How PL'ing killed FFXIV.

[darkstarpoet1]

To be completely honest, tank spanking is not even high on the skill list of MMO'S.

to be completely honest, the majority that power leveled to cap aren't even capable of doing that right.

[viion]

I seen people who did full 950 legitimately yet cannot complete DH or fail constantly on Ifrit.

Means nuttin.

Skill of playing comes down to the player.

[AmyRae]

I see what you mean. Perhaps I really am an outdated old fart. The grind was not all that fun, no. I would prefer they focus on making that grind fun, rather than implementing ways to skip it.

However, if I really am in the minority, then FFXIV will be a success regardless of the lack of players such as me.

I've never cared for grinding much myself. It seems like a cruel obstacle in many respects. What made it bearable in FFXI, at least in the early days (before GoV, Abyssea, Level Sync), was the sense we were all in the same boat. You could have conversations while it went on, tease the puller about bringing extra friends back to the camp, marvel at how that goblin wiped the whole party with one bomb. You weren't going from 1 to endgame in three days. You might make it from 66 to 67 in three days, however, so you may as well make the most of it.

But the major problem was getting a party of 6 together in the first place. If you didn't have a particularly desirable job, you were overlooked until the pickings were slim. You may spend your entire evening just seeking a party and getting nothing done, and that's the sort of thing that just isn't tolerated these days (nor should be, let's be honest, it's a sad life if you have to wait for hours just to grind for hours).

I think if they wanted to alleviate the grind, they should put it in the context of how RPGs do it (they may know a thing or two about RPGs). You get whisked away in a story, they point you in the direction of the next story event, throw a few hundred monsters in your way, and the next thing you know, you're leveling up (and hardly noticing it, because you're so wrapped up in the story). Make teaming up optional, but not essential. By the time you hit the "final boss" you'll have reached the endgame just through following the initial storyline. Then you can keep your adventures going however you want, while you're all starry eyed from that great story you just finished.

[HiirNoivl]

I seen people who did full 950 legitimately yet cannot complete DH or fail constantly on Ifrit.

Means nuttin.

Skill of playing comes down to the player.

To the OP: I'm new to FF mmos and never played any other popular MMOs like WoW.

At first I had a hard time adjusting to things like... paying attention... and doing my job.

But I got the hang of it anyway. PL'ing may stunt the learning curve of a few... but for the most part, if people can't figure out how to, for example, stay in their safe spot on Ifrit battles, it may be an issue that has nothing to do with how much time they spent leveling.

This game is not hard. PL'ing is not a big deal.

[Raikki]

I seen people who did full 950 legitimately yet cannot complete DH or fail constantly on Ifrit.

Means nuttin.

Skill of playing comes down to the player.

This exactly. Quite honestly, playing WoW or, better yet, single player action games is better learning experience for FF14 endgame than grinding every class in this game to 50 "legitimately".

[zaviermhigo]

the leveling process shouldn't be too slow, but it should be a journey. Now the end game content, you won't even smash that on your first try, and even if you did you'd fail the second try. No one's gone into darkhold or the ifrit fight and succeeded every time they entered. I can still get smashed by Batraal to this day if someones no watching, or one persons afk, a basic slip up. Ogre is still hard with a group that isn't as smart, it takes a good 5 people out of 8 to kill him in 5mins without stacking archers and bringing w/e dd, thats a long time in my opinion deepvoidslave can be smashed in 3mins maybe 2. While in months people will have smashed the content and moved on, that happened in XI also, where people decided "i did everything this game has to offer I quit" and they were dumb, because right after was a new expansion that was awesome, and they were too stubborn to admit it and instead were like "pre aht urghan is real xi, any post that game is dead"...hell I even do it with the abyssea expansion lol.

Leveling teaches you how to play the game basically, bare bones. Soloing is barest bones, partying is still bare bones, maybe a little muscle meat on the bones, but NOT MUCH. Leveling doesn't teach you how to do darkhold, doing darkhold and failing at darkhold or reading a guide from someone else who's failed a couple hundred times does. Leveling doesn't teach you how to beat Ifrit, it might teach you to use wind magic, because fire is weak to wind, but you could look that up on the internet. It took me a year almost to get to 50 from CE release, not because that's how long it takes to level but because that's the pace I decided to take while school was in session, if it was summer forever i would of been 50 in 6 months (the leveling system at release killed my motivation so i had more months in haha). If someone wants a 50 in 2 days, and can gear themselves out, and can come to end game content and be productive and do their job or at least do their job after someone tells them how, then they can. If they're not gimp, and they can do their job, what's stopping em?

I have met people who have played since CE and it took months to level up for them, and I'm not even allowed to invite them to end game content with my other friends because everyone thinks they're dumb and gimp. Now I have met others who have new 50s who really just took to the game that I invite to do end game ( lol mid game) content all the time and no one minds.

[Tsubarta]

Someone who's actually done all the new content here, the OP's point is completely correct and denotes a certain insight into the nature of the beast. People who play MMO's as a video game (read: almost all of them) are primarily interested in reaching max level as quickly as possible. This is just human nature, and should be expected.

Moreover, these "hardcore" fights like Ifrit are very difficult when played as intended. People shun this difficulty and find loopholes whenever they can (Kraken Club zerging and hiding behind walls for AV in FFXI, requiring Sentinel to tank Hellfire instead of downing the nails in FFXIV) and, in a game where multiclassing is expected, this desire for max level is intensified to extremes.

PLing has been an issue since people have been exploiting leves way back in December of '10. It now has become encouraged openly by the director though, and thus incredibly efficient compared to the old days. Not to mention, just about anyone can do it if they have someone who cares enough to help them out. This will eventually lead to even casual players having 3-4 50's.

However, a lack of content due to extreme ease in capping a player's level is the bane of all MMO's. Even WoW, the most successful MMO of all time, is slowly being devoured by this issue ever since leveling speed was increased via dungeon finder and highly rewarding Cataclysm quests.

That game has leaps and bounds more content than FFXIV, but it isn't relevant content. In truth the overwhelming majority of people care only for getting to endgame battles and all the shiny, stylishly epic gear. Relevant content in WoW can be done in a single dedicated night's work, just like FFXIV. It will never be any different for this game, unless the devs bring large and complicated systems like Sea and Sky back.

Sea and Sky were amazing, but not an option with the current climate of players. They could bring back Pandemonium Warden and Absolute Virtue timesinks, but do you really want that?

In summation, the problem is not power leveling. The problem is the eternal dilemma of content drought, and how the ease of achieving maximum level exacerbates it. Now, I would say "You should be making topics about our lack of endgame content instead of complaining about a standard happening in all MMO's", but this game is going to be scrapped for another in a little over a year's time. They're only going to add the most minute of changes and boss encounters to tide people over, and the best you can hope for is that 2.0 will be good.

...Just like all of those patches were supposed to save the game.

[HiirNoivl]

Well, I've already capped all the DoM/DoW jobs. I have no use for things like Behests. No point in grinding parties. I have 200 Aspect all the time.

So what am I doing? 1) Trying to help my Linkshell mates get Ifrit drops 2) spiritbonding gear to try to doublemeld/help the LS out. 3) Leveling my crafts and gathering mats for the LS...

Notice a pattern? MMOs are not meant to be dependent on patches and story for all its content. The Community provides the majority of content in an MMO.

The biggest problem with FFXIV is not that it's not giving us enough primal fights and cutscenes, it's not that people are leveling too fast, but that there are significant obstacles to player-based content. Community content is infinite content.

My personal gripes are:

1) No PVP arrangement (pending more details)
2) A hassle of a market system (unsure? pending more details)
3) Poorly designed party features (coming)
4) No way to set up Linkshell events and post things like Linkshell wishlists (coming)

A few more primal fights will be nice. But unless the community features are improved, there will never ever be enough content. But as you can see, these things are on the way.

[Tsubarta]

You are definitely in the minority of people who play this game. A very fantastic minority that there should be more of, but still a minority. Most people do not sign on to FFXIV and think "What fun event can I plan for my friends today?" or "I wonder who needs materials? I'll go get some with my high level miner because I care that much!".

Community content is certainly a fun aspect of MMO's, but the burden of content provision is on the developers. What are you gathering all of those materials for? Why do you level those classes at all, "To help people."? Admirable, but not entirely true. Everyone seeks greater challenges and content somewhere in their heart, and to apologize on behalf of the developers and placing that burden on the community undermines said community and defeats any reason to pay a monthly fee.

I feel I have made it clear that community content is important to any online game. But if there is not a consistent flow of updated, endgame content for everyone's 3-5 max level classes (byproduct of the high yielding PL dynamics and community pressure), you may as well be playing a private RO server for free.

[irongripz]

wait till these new content patches come out and people keep beating them in matter of days. the more they allow pl to ruin this game more crying babies they will have later. waiting on content, ready to quit because they ran out of stuff to do.