An idea on how to improve early gameplay?

[Rollout]

One of the issues I feel FFXIV has is that the early game is... extremely boring. And I'm sure a lot of players can agree, whenever we get a dungeon like Sastasha, Halatali or Tam-Tara Deepcroft.

As a way to remedy this, I suggest giving player's access to most of their skills before level 50, but at a diminished effect. Upon reaching the level where one would originally obtain said actions, you instead gain a trait or, depending on the trait or action, nothing at all.

As an example, I've taken the time to lay out how Paladin might look under this system in the following Google Doc.

While the later levels might be less exciting, given you are getting less actions, and instead getting traits or nothing, I feel it would improve the earlier levels and convince players to stick around for longer, while also overall improving the gameplay of earlier levels. There are also a few little tweaks I've thrown in just as a personal opinion, mostly in how Spirits Within's damage is dealt and Clemency.

[ItMe]

I think it's largely an issue with our kits.
If all jobs had AoEs and at least 1 nice good to weave with at low level I think it would go a long way.

[Jirah]

For one it isnt just the starter dungeons but most content up to like 70s. Tank busters are non threatening Aoes are miniscule. Leveling has its moments but those are also a issue. The scaling is abhorrent and I dont see it getting better. You thing they care about early game when new jobs dont even remotely start there

[Raikai]

The best solution would ever be just scaling the level while letting you retain your kit.

I know there might be an issue w power when paired with sprouts, as even if the levels and ilvls are scaled to the same tier, a level 80 still has a lot more spells to pull their dps out.

I'm not sure if there's any workaround to this... maybe underleveled jobs get a buff when paired with overleveled ones, so the dps disparity wouldn't be too big.

[Shurrikhan]

Honestly, I don't think it takes squishing the later experience into the sooner (though that would help) so much as universal design improvements.

Imagine, for instance, if the breadth of abilities seen by level 40 or so were the cap. What could make that experience fulfilling?

A lot of it can be small things, such as dynamic animations allowing for our Heavy Shot to actually point at our target, instead of directly in front of us regardless of player position.

Others would likely be pivotal, such as some actual/interesting mob scripting or "AI", or some reason by which timing would matter or positioning would feel applicable even in solo play.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it's largely an issue with our kits.
If all jobs had AoEs and at least 1 nice good to weave with at low level I think it would go a long way.

Real quick:

Please forgive the devil's advocate here, but what if we instead went the opposite direction, to where things were dangerous enough that AoE would be something much more situationally applicable, and CC, focus targeting, and the like were brought back to the fore?

For instance, back in ARR's release, speedrun dungeon leveling among more veteran 1.x players wasn't just running to the end and AoEing everything, but was instead often a matter of your mass-DoTing, sleeping non-focused ranged enemies, and your bard or healer kiting a melee enemy while damage quickly focused down the remainder so that your party needed virtually no heals over a given fight. (That or it tended to involve abusing AST/SMN's long-as-heck Heavy effects and kiting the entire dungeon at once, so long as there was a way to wheel around the collected mobs, especially before Int/Mind split around level 41, until which time SMN was just a more efficient support --and that's more of what healers were in dungeons back then, rather than merely healers, even if everyone else was similarly more coordinated and cross-role-- than SCH because it offered more damage.)

Admittedly, I miss that, as short-lived as it may have been. I miss the quickest way to clear a 4-man dungeon varying with your comp, having more and broader means of engagement/impact in any role, and, despite mobs hitting harder, being able to clear with atypical comps if and only if there were a lot more coordination* (e.g. active dodging the breath attacks from Stone Vigil bosses--which I last night confirmed you can still do--or Stoneskin/Adlo beforehand and immediately Second Wind after while rotating Quelling Strikes to swap threat). *(Apart from the aforementioned cheese.)

[ItMe]

what if we instead went the opposite direction, to where things were dangerous enough that AoE would be something much more situationally applicable, and CC, focus targeting, and the like were brought back to the fore?

Adding in CCing, DPS peeling and kiting mobs, and more situational tactics?
Neat idea, there is content in FF14 that uses those skills (like deep dungeons & PVP), so having low level dungeons teach those skills doesn't sound bad on paper, but... if dungeons don't play that way at endgame I'm not sure it's a good idea. The early stuff should ideally reflect how we play later and unless later dungeons need those skills too it'll ultimately make the endgame feel more hollow as those elements fall away.

[Shurrikhan]

but... if dungeons don't play that way at endgame I'm not sure it's a good idea. The early stuff should ideally reflect how we play later and unless later dungeons need those skills too it'll ultimately make the endgame feel more hollow as those elements fall away.

Right, but is "run to end, spam AoE, run to end, spam AoE" exactly the content we want? Is that experience not already hollow?

If it's a matter of time constraint, note that the rewards can absolutely be increased in proportion to the additional time taken.

At present, though, any variety in playstyle is effectively just a trap that causes considerable tension between players. What if weren't? What if it weren't all just an illusion of depth or variety?

[ItMe]

Right, but is "run to end, spam AoE, run to end, spam AoE" exactly the content we want? Is that experience not already hollow?

If it's a matter of time constraint, note that the rewards can absolutely be increased in proportion to the additional time taken.

At present, though, any variety in playstyle is effectively just a trap that causes considerable tension between players. What if weren't? What if it weren't all just an illusion of depth or variety?

I think at that point this is going into a different topic.
Not "how to make the early game better," and more "what could be improved about FF14's gameplay."

[Shurrikhan]

I think at that point this is going into a different topic.
Not "how to make the early game better," and more "what could be improved about FF14's gameplay."

True, but early gameplay is still gameplay. If the limit of making early gameplay suck less is to make it suck exactly as much as the endgame experience (at relatively equal difficulty levels/types), that's both a narrow and not wholly necessary constraint.