A Rant - Frustrations with Quest Level Restrictions

This is a rant but also requesting some understanding about this mechanic.

The way the current side-quest system is set up you can accept and complete any quest at any level. That's great if you want to say beat a quest as your Lv50 Monk but reap the EXP reward for your Lv20 Arcanist. This is good. In order to turn in the quest however you need to meet a minimum level requirement. Again, this is good. Prevents abuse by doing a Lv50 quest and then turning to a weaker job and getting an expanded boost. Yet here's the problem with the whole system...

You can accept and complete the quest even as a class/job beneath the level required to turn in the quest. Let's take the quest in Western La Noscea "Toxic Avenger" as the example. This quest requires you be level 16 to turn in the pelican poison and receive your reward. At level 15 I was able to accept this quest, kill the required enemies and collect the poison. Yet when I return, I find I cannot turn in the poison and reap my rewards. Again, this is okay, it prevents me from doing this quest and using the EXP to speed level say, a level 1 class up. Maybe it doesn't matter but that's besides the point. The problem I have with it is I was able to accept this quest on a class that is clearly under the minimum required level.

Why does this exist? Why can I accept a quest below the minimum level?

"Oh it doesn't matter since you can complete it as a high level."

If you said this to yourself, then yes you're right. It probably shouldn't matter. Yet it bugs me. The reason this bugs me is because they do use these checks everywhere else. Want to do the main scenario story? You must be the minimum level to accept it. You can't accept a story scenario quest unless you're not only the minimum level on your current class/job, but you can't collect the rewards either. The same goes for the class and job quests. You cannot be say, a BLM and accept the THM quests, first you must remove your job stone and then accept it. Likewise you cannot accept a BLM quest unless you are currently a BLM and the required level.

If these checks are in place everywhere else then why is it you can pick up any side-quest at any level regardless if you meet the minimum requirements or not? See this wouldn't be an issue however if it weren't for a thing called quest chains. Often going from one NPC to another will unlock a new quest once you complete the one you were sent to them for. This is what happened in my scenario. At level 15 I was given the opportunity to accept a quest to deliver a message to the NPC who assigns "Toxic Avenger". Immediately after completing that quest I was able to accept this quest from that NPC. After completing the quest I immediately headed back only to be denied reward because I was one level below it.

Many other MMOs that I am aware of first require you meet a specific level before they'll even allow you to accept a quest, and clearly it does exist in the game for other quests. Yet it's beyond me why they chose to forgo this with the side-quests.

Theoretically, you could wander into an area, accept a quest far above your level without thinking and travel all the way to the location only to realize you just wasted your time because the enemies you need to fight are 20+ levels above your own. I am aware they do say the required level on the quest window before accepting yet if you're hunting for quests to complete you might not actually pay attention to that.

Again, I could overlook all of that if it weren't for the fact any other quests besides side-quests do have this check system in place. Leaving it out of the side-quests stands out as strange to me, that's all.

Well I've ranted enough. I'd like any input on this subject, does it make sense they decided to not make a check to see if you meet the minimum requirements on your current class/job? If so, why?

tl;dr - Allowing acceptance of quests below your level but requiring a specific level to turn it in makes no sense. Especially when it exists everywhere else in the game.

It's because it's reading the highest level class you have and deciding you can accept it rather than just basing it off your current level. I agree it is rather odd, but, I rather doubt at this point it will be changed.

This actually is a bit annoying, on more then one occasion i've accepted a quest only to find out I can't actually turn it in for several more levels. Is it a pressing issue? Not really but it is one of those fine polish things that could be fixed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muzy

It's because it's reading the highest level class you have and deciding you can accept it rather than just basing it off your current level. I agree it is rather odd, but, I rather doubt at this point it will be changed.

That's what I was thinking too actually, it doesn't check. You can have a 50 Warrior, be on a Lv5 Archer and accept a Lv26 quest to go kill some enemies. But try that with the class/job quests or main scenario quests and it immediately locks you out from accepting it. Next time you're doing a main scenario quest stand next to the NPC and change your class to something below the required level. Immediately the icon above their head will turn red showing a little key on it. Switch back and it reverts to normal.

While I would like see that changed I have little faith they will either.

The game has two systems in place, as you noticed, main or class/job quests it checks for your current level, for side quests it checks for highest. Like I said, it's odd, but there it is.

I'm not defending it, I frankly find it a somewhat annoying system, especially with the quest tracker being as arbitrary as it is.

I'll admit though, it makes perfect sense - You "unlocked" all of the quests by having your main at 50 so the game won't suddenly relock them. That's not broken in any sense as it's working as intended.

What is odd though is not being able to turn them in and have the exp scale like it used to in FFXIV 1.x.