Info about the Chinese Cash Shop "Level Jumping Potions"

this game is not even f2p to have those potions in the cash shop

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Originally Posted by YISUG

this game is not even f2p to have those potions in the cash shop

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WoW has them to and it's not a f2p title either. Though you could attribute that to the fact it's blizzard and blizzard does whatever it wants because they know people will spend money on it no matter how much they complain.

So... what was ARR like for the Legacy players who were already level 50 when ARR launched?

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Originally Posted by Nestama

So... what was ARR like for the Legacy players who were already level 50 when ARR launched?

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They had to do ALL story content and ALL new class/job quests and couldn't skip any of them. So that point is pretty invalid whenever its brought up. And even though the battle system/some abilities changed with the transition from 1.0 to 2.0 people still had an understanding of what each class was because by the end of 1.23 they were set up pretty close to what they were in 2.0 role wise.

That was my point, though. They still had to do it, but if I were clever with the level up potion, I would also make it come with a few extra features. You still need to do the MSQ, no getting out of that, however the filler quests that were just there to help you level up can be changed into side-quests with the others. Remember the Titan and Garuda quests and how pointless those were? Side Quests now (this will make Brayflox an optional dungeon, though). A few things in the 2.1-2.5 MSQ can also be changed into side-quests, too.

Basically, you will be level 50, but you will still need to go through the (abridged) story, which will also force you to do your current Class/Job quests at specific levels. It'll shorten the ride leading to Ishgard and you'll have a lot of quests available for the new Jobs (assuming SE doesn't find a way to make them available outside of Ishgard). Unlocking the Hard Mode content will also come with an additional run requirement of "must have completed current Jobs Level 50 quest."

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

Why SE seel those shit just for china. Why is the reason for this?

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SE? You are gravely mistaken.

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Originally Posted by Nestama

Remember the Titan and Garuda quests and how pointless those were?

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But everything to do with the primals was part of the main scenario storyline for ARR and Gaius tapping into them to power up Ultima Weapon, how were they even pointless? -__-

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Originally Posted by NaesakiAshwell

But everything to do with the primals was part of the main scenario storyline for ARR and Gaius tapping into them to power up Ultima Weapon, how were they even pointless? -__-

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I meant the quests leading to them. The banquet and the "get this dark elemental crystal. Oops, wrong one, get this one! Oops, wrong one again, get this one!"

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Originally Posted by Nestama

I meant the quests leading to them. The banquet and the "get this dark elemental crystal. Oops, wrong one, get this one! Oops, wrong one again, get this one!"

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Eh... the banquet was fine but the dark elemental crystal... eh fair'nuff.

I don't think it should happen. You have to EARN YOUR PLACE in life, and just giving people a cheat potion to play with the big guys isn't going to do anything but worsen our community. Lvl 1-60 is where you LEARN. You should not be playing hard content that soon.. there's a certain amount of experience that you can't get just by leveling, but you do accumulate during that time. Secondly, if they do this, but don't restrict people who already have high leveled characters, people with more money are just going to cheat to sixty. It won't be fair.

Totally against it, and I hope it stays in the chinese version for good.

Might seem small for some people but I've been playing online games long enough to know those "small steps" lead to broken cash shop in the long run.
We start with level potions now and then what? Materia bundles on MogStation? Gil boost potion? Say no to it before it's too late, otherwise a single "yes" from the community might end up resulting on uncalled for "shortcuts" at the MogStation. The fact that we have to pay for more inventory (retainers) is already dumb enough.

Nope.

Nope, not.

No, leave that out of the game. I dont mattter if someone tells me "But i dont want to level all the game to play Heavensward and End-game". You play the game to learn about it's lore, to learn how to use your class and all the shit that comes with it.

If you play to skip content, story and the learning mechanics go play minecraft.

Leave the Fantasy as it is now.

What would be better is a mentor system, where you could power level people under 50.

chinese should just stop playing mmos, it's the worst genre for them.

Isn't this because the Chinese have a different lifestyle than most westerners?

I could be wrong, but I hear a lot of people in China work so much that they don't have the time to dedicate to an MMO, so if that's true it makes sense they would release something like this so they can still make a profit over there.

I know that holds true for some people in the US as well...but to a much lesser extent.

No! This is horibble! am I reading this for real.. No! A million times no.. People would have no experience of the game, their job, the world.. Anything!! This is horrible! Not to mention easy leveling for the you know who spammers to buy accounts and farm.. 100% against this!! Is this Square Enix we're talking about? Holy.. Why even in heavens name would you want to skip the story.. Its so good.. I could cry

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Originally Posted by Blacksail

No! This is horibble! am I reading this for real.. No! A million times no.. People would have no experience of the game, their job, the world.. Anything!! This is horrible! Not to mention easy leveling for the you know who spammers to buy accounts and farm.. 100% against this!! Is this Square Enix we're talking about? Holy.. Why even in heavens name would you want to skip the story.. Its so good.. I could cry

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I say time and time again, while it may just be my opinion, it's hard to deny that the leveling story is 90% filler quests that do nothing but get you some experience.

Feels like they didn't put any effort into the plot until after level 50. After level 50 and on into heavensward though, it's a lot better, but THAT is why so many people want to skip it.

I would not mind the option to start at lvl 50 as long as you already have a character on your account that has finished the HW mainstory. I am thinking about people that love to twink, but hate to go all the way through the vanilla story again.

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Originally Posted by Colorful

That boils down to poor game design, and then placing a band-aid that's not a proper solution but rather a way for them to profit from their own mistakes (which would incentivise not fixing the issue, and continuing on with that poor design for further expansions). A story in a game should not be a chore, especially in a Final Fantasy game, that doubles down for when you lock almost all content behind it unlike other MMORPGs. Cut out the filler quests, boost the EXP from the quests left over and boost the EXP gained from the Heavenward MSQ so the newer players aren't forced to do every side quest in the area to be able to progress the MSQ... especially when that content is not voiced which is a huge turn off for a lot of people I've attempted to recruit, but also incredibly boring story and gameplay wise.

Now you have players who have actually played the game up to 60, done the content and enjoyed(?) the MSQ, are familiar with the basic systems of the game and MMORPGs in general. You have to remember that a lot of players interested aren't MMORPG players and may have not even played as they're playing it for the Final Fantasy name alone, dropping those kind of players in would go terribly for both them, and the players that play with them. People who buy the level boost in WoW are current or returning players so it's not a huge deal skill wise, WoW doesn't see much fresh players unlike FFXIV (from what we've told).

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I had the same thought. If they condensed the 2.0 down and eliminated a good chunk of pointless fetch quests (looking at you Company of Heroes), it would make digesting the game much easier on newer players. But someone else pointed the issue in doing so. The devs would need to rewrite each and every portion of the game they condensed otherwise things might not lineup properly. That will take time and resources away from developing new content for 4.0 itself. If they could find a means to do something like this without it impacting anything else, then I'd be all for it. If not, well...

People act like its still an occurring thing. Ever since patch 3.1 the filler quests are nonexistent! Also without the MSQs how would you level up quickly? The reason there are so many of them is to get you to lvl cap without having to do much else. I blame the players for this one since they are so used to fetch quests for exp, in the end we got quantity over quality for MSQs so people could level up quicker.

So lets say we only get a story skipper and not a level up potion, you honestly think people are going to stick around and just FATE/run dungeons they don't even know anything about to lvl up? In the end both options are horrible and this whole omg new players crap needs to stop.

I think it's ok. Doing 100 ARR quests doesn't suddenly make you know how to play your class better (we currently have a lot of players who don't know how to play anyway), but it is a problem for some people, who find them boring (and I think, that 100 ARR quests are boring). If they want to go straight for the end game, why not let them do this? And what if it is not their first character, so they already know how to play?

Same debates were about cash shop in general and additional retainers in specific. And I think additional retainers influence this game more then leveling potion. I currently have to choose my 2-nd retainer to be either btn\min or fisher, since I keep 1-st one on DoW job.

So, cash shop is here, and the game is not dead.

I mean I'd only be cool with it if you could only use it after beating the 2.0 story already, similar to how you can only use mounts you buy after getting your company chocobo but its still a stone throw away from P2W, levelling is a pain but regardless, this makes things too easy and sucks the fun out of learning how the job works as you level.

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Originally Posted by vp_cmc

I think it's ok. Doing 100 ARR quests doesn't suddenly make you know how to play your class better (we currently have a lot of players who don't know how to play anyway), but it is a problem for some people, who find them boring (and I think, that 100 ARR quests are boring). If they want to go straight for the end game, why not let them do this? And what if it is not their first character, so they already know how to play?

Same debates were about cash shop in general and additional retainers in specific. And I think additional retainers influence this game more then leveling potion. I currently have to choose my 2-nd retainer to be either btn\min or fisher, since I keep 1-st one on DoW job.

So, cash shop is here, and the game is not dead.

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The cash shop is all glamour stuff and does not give you an advantage in game if they add leveling potion it turns the game into P2W.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

The cash shop is all glamour stuff and does not give you an advantage in game if they add leveling potion it turns the game into P2W.

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The only thing a leveling potion, sans the extra offers, does is save you time. Also, you ignored their point about extra retainers having to be bought, which give a significant advantage in terms of total inventory space and the ability to farm materials. Isn't that P2W by definition? Also, though you didn't claim this, it's not like it'd offer endgame gear to people buying the level potion. And even if it did, the only reason to need that gear is for endgame itself, and if they're bad, no group will put up with them, they'll simply remove them from the group and find another person. Them populating DF is another matter though. Perhaps a training course which needs to be completed when you buy and use said potion could help, which explains the game to them, and then being made to go through several dungeons from early level onward, so they can practice their skills piecemeal, to higher level.

This is why Cash Shop for a Subscription game is never a good ideas.

Look at how FFXIV started. First, it was just services like Server Transfer, Name Changed, etc. This is totally fine. Then it's Fantasia Potion, which is also fine. Then it add Emotions, Seasonal Items, Minions, Hairstyle, Dyes, etc. Now it go so bad as Housing Items for Cash.

I wouldn't be surprised soon it will add Exp Boost Potion, and Skip story quest potion....OH BOY! They are really just testing the water how far they can push it!

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Originally Posted by Tenured

The only thing a leveling potion, sans the extra offers, does is save you time. Also, you ignored their point about extra retainers having to be bought, which give a significant advantage in terms of total inventory space and the ability to farm materials. Isn't that P2W by definition?

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Extra retainers are somewhat P2W, however you still need to level the class to actually get a retainer to the level you want (a level 1 retainer is basically useless for farming stuff, your retainer is level capped to you and if you don't have a gathering class high enough you can't do any gathering) and gear it somewhat if you want to do high level material gathering. You also need to have ventures which you need to play to get.

You can also just make a new character (with this leveling potion) to get 2 more retainers which actually makes the leveling potion give you a jumpstart at 2+ new retainers without having to pay the extra fee if you have a character slot.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Extra retainers are somewhat P2W, however you still need to level the class to actually get a retainer to the level you want (a level 1 retainer is basically useless for farming stuff, your retainer is level capped to you and if you don't have a gathering class high enough you can't do any gathering) and gear it somewhat if you want to do high level material gathering. You also need to have ventures which you need to play to get.

You can also just make a new character (with this leveling potion) to get 2 more retainers which actually makes the leveling potion give you a jumpstart at 2 new retainers without having to pay the extra fee if you have a character slot.

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While I understand that you must get a class to 60 for high level gathering, that, in my opinion, isn't that bad and will happen as you play the game as long as you decide to ever branch out from a DoW class, so in my mind you will eventually be able to do this if you wish to. I do understand what you mean that the P2W aspect is mitigated by the fact you have to put in effort. In my opinion, I make more then enough money doing activites that aren't gathering/crafting related, so I don't really bother with either.

Also, I don't understand how you would be able to make a new character and then level their gather/crafter to 60 without quite a bit of time investment, as the level potion should only level your DoW class, and not anything else. Plus retainers are only a dollar each, which to me would make just buying another far more profitable, money and time wise. And if you already have max retainers and want to try to level up an alt to have another 8 retainers as well, then good luck with that as that is a slog. Perhaps make the level potion only skip the story till a certain point, and then have you do dungeons and training halls (forget the name) till you reach around 50 and can begin 3.0? Might be better.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

Extra retainers are somewhat P2W, however you still need to level the class to actually get a retainer to the level you want (a level 1 retainer is basically useless for farming stuff, your retainer is level capped to you and if you don't have a gathering class high enough you can't do any gathering) and gear it somewhat if you want to do high level material gathering. You also need to have ventures which you need to play to get.

You can also just make a new character (with this leveling potion) to get 2 more retainers which actually makes the leveling potion give you a jumpstart at 2+ new retainers without having to pay the extra fee if you have a character slot.

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If you want to get technical, you may have up to eight characters per server, so that's 16 extra retainers. Compounded with the retainer service it's 64 retainers with minimum effort required. (Since leveling alts is the only real aversion to doing this in the first place. I've tested.) Also, you can make lots of money by just farming mob drops or items that are "annoying" to obtain, but not difficult.

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Originally Posted by Kerii

If you want to get technical, you may have up to eight characters per server, so that's 16 extra retainers. Compounded with the retainer service it's 64 retainers with minimum effort required. (Since leveling alts is the only real aversion to doing this in the first place. I've tested.) Also, you can make lots of money by just farming mob drops or items that are "annoying" to obtain, but not difficult.

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Depends, if you pay for entry, you only have 1 slot. But I was actually talking about how you can get around the retainer service with extra characters when people were saying the retainer service as P2W. The potion would actually mitigate the leveling alts part somewhat.

I would only include this as a skip to expansion boost (which is really most of the complaints are about) but keep everything else locked, so if you want to unlock roulettes and all that, you have to go back and do it. They'll have the advantage of unsync, but if they really have to do it then eh. They should also not be in the Mog Station in unlimited quantities.

I think trimming the MSQ and splitting off the extraneous quests into sidequests would be a better idea.

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Also, I don't understand how you would be able to make a new character and then level their gather/crafter to 60 without quite a bit of time investment, as the level potion should only level your DoW class, and not anything else.

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Battle retainers (which would be affected by the potion) can gather a lot of raw materials that are used in crafting so there's that. I've made most of my money doing hunting ventures.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

I would only include this as a skip to expansion boost (which is really most of the complaints are about) but keep everything else locked, so if you want to unlock roulettes and all that, you have to go back and do it.

Battle retainers (which would be affected by the potion) can gather a lot of raw materials that are used in crafting so there's that. I've made most of my money doing hunting ventures.

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I see, I didn't realize that DoW retainers can still provide so much. I'm fairly new to the game, only starting in Feb, and have been focusing exclusively on raiding, so most of the game flew right past me. Also, the reason I like the idea of a jumping potion so to speak is that I was in a situation that would've been drastically altered by it, as I was late into 3.2 despite trying to rush the story, and hearing everyone talk about the new content and not being able to participate was a downer. Almost made me quit right there. Toughed it out though, and now I'm on A8S, so I guess it worked out. Still, wouldn't wish that on anyone, and I do quite like your method of the skip versus a straight skip with everything unlocked.

The effect of the progression skipping pack should be to uninstall the game from your system and cancel your account for it. If you want to skip the game, then just skip the game and don't play it any more.

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Originally Posted by Wuthow

I am absolutely disgusted by this. I really hope that nothing even remotely like that will ever come to us... the rare dyes are already bad enough if you ask me.

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Your life sounds really nice. Of the things that inspire actual disgust in me this doesn't rate at all. I mean, implementing this in the Square version of the game seems like a bad idea at this point, but that's about it.

I thought Yoshi said they'd never do P2W?

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Originally Posted by Teryaani

Your life sounds really nice. Of the things that inspire actual disgust in me this doesn't rate at all. I mean, implementing this in the Square version of the game seems like a bad idea at this point, but that's about it.

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people are allowed to feel however they want to about things like this. It's not like she has to meet some universal standard before calling something "disgusting"

It sounds like you agree that the same kind of level-skip potion that's available to Chinese players would be an atrocious fit for the subscripion based FFXIV that the rest of us play, so what was the point of your comment, really/

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Originally Posted by odie

I thought Yoshi said they'd never do P2W?

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I think that they know better than to implement this in an identical way to how it's been handled for China's market. The potion described in the OP is absolutely p2w and I hope Yoshi and team realize that is the case.

I still expect them to implement something like this for 4.0 but they would do well to make it have as little resemblance as possible to this China only p2w nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Yallaid

people are allowed to feel however they want to about things like this. It's not like she has to meet some universal standard before calling something "disgusting"

It sounds like you agree that the same kind of level-skip potion that's available to Chinese players would be an atrocious fit for the subscripion based FFXIV that the rest of us play, so what was the point of your comment, really/

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And people can have discussions without resorting to the absurd and hyperbole. All it does it make the things you said more easily dismissed.

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Originally Posted by odie

I thought Yoshi said they'd never do P2W?

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Question!

What's the "win" condition in FFXIV?

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Question!

What's the "win" condition in FFXIV?

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I need to dig up the direct quote, but to paraphrase an interview with Yoshida: 'Anything related to helping you to clear content'. (small edit: I do believe endgame or raids or something was mentioned)

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Question!

What's the "win" condition in FFXIV?

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probably "having access to the content considered to be the current end-game"

I think that's a workable definition. In which case, the OP describes a p2w option because it allows a player to "pay" to "reach the current end-game content".

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Originally Posted by Yallaid

probably "having access to the content considered to be the current end-game"

I think that's a workable definition. In which case, the OP describes a p2w option because it allows a player to "pay" to "reach the current end-game content".

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I would agree. I think Yoshida needs to stop looking at current generation WoW's cash shop for inspiration. This sorta makes sense for a game that is over a decade old and has stacks of expansions. FFXIV is too new to do this.