Scaling mechanics

[HPDelron]

Excuse me? How does me having all of my abilities prevent them from learning their class? Why make it more boring to veterans than it has to be?

Even putting aside the tank issues, you'd have the problem of mobs just dying way too fast. Palace of the Dead is a poor place to learn a class simply because nothing lives long enough to bring the full suite of abilities to bear. This change would make dungeons far more PotD-like. It probably wouldn't be as bad but new players would lose out on pacing.

Further you'd neuter what challenges the dungeons do have. While Satasha->Thousand Maws probably don't have enough substance to lose, beyond that it is an issue. Think on something like Sunken Temple of Qarn. This dungeon poses real challenges to a group of new players. Needing to kill bees before "Final Sting", having to deal with Doom, killing the golem core before the healer's MP pool is gone. These issues basically all vanish if max level players can vaporize the mobs with max level rotations and potency values. Stone Vigil, Brayflox Longstop, Aurum Vale. All of these have mechanics that teach good lessons that are more trivialized the higher DPS climbs. These are valuable learning experiences.

Another reason is clarity. Say a new player is trying out a few jobs at once, he gets into a Haukke Manor run on his White Mage. He's been thinking of trying out a DPS class and sees a Ninja in his party. This ninja is the same level as him: Level 30. Holy cow that guys shooting lightning bolts, summoning giant frogs, he can teleport, and he has that awesome buff that helps the tank get aggro. "~Sweet~" he says, heading to the Limsa to start a rogue. A couple days later he's 30 and excited to equip his job stone to see his cool new toys and... "Oh. Wow, those are all level 50+. How the world was that other guy using them? This is kind of unfair...". It places a burden on new players to do external research or ask exhaustive questions to be able to have a fair understanding of the context of the group content.

However if we put aside those issues another big one remains, a massive difficulty spike at 60+. Let's say we're OK with players not learning those specific lessons, and bosses going down a bit too quick. They're going to hit a wall and hard when they reach level 61+, as their party members kits start to come into alignment with the content. The effective amount of "Carry" they're starts going down at a far greater rate than any of us veteran players were exposed to. Not that dungeons are the most challenging content but they will certainly seem that way next to the previous 60 levels of steamroll carries.

Besides, the purpose of the roulette system is not to be terribly exciting max level content. Leveling roulette is not around for the benefit for us. It exists for the newbies. It's low level basic content of course it is bland for a veteran. The tomestone rewards and exp for higher level characters are bribes to get us to do content that wouldn't otherwise be engaging to us. If it was supposed to be otherwise they'd get rid of the daily limit, tune the rewards a bit and slap every 70 ability they could inside. Instead the system exists to preserve the low level content in as close to an "Original State" as it reasonably can for new players. Once you make changes to make it compelling for high-level players you totally lose purpose, hence the bribes. So long as these bribes are enough to keep people in they have no reason to change it. If the bribes start failing to be enough they'll either increase them, or change the content the bare minimum away from the Original State to get people in.

They know it is dull, it is supposed to be dull.

[Valinis]

Another reason is clarity...

Something to look forward to.

However if we put aside those issues another big one remains, a massive difficulty spike at 60+...

People are using jump potions already anyway and not knowing mechanics/classes.

They know it is dull, it is supposed to be dull.

The game is supposed to be dull to veterans? What?

[HPDelron]

Something to look forward to.

Your "Something to look forward to" is another persons "Disappointing", another person's "Unfair", another person's "Confusing", and yet another persons "Tease".

There are a lot of ways to look at someone else getting cool toys and power you don't, when you're doing the same content at the same level. Some of them positive, the vast majority negative.

What you're saying here isn't "Wrong" in the strictest sense, it's just one very narrow (and my guess is quite uncommon) way people could look at the situation.

People are using jump potions already anyway and not knowing mechanics/classes.

..and? If people are paying more to jump the deep end right off the bat, that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep the shallow end tidy and accessible.

If there was solid data that only small number of players were opting to not use the Jump potions, maybe this point would have more merit. However "Jump Potion 1st Timer" seems more the exception than the rule, and we should hardly be sculpting the game's core teaching tools around that exception.

So long as there is a meaningful number of true sprouts, we should leave these low level experiences intact for them. They should be free to have the same experiences we did. If these folks start to become rare maybe it would be time for the dev team to reconsider the utility it preserving it for them. However we aren't there, we aren't even close.

The game is supposed to be dull to veterans? What?

Not "The Game" generally, but the "Leveling Roulette" specifically? Yes.

It's one piece of optional content with no unique rewards. It is intentionally kept in a state that anyone with even a passing familiarity with the game would know is dull for veterans. It intentionally kept in this state and therefore by definition intentionally kept dull for veterans. It is not kept in this state because "being dull for vets" has value in and of itself but because the other properties of that state have merit. Specifically the preservation of the low level content for newbies.

[Valinis]

Not "The Game" generally, but the "Leveling Roulette" specifically? Yes.

So your saying part of the game is designed to be dull? Right.

If players are finding content boring, is it not the job of the developers to make it fun? That is the point of this thread. Stating that "it's dull because it has to be" is just lazy and ignorant. Why can't low level content be fun?

[HPDelron]

So your saying part of the game is designed to be dull? Right.

You can't make anything that is everything to all people. This means that for a game with a variety of features some of them are going to appeal more to certain segments of the population than others, and do so in different ways.

The leveling roulette does not exist for the benefit for anyone that is level 70. It exists for the benefit of the new player. These means the the core purpose for it is to make sure low level content stays engaging, fair and correctly tuned for new players.

That this is dull for veterans is not so much a design goal, but a trade-off in the design knowingly taken. In this case we're considering two properties: "Exciting for vets" and "Fair and well-paced for newbies" which are more/less mutually exclusive. They opted for a design that placed far more value on the latter since this better aligns with the goal for the content.

Certainly they need high level players to make it work, so they bribe them to do something kind of boring with rewards. It's a compromise of sorts and the fact that so many people willingly do it for relatively moderate gains in efficiency on xp/tomestone farming probably tells it's not a huge one.

[Valinis]

That this is dull for veterans is not so much a design goal, but a trade-off in the design knowingly taken. In this case we're considering two properties: "Exciting for vets" and "Fair and well-paced for newbies" which are more/less mutually exclusive. They opted for a design that placed far more value on the latter since this better aligns with the goal for the content.

Wrong. We call that poor design.

[Paladinleeds]

So your saying part of the game is designed to be dull? Right.

If players are finding content boring, is it not the job of the developers to make it fun? That is the point of this thread. Stating that "it's dull because it has to be" is just lazy and ignorant. Why can't low level content be fun?

Every player's definition of fun is different. For example I quite enjoy going back to the old content and running it with a limited set of moves. Making use of my limited toolkit (aka limited resources in my eyes), to conquer the challenges set forth. Then in higher levels, using a fuller more fleshed out toolkit to overcome the challenges.

[Valinis]

Every player's definition of fun is different. For example I quite enjoy going back to the old content and running it with a limited set of moves. Making use of my limited toolkit (aka limited resources in my eyes), to conquer the challenges set forth. Then in higher levels, using a fuller more fleshed out toolkit to overcome the challenges.

That's great for you. Unfortunately there are people who find it to be not fun, hence the reason this thread exists.

[Paladinleeds]

That's great for you. Unfortunately there are people who find it to be not fun, hence the reason this thread exists.

But it does stress the point of you can't please everyone. Let's say you changed it to just be another max skillset roulette, some people would then find that boring. SE are damned if they do, damned if they don't. It doesn't matter what they do, threads like this will always pop up because there'll always be someone not happy.