Dear SE: I wish lvling wasn't so fast :(

I wouldn't say I'm a casual player, but I'm certainly not hard-core. One of the things I loved about XI when it originally launched was how long it took to level.

By the time you reached lvl 40, you could party with complete strangers and you knew it was gonna be a good group, because everyone still playing at that point had either learned how to play correctly, or quit.

I'm enjoying end-game so far, and I loved the story, honestly I think this is the best FF since XI, and as far as the console versions go, IX. But I wish the journey hadn't been so quick.

For the people not reading my posts:

I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT A LACK OF CONTENT (there is tons to do)
I DIDN'T FATE GRIND

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Remember, ignore the idea that 'the game begins at level 50', because you'll miss out on so much otherwise. To me it's the journey that's important and not the destination, as we will all get there eventually regardless, so rushing ahead to that point will only burn you out.

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I agree with this sentiment entirely. But while playing through the story casually, and NOT fate grinding, you can reach max level in under a month.

Simple, don't run around cramming FATEs or rush through quests and the storyline and you won't level so fast. I started in 1.0 and I'm still not 50 yet, simply because I've taken my time - I do other things like just chat with friends or ride around on my chocobo other than FATEs or quest grinding. It's up to you how fast you level - don't blame SE simply because they made it easier to level.

Remember, ignore the idea that 'the game begins at level 50', because you'll miss out on so much otherwise. To me it's the journey that's important and not the destination, as we will all get there eventually regardless, so rushing ahead to that point will only burn you out.

I played with plenty of terrible people at 40, 50, 60, 70 and 75. XP parties in FFXI didn't reward good players, they rewarded stubborn ones.

I wonder if people know that you can choose to not Fate grind and just do dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

I wouldn't say I'm a casual player, but I'm certainly not hard-core. One of the things I loved about XI when it originally launched was how long it took to level.

By the time you reached lvl 40, you could party with complete strangers and you knew it was gonna be a good group, because everyone still playing at that point had either learned how to play correctly, or quit.

I'm enjoying end-game so far, and I loved the story, honestly I think this is the best FF since XI, and as far as the console versions go, IX. But I wish the journey hadn't been so quick.

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I see you only have one DoW/DoM at level 50. Have you put much effort in going for a second level 50 DoW/DoM class? You may find your opinion to be quite different afterwards.

OP, I agree with you. I'm a casual player since 1.0 beta. I really enjoyed the dedication it took in XI to get to max level pre abyssea. It took me over a year to get to level 75. I do enjoy XIV but it seems a bit too casual to me which makes me worry over the longevity of the game. I'm not sure if I see myself playing this for as long as I did XI but we'll see.

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Originally Posted by Nanga

I see you only have one DoW/DoM at level 50. Have you put much effort in going for a second level 50 DoW/DoM class? You may find your opinion to be quite different afterwards.

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I have no desire in leveling another class, and I'm not talking about fate grinding. I leveled to 50 playing through the story, maybe spent a total of 3 levels here and there on fates just to bridge the cap between quest requirements. In XI it took the better part of an entire year just to get ONE class to 75.

And to any white knights out there, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about lack of content or anything like that. I love the game and I'm having fun in coils right now. I just wish it had taken a bit longer to get here.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

I have no desire in leveling another class, and I'm not talking about fate grinding. I leveled to 50 playing through the story, maybe spent a total of 3 levels here and there on fates just to bridge the cap between quest requirements. In XI it took the better part of an entire year just to get ONE class to 75.

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So, let me get this straight. You have no desire to experience any part of the 88% of the game, yet you have come here to tell SE that leveling is too fast?

You've barely "leveled" through 12% of the classes, and that 12% was too fast? Do I have it right?

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

In XI it took the better part of an entire year just to get ONE class to 75.

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What, did you play once a week? You could get a 75 in a couple months.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

I have no desire in leveling another class, and I'm not talking about fate grinding. I leveled to 50 playing through the story, maybe spent a total of 3 levels here and there on fates just to bridge the cap between quest requirements. In XI it took the better part of an entire year just to get ONE class to 75.

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I don't understand why the likes of you want to turn this game into a grind shit? It is already boring enough when you try to level a second class and you want to make it longer? Please go play another game and stop making this game into your own selfish vision.

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Originally Posted by Nanga

So, let me get this straight. You have no desire to experience any part of the 85% of the game, yet you have come here to tell SE that leveling is too fast?

You've barely "leveled" through 15% of the classes, and that 15% was too fast? Do I have it right?

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If you want to level every single class, more power to you. I'm a PLD, I have no desire to play anything but a PLD.

ONCE AGAIN I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT A LACK OF CONTENT, GEEZ lol.

I'm just saying the leveling is a bit too fast.

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Originally Posted by NoctisCaelus

I wonder if people know that you can choose to not Fate grind and just do dungeons.

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Well, for dps, it's really not an option due to great queue length. For healers, the leveling queue is frustratingly long. See, I'd love to do dungeons more, but you can't queue for a dungeon while doing other things, unless you're fating with 2 other people only, and everyone wants to dungeon.

You can't even queue and play with your choco.

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Originally Posted by HunkyJimpjorps

I played with plenty of terrible people at 40, 50, 60, 70 and 75. XP parties in FFXI didn't reward good players, they rewarded stubborn ones.

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No, stubborn people still pulled through, but good players did much better. Chain 300 at colibri wasn't a reward for stubbornness. Good imp parties were awesome (leveling, not merits) and imps were great too because they actually had a chance to kill you. You know, something so little in XIV's grind has.

Puller screws up and pulls a link that you can't zone, no amount of stubbornness survives that pull, however skill can, and did.

Getting called {Impossible to Gauge} because my party-mates couldn't speak my language was pretty cool.

Also, I'd just like to add (rather than edit my other post),that when you level the other classes, you are actually gaining new potential abilities for your primary class and/or job. Just like how you share abilities from the primary and secondary classes of your job role, you can also use abilities attained through leveling all the other DoW classes.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

If you want to level every single class, more power to you. I'm a PLD, I have no desire to play anything but a PLD.

ONCE AGAIN I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT A LACK OF CONTENT, GEEZ lol.

I'm just saying the leveling is a bit too fast.

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And I wasn't talking about content, either. I was talking about leveling the other classes. Because you've only leveled 12% of your way through the classes, and you still have 88% of it to do, and more abilities to earn for your Paladin.

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Originally Posted by NeoAmon

I don't understand why the likes of you want to turn this game into a grind shit? It is already boring enough when you try to level a second class and you want to make it longer? Please go play another game and stop making this game into your own selfish vision.

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Why would you play a game you don't like? I enjoy the leveling process. If it's a grind to you then maybe you don't like the game.

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Originally Posted by Nanga

Also, I'd just like to add (rather than edit my other post),that when you level the other classes, you are actually gaining new potential abilities for your primary class and/or job. Just like how you share abilities from the primary and secondary classes of your job role, you can also use abilities attained through leveling all the other DoW classes.

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Yes thank you, I'm aware of how cross class abilities work, lol. Stop thinking I'm attacking the game Nanga. I LOVE THIS GAME. I think there is PLENTY to do.

The ONLY thing I'm trying to say in this thread, is that I think the leveling should have been slowed down a bit so we could have enjoyed the journey 1-50 a bit more.

To anyone not reading my post fully:

I DID NOT grind fates
I PLAYED CASUALLY through the story
And it STILL took less than 1 month to reach max level.

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Originally Posted by Nanga

And I wasn't talking about content, either. I was talking about leveling the other classes. Because you've only leveled 12% of your way through the classes, and you still have 88% of it to do, and more abilities to earn for your Paladin.

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The only other cross class ability even worth getting is Stoneskin, which not having hasn't prevented me from getting to Turn 4, so I'm not too worried about not having it yet.

For the last time Nanga I'm not trying to attack your game lol. Like I said I like the class system. But saying "you've only lvled 12%" isn't correct. I've leveled 100% of my class. If you choose to have another class or another "character" at 100% then you are welcome to do it, but me choosing not to level something I have no interest in playing does not mean I'm choosing to not increase my characters level. Because "my character" is a PLD, and there is no amount of lvling I can do to increase THAT.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

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Ok, I can agree with that somewhat. But, honestly...you can either choose to artificially make that content last longer the first time by not playing as much or deliberately taking your time, WALKING everywhere (turn off run mode), or whatever fits your fancy. I think the fact that there actually is a tremendous amount of content to consume, and yet people consumed it so quickly, just speaks volumes of the quality of that content, and not a lack of quantity or longevity.

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Originally Posted by Nanga

Ok, I can agree with that somewhat. But, honestly...you can either choose to artificially make that content last longer the first time by not playing as much or deliberately taking your time, WALKING everywhere (turn off run mode), or whatever fits your fancy. I think the fact that there actually is a tremendous amount of content to consume, and yet people consumed it so quickly, just speaks volumes of the quality of that content, and not a lack of quantity or longevity.

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Don't you think it could use a little reworking though if it's on us as players to pace ourselves through the content to make it last 4 months rather than 2 weeks?

Unless you have 8 level 50 combat classes stop saying it takes too long to hit 50 ffs. You realize you need typically 2 level 34 sub classes to support/max out your first 50, and that chain keeps happening for every 50 you have. It isnt' too fast, learn to level more than 1 thing and think you're done and that your character can't progress any further. If it took longer, leveling each of the classes or even just the two sub classes would bore to me to tears. I don't want more FATE grinding than I have to, quests and levels aren't worth a damn and after 20 dungeons aren't either... If one 50 is your thing, cool but don't make everyone else suffer because you grinded your way to 50 in a few days, please. >_>

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Originally Posted by RonPierce

Unless you have 8 level 50 combat classes stop saying it takes too long to hit 50 ffs. You realize you need typically 2 level 34 sub classes to support/max out your first 50, and that chain keeps happening for every 50 you have. It isnt' too fast, learn to level more than 1 thing and think you're done and that your character can't progress any further. If it took longer, leveling each of the classes or even just the two sub classes would bore to me to tears. I don't want more FATE grinding than I have to, quests and levels aren't worth a damn and after 20 dungeons aren't either... If one 50 is your thing, cool but don't make everyone else suffer because you grinded your way to 50 in a few days, please. >_>

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Once again not reading my posts, this has nothing to do with fate grinding.

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Originally Posted by HunkyJimpjorps

I played with plenty of terrible people at 40, 50, 60, 70 and 75. XP parties in FFXI didn't reward good players, they rewarded stubborn ones.

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But Final Fantasy XI was SO MUCH MORE CHALLENGING AND HAD SUCH A BETTER COMMUNITY. Please stop being so delusional wow kiddies and go back to your game pls.

Levelling is actually harder in ARR than it was in 1.0, or rather, I should say it wasn't so ass backwards. The first 30 or so levels were incredibly tedious, and the last 20 levels were a joke.

Also, FFXI didn't take that long to level in. I mean, it was grindy, sure. Though a lot of that time you spent "levelling" included finding parties which, if you played a less favorable job, you weren't getting any of those anytime soon. Also it had a lot of gated progression. Do this dumb level 55 level cap quest to keep levelling, now level 60, 60, 70, etc. It sucked. That's why levelling felt as though it took so long.

All the threads about how ppl wish this game was more like ffxi, do they know ffxi is still up and running? Why make the same game twice?

I think leveling is fine. It's neither too short (unless you do a good chuck of FATEs and/ or leves) nor too long (well, maybe a little once you decide to level a second class/ job). While I don't mind spending time getting to max level, I have no desire to spend the better part of a year feeling like I'm playing a Korean grind MMO just to get to max level on a single job.

The majority of player characters are between the late-teens to mid-twenties in levels. So it's a noisy minority that are complaining about having the End of Game Blues. Heck, even in an article, Yoshida said that he hasn't had the time to play his character and was last at level 18.

It shouldn't be the game developer's job to take the game in moderation. But since some people would rather be forced and told what to do, instead of going "Hey, maybe I should log off, get some sleep, eating a real meal instead of doing things that will hurt my health"

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Originally Posted by Anisto

All the threads about how ppl wish this game was more like ffxi, do they know ffxi is still up and running? Why make the same game twice?

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ikr? it would be like if i were to say " man swtor was such a good game, man i wish this was more like it"

for fuck sake, FFXI is right here..
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

bro play FFXI

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Originally Posted by Noshpan

I think leveling is fine. It's neither too short (unless you do a good chuck of FATEs and/ or leves) nor too long (well, maybe a little once you decide to level a second class/ job). While I don't mind spending time getting to max level, I have no desire to spend the better part of a year feeling like I'm playing a Korean grind MMO just to get to max level on a single job.

The majority of player characters are between the late-teens to mid-twenties in levels. So it's a noisy minority that are complaining about having the End of Game Blues. Heck, even in an article, Yoshida said that he hasn't had the time to play his character and was last at level 18.

It shouldn't be the game developer's job to take the game in moderation. But since some people would rather be forced and told what to do, instead of going "Hey, maybe I should log off, get some sleep, eating a real meal instead of doing things that will hurt my health"

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The pace of a game is very much within the realm of the developer's job.

For the last time people I don't have "End-game" blues. I LOVE this game, and the ENDGAME content. I'm not complaining about a lack of content either. I'm mearly suggesting that the leveling could have been slowed down. I think it would be better if it took a "dedicated" played about 4 months to reach max level, rather than a few weeks.

And to all the people saying go back to XI, XI is nothing like it used to be when it launched, you can level there faster than fate grinding here.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

And to all the people saying go back to XI, XI is nothing like it used to be when it launched, you can level there faster than fate grinding here.

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so wait..

if FFXI isnt like FFXI, how the F**K FFXIV could be like FFXI?

Guys, SE made the game so you can intentionally get to 50 fast and enjoy the end game content with your friends and have fun. The first class is the easiest because you have a story to drive progress, extra rewards, and more places to explore. Anyone who has not leveled up more than one class should understand this. If you don't want to level up any more combat classes, you can take up a tool and work on a crafting/gathering class to get that slower leveling fix.

FFXI was not HARD. FFXI was TEDIOUS. It didn't take SKILL to level, it really didn't. Sure, having the chart of weapon skills printed out next to your monitor was nice, but honestly? Most people when I played never bothered to worry about skillchains, it was always "use your best WS as often as you got the TP." If you were a mage and magic bursting, or trying to, well, you were a statistical outlier in the extreme.

Let's not even touch on the misery that could happen when you hit a threshold level and be locked out of groups unless you had half a million gil to drop on gear upgrades. (try getting a group as a level 60 Dragoon if you didn't have your brigandine+1 and all the +acc gear trimmings.) I ended up walking away from FFXI because I wanted to play Dragoon, i loved it all the way up to 60, but I was facing the stark reality of needing to spend 6 months either leveling up a craft to make money or 6 months farming crystals or whatever to make the money to upgrade to get parties.

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Originally Posted by Anisto

All the threads about how ppl wish this game was more like ffxi, do they know ffxi is still up and running? Why make the same game twice?

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THANK YOU!!!!

I guess it really boils down to how YOU want to play. If you are only going to level PLD of course its going to go by fast. Because thats all you are focusing on. While many people like the benefits that a sub job can offer, that usually takes time to level after the story because you dont have that large amount of EXP coming in without grinding. For myself, a casual player, i think the content and time progression is perfect. I have a crazy work schedule that tends to alter my playing times. Plus with all the DoL/DoH stuff, i think leveling goes not to fast, not to slow. But again as I said, i guess its all on how you want to play.

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Originally Posted by HunkyJimpjorps

I played with plenty of terrible people at 40, 50, 60, 70 and 75. XP parties in FFXI didn't reward good players, they rewarded stubborn ones.

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Dittoing. Nevermind the fact XI parties had a tendency to target the weakest mobs of a given level range to maximize EXP and minimize risk of death. Crabs? Easy. Scorpions? Not many liked Death Scissors one-shotting tanks.

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Originally Posted by astrobear

so wait..

if FFXI isnt like FFXI, how the F**K FFXIV could be like FFXI?

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By going back to the design priniciples they had when XI was level capped at 75 for damn near 10 years.

Content didn't get outdated, gear wasn't always a linear path you almost always had something to strive for even at the endgame. XI wasn't perfect but it sure was great at making content last without becoming dull. But what do I know, I ENJOYED the "grind" the feeling of accomplishment I got when I hit my first 75, how I slowly unlocked more and more features as I leveled to 75 how I when I got my subjobs to 37, how my merit point allocation wasn't the same as everyone elses but it was still usefull in all situations, how I had options of what I wanted to do at endgame.

XI was a game full of something this game lacks, depth. XI was drowning in depth it was amazing few games have done it and I douby any will now especially.

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To elaborate on how "XI isn't like XI" the game went more or less the same road that XIV has started to go down where level caps were broken content become outdated and useless, gear was handed out like candy for being able to breath, game being played with point systems rather than having a market with a semblance of stabillity. Hell I often wonder if people craft in XI anymore I haven't kept up to date with how crafters work in the uncapped expansions I imagine it's much like here where you do naught but make "Filler" gear before people brush it off as inferior to their rare/ex token gear.

Open world mobs have the lowest experience in the game as far as I know and if you grind exp on those you will take your time.

Even if you only want to play PLD, OP, you should still level the classes that PLD can uses cross-class skills from, to make your PLD even better.

I see that you haven't leveled CNJ to 34 and MRD to 26 yet to unlock all their nice skills you can use as PLD.

And have you fully leveled your Chocobo companion yet? Playing with your Chocobo gives some of your exp to the chocobo, so you won't level as fast but the exp will still be going toward something useful.

So there you go. You still have plenty more leveling to do without making the game worse for all the players that want to level multiple classes to 50 :)

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XI wasn't perfect but it sure was great at making content last without becoming dull.

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Venturing deeply into the realm of opinion here. Dynamis was dull, and back in the day, you'd have to do it for a year just to get one person a weapon who'd decide to quit the game or RMT their account off after. Events certainly didn't reward all jobs equally. Artificial time blocks also forcefully spread out the consumption of content. People didn't really do Kings because they loved them. They did them because they had no choice if they wanted their Ridill, Adaberk, Dalmatica, or whatever. Einherjar coming years later could barely be called a "free" king claim and even forced mule rotations to optimize Odin access every few weeks. Why did people Salvage dupe? Because Salvage drop rates were terrible. So let's kindly not assume everyone loved doing the same content for years, nevermind content people could screw you out of doing just because they wanted to do it, too. If I wanted PvP, I'd actually PvP. Like it or not, people actually quit for these reasons, from a rough million sale launch, to an alleged 500k steady for a few years (with little other competition on the market), to probably 200k pre-Abyssea, a bit higher during that because people could do things with friends on their own, then lower during the VW Era and now at its worst due to a mix of forced alliance content and games like XIV being more appealing.

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Originally Posted by Vaen

Even if you only want to play PLD, OP, you should still level the classes that PLD can uses cross-class skills from, to make your PLD even better.

I see that you haven't leveled CNJ to 34 and MRD to 26 yet to unlock all their nice skills you can use as PLD.

And have you fully leveled your Chocobo companion yet? Playing with your Chocobo gives some of your exp to the chocobo, so you won't level as fast but the exp will still be going toward something useful.

So there you go. You still have plenty more leveling to do without making the game worse for all the players that want to level multiple classes to 50 :)

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Once again, I'm not complaining about a lack of content, I'm aware there are other classes to level. (even though there is only ONE other useful ability I can cross class, - stoneskin - and even that is not required to be a good pld, my whm casts it on me all the time, and not having it hasn't prevented me from progressing to Turn 4).

I think there just isn't a possible way for this game to both have you spend a decent amount of time leveling, AND make leveling multiple jobs a thing.

Let's compare things to oldschool FFXI. Back then you leveled ONE job that you leveled for a year or more. Got faster with level sinks and FoV books and all, but still took quite a bit of time. Now that job you leveled was YOUR JOB. Better hope you weren't "loldrg" or "lolpup" because that was the only job you played (except for leveling subjobs). After you spent ages getting your first job to 75, merited and such, you might go look at leveling another job on the side.

Fast forward years later, when first Abyssea, then GoV came out. Leveling suddenly took a couple days. Now everyone started leveling alt jobs, particularly since there was an emphasis on going out in small parties with your friends/LS members/shout group people and fighting something in aby. Suddenly everyone had to have a good variety of jobs to be useful for everything you wanted to do.

By this point, not only has leveling become trivial, but also the gear progression has changed from horizontal progression to a vertical gear treadmill at lvl 99. The old FFXI is no more, that game doesn't exist anymore.

XIV is more like this later period. While not everyone is going to play multiple jobs, a great many people do, and the game encourages this. Both with the cross-class skills, how easy it is to switch jobs, and how fast leveling goes.
If leveling took 6 months, people probably would stick to 1 job for a while. But it doesn't, and so after some point when you're bored on your pld you're probably going to try and level something else.g.

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Originally Posted by Sephirah

I wouldn't say I'm a casual player, but I'm certainly not hard-core. One of the things I loved about XI when it originally launched was how long it took to level. (SNIP)

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I have to agree, leveling is too easy. I don't think we should go back to old school FFXI speed, but this is too fast. Problem is that you have all these characters that are from 1.0... so that creates an issue.

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Originally Posted by Saidosha

Venturing deeply into the realm of opinion here.

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To touch on the meat of your post it's exactly that, opinion. I found XI to be vastly entertaining, obviously not everyone did the game found a steady subscribe base that most MMO's these days would
kill for. 500k steady subs is nothing to sneeze at it has been quoted by Square Enix themselves to be the most profitable Final Fantasy game to date.

It's the same reason they are putting so much effort into making XIV work out, MMO's when they even pull in a mediocre subscriber base can be massive cash cows with the subscription base there just needs to be a certain "Critical mass" and they are set to go. I feel they over-reached with the audiences they are aiming everything is scattershot to try and appease everyone but not always hitting it's mark instead of focusing where they were good. WoW really seems to have bent alot of publishers into thinking any game can get those numbers it's a issue industry wide just not just for MMO's.

In the words of Andrew Carnegie: "The men who have suceeded, are men who have choosen one line and stuck to it."

I'm all for SE doing their own thing, or emulating WoW as much as they want but as long as I'm a paying subscriber I will continue to tell them how I feel the game should evolve to become a game I want to play.

On your point that "People quit for X reason"

Everyone quits for X reason, people quit FFXI because it was too grindy, people quit WoW because it wasn't grindy enough, people can and will quit XIV for multiple reasons, people are leaking from SWOTR like a sinking ship because Bioware couldn't deliver on their promised product, the same will happen with the next MMO. You can't please everyone Never going to happen, do what you think is best and stick to it. So just because you and some others didn't like how XI did things there are many people who did like me, I liked how they did things slower paced more focus on the leveling than the endgame for a long time I think it's how a great MMO community is allowed to flourish.

You (Guessing here) May want more rapid paced gameplay focusing on the endgame above all else, you may want items granted through said endgame content alone instead of from multiple sources. There is nothing wrong with that, we have our opinions and we are here to discuss them not to tell eachother how wrong we both are.

You don't want to level anything else? Heck you don't even know what your favorite class is yet, and I BET it isn't the one you have leveled, because you have no idea. Mine changed, and heck it changes on my mood too. Leveling is not fast I just wish people did more dungeons(to lower DD wait times)

I hope they release more lower/mid level dungeons as well as a health of mid-end level ones in content patches. They are the best part of the game, and I cannot wait to have more


Also they are raising the level cap in the not too distant future, it could become a lot harder to get to the top for multiple jobs

In old FFXI, I remember it can take plus/minus an hour to build a party, and depending on your job you may not even get a party. If you're lucky, you'll find an empty camp spot to xp on.. I can't believe I spent 8 years doing that. I'd do anything to get those 8 years back.

Hmm, I think that is what people remembers the most about FFXI. The mindless grind, and the camping. At least that is what I remember, and I absolutely don't want to go through that again.