Things wanted for next expansion?

[KisaiTenshi]

@KinsaiTenshi Likewise, starting every job at level 1 also doesn't work. Have you actually played a job from 1 to 30 recently? It is painful and doesn't teach you anything about the job, and is instead designed to teach the game mechanics. By the time you gain access to SAM/RDM/DRK/AST/MCH you should already have grasped the core game mechanics of combat, and the only lesson needed is the specific job playstyle, which you do not get any sense of until after level 30 at the very least.

Yes, they're fun to play. This is not Eureka where monsters eat your face and you spend 2 minutes on each enemy. It's facerollingly easy.

Gonna have to disagree here. You'd then be locking SAM for example behind level 61 MSQ (and beating Sirensong) to be able to unlock the class, unless you start as one. By the same token people would be able to start as AST/DRK/MCH only if they chose Elezen. Bear in mind you can't even start as Rogue. I would say the current system beats yours. Your system would basically incentivise starting as certain classes if you want to unlock every one as quickly as possible.

The change I explicitly said is to allow players to pick all the classes at level 1. For storyline reasons, Ishgard is all Elezen and not welcoming of strangers, hence you would have to accept a race-lock until MSQ is cleared. SE would have to go back to how 1.0 starting cities worked to change this. Which would allow you to pick jobs that aren't in your starting area, but you can't earn learn the skills until you get to that other area. For Kugane, there's no race-lock, as the city is quite literately neutral area. You can already get SAM at 50, so it would not be locked behind 61 MSQ. Rather you're locked-in until you get to level 15 since Kugane has no low-level field. So the combat tutorial things in 1-15 would take place as instances in Kugane like some job quest stuff does now at 60+.

Progression for everything would be the same. Those who want to immediately get to the end game aren't getting there any faster. But those who want to create new characters or play different classes/jobs as if they were actually complete experiences, would want to play that. Existing AST/DRK/MCH/SAM storylines feel incomplete and don't allow players to start as them. The odd man out here is the red mage, who could have an entire 1-50 storyline as well, but I think it is more sensible to just unlock it as long as WHM/BLM have been leveled to 50. Both SAM and RDM have this "Wandering mystery person" type aesthetic that they're not going to be able to pull off again. If RDM could be started at level 1, what would it be? Magic Fencer?

However the fact remains that SE somehow decided that players would be satisfied with 4 additional DPS, while only adding one tank and one healer since the game has started. So we're overdue for another Tank and Healer. SE doesn't need to introduce all these jobs at once, they can just dole them out one at a time until 5.0 and then 5.0 gives us another race, and other starting class options. Maybe by then they'll have found a solution to this. Or maybe not.

I'm just trying to point out that making the jobs start at some level is the same as going "these jobs aren't important", they're sidequests.

[Lambdafish]

Yes, they're fun to play. This is not Eureka where monsters eat your face and you spend 2 minutes on each enemy. It's facerollingly easy.

As I said, you must not have played those levels for a while. in 4.0 we have a similar number of skills that we did in ARR, except those skills are now stretched across 70 levels, making the opening parts of the levelling process very barebones. Most of lvl 1-30 consists of very few skills, and very little of the gameplay of later levels. By starting players at a level where they can appreciate what the job is actually supposed to play like it allows for a lot of time to be saved on unnecessary padding.

Its not about whether its easy or difficult, its about what that time consists of.

[kikix12]

All those locks are quite unnecessarily complicating stuff. I think the new jobs should be unlocked at lvl30. That's the level a class turns into a job and from that point on, the jobs actually start getting fleshed out slowly. It's a good point to start.

The leveling (be it 1-30 or 30-50) is not a problem at all. It is both pretty fast and easy, using many easily available methods. Further leveling between ~55-60 is the worst part of it, then 60+ is against quite easy and decently fast for the most part.

I see no reason why any of these jobs should be locked behind the capital towns of expansions though. We can enter part of Coerthas with three cities. Just have the quests start there (each class in different stronghold) from some apprentice and auto-learn the skills tied to class quests like it is for Samurai, except for lvl50 skills if you need to.

Of course, starting job at lower level means having to make their job quests for those levels...and I think this is the real reason why they have the expansion ones start pre-leveled. Otherwise it would be "free content". As MMO developers they WANT players to spend extra time grinding as it's extra time playing before they'd get bored. But if they have to make the quests for that anyway, then they'd prefer to make more quests for all classes rather than the select few.

[Paladinleeds]

The change I explicitly said is to allow players to pick all the classes at level 1. For storyline reasons, Ishgard is all Elezen and not welcoming of strangers, hence you would have to accept a race-lock until MSQ is cleared. SE would have to go back to how 1.0 starting cities worked to change this. Which would allow you to pick jobs that aren't in your starting area, but you can't earn learn the skills until you get to that other area. For Kugane, there's no race-lock, as the city is quite literately neutral area. You can already get SAM at 50, so it would not be locked behind 61 MSQ. Rather you're locked-in until you get to level 15 since Kugane has no low-level field. So the combat tutorial things in 1-15 would take place as instances in Kugane like some job quest stuff does now at 60+.

Conceded about Kugane, and nicely done figuring a way around the issues that would have occurred. I still cannot get behind locking AST/DRK/MCH starter behind Elezen though. Again, you start favouring one race, and I feel it'd take away from the image FFXIV wants to project.

I'm just trying to point out that making the jobs start at some level is the same as going "these jobs aren't important", they're sidequests.

I feel that is a bit of a stretch but can see where you're coming from with that. To each their own I suppose. Depends on how well they write the storylines to me. I've enjoyed most of the HW and SB job quest story arcs. Which to be fair, each expansion, the jobs get new story arcs, separate from the previous one. So in a way, I don't think it's as bad as you say it is overall. Though first impressions can definitely be tainted (since you have to get stuck in to the quest arcs to get this)

[KisaiTenshi]

Conceded about Kugane, and nicely done figuring a way around the issues that would have occurred. I still cannot get behind locking AST/DRK/MCH starter behind Elezen though. Again, you start favouring one race, and I feel it'd take away from the image FFXIV wants to project.



I feel that is a bit of a stretch but can see where you're coming from with that. To each their own I suppose. Depends on how well they write the storylines to me. I've enjoyed most of the HW and SB job quest story arcs. Which to be fair, each expansion, the jobs get new story arcs, separate from the previous one. So in a way, I don't think it's as bad as you say it is overall. Though first impressions can definitely be tainted (since you have to get stuck in to the quest arcs to get this)

As the poster before you mentioned. Yeah, maybe there would not be a requirement to actually start the precursor class for the job in Ishgard, however since the "jobs" start at level 30, a player who has not bought HW yet, would essentially be stuck being unable to level whatever the precursor class is to get to those jobs and thus to finish MSQ would need to go back and start another ARR class at level 1, because each quest starts at the guild. Or they could continue and not get the "job" specific abilities. Has anyone actually finished ARR without doing their job quests? I'm sure someone has. Players who don't do their job quests (especially the tanks) tend to get told to do them by other players because playing with a tank without a tank stance is otherwise annoying, and requires the healer to do as little as possible to avoid having being at the top of the enmity table.

I actually hate race locks more than I do class/job-per-character locks. However the game doesn't really create any loophole in the lore to play a race other than Elezen that starts in Ishgard unless you were a servant or part of the Scholasticate (see Joye in the Machinist guild, and the obvious harry potter reference Hyurs standing outside the Scholasticate.) At any rate, assuming there is some loophole to be had, the primary thing to allow access to these jobs without unlocking the entire area is by using some instances to substitute for the low-level areas (DRK already uses one when you pick it up the first time IIRC) until you get to go investigate Eorzea.

There is more than one solution, really, but the ones that break the lore the least, require weaseling around the lore in some way that would otherwise result in a different experience for players who start in these areas without a good reason for it. Like if you are locked into Ishgard or Kugane till level 15, you don't get to try any DoL or DoH since none of those guilds are in those cities.

I wandered around Ishgard while writing this post looking for races other than Elezen and Hyur, and the only place that had any number was the Scholasticate, so that might be the loophole that works the best. I also forgot there was an Inn. So it does, technically, meet the requirements to do all the starting city stuff.

Please note I'm not pushing this narrative, it's just illustrative of what's missing:

Let's say, you select any race from the create a character screen. And then pick the precursor to AST... let's just call them Mystic, for now.

Instead of the cutscene on the wagon into one of the other three city states, you are instead on an airship into Ishgard to enroll in the Scholasticate. For all intents, think Harry Potter goes to Wizard School.

So level 1, you're dropped off at the Airship, and directed to see Gibrillont at the Forgotten Knight (who for all intents does the same role as Baderon, Momodi and Mother Miounne have for early levels.) So your first quest is to Attune to the Aetherye, and talk to people asking where the Scholasticate is. There will be enough EXP from the main quest lines to advance through to level 15 without trying to leave Ishgard.

At level 4, you'll actually enter the Scholasticate, and whatever quest given has you fight yet more things.
At Level 5, you have to have the full uniform to proceed.
At Level 6, 7, 8, 9 you basically repeat the "talk to several students/yokels, and get into fights"
At Level 9 the Inn room at the Forgotten Knight is unlocked.
At Level 10 you go into low-level instances made up of the Vault and instanced areas of the Broome
At Level 11,12,13,14,15 you blah blah blah more NPC quest delivery chains, eventually leading to you being sent on a wild goose chase once you get a little too close to the truth behind the Philosophers stone or whatever.

All totaling 25 quests, and a little more streamlined than the other Eorzea MSQ's.

Now instead of "The Lominsan Envoy"/"The Ul'dahn Envoy"/"The Gridanian Envoy", you get "The Ishgard Scholasticate Envoy (it's you)", and we're finally introduced to Alphinaud (of Sharlayan ) as we get on the Airship.

That allows the player to basically get a unique 1-15 storyline, while being sent off to do all the level 15-30 stuff exactly the same way as everyone else does. Since the "starter job" that leads into the level 30 job doesn't need a "guild" to function, since it acts more like a place holder for the job, whatever other person accompanied you from Ishgard during the Envoy quest for your class will be the "teacher" or whatever on the field. They will hang back in the airship waiting area so you can trigger their level 15/20/25/30 quest chain until the end of the "Company of Heroes" quest, will they comment on being trolled by the Eorzeans and it's time to come back to Ishgard to do some more intense studying. At this point you can pick up any of the level 30 jobs from the guilds in Ishgard. That then puts you back on the job storyline path that runs parallel with the MSQ.

SE/Yoshi-P would need to change the requirement to accept the first quest to be level 30, but otherwise, it wouldn't need any other change since the level 30-50 quests take place in Eorzea, and are all initiated at the Guild.

Anyway, that is probably what would work without rewriting lore.

For the Samurai, it's probably somewhat easier to pull off since the only thing that needs to change is who/when you get the job stone. 1-15 could be just doing ridiculous undefined apprentice quests before being sent on a quest that takes you to Eorzea. Come back at level 30 to pick up the Job stone and keep being told you're an apprentice until level 50. That would require no edits to the storyline AFAIK.

[Sylvina]

For the love of Hydaelyn, could we see something that brings a mental component to combat? Maybe terrain that actually factors in to combat, such as height advantages and real line of sight considerations? Real crowd control mechanics? Please? Because I'm very much tired of twitch-intensive rotational combat.

Cough 07s Cough

[Khalithar]

@Khalithar The reason that your suggestion doesn't work is because all jobs need sufficient levelling experience to teach players the job. If you reduce the levelling experience then many more players will enter endgame content unfamiliar with skills and rotations that they have aquired. The levelling process is designed as a tutorial, let it serve as one.

I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it. The reason for that is because I'm willing to extend a bit more confidence in the player base. I'm going to exclude drk/mch/ast from this point because I thought their implementation and gimmicks wasn't done very well when they first launched and I'd rather compare to the more recent jobs we got as I feel that is more relevant to the state of the game right now.

That beind said, Rdm and Sam start out with very clear and easy to grasp core concepts and everything they get afterwards builds on those concepts. In my opinion both jobs are very well designed and superbly balanced strictly from a mechanics/gameplay persepctive, I know their numbers have been off here and there but for the sake of this post we are talking solely about playability. So, samurai and red mage could have started out at 60 and been roughly the same difficulty to pick up and play as they were at 50.

There is ALWAYS going to be players that won't grasp the skills and rotations they acquired at first, I assert cutting those ten levels won't make as big of a difference as you do. The players that want to stick with it will figure it out and the ones that don't get it will quit or keep being bad! But here's the crux of my point, that statement would be true whether sam/rdm started at 1 or 50 or 60 or 70. There are good and bad players, period. Cutting out those ten levels, in my opinion, won't make that big of a difference.

I believe SE has learned their lesson about making the new jobs easy to pick up based on the implementation of Sam/Rdm and going forward, I believe every job we get should start at the previous level cap.

[shao32]

snip

again you cant lock new jobs by level, if they put SAM and RDM on level 60 any new player will be unable to play it until they reach lvl 60 and it takes more time to get to level 60 that complete the ARR story and get to ishgard and unlock DRK and the others and you can't let any new player just get to level 50 and !magic! you get 10 more levels for free when you unlock the job.

[Lambdafish]

I've heard this argument before and I don't buy it. The reason for that is because I'm willing to extend a bit more confidence in the player base. I'm going to exclude drk/mch/ast from this point because I thought their implementation and gimmicks wasn't done very well when they first launched and I'd rather compare to the more recent jobs we got as I feel that is more relevant to the state of the game right now.

That beind said, Rdm and Sam start out with very clear and easy to grasp core concepts and everything they get afterwards builds on those concepts. In my opinion both jobs are very well designed and superbly balanced strictly from a mechanics/gameplay persepctive, I know their numbers have been off here and there but for the sake of this post we are talking solely about playability. So, samurai and red mage could have started out at 60 and been roughly the same difficulty to pick up and play as they were at 50.

There is ALWAYS going to be players that won't grasp the skills and rotations they acquired at first, I assert cutting those ten levels won't make as big of a difference as you do. The players that want to stick with it will figure it out and the ones that don't get it will quit or keep being bad! But here's the crux of my point, that statement would be true whether sam/rdm started at 1 or 50 or 60 or 70. There are good and bad players, period. Cutting out those ten levels, in my opinion, won't make that big of a difference.

I believe SE has learned their lesson about making the new jobs easy to pick up based on the implementation of Sam/Rdm and going forward, I believe every job we get should start at the previous level cap.

You actually just backed up my argument against Kisai more than anything. You are right about what the devs did with RDM/SAM but you missed the point of what else they did with these jobs. Imagine a scenario where you unlocked the jobs at top level and were able to immediately take them into endgame dungeons etc. People would get kicked for underperforming on a job they had no idea how to play and it would be really bad for the community.

Also, you argument about people still being bad at endgame despite the levelling process existing is a bad one. You are essentially saying that because a beneficial system is lost on a few players that it shouldn't exist at all, when it does serve a good purpose, and creates a good base for potential learning, which is something that the game currently doesn't have enough of, let alone removing what we have.

Ultimately there needs to be a balance between sufficient levelling time to get to grips with a job (the varies from player to player, those 10 levels could be a beneficial difference to some players) and not too overly long that the experience feels drawn out, padded, and endless to the point that people give up with it.


Edit: Completely unrelated to this angle of the argument is also the simple fact that the lower level the job starts at, the earlier the devs can have a player unlock it. It makes no sense for a fresh 50 to unlock a level 60 job, because they don't have any level 60 content unlocked to play the job.

[Okamimaru]

Longer more involved side quests with solo dungeons... like a few sidequests that are as long as the main story but totally optional...