Level squish?

[Cach]

With a lot of games hitting the 15+ years mark, it's weird how there doesn't seem to be a definite solution for the number bloat / skill bloat problem in a way that doesn't feel like a "kicking the can down the road" kind of solution.

For FF14 in particular, I would suggest an alternate leveling system, kinda like what we already have with Eureka/Bozja but on a expansion scope.
And for skills... I really don't know, we are already hitting the limits of skill bloat on several jobs. Sometimes I wish they would have stuck with improving cross-classing. I'm guessing a lot of passives are in our future.

[Ameela]

With a lot of games hitting the 15+ years mark, it's weird how there doesn't seem to be a definite solution for the number bloat / skill bloat problem in a way that doesn't feel like a "kicking the can down the road" kind of solution.

For FF14 in particular, I would suggest an alternate leveling system, kinda like what we already have with Eureka/Bozja but on a expansion scope.
And for skills... I really don't know, we are already hitting the limits of skill bloat on several jobs. Sometimes I wish they would have stuck with improving cross-classing. I'm guessing a lot of passives are in our future.

I think in an ideal world they'd put a system in place to restore and take away skills depending on your level range and have a little pop up message telling you how you're about to change expansions so some skills will be removed while others will be added - then just restore classes to the way they were during each expansion as if you were playing each one during their expansion release state.
Of course this isn't exactly ideal as some classes have been changed during those lower levels to be somewhat more enjoyable like tanks all having a two-hit AoE combo before level 50, so it's a complicated issue.

[Videra]

Ideally, I think a level squish back to 50 would be a very good idea. But I forsee them stopping at 99 or just not stopping.

[Kes13a]

I tend to be against a "level squish"

mainly because it feels like you suddenly didnt put in all the time it took to get to the higher level. stat squish I can understand and dont mind, but taking away levels I have earned is a harder thing to wrap my brain around. its likely just me, but I seriously hated it when WoW did it, and was the final nail in that particular coffin for me. to me, it felt like they had taken away the final indicator that I had put any time into the game at all.

years ago I played Anarchy Online, max level was I think 220 or something, but gave you something to go for. never reached it, but I think was an incentive in some ways that a level squish promptly removes.

[Boblawblah]

A level squish works in WoW because all they want you to play is the newest content. FFXIV has a massive story that is spread across all those levels, and they want you to play through all of it. Imagine having to go through all of ARR and be level 30. that would be so awful. ARR is slow as it is.

[Eraden]

I LOATHE level and stat squishes. I consider them to be an indicator of poor game design. They also make me feel as though all the progress I have previously made was literally wasted. It's the primary reason why I left WoW and never looked back.

[Reinha]

I don't really understand the point of a level squish. The game works the same no matter which number the UI shows.

[Zsolen]

I don't really understand the point of a level squish. The game works the same no matter which number the UI shows.

I believe it is because people are getting less and less overall skills in ARR/HW levels and being level 50-60, it feels like that character should have more. If ARR ended at 25 and HW at 30, it wouldn't feel so bad.

SB: 35; ShB: 40; EW: 45; Next expac: 50

But you are right, it's really just a feeling thing. Gaining a level would be a much bigger deal, but it could cause problems on SE's end. They would have to change the level requirements and ilvls on everything. On the other hand, if leveling feels empty, it might discourage some people from playing. Leveling to 50 also sounds less daunting to a new player than leveling to 100.

Leveling dungeons are currently X1, X3, X5, X7 and X9. They would have to be X(0 or 5), X(1 or 6), X(2 or 7), X(3 or8), and X(4 or 9). Dusk Vigil (51) would become 25. Sohm Al (53) would become 26. All quests would have to round down. It sounds like a nightmare to change everything.

[Jeeqbit]

The reason a level squish could be needed is because new players look at the max level for the game they are playing and see that they need to climb over 100 levels and eventually it looks to steep so they just quit. This is already a problem because of the amount of story to get through and having the level cap give this impression of being too steep as well is not going to help.

I don't think they can just reduce it to, say, 50. You have to consider the problems with reducing it too low. When you start the game, you need to feel that gaining levels is easy, so the first 10 levels you can just kill enemies otherwise it gives the impression that gaining experience is too hard. ARR is extremely long with so many dungeons packed together, so 10 levels wouldn't cut it, but 20 probably would. The new jobs we got in Heavensward start at 30 and you unlock all your starter jobs at 30, so 30 would make the perfect level cap for ARR. Job quests could be rescaled to appear every 2 or 3 levels like in the expansions. This would put Heavensward's cap at 40, Stormblood's at 50, Shadowbringers' at 60 and Endwalker at 70.

The biggest problem would be gear, which would have to be squished to be the same level as other gear and stop being relevant, but we already have a lot of gear that isn't relevant (such as using item level 340 or 370 when 400 is the cap at level 70) and dungeon gear has never been relevant to people who get gear from anywhere else than dungeons, except from leveling dungeons.

Item level could be squished as well. Every piece of gear jumps by 5 when it could just jump by 1. Between level caps it jumps by 3. The result of such huge jumps is that we are on course to get over item level 1000.

The alternative could be to start the new expansion from a low level but players that aren't new would have to sync down and use ARR rotations and feel no level progression.

I remember Yoshi-P mentioning horizontal progression so I think he is thinking about this issue but it's not an easy thing to change because it could have consequences for the way the game currently works.

[Zsolen]

10 levels from every expac and you are sooner back to the original problem