Suggestion: How to not raise level cap while keeping experience relevant

A lot of people have noticed that FFXIV took a classic vertical progression system, which has been confirmed with Heavensward. This system comes with its count of problems, which are the following (non exhaustive list):
- More levels mean more new skills, half of them being irrelevant in 90% of the situations, cluttering the skill bars
- More levels make previous content less and less relevant
- More levels means that players interrested in end level content end up rushing the leveling phase, passing the cutscenes, forcing people to pass cutscenes in story dungeons, ... and thus lowering the interrest in the storyline
- More levels means that lower level experience requirement gets nerfed, it takes less time to do level 1 to 60 than it took to do level 1 to 50 in 2.0, which is kind of a nonsense to me, what is the point of adding more levels if it doesn't extend the play time.

There are more, but you see my point.

Now, completely getting rid of experience is not an option. Leveling is a very important part of MMORPGs, and a lot of people (me among them) enjoy it. So what options do we have?

One option would be what FFXI did very well, a Merit system. For those who didn't play FFXI, the Merit system was basically a system where you were earning experience toward unlocking some skills and traits instead of levels. Now, this is an easy solution, however more skills is not viable in FFXIV for the reasons evoked before.

An other option would be to have levels on actions and traits themselves, allowing to upgrade them. We already have that in PvP in a way, and it is quite a fine system. It gives some personalisation options, ... One way to "improve" it to make it more experience relevant would be to allow players to select which action the experience goes to. Improving the actions by using them would also be an option, but I see too many problems coming from that (long cooldown actions being very hard to upgrade, people spaming an action in dungeon to level it instead of playing properly, ...).

Those system would not only introduce more horizontal progression, but also more customisation (which is something players seem to ask for a lot lately). In order to avoid affecting lower difficulty content, those could also be disabled and kept active only in high difficulty content (acting a little bit like a soft nerf on the content) and in open world content.

There are a lot of other options and systems which could be implemented. For me, experience is important, levels are not, and sticking to a classing leveling system for a game like FFXIV will strip the game from it's uniqueness.

Feel free to give your opinions and ideas, I would love to hear them.

Sorry for the multiple messages, this forum has a 1000 characters limit on messages.

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Originally Posted by Clars

Sorry for the multiple messages, this forum has a 1000 characters limit on messages.

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Will read through your posts in a sec. In the meantime I'll point out what everyone does to new posters on this forum. You can edit your post to bypass the character limit. Most people will fully type out what they want to say, then copy it and put a placeholder for the actual post, before hitting edit and pasting their full post in the now limitless space available......

EDIT: I have now read through your posts and I just have to say that I completely disagree with you on every point you've made......

Wow. Just so many things wrong with your posts. I guess I’ll start at the beginning…..

- More levels mean more new skills, half of them being irrelevant in 90% of the situations, cluttering the skill bars

Just plain wrong. At end game, most classes are using 99% of their skills within their rotations if the player in question is wanting to perform well. As a MCH, I have the most skills out of any class I’ve seen that I can flat out take off my hotbar, and that’s only three skills. Two of those are movement debuffs that endgame enemies are immune to, and one of which shares a cooldown with a skill that is equal in every way, but has more range and a less disruptive status effect. On top of that, the two movement debuffs, I keep on a secondary hotbar for when I’m either solo or running pre-60 content, as they can be useful against trash mobs. The only other skills I have that I don’t use that often are a magic debuff skill, (which I don’t use as often because most bosses still use physical damage, or I can’t tell what damage they do and go with physical to be safe), and my more powerful AoE, (which I don’t use as often because it has higher TP drain which becomes problematic in the longer run, though I still use it against lower health mobs like the morbol seeds in AV). Aside from those five skills, four of which I may use depending on the situation, I use every single one of my skills in a normal dungeon run, and all but two are a main part of my DPS rotation. If you’re saying that half your skills you never use for anything, then you’re doing something very wrong……

- More levels make previous content less and less relevant

It’s not the levels making the content less relevant, it’s the reward for doing said content. Level 50 runs have always been useless once you have better gear than what drops there, and the only thing keeping it relevant now is the High Level Roulette. As for other runs such as those in the leveling roulette, you could argue that they are now more relevant now, because there are more levels for people to get, and thus more reason to get the exp bonus from the leveling roulette. Arguing that more levels is what’s outdating the content is completely wrong. It’s the progression of gear in general beyond what was available when the content came out. As I said, any pre-CT runs became completely irrelevant to run once you got gear that could get you into Labyrinth of the Ancients, because there was no reason to run anything else aside from tomestones and glamour gear, both of which aren’t affected by the level cap raising. And even if the level cap didn’t raise, new gear would still be introduced as they added new content, meaning that drop wise, everything will be outdated eventually. I’m fully aware that this is vertical gear progression at it’s worse, and that there needs to be changes, but claiming it’s because there was a level cap raise to 60 is pretty wrong. They could have just as easily kept putting out iLevels to where we’re at now without raising the cap…..

- More levels means that players interrested in end level content end up rushing the leveling phase, passing the cutscenes, forcing people to pass cutscenes in story dungeons, ... and thus lowering the interrest in the storyline

The only cutscenes in dungeons were in content that was at level cap for a long time, so your argument there holds no water, as players were rushing through it well before the cap was raised. Players that rush in these dungeons aren’t doing it because they want to hit the level cap or reach end level content, they’re doing it because they’ve played through the missions before, and are likely entering the dungeon for the millionth time through the story roulette. I do think that them rushing and encouraging other players to skip cutscenes is wrong, but SE has admitted that putting cutscenes in dungeons to begin with was a mistake for this very reason, and is why we only have two dungeons that do it at all in the game. Once again, your point has nothing to do with “more levels”…..

- More levels means that lower level experience requirement gets nerfed, it takes less time to do level 1 to 60 than it took to do level 1 to 50 in 2.0, which is kind of a nonsense to me, what is the point of adding more levels if it doesn't extend the play time.

Once again, completely false. Leveling from 50-60 on its own takes about as long as leveling from 1-50 the first time. The only “experience requirement [getting] nerfed” is for players who have already leveled one class to 50, and again when they hit 60 for the first time. This only applies an experience boost to all subsequently leveled classes. This is because having to take the same amount of time to level every single class to 60 as you did the first one, would cause many players to never bother playing all or any of the other classes due to the sheer time and grinding involved, which would be a great shame. It’s also to make up for the fact that you can only do quests once, and thus can only get the bonus experience from them on the first class you do them with, which will likely be your first class you level up……

As for the rest of your post, I have to ask this? How does this solve any of the “level system generated problems” that you listed? Players would still be trying to earn exp as quickly as possible to max out their skills, which is all leveling really does anyhow besides a basic flat boost to your stats. Additionally, having more “options” in which skills to level up would greatly limit what skills a player can use in combat, depending on how many points you can put into them. Then there would of course be a problem where “you must have your points into these skills or you’re playing your class wrong and I’m going to kick you from the party”, which will almost certainly happen. I’m all for player choice, but there’s no way to balance it where there wouldn’t be a “best” option, and having anything less than that would cause a great deal of hate from the players who want quick runs, which is 90% of the DF player base. You’d see people constantly getting kicked from parties because they didn’t have the “ideal” set up. PARTICULARLY if you went from the system we have now to a system such as that. On top of all of that, they’d have to completely rework the entire gameplay system in order to implement what you’re suggesting, and the players who would like such drastic changes are in the vast minority. We got a slight change to how BRD fights and most of the members of an entire class decided to jump ship to play other classes or other games entirely. Imagine what it would be like if you said, “we’re going to let you personalize your skills from here on, but you only have half as many you can realistically use”. That would kill the existing game faster than dropping a moon on it……

Again, I’m a major advocate of player choice in games, and I would like having more options on how to play my class, but the balancing issues are already a mess without trying to add something like that in. Hell, out of all the games I’ve played, XIV currently has one of the best balances out of all of them, with all classes being realistically usable in all content, (Alex Savage not counting, since that run itself is what’s not balanced there). You’re trying to change that to give more options, yes, but in doing so you’d be destroying the balance of the game. There is a time and place for player choice, but completely revamping the system to add it would just cause a lot more issues, without solving any existing ones…….

One last thing. You are talking about how "sticking to a classing leveling system for a game like FFXIV will strip the game from it's uniqueness", and yet the first thing you said in your second post was about how XI's system was better so XIV should switch to that or something similar. Since you didn't focus purely on that, I won't claim that you're one of those people who wants to turn XIV into XI-2, but the fact that you opened your "idea's" section with how another game's system was better, and ended with claiming that XIV's current system somehow stops making it as unique as it is, seems to be a bit hypocritical.......

Thanks for that, I made a few post bug only answers generally, no I never hit this kind of limit :).

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Originally Posted by Clars

- More levels mean more new skills, half of them being irrelevant in 90% of the situations, cluttering the skill bars

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Disagree. As a WHM main, I can say with utmost certainty that all of my HW skills get used all of the time, not just in Savage. Asylum is a free AoE regen you just drop on the tank during boss fights, gives you more DPS time in which you use... Stone3, Aero3, and Assize...more than half of the new skills! Tetragrammaton is amazing and anyone who says otherwise is flat out wrong.

That being said, I'm not massively in the know about similar situations with other jobs. But remember, we've got X patches until the next expansion, so even if some skills seem irrelevant now you might find yourself thanking the stars that you have them later on in newer content.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

Disagree. As a WHM main, I can say with utmost certainty that all of my HW skills get used all of the time, not just in Savage.

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You use Repose? Half the mobs are immune to it these days! That said, I do agree in general. White Mage is one job where all of our skills come in handy.

But please, for the love of all that is Holy (see what I did there?) don't use Fluid Aura on mobs unless you need to. Knocking enemies out of AoE circles and pushing them away from melee or tanks is just the kind of 'help' that no one really needs or wants. And I see it way too often these days.

I don't see the point of this thread because this game doesn't actually face any of these issues you mention.

Are you speaking of stuff that might happen in the future? Even then I'm skeptical.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

You use Repose? Half the mobs are immune to it these days! That said, I do agree in general. White Mage is one job where all of our skills come in handy.

But please, for the love of all that is Holy (see what I did there?) don't use Fluid Aura on mobs unless you need to. Knocking enemies out of AoE circles and pushing them away from melee or tanks is just the kind of 'help' that no one really needs or wants. And I see it way too often these days.

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That's every class though. There's usually like one skill you may not use for each class if you aren't awful (and no I'm not calling anyone awful, it's just the best way I can think to put it), the rest should be used quite frequently, and even the very very few you may not use in PvE end up being godly in PvP.

SE is actually very good about having every skill be meaningful.

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Originally Posted by FoxyAreku

SE is actually very good about having every skill be meaningful.

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One Ilm Punch. Twice the TP of other skills, half the potency, and the only things that can be dispelled are so worthless that they aren't worth dispelling (With the exception of a single leveling FATE). I think the Devs forgot it existed since it's never been tweaked.

@OP I've though about the Merit system from FFXI too, but I don't know if it would really add anything to the game. FFXI was mostly about how fast you could chain mobs so small boosts to your weapon skill or STR helped, whereas FFXIV is mostly Clumping 10 mobs together and spamming aoe or finely tuned fights. And honestly, there's not really much "customization" as far as merit points go. All you would be doing would be picking skills to raise their damage potency, or adding 5 Determination. It's just kind of boring. Also they've finally gotten most of the DPS to a relatively balanced state, but screwing with numbers like that could potentially throw the balance out of whack again.

-If they allowed people to use merit points on every job equally (similar to your bonus attributes from leveling) the Devs would just increase the stats on Raid content to make full merits required thus negating the existence of merits (Aside from making Trash dungeons easier, but they could also just lower the stats on mobs for the same effect).
-If you only had a limited allocation and had to pick a job then they'd get 5 new threads a day asking for the ability to use merits on every class (see SMN/SCH and attribute points). Then at least for the Savage content they would still raise the difficulty so the hardcore raiders wouldnt clear it in 3 days , but the raiders would complain also because they could only bring a single job to savage.

That said, if there's some way to make it interesting and truly customizable I'd be all for it I just don't think it can be done.

It would give grinders a ranking system to see who has a higher level if anything even if it offers nothing a number they can ego boost about. The achievements for killing X/ gathering X is quite dull and mundane.

Other areas get quite well for rankings, seals & PvP has a set limit of rewards once you max them both out on things.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

You use Repose? Half the mobs are immune to it these days! That said, I do agree in general. White Mage is one job where all of our skills come in handy.

But please, for the love of all that is Holy (see what I did there?) don't use Fluid Aura on mobs unless you need to. Knocking enemies out of AoE circles and pushing them away from melee or tanks is just the kind of 'help' that no one really needs or wants. And I see it way too often these days.

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Repose and Fluid Aura is the best combo in PvP

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Originally Posted by Reinfeld

One Ilm Punch. Twice the TP of other skills, half the potency, and the only things that can be dispelled are so worthless that they aren't worth dispelling (With the exception of a single leveling FATE). I think the Devs forgot it existed since it's never been tweaked.

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Fairly worthless in PVE, a god among skills at pissing off your enemies in PVP :)

Even though Lord of the Rings Online suffered the same problem, they did have a system I liked that was somewhat horizontal. The Legendary Items and Weapons: Items that gain xp with you, that you can add/remove traits to suite your needs. I had a lvl 60 Legendary Item that I put so much time in, it stayed relevant deep into end game of the next xpac.

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Originally Posted by LandricFrey

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Though unlikely, I'm honestly hoping that the new relics will work in a similar manner, since we did see a slight amount of horizontal progression with the previous iteration in that you could modify their stats to better suit you. Again, very unlikely, but it would be nice if the new relics have a "level" system to them where they start out at level and iLevel 1, but grow and let you put stat points into them as you use them in battle and level them up. The stat point system could be handled by taking it to whatever NPC gives you the quest, and allocating them through a menu there, while the "levels" could just be every time you increase your spiritbond with the weapon to max it gains a level. I know it won't happen, but that would give the sense that the weapon was your personal one and you could customize it to be better suited to your preferred stats for endgame.....

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

You use Repose? Half the mobs are immune to it these days! That said, I do agree in general. White Mage is one job where all of our skills come in handy.

But please, for the love of all that is Holy (see what I did there?) don't use Fluid Aura on mobs unless you need to. Knocking enemies out of AoE circles and pushing them away from melee or tanks is just the kind of 'help' that no one really needs or wants. And I see it way too often these days.

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" all of my HW skills get used all of the time" in case you missed that part of what you quoted.

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Originally Posted by Reinfeld

One Ilm Punch. Twice the TP of other skills, half the potency, and the only things that can be dispelled are so worthless that they aren't worth dispelling (With the exception of a single leveling FATE). I think the Devs forgot it existed since it's never been tweaked.

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Can you please read the entire post before you respond?

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That's every class though. There's usually like one skill you may not use for each class if you aren't awful (and no I'm not calling anyone awful, it's just the best way I can think to put it), the rest should be used quite frequently, and even the very very few you may not use in PvE end up being godly in PvP.

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One-Ilm Punch would be that one skill, however it's still used in PvP as I also mentioned.

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Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

Disagree. As a WHM main, I can say with utmost certainty that all of my HW skills get used all of the time, not just in Savage. Asylum is a free AoE regen you just drop on the tank during boss fights, gives you more DPS time in which you use... Stone3, Aero3, and Assize...more than half of the new skills! Tetragrammaton is amazing and anyone who says otherwise is flat out wrong.

That being said, I'm not massively in the know about similar situations with other jobs. But remember, we've got X patches until the next expansion, so even if some skills seem irrelevant now you might find yourself thanking the stars that you have them later on in newer content.

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As a NIN, I use all mine as well. Yes, I do, very often, too. Now, before Heavensward, I rarely used {Sneak Attack}, {Mug}, and {Hyoton}.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

You use Repose? Half the mobs are immune to it these days!

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Last time I checked, Repose wasn't a HW skill.