Jump Potions: good or bad for new tanks/DPS/healers?

[SnugglesD]

The people most likely to be enticed by a jump potion are MMO vets. FFXIV had one of the slowest combat systems on the market. It's much easier to pick up than most MMOs. If they implement a jump potion tutorial like EVERY OTHER GAME THAT OFFERS THE OPTION, I don't see how it could make that big of an impact. There will always be bads. Playing through the MSQ won't change that.

[Schan]

I don't understand why people seem to keep mixing up both potions.

"yeah people are bad and will be bad even if they level jump and going through the MSQ won't change that"

Except... if you just level jump you will stil have to go through the MSQ. If you buy the MSQ potion you still need to level the old fashioned way unless you buy both.

My concern is if they jump to level 60 what kind of motivation will they have to do the <50 level dungeons or old raids? i mean if you have the newb A and the newb B. Newb A bought the potion, newb B didn't. newb B will be trying to unlock dungens the old fashioned way but newb A is now focused on getting his healer / tank to lvl 70, won't that mean that Newb B may suffer through even crappier DF queues? I mean we already have a shortage of tanks in DF... Isn't there a chance this might actually aggravate it? Won't this also scare the new people away from the game?

To be honest it's quite hard to tell how this will play out.

[Ultimatecalibur]

My concern is if they jump to level 60 what kind of motivation will they have to do the <50 level dungeons or old raids? i mean if you have the newb A and the newb B. Newb A bought the potion, newb B didn't. newb B will be trying to unlock dungens the old fashioned way but newb A is now focused on getting his healer / tank to lvl 70, won't that mean that Newb B may suffer through even crappier DF queues? I mean we already have a shortage of tanks in DF... Isn't there a chance this might actually aggravate it? Won't this also scare the new people away from the game?

Not necessarily. Main reason why tanks/healers are not queuing is that they see no real reason to queue for various non-EX Roulettes currently. A jump potion using tank/healer is actually likely to be using the various Roulettes to speed up their leveling if they know they exist.

[Schan]

Not necessarily. Main reason why tanks/healers are not queuing is that they see no real reason to queue for various non-EX Roulettes currently. A jump potion using tank/healer is actually likely to be using the various Roulettes to speed up their leveling if they know they exist.

You are talking about Expert roulette. i'm talking about leveling, main scenario, level 50 and level 60 roulettes. Like you said, there's no real reason to queue for those, leaving those who didn't buy the potions in the dust, relying on their FC / friends. So we're basically agreeing.

[dspguy]

So, think about how 3.0 content worked. In order to get to 60 and do "end-game" stuff, you had to complete MSQ. Not necessarily a high-bar, but new tanks and healers will be culled by those dungeons. Let's be honest, while those dungeons are not really difficult for veterans, they may be for new players. I see the first few dungeons in 4.0 as being rough for getting though with "jumped" players. But, the game does a decent job of trying to get people to be adequate at their jobs.

And while a lot of people will complain about these jump potions, without them, you won't have much a game in the end. You need players. And if SE is fighting a war of attrition with the playerbase, they need to bring in fresh blood somehow. I think when it comes to players joining raid parties in 4.0 (4.1?), the chances of getting an incompetent player are going to be about equal. And when you think about it, the new players don't have to UNlearn what the vets already know. When we hit 52, we were all still sticking to our level 50 rotation that we had down. I don't know about everyone else, but it took a while to learn the ideal way to weave in these new abilities. My fingers kept twitching to go to the old rotation.

New players won't have that problem. Whatever mods are made by the devs to the battle system will seem natural to them and we'll have 10 levels to unlearn our old ways.

[Ilan]

The people most likely to be enticed by a jump potion are MMO vets. FFXIV had one of the slowest combat systems on the market. It's much easier to pick up than most MMOs. If they implement a jump potion tutorial like EVERY OTHER GAME THAT OFFERS THE OPTION, I don't see how it could make that big of an impact. There will always be bads. Playing through the MSQ won't change that.

Yeah FFXIV is so slow and so easy, thats why over 90% of all players are still not capable of playing it properly. I've played a lot of MMO's and sorry but the combat system in FFXIV is not slow and not easier than others its rather more challenging than most of the other systems if you want to play properly.

[dragonseth07]

Yeah FFXIV is so slow and so easy, thats why over 90% of all players are still not capable of playing it properly. I've played a lot of MMO's and sorry but the combat system in FFXIV is not slow and not easier than others its rather more challenging than most of the other systems if you want to play properly.

The only inherent difficulty in this game's combat system is SE's insistence that oGCD spells need animations you can't skip.

There are plenty of reasons the player base is unskilled. A difficult combat system is not one of them.

[Ilan]

The only inherent difficulty in this game's combat system is SE's insistence that oGCD spells need animations you can't skip.

There are plenty of reasons the player base is unskilled. A difficult combat system is not one of them.

Other games are not harder to controll either and the timings in here are for most people harder than stuff like the B&S controlls for example.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You are talking about Expert roulette. i'm talking about leveling, main scenario, level 50 and level 60 roulettes. Like you said, there's no real reason to queue for those, leaving those who didn't buy the potions in the dust, relying on their FC / friends. So we're basically agreeing.

I was referring to those Roulettes. The Main Story Roulette, level 50 Roulette, Leveling Roulette are primarily used for the XP they give by those in the process of leveling up various jobs/classes. Right now most players have fully leveled all classes they intend to level which predominantly removes them from the pool of players queuing those Roulettes. The jump potions are not going to completely remove leveling. The SB job jump potions are going to jump a job to level 60 leaving level 61 to 70 to be leveled up through normally and job potions for the new SB jobs will not exist. Job jump potions are not going to remove new character leveling, they will only shorten it. A story/jump potion tank/healer trying to level up as fast as possible through the last 10 levels is actually going to want to queue for each Roulette if they know they are there.

The Story skip potions in SB are going to fully unlock the Main Story Roulette, Level 50 Roulette, Level 60 Roulette, most of the Trial Roulette (only missing the new normal story trials added in SB) and most of the Leveling Roulette (only missing the SB leveling dungeons) making the Roulettes accessible to their users.

The short of it is that the jump potions may not necessarily aggravate the DF tank/healer shortage and may actually partially alleviate the problem as players will not need to fight through the MSQ to unlock them.

[Brian_]

I think with the declining population of FFXIV, the devs are probably feeling a lot of pressure to make the game more accessible. The reality is there are a lot of people that might be interested in this game but might be intimidated or turned off by how much catching up they need to do. There are plenty of MMO players that really dislike the leveling process but really enjoy the end-game. So the calculation is that they'll gain more players and make more money than they'll lose with the jump potion. They're probably right.

As for what effect it'll have on the quality of players. It's going to lower the general quality of players but not by much. It's not like the general quality of players is that high to begin with and the jump potion might attract some people who are motivated end-game players who just didn't want to grind past the leveling and MSQ wall.

I think an important thing people aren't considering is the attachment and sense of ownership people develop throughout the course of the MSQ and leveling process and how that might inspire you to be a better player. People take criticism of their character incredibly personally and you don't reach that point unless you create a cognitive link that makes you feel personally attacked when your character is. Just look at all the people that blindly defend their job or role.

I guess you could also make the argument that paying real money to level a job means you'll feel some connection to it... but I think spending days leveling it does a better job of making you care.