Surprisingly, The outdated MMO is WOW, not FFXI/XIV1.2

[Shurrikhan]

I've been leveling a Blood Elf Mage and a Nightborne Rogue for gits and shiggles at the end of Legion's lifespan, and I can say that new leveling definitely requires you to be careful about pats and actually use your toolkit - depending on class, of course. My Frost Mage spammed barrier off CD, had to use Frost Nova if she aggroed something unexpected and frequently had to eat conjured food between trash packs. Meanwhile, the old leveling with heirlooms was basically just throw two Ice Lances on non-frozen enemies and they would just die.

For better or worse, I skipped any and all heirloom leveling, as I got everything I ever planned on maintaining to the heirloom's caps before the heirlooms came out, and the new level gap wouldn't be covered by them until after I'd leveled everything, but even then mobs felt like they were getting gradually weaker with each expansion after Wrath.

It's still infinitely better than FFXIV's leveling where you're mashing the same three buttons until as far as level 50, in a lot of cases - with a glacial GCD, to boot.

Yeah, I could never understand why they trickle the kit out so slowly. To be fair, I think even WoW could afford to give more key abilities earlier and just gradually augment certain of them down the line, as well, but I've regularly had friends who would enjoy raiding on a borrowed account balk at the idea of having to level through this game, despite so enjoying the leveling process in others (to the point of sometimes having multiple level-capped characters of the same class). One would think the questlines would help compensate, but most of my friends have considered them a weak point, too, actually. Any defense I could make of the MSQ was met with "Icecrown / Dragonblight / Moonwater Plains / Scorching Sands did it better" and of ambiance with "<Storm Peak's / Lornar's Run / etc.> did it better". And when going back and replaying each, as much as I like this game for the most part, it was kind of hard to contest that. Praised points were very consistently the Ishgard conspiracy and the hostage rescue mission against the Imperials. And... that was about it, I'm afraid.

It hurts to know, too, that none of them will ever even get a proper run of Praetorium unless I can somehow convince 6 others to minimum ilvl it and pretend to be noobs again.

[Zojha]

Yeah, I could never understand why they trickle the kit out so slowly.

I can tell you: So you can get familiar with the skills and then know your rotation by the end of it. The idea behind it is the infamous "difficulty curve" argument - Gradual increase of rotational difficulty.

The results... vary. Mildly put.

[Maeka]

I can tell you: So you can get familiar with the skills and then know your rotation by the end of it. The idea behind it is the infamous "difficulty curve" argument - Gradual increase of rotational difficulty.

The results... vary. Mildly put.

But yet....

People level in POTD which means they aren't going to "learn their class" anyways.

And this is made worse by the fact that you do not get access to abilities gained from your Job Stone while in POTD, so they level-up in POTD and then get their job stone and they know nothing about their job-based abilities because they never had to actually use them in actual practice.

[KaivaC]

I can tell you: So you can get familiar with the skills and then know your rotation by the end of it. The idea behind it is the infamous "difficulty curve" argument - Gradual increase of rotational difficulty.

The results... vary. Mildly put.

Let's be honest, a huge chunk of the playerbase don't even use half of the necessary skills NOW, months into the expansion. There's been an influx of Medica II spamming WHM lately. RDMs hardcasting everything. SMNs thinking they can just stand by and chill while their pet does all the work. Tanks that don't put on a stance (in Sigmascape no less...yea, that was fun).

[Zojha]

Let's be honest, a huge chunk of the playerbase don't even use half of the necessary skills NOW, months into the expansion.

Not surprising, is it? There are people who don't even read their tooltips. People who get a shiny new skill and just let it sit there, staring at them accusingly until it lights up for one reason or another.

I can only cringe about it, but it seems more common than one might think.

[Remedi]

Not surprising, is it? There are people who don't even read their tooltips. People who get a shiny new skill and just let it sit there, staring at them accusingly until it lights up for one reason or another.

I can only cringe about it, but it seems more common than one might think.

Like those WHM healing a tank with only Cure III? That is really irritating, frankly there's no difference in how you level up if you simply ignore the tooltip of your abilities

[Shurrikhan]

I can tell you: So you can get familiar with the skills and then know your rotation by the end of it. The idea behind it is the infamous "difficulty curve" argument - Gradual increase of rotational difficulty.

The results... vary. Mildly put.

While I agree that that is certainly the reason XIV has done as it has, I feel like babying an introduction to mechanics -- i.e. by spreading it so thin that the bookends of a given learning experience are no longer visible -- usually has the opposite effect. Since they don't receive enough at once for it to be implied to near-explicit levels that they're each a necessary part of the same toolkit, each later ability after reaching a certain comfort level becomes more likely to be seen as "optional". Having been forced into an initial challenge of appropriate difficulty (via due support and practice more so than by kneecapping the available tools) to manage and understand one's skills earlier on can only help the reception of later skills. Of course, determining that "appropriate" difficulty is the whole issue; I'd just wager that XIV has sorely underestimated how much difficulty (and due support) is needed to kick-start a player into the game, even for the most casual of players.

Getting only Fireball and Frostbolt worked for as many levels as it did in WoW because you needed enemies to arrive at your position nearly dead in order to survive, or at the least to maintain efficient leveling. Trim too much damage, and you're dead or in need of spending lengthy time eating and drinking -- and could only taste the dear memories of that option when on a class that couldn't literally conjure said food and drink. (Originally, at least) the aspects of each spell was well utilized. Fire Blast then offered mobility with an instant-cast GCD ability (yes, now oGCD), Frost Nova and escape and bonus damage period, and Sear finally a longer term kiting option. Each augmented your ability to perform goals with very obvious indicators.

In the absence of meaningful damage taken or nuance-capable ways to manage it, however -- a lack of both challenge and ways to deal with it, let alone optional direct training in those means atop the challenges presented -- abilities simply cannot be as obvious or impactful upon one's learning process. It practically takes a parser to familiarize oneself with that which key challenging mobs used to be capable of teaching.