Skill-up's

Skill-ups were one of the least-enjoyable and biggest time-sinks of FFXI. Please do not bring them back.

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Originally Posted by Rokien

you know, everything is a time sink. Turning on your computer, clicking a few buttons to turn on the game, walking, fighting, ... seriously that's the lamest excuse ever.

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No, those are necessities. That said, there is nothing wrong with time sinks as long as they are rewarding and (preferably) optional. Skill levels are not at all rewarding, they are a pure time waster.

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Originally Posted by Nazrakin

No, those are necessities. That said, there is nothing wrong with time sinks as long as they are rewarding and (preferably) optional. Skill levels are not at all rewarding, they are a pure time waster.

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I'm not sure if you get the concept behind something being rewarding.

You got a pretty direct reward for leveling up your skills, you preformed much better at a task than without them.

So far the only arguments for skill-ups are:

1: Stops powerleveling from being dominant
2: It shows progress in skills.

#1 is dumb because Yoshi-P likes PLeveling in the game.
#2 is dumb because you progress in skills by leveling up the class associated with the weapon. We already have the skill up system in that you are honing your weapon skills by getting EXP on that class. Using the "true" skill up system would be pointless as it's just an excuse to make you grind more. "BUT IT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I'M LEVELING UP MY SKILLS" -> Then go back to FFXI. I feel like I'm leveling up my skills by getting Experience Points on my Class, and so do other people. This game is never going to be hyper successful if it puts in Skill Ups.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

I'm not sure if you get the concept behind something being rewarding.

You got a pretty direct reward for leveling up your skills, you preformed much better at a task than without them.

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Skills levels were in no way a reward. Its like getting your brand new electronic device home, only to realize it has no battery power. Charging up the battery isn't a reward, its just another thing in the way of actually enjoying the device. Likewise, with skill levels. They were just in the way of effectively using class skills that you had already earned from leveling up.

Skill ups would in no way improve this game. Its almost silly to think something like that would ever return considering the direction the game is headed.

First, power-levelling is not what makes players bad. You can level up "legally" with guildleves and quests and still be perfectly incompetent when it comes to endgame. At least, power-leveling helps you build another job when your first one is useless *cough*PLD*cough*.

Second, this game had the concept of skills, and it was abolished. I think that was a bad move, but the majority of players was against it. By the way, when physical level was abolished, we didn't receive any "compensation", so i'm pretty sure that if skill-up was implemented, we'd all be stuck at 0 skills. Surely "losing all your possibilities of fighting strong mobs" is what people call "rewarding'

Finnaly, skill-up in FFXI was terrible, because it was completely random. I HATE luck-based content. Be it in FF XI, FF XIV, or any other game. I don't like fighting Ifrit over and over for a chance to drop something. One win ? Ok, quest accomplished, next quest.
So if they input random skill-ups, it will only be an excruciating pain to level all of our skills. If you want to emulate skill up, roll a 20-sided-dice each time you want to use a WS. If you score 10 or less, don't use the WS and count it as a "miss". I'm sure you'll be thrilled by the "rewarding" part of rolling a dice...

FFXIV is not "FFXI HD" and i really hope it will never be.

I hated skillups in XI, and I don't want them back. They only add another time sink, and we have enough of those with the crappy drop rates on everything.

/2cent

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Originally Posted by Rokien

you know, everything is a time sink. Turning on your computer, clicking a few buttons to turn on the game, walking, fighting, ... seriously that's the lamest excuse ever.

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Are you daft? Of course I meant a time sink in the manor of which game companies put rigorous and tedious game elements in an attempt to waste time of the players to no real end or with no end goal in mind.

I am just calling a duck a duck but apparently you want to say I am lame for calling out the facts. I guess you much rather me call a duck a chicken?

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Finnaly, skill-up in FFXI was terrible, because it was completely random.

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What part of it was completly random? You had a set % depending on what you were doing to get a skillup, but it must be totally random if they didn't give you the %'s on demand right?

The stronger the monster you fought the better chances you had at skillup, you would hit a plateu at a specific level of monster and need to move up to continue gaining skill. Generally if you were fighting level apropriate monster you had no issues hitting cap before your level.

I'm not saying we need to add skill levels into the game, but don't spread misinformation please.

As for your "20 sided dice" comment, accuracy is a thinly vield dice every single time you swing it rolls and decides wether you hit or miss.

When you fight two identical mobs and gaining 0 on the first and 3.2 on the second, you can't say it's not random.
Indeed, accuracy is a dice, but you can increase it, and have some sort of control...that you can't have over skilling-up.

Skilling up is as boring as obtaining a 5-percent-drop item on a weak mob. No challenge, ne reward based on you skill, just...dumb...luck.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

but you can increase it, and have some sort of control...that you can't have over skilling-up.

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Again with the misinformation. You had control over your chances to skillup by finding monsters of the apropriate level for that skill.

If you fought monsters of a high level you would get large but often sporadic chunks of skill, if you fought too low you got nothing. If you fought with a level that was just right, much like goldylocks you would get apreciable skillups. It seems knowing how to properly skillup was a skill in itself as few people seem to know how it actually worked and just did Kuftal burns with their rank 5 sword skill.

I think most people just didn't care because it was retarded.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Again with the misinformation. You had control over your chances to skillup by finding monsters of the apropriate level for that skill.

If you fought monsters of a high level you would get large but often sporadic chunks of skill, if you fought too low you got nothing. If you fought with a level that was just right, much like goldylocks you would get apreciable skillups. It seems knowing how to properly skillup was a skill in itself as few people seem to know how it actually worked and just did Kuftal burns with their rank 5 sword skill.

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Regardless it did have a random element to it, I've fought mobs and not get a single skill up after 2-3 mobs and then on the next mob I would get damn near a whole level. (on proper level mobs) Regardless it was an effective time sink, it always gave the players something to do, though that is the easy way out instead of giving us proper content. There are a ton of things from XI I wouldn't mind seeing added to this game but at the same time if I wanted XI I would just go play it instead. (New expansion sounds promising)

It is time to stop looking back and saying it would be nice to have this feature or that feature from XI I want to see the devs come out with some new and fresh ideas . Yoshi-P & team are doing that and it is a nice change of pace from normal MMO standard.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

Regardless it did have a random element to it, I've fought mobs and not get a single skill up after 2-3 mobs and then on the next mob I would get damn near a whole level. (on proper level mobs) Regardless it was an effective time sink, it always gave the players something to do, though that is the easy way out instead of giving us proper content. There are a ton of things from XI I wouldn't mind seeing added to this game but at the same time if I wanted XI I would just go play it instead. (New expansion sounds promising)

It is time to stop looking back and saying it would be nice to have this feature or that feature from XI I want to see the devs come out with some new and fresh ideas . Yoshi-P & team are doing that and it is a nice change of pace from normal MMO standard.

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There is nothing wrong with borrowing from FFXI. I think one of the big issues with this game was exactly that it tried too hard to distinguish itself. FFXI wasn't perfect and there is plenty to improve and add to -- but it did some things fantastically well and I do wish that the original FFXIV design had embraced more of it.

I don't mean to aim this rant at you, it just bothers me to constantly see the "if you want x, then go play FFXI" line that gets thrown around here so often.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

Yoshi-P & team are doing that and it is a nice change of pace from normal MMO standard.

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Not to be blunt but I would be glad to hear what Yoshi-P & co are doing that is "A nice change of pace from normal MMO standard."

If anything they are conforming to MMO market cliches that have been prevalent the past few years. Not saying it's a bad thing to do but I would like to hear what they are doing that is breaking boundries in the MMO market.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Not to be blunt but I would be glad to hear what Yoshi-P & co are doing that is "A nice change of pace from normal MMO standard."

If anything they are conforming to MMO market cliches that have been prevalent the past few years. Not saying it's a bad thing to do but I would like to hear what they are doing that is breaking boundries in the MMO market.

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Breaking boundaries doesn't always have a positive effect. Go too far and you're likely to fail.

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Originally Posted by Yucie

Breaking boundaries doesn't always have a positive effect. Go too far and you're likely to fail.

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Not sure how this is relevant to my question. The person I quoted stated that Yoshi's design philosiphy is a nice change of pace from normal MMO standards. I guess my real question is what is his definition of.

"MMO standard"

Because MMO standard is pretty much what we have been seeing the past few months with highly instanced content and low risk vs high reward mechanics. (Materia system withstanding of course)

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Originally Posted by Yucie

Breaking boundaries doesn't always have a positive effect. Go too far and you're likely to fail.

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Aye, remember the fatigue system. It was good in concept, but was so restrictive and slow it backfired in the end.

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Originally Posted by nasomi

Initially the job/class xp was the "skill" because you had physical level. Now physical level is gone and your job/class is your level, but there's no skill level. I really want to see them bring it back. It prevents/deters powerleveling because who wants a 50whm with a healing skill of 30? Or a level 50 warrior that has no skill in ax. Then weapon skills would be related to skill level, not physical level, and abilities could be left to physical level. I realize that what we have now is hacked together due to massive changes in design, but I really hope this is addressed when things get revamped. Anyone else feel this way or am i alone?

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I didn't really like the skill level. Tbh, I found it a pain... a really big pain in the behind and I sincerely hope they do not add it back in.

As far as deterring power leveling is concerned, look at FFXI - aka the bastion of all power leveling. The game has skill levels and a stupid amount of them and people still don't care. They get power leveled like it's going out of style.

You have to understand that the people who want to be power leveled just don't care about skill level. To them it's more about getting x job to y level in order to do z event.

The people who care about their jobs will do their best to play that job well, regardless of having skill levels or not.

In my opinion the implementation of skill levels will not do anything to deter power leveling. The only thing it will do is extend the grind by introducing skill up parties. As for the people who got power leveled, well, they're gonna get their skill levels power leveled too. Whether it's them solo with a cure bot or with a traditional power level. That, in turn, would make skill levels unnecessary since it wouldn't solve the power leveling issue.

I think the game is better off with out skill levels. They should focus on other things instead.

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Originally Posted by Eliseus

This is like saying New job comes out oh shit its lvl 1 have to interrupt ls event to lvl it. Guess they shouldn't add new jobs to the game either because it will just get in everyone's way

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It wouldn't really interrupt anything. People would just level it up on their own time and we'd continue on with the event. Nothing of value would be lost because of said "New Job".

*edit*
Plus new jobs will most likely be accompanied by its respective new class.

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Originally Posted by Achtzen

It wouldn't really interrupt anything. People would just level it up on their own time and we'd continue on with the event. Nothing of value would be lost because of said "New Job".

*edit*
Plus new jobs will most likely be accompanied by its respective new class.

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Yes. mine was bad example

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

First, power-levelling is not what makes players bad. You can level up "legally" with guildleves and quests and still be perfectly incompetent when it comes to endgame.
FFXIV is not "FFXI HD" and i really hope it will never be.

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^ The truth.

As for the last sentence of that statement- yes, yes, a thousand times yes! I really want them to forge a unique identity for FFXIV and for me, it's not there yet. There is just too much of it that still reminds me of FFXI but that is mostly because they haven't yet introduced the details that will, hopefully, sever FFXIV's ties to FFXI.

The promise of focus on making the races individual is a good start. While it may seem like a step backwards it is in fact a step forward. Establishing a solid story for each race will help players stop equating this game with FFXI, even if the characters look similar.

Another distinction I hope they add to FFXIV at some point is new races- which was addressed in a producer letter. ^^

I like skilling up weapons just because it screws with people that choose to PL through the game and forces them to take time to get their skills high enough for them not to be a wasted slot in any party situation.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Again with the misinformation. You had control over your chances to skillup by finding monsters of the apropriate level for that skill.

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Back to my dice, your sentence is like saying "You can control the odds of scoring a 20 by chosing a 20-sided-dice over a 10-sided one"
Please...

I don't think FFXIV backfired because it was too different from other MMO, but only because it was poorly implemented.
Except fatigue system, which was just there to cripple hardcore gamers...

In fact, I regret the Stamina Gauge and the Physical Level.
The stamina gauge made the combat system far more active and doesn't require 10s to two-shot a mob for a 2-handed class. You could strike precisely when you want and didn't have to wait for the auto-attack to start. Only drawback is that long fights turned into an overly long X-mashing fest.

For the Physical Level, I think it was a great step towards real multiclass, when you have to sacrifice effectiveness for versatility. Too bad you lose ALL effectiveness if you spread your stat points too much.

In my opinion, the real problem is that instead of imroving these two concepts, they just decide to remove them completely and copy FFXI system.

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Originally Posted by Arkine

I like skilling up weapons just because it screws with people that choose to PL through the game and forces them to take time to get their skills high enough for them not to be a wasted slot in any party situation.

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Skilling up screwed everyone.
You're a WHM, you leveled up in parties healing. Now you want to solo a little and need to skill up your club. Scewed !
You're a WAR, you leveled up in parties with two axes. Now you want to sub SAM and take a Great Axe. Screwed !
You're a COR, you leveled up in parties doing a 4-roll buff. Now, you want to solo with your dagger and marksmanship. Screwed !
The list goes on...

No, and I have a few reasons why.

Number 1 is that this system was not designed into the current combat engine. To implemented it would mean that the entire code base would have to be modified. Everyone would be totally screwed at the launch of the new engine unless SE auto-capped your skill.

Number 2 is that your main concern seems to be over people who are Power Leveled under the current system. They have already said that leveling will be totally different in 2.0 and PLing will probably not be available so your concern over PLing is a mute point until it is confirmed wither you can PL or not.

Number 3 is even just leveling through grinding without PL in this game does not really even mean you have learned to play your job. What is really needed is various levels of difficulty party experiences that can teach players to play their jobs.

I'm guessing some of you didn't play at the launch of this game where EXP was totally random if you even got any at all, except for crafting. I don't want to go back to that.

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Originally Posted by Carzilla

Bring it back , power leveling is lame just like anima. Besides it will help out the solo player in the long run because their skill will be much higher than power levelers because of all the extra grinding they had to do .

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I thought solo level is bad?

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Originally Posted by nasomi

Initially the job/class xp was the "skill" because you had physical level. Now physical level is gone and your job/class is your level, but there's no skill level.

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No
Class exp was for your class, not for your skill.
You got class exp and physic exp. The physic exp was for your char (mostly for stats). If you leveled a class but not the char (don't got new stats) your skills didn't level up. Class exp was mostly for quests, equip and skills (to learn them, not to make them stronger).

I think there are people on this forum actively working to make the game fail. I mean we have people like Rokien making threads demanding the game being brought back to a state where it almost killed the game from most people leaving it.

FFXIV has to work in a market where cumbersome leveling mechanics have long since been killed of in favor of putting more content at the end of the leveling process. There is absolutely nothing to gain from making it more arduous to reach the cap. Other than to make it harder to retain new players. A MMO today is measured by the quality of it's activities at the cap not on how long it takes you to reach cap. Anyway with 2.0 focusing leveling on questing and dungoneering pl'ing will fall by the side.

td'lr: There's no way SE will ever re-implement skill ups and it's a non-issue anyway.

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Originally Posted by Felis

No
Class exp was for your class, not for your skill.
You got class exp and physic exp. The physic exp was for your char (mostly for stats). If you leveled a class but not the char (don't got new stats) your skills didn't level up. Class exp was mostly for quests, equip and skills (to learn them, not to make them stronger).

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Wrong.
Skills were based on you class rank, not your physical level.
So if you gained skill points for you class, you learned new skills, even if your physical level stayed the same.
The only impact of physical level on your skills was the number of action points you had.

Sod it, compromise.

Bring back skill ups, make them non-essential, and just put a really nice couple of ws towards the cap for the people that want to obtain them.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Wrong.
Skills were based on you class rank, not your physical level.
So if you gained skill points for you class, you learned new skills, even if your physical level stayed the same.
The only impact of physical level on your skills was the number of action points you had.

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exactly what i said. you learned your skills with the class level, not leveled your skills

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Originally Posted by AndySolace

Sod it, compromise.

Bring back skill ups, make them non-essential, and just put a really nice couple of ws towards the cap for the people that want to obtain them.

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What do you mean by "nice" weapon skills, do you mean ones that do "nice" damage or ones that have "nice" special effects.

If its nice damage then they will be required for end game and everyone will have to get them.

I'm cool with nice special effects though.

i havent read through all 12 pages of this thread. maybe skill ups could be added through a merit/trial system that reflects soloely on increasing auto attack dmg or weapons skill dmg, etc. but having them added during the normal leveling process will just casue the same issue in XI which is you partied and level up but are gimped since you were lvl synced and didnt skill up. im thinking SE would want to avoid that same mistake especially since 2.0 is a hit or miss thing.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Not to be blunt but I would be glad to hear what Yoshi-P & co are doing that is "A nice change of pace from normal MMO standard."

If anything they are conforming to MMO market cliches that have been prevalent the past few years. Not saying it's a bad thing to do but I would like to hear what they are doing that is breaking boundries in the MMO market.

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The entire game is different from anything I have played especially thanks to the new content added by Yoshi-P.

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Originally Posted by Nazrakin

There is nothing wrong with borrowing from FFXI. I think one of the big issues with this game was exactly that it tried too hard to distinguish itself. FFXI wasn't perfect and there is plenty to improve and add to -- but it did some things fantastically well and I do wish that the original FFXIV design had embraced more of it.

I don't mean to aim this rant at you, it just bothers me to constantly see the "if you want x, then go play FFXI" line that gets thrown around here so often.

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It needs to distinguish itself from FFXI more than ever at this point in time. I already said it was okay to borrow ideas from FFXI but if they wanted a FFXI 2.0 then they would have made it instead. So I am sorry you're tired of hearing go play FFXI if you want FFXI, but the truth hurts my friend. As well as go play FFXI is a very valid point also I am just as tired of seeing threads pop up every single day saying this was in FFXI it needs to be in this game. How many FF games that come in sequential order are anything past the basics like one another?

No it is time for 2.0 to come out and what similarities it has of XI needs to end there and a new game will be born and better than FFXI. So I can finally stop looking back and wondering if I should reactivate my FFXI account.

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Originally Posted by Firesped

Number 2 is that your main concern seems to be over people who are Power Leveled under the current system. They have already said that leveling will be totally different in 2.0 and PLing will probably not be available so your concern over PLing is a mute point until it is confirmed wither you can PL or not.

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Yoshi-P likes power leveling and it's going to be in the game. Sorry.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Back to my dice, your sentence is like saying "You can control the odds of scoring a 20 by chosing a 20-sided-dice over a 10-sided one"
Please...

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I still don't get why you are using a failible analogy because that same thing can be said of anything in the game.

Your Evasion, Accuracy, Critical hit chances, all revolve around invisible dice rolls that have a hard cap so you can at most get a "5 sided dice" over a "20 sided dice". So please stop trying to counter it because it just doesn't work for you. Get used to it Skill ups were as "Random" as anything XIV has to offer because you could control them just as much as you could control your accuracy.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

The entire game is different from anything I have played especially thanks to the new content added by Yoshi-P.

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Couldn't be anymore vague could you? Again I would love to see you provide some exact examples of what you mean by different and new.

Materia?
Instanced dungeons?
Primal Fights?
Cravan?
Hamlet?
Relics?

Aside from materia (I'm sure if I looked I could find something) none of this new content is anything original in the MMO space.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

I still don't get why you are using a failible analogy because that same thing can be said of anything in the game.

Your Evasion, Accuracy, Critical hit chances, all revolve around invisible dice rolls that have a hard cap so you can at most get a "5 sided dice" over a "20 sided dice". So please stop trying to counter it because it just doesn't work for you. Get used to it Skill ups were as "Random" as anything XIV has to offer because you could control them just as much as you could control your accuracy.



Couldn't be anymore vague could you? Again I would love to see you provide some exact examples of what you mean by different and new.

Materia?
Instanced dungeons?
Primal Fights?
Cravan?
Hamlet?
Relics?

Aside from materia (I'm sure if I looked I could find something) none of this new content is anything original in the MMO space.

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Several of the things you listed actually are new in the way they are being delivered. Perhaps the idea itself isn't new to MMOs in general but new to Final Fantasy. Primals was in XI but in a totally different manner. You are right all the current stuff added to the game is just a rehash of other MMO's but that's okay. Still different and new to FFXIV, considering it is content period.

I was mainly talking about several of things due for 2.0, sorry for being broad I don't feel like wasting 20 minute of my time to elaborate a point you are going to shrug off and tell me I am wrong anyways. So I just give you the broad short term reply and that is that. IF you haven't been following every letter of the producer and the 2.0 guidelines go back and take a look and you will see a slue of new content heading out way.

Can't say anything I know of in 2.0 will be new either.

But I guess if your definition is "Not like XI" then your right...but that's a terrible way to call something different.

Just want to add my 2 cents in here in case this actually gets read by anyone of importance. I do not want skill ups. Skill up parties -are- a time sink no matter if you like it or not. I realize the benefits of it from a power leveling stance and others, but there are other ways to deter this action other than making us grind more at end game. How about just code it so you can't just leave the party and get massive exp? Anyways. I'm a down vote for it.

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I still don't get why you are using a failible analogy because that same thing can be said of anything in the game.

Your Evasion, Accuracy, Critical hit chances, all revolve around invisible dice rolls that have a hard cap so you can at most get a "5 sided dice" over a "20 sided dice". So please stop trying to counter it because it just doesn't work for you. Get used to it Skill ups were as "Random" as anything XIV has to offer because you could control them just as much as you could control your accuracy.

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The difference is evasion, accuracy and damage all occur during a dynamic battle experience.

Skill ups were nothing more than watching your character auto attack trash mobs. It was exactly like eft parties when XIV was first released. No one was allowed to do anything other than spam 1 to make the mob live as long as possible.

How does anyone learn anything about how to play the game under those conditions? What's the benefit to the player? The argument of it counteracting PLing is frivolous. The majority of people playing today relearned how to play the game three or four times at 50 with all the changes over the past two years.

Again, skill levels in XI were nothing more than a stop gap to actual content and artificially prolonged the leveling experience.

I'm not denying that Skillups were a stop-gap, just saying they are as random as anything else the game had to offer.