where are we headed

So, i've played many games over the years, i have seen many ways to balance games and scale them and other things.

Some games allow you to reach levels such as 10,000 but in kind the max stat from a piece of gear might be +99 strength or barely above 100.

in FFXI upon reaching level 99 you unlocked mastery levels/job points and all that fun stuff to give a more end game scale instead of level chasing it was gear and bonus chasing.

however FFXIV has me worried about its future due to how they've chosen to model how it scales after WoW.

1. Stat Squishing

2. LEVEL squishing

now you might ask yourself.

Why is a level or stat squish a good thing?

to put it simply its a numbers game, see ultimately the numbers displayed on our stat sheet are meaningless, if a dev wanted to they could make +5 strength in a game be as strong as +500 in another and vice versa.

so the numbers themselves don't actually matter, its the computations its putting on the servers that's ultimately the issue.

if you've ever played Diablo 3 you know what im talking about.... 1 quadrillion splash damage and your game will literally start spiking to red or 1k+ MS and its not your internet that's the issue its a mixture of literally the game server/lobby/your pc that is trying so hard to do the computations that it's making the whole thing lag.

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So how do we fix these issues? the proper way is to re-do the scaling of the entire game to give a sure fire bullet proof fix and ensure numbers never reach those calculations while still giving a sense of progress and fun, but in doing so it also changes how old content works, in other words depending on how it's done its less of a "me level 100 me smash" and more of a "oh crap the difference between 50 and 100 is only 50 stat points, i have to actually do mechanics" however if the scaling is done a certain way, it would still be "im 100 unga bunga me smash", it just really comes down to how hard or easy they want the content to be and if they ever want it to be trivialized.

with proper scaling an MMO should NEVER EVER need a stat squish or a level squish or if they do need it, it would be after a very very long time of actually being up and running, and most would never see that point of exhaustion as they'd likely burn out before it happens.

but seeing as XIVs scaling is closer to WoW and it has the potential to bring about the same issue and even after a stat squish were already due for another one basically?

im just worried that XIV is going down the same path that WoW went down that brought about the level squish and also brought about the screwing of its content areas.

level 70 content became level 30 content.

Level 50 content became like level 1-30 content.

it destroyed any sense of direction that game ever had and its already shoddy world building collapsed basically instantly.

with XIV's current scaling i believe they should leave us capped at level 100.

in FFXI they did a fantastic job with the level cap being at 99 as that game took great care in its end game balancing, yes power creep still happened but it happened over a much longer period of time and most end game content is still well, fun and you still have to do mechanics even for some of the older content even if you are 99, granted its at a faster pace and some of its skipped, but that cant fully be helped as it wasn't designed for a level 99 with full mythics or aeonics.

but with XIV my biggest worry is they'll let us go above 100 the stats will continue to get out of hand and then they'll screw the pooch and level squish us down to XYZ then figure out how many expansions or areas they have to basically re-design level and difficulty wise.

yeah XIVS MSQ is there to help keep things aligned and hold your hand, which is something that might make this worry irrelevant.

but im just looking at everything and seeing some stuff playout the same song and dance we used to get and im just curious as to where the games headed, i love this game and i just don't want to see it get lobotomized.

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Originally Posted by Neft

but with XIV my biggest worry is they'll let us go above 100 the stats will continue to get out of hand and then they'll screw the pooch and level squish us down to XYZ then figure out how many expansions or areas they have to basically re-design level and difficulty wise.

yeah XIVS MSQ is there to help keep things aligned and hold your hand, which is something that might make this worry irrelevant.

but im just looking at everything and seeing some stuff playout the same song and dance we used to get and im just curious as to where the games headed, i love this game and i just don't want to see it get lobotomized.

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Sadly, that's exactly what's going to happen. The level numbers are just going to keep rising and they'll just keep squishing down the numbers like they did for Endwalker. There won't be a drastic shakeup in gameplay or jobs, we're just going to get one small capstone ability added with each new expansion, because even though apparently 8.0 is supposed to be the job rework, I know for a fact it's not going to be some grand reinvention of the wheel like some people expect it to be.

My thoughts -- I think a level freeze at 100 from here on out would be okay, conceptually, IF they can solve two problems.

One is relatively easy -- they need to accommodate for players who do not engage with high end content until they can unsync it, but this can be covered entirely by assigning increasing Echo bonus based on how many expansions back the content is from, so if 8.0 comes out and we're still capped at level 100, starting a content from DT with the unsync option would just add a % to your stats (or nerf the boss stats by %, which has the same result, and we are aiming to keep numbers smaller to not overflow calculations) to make it as much easier as if you were doing it from a next tier cap.

The other problem though, is not so easily solved. The nature of the gearing cycle as we have it, which is one of the main pillars under why people play a lot of content more than once at all, implicitly requires that numbers go up. But we can't just keep adding gear wearable by level 100 characters with higher and higher stats, that would do the same for the calculations as if we were still gaining levels... while if we don't do that, and future gear sets are just slightly different distributions of roughly the same stats, there would be little motivation for many people to work towards them, other than for the pursuit of glam. Without the gearing cycle, we'd have even less reason to play in the months between new content drops. So SE would need to come up with an entirely new endgame play loop that isn't mostly about the treadmill of gearing up.

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Originally Posted by Neft

the proper way is to re-do the scaling of the entire game

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They did re-scale the whole game already in Endwalker. Essentially reduced it all to a 5th of what it was to future-proof the game. I do think they could squish some other aspects of the game though.

Item levels increment by 5, or even 10. So we could squish item level to a 5th so we increment by 1 item level instead.

We could squish level a bit. 30 is when we unlock jobs, so we could just kill enemies to level to 10, then it get slower. ARR could finish at level 30, allowing the level cap to be 80.

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im just worried that XIV is going down the same path that WoW went down that brought about the level squish and also brought about the screwing of its content areas.

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The current implementation of the stat squish actually didn't ruin content that much. The minimum item level community was assured the content would barely change, and it didn't really. You can still enjoy old raids this way. I'm not saying the stat squish didn't affect them, but I think the greater influence is from things like job, potency and stat changes over the years (such as Determination buffs, Parry becoming Tenacity, Accuracy becoming Direct Hit).

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but with XIV my biggest worry is they'll let us go above 100 the stats will continue to get out of hand

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They mentioned this concern prior to Dawntrail but confirmed we would still become level 100. They have since said they are discussing ideas to replace it such as "Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points" but that these are just early ideas being discussed.

A stat squish is nothing to fret about. Damage is relative. If it wasn't for gear strength, it could all just be done in percentages of HP bars and the game wouldn't change.

A level squish, on the other hand, sounds like far more trouble than it would be worth, especially when it's the stats that are the issue.

When you played WoW, you know how bad stat handling and stat squishes are. I like it, that the FFVXIV scaling one top notch compared to every other MMO.

I believe Yoshi-p has stated that they don't want to go beyond level 100, and that it's something monumental as it's the cap (or at least 99 is) in previous games
So I don't think they'll go beyond that
From there though, I'm not sure
I think it would be neat if they implemented a mastery system, something like what GW2 has

A stat squish could be of some value, as long as it doesn't screw over synced non-trivial content.

A level squish accomplishes nothing beyond the aesthetic ("Having three digits seems ugly!").

An ilvl squish is likewise purely aesthetic unless it comes with a stat squish, so...

Personally, I'd like to see a combined stat and ilvl squish that essentially removes the post-cap progression for each old expansion, such that the gear with which one completes expansion A's MSQ is only a few ilvl sub-tiers short (65, 70, 75) of where the next expansion's progression begins, forgoing the need for poetic farming per expansion while allowing for each current expansion to see noticeable progression without quickly requiring absurdly large numbers (and proportionately more computational load among what's affected by them).

...but only if and as we get some reshuffling of abilities to allow for earlier acquisition of a satisfying toolkit (e.g., a level 70's worth of skills by 50), and/or we revise jobs for greater identity and diversity, since either of those things would require considerable clean-up of past content anyways. Without that, I worry they'd just leave old content a poorly-scaled mess.

A level swish is just bad if you ask me, just makes all the past grinding to get to 100 pointless then. They shouldn't be afraid just go past 100 who cares if other games didn't?

What would they make us do if not level jobs for new expansion? What would be the point of roulettes for someone who has everything at 100?....unless they come up with some system like mastery points in GW2 but I don't see such system working out in this game since the open world is relatively bland....

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Originally Posted by AlucaDragonheart

Sadly, that's exactly what's going to happen. The level numbers are just going to keep rising and they'll just keep squishing down the numbers like they did for Endwalker. There won't be a drastic shakeup in gameplay or jobs, we're just going to get one small capstone ability added with each new expansion, because even though apparently 8.0 is supposed to be the job rework, I know for a fact it's not going to be some grand reinvention of the wheel like some people expect it to be.

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Same, better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

XIV will never follow XI's example of post-99 (or 100) grind.

XI's solution involves time commitment and depth. Two things XIV is allergic to unless it involves worthless achievement titles and 5-polygon minions that you get sick of in 1 week.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

What would they make us do if not level jobs for new expansion?

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They did answer this recently. They have been discussing ideas such as Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points. So you may just gain ability points instead of levels, or something like that, but they haven't decided yet. We'll find out closer to 8.0.

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Originally Posted by Rueby

What would they make us do if not level jobs for new expansion? What would be the point of roulettes for someone who has everything at 100?....unless they come up with some system like mastery points in GW2 but I don't see such system working out in this game since the open world is relatively bland....

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These problems would be easily solved with rewards. I finished getting all my jobs to 100 via grinding out the FATE mount in the first few weeks of the expansion. Roulettes could be a good source of currencies and resources. There are a lot of things that you can give to players besides EXP.

I just hope they shake things up with gameplay and the story. It could use a shake up if they are actually serious about a "10 year plan"

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Originally Posted by BigCheez

These problems would be easily solved with rewards. I finished getting all my jobs to 100 via grinding out the FATE mount in the first few weeks of the expansion. Roulettes could be a good source of currencies and resources. There are a lot of things that you can give to players besides EXP.

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Hmmm...I guess? I was thinking maybe glam but I don't know...we already get artifact gear for doing quests. I guess if they go lazy route they'd lock artifact gear behind leveling....How will dungeons/rouls even work after Lv100...everything dumped into 50/60/70/80/90/100? (high end??)...hm..I guess that could work...

But alot of things in this game is worthless like gil and unless they introduce a new type of currency? Like a level token or w.e that you could spend on something...???

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

They did answer this recently. They have been discussing ideas such as Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points. So you may just gain ability points instead of levels, or something like that, but they haven't decided yet. We'll find out closer to 8.0.

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This would be interesting but wouldn't the game drasticly change then? And is it wise to change something like that after so long? I guess we'll wait and find out...