Fighting Desperately...

[myoozek]

I want to be engrossed in a game and feel as though I can be the best PLD WAR or whatever that I can be through hard work and time spent learning to play the job to the best of its abilities and that for someone to catch up to my level they would equally have to spend time immersing themselves with the job, much like how if ou play BF3 you get owned at first but over time you keep on improving in skills knowing what to look for and how to play the different classes within a squad. Essentially FFXI gave this team cohesion throughout the game not just in a few unique end game scenarios and it actively encouraged you to work as a team at all times putting the multi-player into MMOS.

FFXIV does this at very unique areas usually dungeons or raids (hate that word), but to be honest it is not quite on the same level. I think the most fun fights I have had in FFXIV have been Moogle and Ifrit. Some people will chalk this up to lack of content but tbh if you ever played ffxi the rush of being in a great party set up while leveling and chaining up to 6/7 was an amazing rush. you just don't really get that at the minute on FFXIV

In addition

The level milestones the anticipation of getting to 30 o unlock your first job then further to 41 to get your AF weapon then to 50 to do your limit break. all fantastic goals to aim for, again something FFXIV doesnt really have at the moment. my hope is that post 50 it becomes very hard to level and we see people have to dedicate time to reaching 99 WAR or THM. but we will have to wait and see .

Sasagawa, you bring up some very good points. I think there's a sense of urgency on players' part to hit all jobs to 50, which then, in turn, strip players of a uniqueness in a part environment. XI seemed to embody this better, insofar as encouraging players to pick a class/job and BE that, as opposed to being able to do everything. When I signed up for XIV, I chose the MiQote specifically for AGI/DEX buffs as I wanted to be the ARC/RNG type. But - it's all irrelevant now! >.< And apparently, though I don't know how much truth there is to this, stats don't nearly play as big a role as they did in XI, though I could be wrong. It seems that this class/job-uniqueness has been flattened as a result of there being nothing else to do except the 5~7 or so dungeon/raids, and leveling.

And, to further emphasize your point, the lack of milestones while leveling also severely strips players of a sense of achievement and reward when you can level from 1~50 without ever having to break away from behests and leves. I like the idea of there being milestones, where in order to progress past 25, you do totorok or something (capped at 25 mind you!, so 50s can join and demolish everything while you just follow and stay out of harm's way), and to progress past 35, something else, etc. It seems to be improving with the addition of jobs (at least in concept), however the fact that jobs can piggy back off your class level strips current players with 50s the ability to level something new.

I've iterated this point before in some previous post I think, but my fear is that as SE releases new content leading up to 2.0, that because the content is so limited (result of limited dev resources for non 2.0 content) that everyone floods it and then asks "Now what?!" until new content is released and the cycle repeats. I also fear that if they release 2.0 and reset everything (to better level the playing field so existing players don't feel so over-achieved with 50 everything) that it'll upset them and cause a mass exodus from the game, which is a valid concern and fear, methinks.

[Riaayo]

Sasagawa, you bring up some very good points. I think there's a sense of urgency on players' part to hit all jobs to 50, which then, in turn, strip players of a uniqueness in a part environment. XI seemed to embody this better, insofar as encouraging players to pick a class/job and BE that, as opposed to being able to do everything. When I signed up for XIV, I chose the MiQote specifically for AGI/DEX buffs as I wanted to be the ARC/RNG type. But - it's all irrelevant now! >.< And apparently, though I don't know how much truth there is to this, stats don't nearly play as big a role as they did in XI, though I could be wrong. It seems that this class/job-uniqueness has been flattened as a result of there being nothing else to do except the 5~7 or so dungeon/raids, and leveling.

And, to further emphasize your point, the lack of milestones while leveling also severely strips players of a sense of achievement and reward when you can level from 1~50 without ever having to break away from behests and leves. I like the idea of there being milestones, where in order to progress past 25, you do totorok or something (capped at 25 mind you!, so 50s can join and demolish everything while you just follow and stay out of harm's way), and to progress past 35, something else, etc. It seems to be improving with the addition of jobs (at least in concept), however the fact that jobs can piggy back off your class level strips current players with 50s the ability to level something new.

I've iterated this point before in some previous post I think, but my fear is that as SE releases new content leading up to 2.0, that because the content is so limited (result of limited dev resources for non 2.0 content) that everyone floods it and then asks "Now what?!" until new content is released and the cycle repeats. I also fear that if they release 2.0 and reset everything (to better level the playing field so existing players don't feel so over-achieved with 50 everything) that it'll upset them and cause a mass exodus from the game, which is a valid concern and fear, methinks.

You have to understand that when XI released it didn't have all the advanced jobs etc either, and what hit the US was like 2 years down the pipeline. XI had the same problem of everyone leveling everything, as you saw lots of people aiming for a Maat's cap. The difference is XI was older and had like 16 jobs to pick from rather than the 7 we currently have. You will see new people be more selective in what they level when 2.0 hits, but you can't realistically expect anyone playing right now to not level everything to 50 because there's so little to do.

When 2.0 reaches, you will also see the Job AF quests along the road for those leveling, something that was not along the road for many of us and was, thus, content we breezed through as all 50s. That is laying framework for players in the future, and not so much for us.

I'm sometimes a bit shocked when I see a player rank 50 in a matter of days, however I've come to realize the only part of me that cares is the selfish one that wants to be better than other people and horde something nice for myself rather than share it. In the end idiots always got to 75 in XI just the same as they get 50 here, so I'm at the point I don't even think leveling up even matters in an MMO other than to waste your time before you can access the meat of the important content or play with your max lvl friends.

The problem you bring up about people blasting through content, though, is not unique to XIV. WoW and every other mmo out there are experiencing this. New content is released and it is conquered in a matter of days... it's very difficult for development to keep up with such a pace, and I honestly think no mmo yet has the ability to not simply lose a player's interest between updates. I think the challenge for the game, at that point, is making that initial enjoyment of a new update so fun that even when it's exhausted and a player takes a few weeks off, they had enough fun to want to pick it right back up when your next patch hits (especially enough fun to where they don't turn their account off when they break). But sadly, you will not ever see actual engaging content that isn't steamrolled by people who are ridiculously committed to being world or sever 1st on everything.


Back to the original point, I agree that at the moment it feels like there's little diversity in players because everyone is leveling everything... but the majority of people playing prior to 2.0 are going to have all their classes maxed out until the end of this game's days, nomatter the updates added. I do personally hope they don't steepen the leveling curve too drastically 50+, as I enjoy every class I play immensely and don't look forward to weeks of grinding (this is the exact reason I quit FFXI after lvl 80 cap was released, after 5 years of playing). I believe the Jobs severely limiting your cross-classing abilities will help limit future players from feeling like they had to level every class (prior to the class reworks, you pretty much did need everything 50 to play any of the classes the best, which was a real mistake that is being slowly fixed).

I also don't personally agree with each race having a monumental advantage over others at specific things. While I liked the racial abilities in WoW, no race had so much more mp than another than it made you never want to touch a mage class as said race (Galka mages anyone?). Truth be told? I LIKED seeing that Galka black mage, even if his mp pool was crap. I'd like to see a bit less punishment for people who go away from the norm... but I do think each race might deserve something unique so it stands out more (Mithra could eat raw fish! How useless and yummy).