Let's Talk about Level Skipping

So, with Dawntrail coming up and a lot of doom and gloom on the forum, I figured I'd bring this talking point forward: Level Skips.

Their initial purpose is to allow people to skip to 10 Levels below the cap so that they can play the job in their fullest - however, I think this is a problem that can be solved if the developers were to do something about the learning curve some jobs bring.

Let's say you're a Lv 1 Black Mage. You don't know how the job works, and you decide to Level and Story Skip so you can be with your friends in content later in the game. Now that you're Lv 90, you have A LOT of actions that you don't even know what to do with!

This creates a sense of being overwhelmed. Not to mention, at higher levels people are expectant of others being able to know their job at a basic level; and thus, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Yes, I know: "Read your Tooltips!" you say. Not everyone wants to read walls of text trying to know how things interact with each other - they want to just jump in! They do in story, and when they find they're in over their head? They can quit because it's too hard for them.

Level Skips need to have something behind them that prevents the player from just jumping straight into the fire and get them to understand some of their tools, and we really need an big update to Hall of the Novice with information about each job at a base level. People like the feel good when they're able to do things - so it'd probably help to make a new Hall of Adventurers for those who are well-traveled, or have just jumped into a job near cap for the first time and don't know what they're doing.

This would reduce grief some people will feel when they're trying to get through a high level duty(which, to be honest, anything 70+ can be considered high level at this point due to what the game asks for).

I want to know what other people have to say on it, since it's a topic that's been left alone for a while since inception; and now that we've had a few expansions with it, I also want to get a perspective for what the community sees it as.

Skips are fine. I've seen people skip on BLM because the low levels weren't keeping them interested and they adapted without issue to having more skills. It's not universally overwhelming. And plenty of resources exist to help people that level skip. Some of them look up guides and go practice on dummies, or ask more experienced players for advice.

Skipping also has nothing to do with players that take long breaks and return, level through other means (expansion job, SCH/SMN, or PvP), or people that don't take the game seriously. All of those people will still exist and I feel like focusing on the level skips won't actually change anything.

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Yes, I know: "Read your Tooltips!" you say. Not everyone wants to read walls of text trying to know how things interact with each other - they want to just jump in! They do in story, and when they find they're in over their head? They can quit because it's too hard for them.

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How in the heck is a couple of lines in a tooltip a wall of text? Mind boggles

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Originally Posted by Myrany

How in the heck is a couple of lines in a tooltip a wall of text? Mind boggles

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The text they're having to read to find out what each individual thing does takes a while to read. You add it all up, it can become a wall of text just to learn how a job works.

Update and maintain Guildleves, that is all.

To be fair, I've seen more skill from someone who level skips then I jave from players who don't and vice versa.

It's not really a topic that's been left alone. I remember posting in another thread about this just a few days ago. The only real way someone is going to learn how to play is to practice. Some will do that no matter how they get the character to that level. Not all the people at the higher end who don't appear to have things down for the class have skipped, after all. There's deep dungeon, there's Bozja, there's FATEs where someone can also level and all those have been demonized in the past as the reason why we have people at higher levels who struggle with their class.

An advanced Hall of the Novice isn't a bad idea but there's nothing to stop a player from doing things to get through that and then that not doing those things when they get into a dungeon. The current one does go over certain things and you still see people not doing those things in group content.

What I do think is useful are the instances they've been doing in the job quests for recently added jobs. SGE and RPR both outline for you some of the basics of the class and you need to perform those basics to finish. Still doesn't assure someone will do these things in group content, but it has been a good way to avoid just tossing a player into the deep end. If they were able to do something like that with each job for an advanced Hall instead of just role, then that could be useful.

Practise outside of endgame rotations is pointless anyway. You can press random buttons and clear pretty much all content below extremes.

I mean, this is like complaining that you bought a 900cc sport bike as your first bike and don't know how to handle it.

Real solutions though, if you want to learn from scratch, play low level dungeons over and over again and slowly move up. Then again, if you actually did that you wouldn't need the skip..

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I mean, this is like complaining that you bought a 900cc sport bike as your first bike and don't know how to handle it.

Real solutions though, if you want to learn from scratch, play low level dungeons over and over again and slowly move up. Then again, if you actually did that you wouldn't need the skip..

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I'd argue that this doesn't invalidate buying the skip since you can move at your own pace, while leveling naturally can feel way too slow.

XIV could stand to implement something akin to WoW's class trial, wherein they explain to you the basics of your max level rotation before dumping you into an on-rails instance to learn the rest yourself. Kind of odd that they almost completely abandoned Hall of the Novice when there are novices at every level of this game. Is it a necessity of MMO design to spit on newbs?

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Let's say you're a Lv 1 Black Mage. You don't know how the job works, and you decide to Level and Story Skip so you can be with your friends in content later in the game. Now that you're Lv 90, you have A LOT of actions that you don't even know what to do with!

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The people who skip straight to Lv90 and don't know how to make sense of any of their actions are the same people who can start at Lv1 and level all the way to 90 the long way without knowing how to make sense of any of their actions.

This is not a skip problem; it is a player skill and comprehension problem.

Any skilled player with experience in gaming with decent reading ability who cares to play a job well can put together hot bars and learn a rotation without being overwhelmed even when starting from a high level with many actions.

By and large there are generally two types of players.

Those who put in an effort and those who do not.

Leveling in this game does not require much skill. People can level jobs from 1 to 90 without really having a firm grasp on how they work.

People can also do a story skip and spend a few minutes on a target dummy or reading a guide to see how their job works, and get a handle on it before jumping into content.

There are bad players who didn't skip and great players who did skip.

Making someone do Hall of the Novice etc on a skipped character isn't going to make them good at their job. This would just be wasted effort imo. People will either put in an effort to learn a new job or not, and skipping or not doesn't have that big of an impact on that.