Bring Leve Quests back (and remove or drastically increase the daily quota)

Back in the early days of FFXIV, even at 1.0, I loved Levequesting. I know most people prefer to do dungeons, but I honestly like doing some over-world content for a change of pace.

At the same time, the reason I didn't last long with 1.0 was the ridiculous low daily quota, and although it was much better on 2.0 with the number of side quests, it was still too low. Why is there even a quota anyways? It's not like we get a 3 dungeon run quota every 12 hours.

Another issue with the system, on expansions, is how it was delegated only to city zones in Heavensward, and no combat levequests were available at all in Stormblood.

Maybe the Beast Tribe quests are meant to replace levequests, but these, too, are tied to daily quotas (plus, very often, just involve clicking on stuff, I rather have combat focused content.)

TLDR:
Please, give us back Battlecraft Leves
Give every zone, at all level ranges, a Leave NPC.
Take away the Battlecraft levequest quota, or increase it to ... 10 per hour?

Actually, there is hope that they will change how the levequest system works. During a Q&A at Fan Fest Tokyo, Yoshida was asked about Levequests and why they still have a limit on the number you can do.

Yoshida's response was basically, "They are a holdover from 1.0. I don't know why we haven't changed them yet." I took that to mean they will either be removing them, or they will be removing the limit (or at least making the limit less restrictive). Hopefully the latter.

Oh nice! Honestly, it's a shame to have such a big nice open world and not have enough to do out there (other than fates and gathering) once you clear all the existing zone's quests.

I know there is no chance in hell that a dev is reading this but still:

Would be awesome to have a levequest system that just gives me some old fashioned spawn pop quests, with every, maybe 5th, unlocking a more interesting boss with basic telegraphed mechanics. Could be a nerfed version of a dungeon boss, maybe with more generic graphics and balanced for solo + companion combat.

I honestly think Levequests would be a great template to put on content like Eureka and Hunts.

Varying difficulty based on party size? Objectives that can actually simulate hunting rare monsters? Heck, you'd have to pick up the "request" from an NPC to start the Hunt if they were Leves. Throw in a system where a drop from the Hunt is exchanged for a higher tier Leve? Quality open world content IMO. Far better than Hunts or FATEs, which are just incredibly boring server zergs.

I'd much rather fly around zones, and see groups of people doing their own endgame Hunt Levequests, than what we currently have now. Heck, I'll take Levequests doing anything if it constitutes open world endgame content... This game is so starved of open world content...

If they bring back Battlecraft Leves, I hope they make them a touch more interesting to do.

Like, they're all a bit samey "Kill these dudes" "Kill these dudes to use an item to find other dudes to kill" "Stand here to spawn dudes, kill those dudes"

Never with much in the way of engaging fights either...

Which is a shame, because they're the games only source of repeatable open world combat content as of right now.

I sort of wish they maybe took some design from the DoL leves, and gave you options to targets to kill with different difficulties of mechanics and you racked up a bonus score based on which ones you took out. Maybe some where you actually have to go do some travelling and track down the specific enemies you need to kill for the leve. IDK just a little bit more interactive than the current ones.

*Sigh* I still wish for some cool inter-connected systems. Like, rarer Leves that when completed, causes a FATE to spawn in the zone... Which could then give a special Treasure Map, that has a chance to open a portal to a Aquapolis/Lost Canals style content.

Slightly off-topic, but I think dealing with leve-quest allowances is far more torturous when you let them run low in the first place. You feel like you're making good progress and then you gotta wait.

I've found it to be much better for my own sanity to let them reach 100. I would have a lot of trouble burning through 100 leves in one day.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

*Sigh* I still wish for some cool inter-connected systems. Like, rarer Leves that when completed, causes a FATE to spawn in the zone... Which could then give a special Treasure Map, that has a chance to open a portal to a Aquapolis/Lost Canals style content.

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Absolutely. I've always wondered why FATE rewards are so lackluster, even while leveling there is no real reason to stop and do them... Slap Treasure Maps as a reward though, maybe Levequests with a revised system? I'd probably start doing FATEs in passing. Would be a great system in all honesty; Open world content rewards players with more open world content. That's how you make the server feel alive. Not the current autonomous "Hunt LS ordered us all here" system we currently have for open world "content".

Treasure Maps in general have always bugged me with how they're set up... One every 18 hours, with multiple tiers? Why would I ever bother with the lower tiers... Slap those as rewards for FATEs and Levequests, suddenly their existence is justified. They'd be the common reward that you might as well do afterwards, obviously you'd hope for the Aquapolis/Canals tier maps but those would naturally be rarer rewards...

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Originally Posted by Nalien

I honestly think Levequests would be a great template to put on content like Eureka and Hunts.

Varying difficulty based on party size? Objectives that can actually simulate hunting rare monsters? Heck, you'd have to pick up the "request" from an NPC to start the Hunt if they were Leves. Throw in a system where a drop from the Hunt is exchanged for a higher tier Leve? Quality open world content IMO. Far better than Hunts or FATEs, which are just incredibly boring server zergs.

I'd much rather fly around zones, and see groups of people doing their own endgame Hunt Levequests, than what we currently have now. Heck, I'll take Levequests doing anything if it constitutes open world endgame content... This game is so starved of open world content...

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This so much. The hunts are clearly not working out how Yoshi intended - if you allow for open tagging then obviously people will try to zerg it, trivializing the content and causing early-pull dramas.
It would be so much better to focus on improving the leves - and more importantly open world guild hests - and replace current hunts with them. This could not only make open world more active after initial leveling, but also provide good content for FCs to do together. You could even make some workshop upgrades come from doing these.
Devs would also have to look into providing more interesting rewards for those than the current hunts get and update them with each patch to keep the content relevant.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

I honestly think Levequests would be a great template to put on content like Eureka and Hunts.

Varying difficulty based on party size? Objectives that can actually simulate hunting rare monsters? Heck, you'd have to pick up the "request" from an NPC to start the Hunt if they were Leves. Throw in a system where a drop from the Hunt is exchanged for a higher tier Leve? Quality open world content IMO. Far better than Hunts or FATEs, which are just incredibly boring server zergs.

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I'd forgo the items, unless it's a key item. But yea, I can see the path to acquiring future relic weapon stuff being tied to leves. The goal is always grinding, but I can see like: every 5th leve is a Soloable Notorious Monster fight. You need X count of SNM fight key items to boost/enhance/whatever your weapon/armor/whatever.

OR... you need a key item from a NM from each zone... stuff like that. I always felt that the relic/anima weapon paths should be the "casual but slow questing" path, even if grindy.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

*Sigh* I still wish for some cool inter-connected systems. Like, rarer Leves that when completed, causes a FATE to spawn in the zone... Which could then give a special Treasure Map, that has a chance to open a portal to a Aquapolis/Lost Canals style content.

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When I started reading that sentence, and saw "inter-connected system" I cringed... but the whole line sounds cool! Although I personally never cared much for treasure map content.

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Originally Posted by DumdogsWorld

Slightly off-topic, but I think dealing with leve-quest allowances is far more torturous when you let them run low in the first place. You feel like you're making good progress and then you gotta wait.

I've found it to be much better for my own sanity to let them reach 100. I would have a lot of trouble burning through 100 leves in one day.

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Yea, but part of the point here would be to allow players to ignore dungeon content and instead have a open world progression path. For such a player, the only way to let them pile up would be not to play for weeks (takes 17 days to get 100 leves).

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Originally Posted by Nalien

I honestly think Levequests would be a great template to put on content like Eureka and Hunts.

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I think Eureka specific leves would have made it suck a whole lot less. Back when I was first getting used to the game in ARR, I did the Costa leves to level and get used to the combat since I'd never played anything like XIV before. The lore snippets were nice, and it made me appreciate the zone a lot more.

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Originally Posted by Ogulbuk

I'd forgo the items, unless it's a key item. But yea, I can see the path to acquiring future relic weapon stuff being tied to leves. The goal is always grinding, but I can see like: every 5th leve is a Soloable Notorious Monster fight. You need X count of SNM fight key items to boost/enhance/whatever your weapon/armor/whatever.

OR... you need a key item from a NM from each zone... stuff like that. I always felt that the relic/anima weapon paths should be the "casual but slow questing" path, even if grindy.

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I was thinking Key Items, yes. Ideally with some form of progression system; Kill Leve A, get item for Leve B. Kill Leve C, get item for Leve D. Do Leve B and D, get item for Leve E. That sort of thing, with the NMs higher up that system naturally being more challenging.

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Originally Posted by Gula

I think Eureka specific leves would have made it suck a whole lot less. Back when I was first getting used to the game in ARR, I did the Costa leves to level and get used to the combat since I'd never played anything like XIV before. The lore snippets were nice, and it made me appreciate the zone a lot more.

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Leves would have future proofed Eureka, IMO. Right now, once 5.0 hits, I can't imagine what getting those Relics done will be like... Sure the FATEs scale, but popping them doesn't... I'd have much rather had a system where a group of mobs drops an item, you take it to the Leve NPC and exchange it for a Leve that spawns a scaled version of the current FATEs.

Slap on a tier system, so you get an item off two NMs, that gets you a Leve for the third... Suddenly all the NMs in the zone have a purpose; You build your way towards spawning the "Zuzu" of the area.

Would have been a far better system IMO. You could log on solo, just go farm some items to get Leves ready for your next time. Then go in, maybe find some people doing the same NMs as you. Technically you can solo them, but by grouping up you get more out of it (doing 1 Zuzu alone rewards less doing 8 with a group). Works far better with the Light system as well, I absolutely hate how they just shoehorned that in... It did not mix well with the FATE train system... Would work fine with the Levequest system though; Farming items to get Leves doubles up as Light farming. There'd be no more "Oh a FATE spawned, time to abandon this EXP Chain", since you'd decide when the NM spawns because it's your Levequest.

I'd also have worked Baldesion Arsenal completely differently, but well... That's irrelevant content that'll soon have the most exclusive rewards, simply because SE was shortsighted in its development... Effectively though, I'd have said; Each zones Zuzu drops a key item, bring all 4 of them together and you can enter BA. Instead we got a generic gather crystals from each zone? So unimaginative...

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Devs would also have to look into providing more interesting rewards for those than the current hunts get and update them with each patch to keep the content relevant.

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Sadly, "Rewards" is probably going to be the biggest issue with any "new" content added to XIV. Hyper-linear gear progression doesn't lend itself well to various different types of content... Still, if we're just updating Hunts, then Hunt Marks for upgrading tomestone gear still works I guess...

Ideally I'd like either multiple Relic type quest chains, or to go back to ARR/HWs Relic design and just have them involve all sorts of content. HW particularly eventually just boiled down to "Do Roulettes", which I really loathed, I'd much rather have a Relic chain that says "Get this from Eureka, this from Heaven-on-High, this from a SB dungeon" and so on. No reason not to slap reworked Leves onto that list. They sorta did some of that with ARR Relics, but for the most part it turned into "Wait for this FATE to spawn", which I'm not OK with. I want to be able to actively work towards something, not sit there waiting... Lets say all existing Hunts are reworked into Levequests in a manner that I've described, and lets say my Red Mage Relic requires a Key Item from some specific Hunt, lets say Salt and Light; I can sit down, start doing Levequests to work my way up the tiers, and spawn Salt and Light. There'd be no pointless waiting on my part, instead I'd actually be playing the game.

I'm all for it as long as they delete every single one that involves /beckon to an NPC and slowly waiting for them to make their way to you.

Colino, agreed whole heartedly.

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Originally Posted by Ogulbuk

Colino, agreed whole heartedly.

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There's only so much time I can spend watch Qiqirin Whatshisface slowly making his way up the hill. Ugh.

I never understood why /beckon didn't function as a toggle for those Levequests... Heck why even have the need for it at all, just have the NPC follow you automatically from the start, and stop when enemies spawn...

Guess that was back when they liked to shoehorn emotes into a lot of things... Almost makes me glad they don't do Levequests anymore, they'd probably have similar ones now that they worked /say phrases into quests... Imagine having to say "Follow Me" as you slowly climb a hill lmao... I really shouldn't be planting that idea in the developers heads, should I...

That reminds me though, Beast Tribe Dailies (and their token "Use /say" quests) are technically open world content. Could make doing them a tad more worthwhile by rewarding Levequests/Treasure Maps/etc. while we're on that topic. Beast Tribe specific Levequests could be really interesting, it really is a shame how underused their "strongholds" often go... There's also plenty of concept art for "high ranking" beastmen that basically only got used in one FATE? Could make for a good Levequest boss as well. I'd love to actually fight some huge Gnath in their stronghold, for example. Heck the Levequests could build up to a mini-open world Primal fight, sort of like how we saw Ravana in their stronghold during a 3.x cutscene...

Those /beckon and /soothe leves really are awkward...

Also, outdated since they now do quests that involve escorting and interacting with low health enemies (That are specifically require for a quest) differently these days. Utilizing automatic following (With a max distance where they will be ported back to their starting location) and state change (To being an incapacitated 1hp target) which are much better ways of addressing these things.

Even better is the spawning of the enemies while you're doing such escort quests... Where they spawn right in front of you rather than 4 malms back so you often don't even need to fight half the leve because you reach the end before they even get to you >.>

But yeah, I stand by that they kind of need to polish Battlecraft level when (If) they reintroduce them.

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Originally Posted by Nalien

That reminds me though, Beast Tribe Dailies (and their token "Use /say" quests) are technically open world content. Could make doing them a tad more worthwhile by rewarding Levequests/Treasure Maps/etc. while we're on that topic. Beast Tribe specific Levequests could be really interesting, it really is a shame how underused their "strongholds" often go... There's also plenty of concept art for "high ranking" beastmen that basically only got used in one FATE? Could make for a good Levequest boss as well. I'd love to actually fight some huge Gnath in their stronghold, for example. Heck the Levequests could build up to a mini-open world Primal fight, sort of like how we saw Ravana in their stronghold during a 3.x cutscene...

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Beast Tribes are kinda like a replacement to Levequests, but they are also rationed (12 per day, only 3 quest per beast tribe per day) and that ration seems to work as a gate keeping device for beast tribe progression (that eventually ends in exclusive mounts, so I figured increasing access to them is not going to be in the table.)

I also got to add, Beast Tribe quests are full of non-combat stuff, and you get a pre-determined list of 3. Kinda takes the battle out of Battlecraft. I think a lot of people do Beast tribe quests, but once they do their daily ones, that's that for the day. It can take about 15 minutes in average to get the 2 Stormblood daily quests (just 6 quests unless you rank up.)

levequests in 1.0 were more varied and interesting. Solo/open world Monster fights were also balanced differently, and classes had a better mix of offense and defense. I have done tons of levequests for relics, and they are extremely repetetive, easy, and pretty lame content.

now, if they make solo fighting more entertaining somehow, and make new levequests that are not as basic as the ones they have now, and reward it accordingly, it might be cool

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Originally Posted by Satarn

This so much. The hunts are clearly not working out how Yoshi intended - if you allow for open tagging then obviously people will try to zerg it, trivializing the content and causing early-pull dramas.
It would be so much better to focus on improving the leves - and more importantly open world guild hests - and replace current hunts with them. This could not only make open world more active after initial leveling, but also provide good content for FCs to do together. You could even make some workshop upgrades come from doing these.
Devs would also have to look into providing more interesting rewards for those than the current hunts get and update them with each patch to keep the content relevant.

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early pull is an extremely tiny problem in hunts. And the whole concept of fates is open world content where players can interact with each other without being in a party or penalty. Leves can never replace them because leves are for the opposite, solo/low man instanced content.

I can only assume Battlecraft leves existed differently from how they function now? I mean Battlecraft leves never went away, so did they do something different in 1.0?

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

I can only assume Battlecraft leves existed differently from how they function now? I mean Battlecraft leves never went away, so did they do something different in 1.0?

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They never "went away", but they, essentially, stop at level 50. There are some from 50-60 in Ishgard, but the fact that you need to go to the city, find the NPC, and travel to the zone where you execute the leve, means they are pretty much a waste of time for anything but crafting. 60+ we only have crafting leves.

I didn't grind out this achievement for people to be able to get the title in a days work.

if this were a single player rpg leve allowances would probably be unlimited. but since this is a perpetually ongoing MMO, certain limits have to be in place. just the way the setup works.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

if this were a single player rpg leve allowances would probably be unlimited. but since this is a perpetually ongoing MMO, certain limits have to be in place. just the way the setup works.

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Limits in MMO's only need to be in place to time gate a particular reward.

Leves don't give any unique reward that isn't more easily gained through unlimited means.

Since, they mostly just give experience and some trashy NQ white gear (With HW having the Amber Encased Vilekin that could be traded for Anima weapon stuff)

You literally can spam dungeons all day and get more experience and better gear drops.

You can spam PotD/Trials all day and get more experience.

You can spam FATEs all day and get the roughly the same experience.

Limits in place for Dailies and Weeklies are to limit the massive boosts of experience for little work.

Limits on Beast Tribe quests are also to limit high experience boosts for little effort, as well as gate off reputation gain.

Limits on Raids are to gate off gear acquisition.