Yoshida' stance on PL and why it is less than ideal.

[Betelgeuzah]

Yoshida: It depends on what you consider power leveling. For example, if my friend and I were playing completely different games. I've already reached the level 50 cap, and then I invite my friend. Of course I want to do end game content like Ifrit with him, but I invited him, and he wants to play too, and we are really good friends so I want to help him out.

I can help him out with my level 50 character when he's being attacked by a monster. Of course it's going to lower the XP a bit, but I'd like to make it a bit loose and not too strict. I just want to make sure friends are able to help each other if they want to challenge content together by filling the gap.

Why this mindset does not work within the framework of FFXIV:

A) New Players can essentially skip low-midgame content
B) New Players can essentially ignore the economy up until level 50
C) New Players can essentially ignore the party play component of the game that the new patch fully supports otherwise.
D) Any Player with no access to a PL does not have power to do any of this, and as such is in a drastically worse position as the result.
E) Leveling becomes a hindrance rather than a method to achieve a goal. When all of the above applies to the process, it loses all the meaning it had. If you level up in an environment such as the one above, does it feel like an accomplishment to complete the task? Or do you instead start asking "Why must I go through this? It takes no skill. It requires no dedication. Even the developers seem to not care about me doing it. I wish I was already capped to get to the real content."

Because if the developers embrace the mindset that everything below cap is not content you should be doing, and make them seem as useless and unimportant as leveling is....of course the players start thinking the same. If the whole point of the game is to get to level cap as soon as possible (and the game gives you the tools to do so), what the hell are we supposed to think? "Why do you make me go through all this to get to level cap then" would be my thought.

Let's analyze his opinion in parts:

It depends on what you consider power leveling. For example, if my friend and I were playing completely different games. I've already reached the level 50 cap, and then I invite my friend. Of course I want to do end game content like Ifrit with him, but I invited him, and he wants to play too, and we are really good friends so I want to help him out.

Here in bolded we see that in Yoshida's opinion, end game content like Ifrit takes precedence over anything below it. Instead of the high level player helping his friend experience the low-midgame content as an equal, Yoshida wants for the friend to get to the endgame as soon as possible instead. Everything aside from endgame is not worth playing for.

The text in italics shows that the underlying reason for Yoshida's mindset is that he wants the high level friend to be able to help his low level buddy.

I can help him out with my level 50 character when he's being attacked by a monster. Of course it's going to lower the XP a bit, but I'd like to make it a bit loose and not too strict. I just want to make sure friends are able to help each other if they want to challenge content together by filling the gap.

Here, though, he makes his opinion a bit more clear. He wants the high level player to keep his status quo (for some reason, which isn't explained) even though that makes the low level friend useless and unnecessary.

The italic text seals the deal. Yoshida wants for friends to challenge content at the end of the game together, instead of wanting the friends to challenge content based on the low level player's level together. In essence, he thinks there is no value to any content pre-endgame and the results can be seen in 1.19. There really is no value to anything pre-endgame anymore, and the aforementioned points A, B, C, D, E become true.

I was initially going to offer a suggestion to consider that would balance the situation towards keeping low-midgame relevant much better (Yoshida hasn't played FFXI has he? Perhaps that is why he has missed Level Sync altogether when forming his opinion on the matter- or even worse, he hasn't missed it). However, looking at what he says there really is no questioning it. Yoshida's opinion is that endgame is all that matters, and enabling us to get there as soon as possible is his primary objective.

In that case, although I couldn't disagree with him more than I currently do, how about you just skip this content that you see as inferior and just let us start where the content you actually value is? I won't be around for long in that case, that's for sure, but I'll be around for even less if, knowing this is what you think about the content, you still force me to go through it for some inexplicable reason.

[Vahzl]

Seems we haven't made a thread on this issue the last 20 minutes, so heck, why not!

Please stop spamming the forums with this.

[Betelgeuzah]

Who has made a thread about criticizing Yoshida's stance on PL?

[EmeraldHill]

Oh look, it's this thread again.

Please use an existing topic for your discussion instead of making a new one.

[Vahzl]

Who has made a thread about criticizing Yoshida's stance on PL?

Don't be facetious, it's more power levelling crap and it's been discussed to death.

[Betelgeuzah]

Don't be facetious, it's more power levelling crap and it's been discussed to death.

Well, you certainly made your opinion clear. Now can you stop with the backseat modding?

[ObeiKinstar]

Not sure what this guys problem is ^

Well thought out with some interesting points, good read. However, it's hard to assume you know what someone else is thinking or means. It will be interesting to see where this leads. I don't always agree with the direction of this game, and for me there were things that could have been done differently then they were which would have satisfied me more, but not others.

Having said that, I am enjoying the game, but I have been since release, and probably will continue to enjoy this game no matter what they do to it. Personally I think I MAY have enjoyed Tanakas version more, but we will never know, I am having fun with Yoshida's game plenty.

[EmeraldHill]

This has been brought up in two of the PL threads and could be discussed there.

This information does not warrant it's own topic especially when it's already relevant in the 5 or so other threads about it.

[Betelgeuzah]

However, it's hard to assume you know what someone else is thinking or means.

I wanted to add, that in this case actions also speak as loud as words. So if Yoshida means something else, that can not really be seen in the game right now. It's 1:1 ratio and that makes me worried that what I think he means is exactly what he means.

I also think that personally criticizing his opinion is the best way to get a response or change, as long as the criticism is valid. If he thinks it's just a case of disagreement, instead of his mindset having actual problematic consequences in-game regardless of our opinion, that would be an issue.

[ObeiKinstar]

theres 5800 threads in general discussion, pl threads have been made before

I am glad this thread was made because I like the way Betelgeuzah made his arguement, and didn't really like the arguments being made in other posts, so thanks for taking the time to write