave. I always build full parties with friends so I don't have to hold speed runners back. I know how bad I am at my job, so I stick with people who will put up with it. Can I get better? Eh, maybe. But that's not what I'm concerned with when playing.

There's a ton of bad players that already go through dungeons and story. That's not going to change. Adding in a "jump potion" will just mean they can get to other things faster. Both the good (willing to learn) and the bad (stubborn ones that say stupid things like you don't pay my sub).

Similarly, just like how another player purchasing a $30 mount doesn't affect MY gameplay, jumping potions won't either. Other NEW players who want to enjoy FFXIV and use jumping potions are welcomed. Whether they experience the story or not, doesn't affect my gameplay one way or another.

As for those claiming "incompetent players," it literally doesn't take more than a day to learn a class. There is so much resources dedicated to each of the classes that they can look it up and learn it if they take out some time. And since we are a friendly community, politely giving advice about a class doesn't take more than an Eorzean minute.

I think expanding the playerbase with new players and bringing them up to speed will keep FFXIV going strong! #STORMBLOOD #CHOCOBROLIFE #GILLIONAIRESCLUB

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Originally Posted by rxnin

There is so much resources dedicated to each of the classes that they can look it up and learn it if they take out some time. And since we are a friendly community, politely giving advice about a class doesn't take more than an Eorzean minute.

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It's pretty apparent most players don't use resources outside the game and real talk, politely giving advice is often viewed as treading into Elitist territory.

I don't know if it's a pride/ego thing, but being offered advice can be misread as judgement for doing something wrong, which in essense is exactly what it is. Some people don't like to be judged ;_;

It is more people jumping into "omg I'm being attacked!" when 90% of the time, a person just goes "hey, do this and that and this is your basic rotation". Or, we have the very poor excuse of "I play how I want".

I don't mind people skipping the story to get up to speed as... lets face it, braindead players pop into A9-12 fairly often so it can't get much worse.