Level squish?

Do you think this will ever happen, or will they keep sticking another 10 levels on every expac?

I think more than a level squish they need to seriously reconsider when skills are given at what level

Why do 5 classes have no AOE at level 40, why does WHM not get its class gimmick until 74, why does SCH lose abilities upon changing to SCH, why does DRG’s rotation not fill itself out till about 76, why does RDM have no AOE gauge spender at level 50, why does DRK not get TBN till level 70 the list goes on and on

Fix when skills are actually obtained by classes and I think a level squish becomes kinda unneeded

I'm looking forward to 5 years later when we have like 4 abilities at level 50.

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Originally Posted by Azuri

I'm looking forward to 5 years later when we have like 4 abilities at level 50.

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Don’t worry square will find a way to delete a skill you get at a low level just to give it back to you at a high level so you feel like you are making progress

Who remembers divine seal cough temperance cough

They alteadydid a stat squish, there's no need to do a level squish on top of that.

FFXI stopped at 99 and went to a master level system. EQ2 has done similar.

They won't squish levels, but they'll probably look into a way to make it easier for people to get from start to finish.

I'd like to see skip options available in game if you have at least one character that has done the content before. You'd have to be the correct level to skip an expansion. They can't be that against it when the store offers it.

I think if we get to a point where we have 120 levels that will be too much for new players.

I don't think they would do this as that would get people to stop paying for the level skip. I do hope we either stop at 99 or 100 and then truly start in a horizontal progression.

Unless it's causing issues with data or computations (like the pre-squish stats were actually hitting the limit of what the system could comprehend) then I think a level squish would create too much confusion for minimal gain. An ilevel squish is somewhat more likely – perhaps to flatten down the layers of gear at each endgame level.

I don't think there's any need to offer skips on a new character when you get so much EXP from quests, but armoury bonus for second jobs could be higher, especially below level 50 where the longer it takes you to level up, the more times you have to drag everyone back down to your level in roulettes.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Unless it's causing issues with data or computations (like the pre-squish stats were actually hitting the limit of what the system could comprehend) then I think a level squish would create too much confusion for minimal gain. An ilevel squish is somewhat more likely – perhaps to flatten down the layers of gear at each endgame level.

I don't think there's any need to offer skips on a new character when you get so much EXP from quests, but armoury bonus for second jobs could be higher, especially below level 50 where the longer it takes you to level up, the more times you have to drag everyone back down to your level in roulettes.

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The skips would be more for the story than leveling. Even with the ARR squish, there's a lot people have to go through and that's getting bigger and bigger. I'm pretty sure Yoshi acknowledged this somewhere in the last month or two.

With a lot of games hitting the 15+ years mark, it's weird how there doesn't seem to be a definite solution for the number bloat / skill bloat problem in a way that doesn't feel like a "kicking the can down the road" kind of solution.

For FF14 in particular, I would suggest an alternate leveling system, kinda like what we already have with Eureka/Bozja but on a expansion scope.
And for skills... I really don't know, we are already hitting the limits of skill bloat on several jobs. Sometimes I wish they would have stuck with improving cross-classing. I'm guessing a lot of passives are in our future.

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Originally Posted by Cach

With a lot of games hitting the 15+ years mark, it's weird how there doesn't seem to be a definite solution for the number bloat / skill bloat problem in a way that doesn't feel like a "kicking the can down the road" kind of solution.

For FF14 in particular, I would suggest an alternate leveling system, kinda like what we already have with Eureka/Bozja but on a expansion scope.
And for skills... I really don't know, we are already hitting the limits of skill bloat on several jobs. Sometimes I wish they would have stuck with improving cross-classing. I'm guessing a lot of passives are in our future.

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I think in an ideal world they'd put a system in place to restore and take away skills depending on your level range and have a little pop up message telling you how you're about to change expansions so some skills will be removed while others will be added - then just restore classes to the way they were during each expansion as if you were playing each one during their expansion release state.
Of course this isn't exactly ideal as some classes have been changed during those lower levels to be somewhat more enjoyable like tanks all having a two-hit AoE combo before level 50, so it's a complicated issue.

Ideally, I think a level squish back to 50 would be a very good idea. But I forsee them stopping at 99 or just not stopping.

I tend to be against a "level squish"

mainly because it feels like you suddenly didnt put in all the time it took to get to the higher level. stat squish I can understand and dont mind, but taking away levels I have earned is a harder thing to wrap my brain around. its likely just me, but I seriously hated it when WoW did it, and was the final nail in that particular coffin for me. to me, it felt like they had taken away the final indicator that I had put any time into the game at all.

years ago I played Anarchy Online, max level was I think 220 or something, but gave you something to go for. never reached it, but I think was an incentive in some ways that a level squish promptly removes.

A level squish works in WoW because all they want you to play is the newest content. FFXIV has a massive story that is spread across all those levels, and they want you to play through all of it. Imagine having to go through all of ARR and be level 30. that would be so awful. ARR is slow as it is.

I LOATHE level and stat squishes. I consider them to be an indicator of poor game design. They also make me feel as though all the progress I have previously made was literally wasted. It's the primary reason why I left WoW and never looked back.

I don't really understand the point of a level squish. The game works the same no matter which number the UI shows.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I don't really understand the point of a level squish. The game works the same no matter which number the UI shows.

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I believe it is because people are getting less and less overall skills in ARR/HW levels and being level 50-60, it feels like that character should have more. If ARR ended at 25 and HW at 30, it wouldn't feel so bad.

SB: 35; ShB: 40; EW: 45; Next expac: 50

But you are right, it's really just a feeling thing. Gaining a level would be a much bigger deal, but it could cause problems on SE's end. They would have to change the level requirements and ilvls on everything. On the other hand, if leveling feels empty, it might discourage some people from playing. Leveling to 50 also sounds less daunting to a new player than leveling to 100.

Leveling dungeons are currently X1, X3, X5, X7 and X9. They would have to be X(0 or 5), X(1 or 6), X(2 or 7), X(3 or8), and X(4 or 9). Dusk Vigil (51) would become 25. Sohm Al (53) would become 26. All quests would have to round down. It sounds like a nightmare to change everything.

The reason a level squish could be needed is because new players look at the max level for the game they are playing and see that they need to climb over 100 levels and eventually it looks to steep so they just quit. This is already a problem because of the amount of story to get through and having the level cap give this impression of being too steep as well is not going to help.

I don't think they can just reduce it to, say, 50. You have to consider the problems with reducing it too low. When you start the game, you need to feel that gaining levels is easy, so the first 10 levels you can just kill enemies otherwise it gives the impression that gaining experience is too hard. ARR is extremely long with so many dungeons packed together, so 10 levels wouldn't cut it, but 20 probably would. The new jobs we got in Heavensward start at 30 and you unlock all your starter jobs at 30, so 30 would make the perfect level cap for ARR. Job quests could be rescaled to appear every 2 or 3 levels like in the expansions. This would put Heavensward's cap at 40, Stormblood's at 50, Shadowbringers' at 60 and Endwalker at 70.

The biggest problem would be gear, which would have to be squished to be the same level as other gear and stop being relevant, but we already have a lot of gear that isn't relevant (such as using item level 340 or 370 when 400 is the cap at level 70) and dungeon gear has never been relevant to people who get gear from anywhere else than dungeons, except from leveling dungeons.

Item level could be squished as well. Every piece of gear jumps by 5 when it could just jump by 1. Between level caps it jumps by 3. The result of such huge jumps is that we are on course to get over item level 1000.

The alternative could be to start the new expansion from a low level but players that aren't new would have to sync down and use ARR rotations and feel no level progression.

I remember Yoshi-P mentioning horizontal progression so I think he is thinking about this issue but it's not an easy thing to change because it could have consequences for the way the game currently works.

10 levels from every expac and you are sooner back to the original problem

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I don't really understand the point of a level squish. The game works the same no matter which number the UI shows.

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Constantly elevating numbers eventually strains the game's ability to actually process it. WoW started running into the problem before their first stat squish.

The levels are pretty meaningless. It's way too easy to reach level 90 before you leave HW now. So the dopamine hit of a ding and new spells has been trivialised into nothing (this one is a huge driver for me, I love to ding)

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The reason a level squish could be needed is because new players look at the max level for the game they are playing and see that they need to climb over 100 levels and eventually it looks to steep so they just quit. This is already a problem because of the amount of story to get through and having the level cap give this impression of being too steep as well is not going to help.

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The length of the story doesn't change even if they squished levels. An enormous job to change every level based system in the game for the sake of perceptions? I don't think that's realistic. Without the story gating they could just introduce leveling buffs that let someone gain 3-5 levels per day. The number of levels doesn't matter.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Constantly elevating numbers eventually strains the game's ability to actually process it. WoW started running into the problem before their first stat squish.

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I was talking about level squish, not stat squish.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

Do you think this will ever happen, or will they keep sticking another 10 levels on every expac?

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depends on the engine they use and because it is an online game with servers overlapping each other, to help fix some of the issues with the overwhelming amount of information that was being issue to the x player to the server and server to x player,
examples of fixes
reducing hp of x player
reducing hp of x mobs
reducing dps numbers of x player
reducing dps numbers of x mob
reducing items drop for x player
rudcing item drop by x mob
to make dungeons smoother for example they removed exp and items and i think items aswell, this is reduce the amount of information being passed from x player to the server and the server to the player making the instance smoother for the player and server
the entire game got this not just the player the reasons are are of course if you squish the player you must also squish the ai and they did so accordingly.
will they do this again in the future it honestly depends will they have to will they have enough servers to compensate for the amount of information being passed, will the game engine be able to handle it.
will the game run still be a mmo before they have to do another full squish who knows,will ffxiv still retain that amount of players for them to consider such a thing who knows

in all honestly to speculate now as a player would not matter to much other than to let the devs know we are concerned about server performance in the future
this would be more up to the dev team to speculate over because they have the resources the numbers the hardware and the software they are the ones that will have to decide in the future if it ever gets to the point again were they have to do such a thing

also after thought Reinha does have a fair point level squish would not matter to much in the grand scheme of things the item level will still continue to go up and up so the numbers of damage from x mob or x player will still continue to go higher and higher
the only thing i would say it would maybe cleaner in the coding and more easy to set x item level to x player level so they can get the job done faster and cleaner

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Originally Posted by Reinha

I was talking about level squish, not stat squish.

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Tell me how you gain stats again.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I think more than a level squish they need to seriously reconsider when skills are given at what level

Why do 5 classes have no AOE at level 40, why does WHM not get its class gimmick until 74, why does SCH lose abilities upon changing to SCH, why does DRG’s rotation not fill itself out till about 76, why does RDM have no AOE gauge spender at level 50, why does DRK not get TBN till level 70 the list goes on and on

Fix when skills are actually obtained by classes and I think a level squish becomes kinda unneeded

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WHM with a single ogcd heal at level 50 on a 3 minute cooldown looking like an absolute fool.

Like good lord, at least move Tetragrammaton down to level 30. You know, the same level as AST's Essential Dignity which not only increases in potency the lower the target's health is but also has a lower cooldown? Someone please make this make sense.

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

WHM with a single ogcd heal at level 50 on a 3 minute cooldown looking like an absolute fool.

Like good lord, at least move Tetragrammaton down to level 30. You know, the same level as AST's Essential Dignity which not only increases in potency the lower the target's health is but also has a lower cooldown? Someone please make this make sense.

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sorry but wrong but i get were you are coming from
lets say for example
the level cap is 30
the your item level is 40 at this point and your main hand does 50 damage
mob health is 500

move to 5 expansions later the

the level cap is still 30
the your item level is 400 at this point and your main hand does 500 damage
mob health is 5000

the number crunch squish they did in everything was due to a server issue struggling to keep up with the amount of data being passed

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Tell me how you gain stats again.

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Tell me what difference it makes if your level is 50 in the UI but you have the stats you have now.

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Originally Posted by bubblesbutternut

sorry but wrong but i get were you are coming from
lets say for example
the level cap is 30
the your item level is 40 at this point and your main hand does 50 damage
mob health is 500

move to 5 expansions later the

the level cap is still 30
the your item level is 400 at this point and your main hand does 500 damage
mob health is 5000

the number crunch squish they did in everything was due to a server issue struggling to keep up with the amount of data being passed

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How does that have anything to do with WHM’s atrocious levelling curve

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

How does that have anything to do with WHM’s atrocious levelling curve

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because it is on topic changing skills to be lower level has nothing to do with the topic at hand
main topic of op is will they reduce the level cap

my first post in the forum explained why there would be a level cap or an item cap
and the second post was explaining in further detail that even changing the level cap would not in the grand scheme of things change much other than making easier for devs to have cleaner code and be faster for them to add new gear

lower skill levels to adjust for oh i dont have this skill compared to another class has nothing to do with the actual topic at hand

I feel like the Lv99 thing is far too baked into SE's image for them to ever consider changing that. I won't say further upgrades will take the exact same form as XI's, but I do expect similar design philosophies to come into play.

How did this play out in XI over the years?

They must have some sort of plan in the works since they've strongly hinted that their goal for the future is for new players to jump directly into the new story arc being developed for 7.0 instead of being forced to go through the 1-90 MSQ first (though that would remain an option).

It might be a secondary leveling path. 2.0 to 6.0 (or 6.55) would be its own leveling path with 7.0 (or 6.1) onward a second leveling path.

I expect they'll have some sort of announcement at the next FanFests for how things will work in 7.0.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

FFXI stopped at 99 and went to a master level system. EQ2 has done similar.

They won't squish levels, but they'll probably look into a way to make it easier for people to get from start to finish.

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Master level system, job level system, and item level gear system in FFXI's endgame all calculate your level up past 99, they just do so invisibly. It is worked into the calculations of the game against mob levels that sit at 130+ that you would by no means be able to fight at 99 under any circumstance.

It still has a level system, you just don't level up anymore. You get your level ups from gear and extremely tiny master / job level increments at 99.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I tend to be against a "level squish"

mainly because it feels like you suddenly didnt put in all the time it took to get to the higher level. stat squish I can understand and dont mind, but taking away levels I have earned is a harder thing to wrap my brain around. its likely just me, but I seriously hated it when WoW did it, and was the final nail in that particular coffin for me. to me, it felt like they had taken away the final indicator that I had put any time into the game at all.

years ago I played Anarchy Online, max level was I think 220 or something, but gave you something to go for. never reached it, but I think was an incentive in some ways that a level squish promptly removes.

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My biggest fear with a level squish is it making it harder to solo older content, or it breaking it.

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Originally Posted by Zsolen

10 levels from every expac and you are sooner back to the original problem

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I'd love to see a system like ESO - champion points that are account wide.

I'd prefer them to just keep going past lv99 so we end up with a lv150 cap or something. But as has been pointed out, depends what the mechanics can do and what affects adjusting the stat curve would have on other content.

Do you really think a new player will want to get through 150 levels not only on one job but many?

It's even worse being stuck in story and being max level way before the main msq is over... just feels bad.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

Do you really think a new player will want to get through 150 levels not only on one job but many?

It's even worse being stuck in story and being max level way before the main msq is over... just feels bad.

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Oh yeah I think that level ceiling would be too much for a game that encourages playing all jobs. Having newcomers see such a high cap would be so discouraging (and prompt them to buy job skips...oh dear, I can see where this can go).

I rather have them stop at lv.99 like in FFXI and introduce some sort of secondary progression system that. The old school rpg enthusiast in me would like to bring back a point allocation system.