Will 8.0 Expansion Cap @ L55 ?

[MayuAmakura]

You do know that nothing will happen? It's way too much for them to change their formula. Level squish would mean that they have to redo every boss, dungeon mob and stats for everyone which isn't simple. Doing just "cut 50% for everything" won't make it right due to some abilities and things scaling differently. For YoshiP and their team this would be "huge" job. So no we will just see 110 level instead. They haven't changed anything with every new expansion.

[Veritas-Ancora]

You do know that nothing will happen? It's way too much for them to change their formula. Level squish would mean that they have to redo every boss, dungeon mob and stats for everyone which isn't simple. Doing just "cut 50% for everything" won't make it right due to some abilities and things scaling differently. For YoshiP and their team this would be "huge" job. So no we will just see 110 level instead. They haven't changed anything with every new expansion.

Yeah but Yoshi P even said there was a problem with the trajectory that is happening and that some form of rework needs to happen to keep the game relevant and appealing to users.

He even suggested that there was "A Realm Reborn" level of work, so that could mean rewiring the game in new ways that doesn't equate to L110.

[Derio]

Honestly there should be another stat squish and the next expansion level cap should be 50. However I'm not sure they will do that because they made such a big deal of lvl 100 being a big milestone for the game.

[Asari5]

maybe they should make a new level scale for 'chapter 2' of the story where we all start at lvl 1 again. as a universal new starting point. new players wouldnt have to play the whole chapter 1 (2.0-6.55) leaving it as optional content.

that would lead to a lot of questions needing a solution though xD.

[DPZ2]

I wonder why so many are fixated on "level numbers". It doesn't make the leveling experience faster.

Consider that each expansion should provide as much time for completion as a normally priced AAA game. I've seen estimates that run anywhere from 45 hours for Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 to 103 hours for Witcher 3. [Here's a typical article from The Gamer for RPG completion times: https://www.thegamer.com/longest-rpgs-ever-made/

Estimates for completion of the MSQ for each expansion of Final Fantasy XIV run around the low end (40-50 hours) without doing anything extra.

Does it really matter if you're rising 10 levels in an expansion, or 5 levels, if the amount of time to completion remains the same?

[Veritas-Ancora]

maybe they should make a new level scale for 'chapter 2' of the story where we all start at lvl 1 again. as a universal new starting point. new players wouldnt have to play the whole chapter 1 (2.0-6.55) leaving it as optional content.

that would lead to a lot of questions needing a solution though xD.

I would like that, honestly. Take us to a new expansion where we have to re-level up to L50. But if you're going to do that, make the AoEs available at a lower level than 30+. It's really problematic that we don't have an AoE for dungeons at any of the lower levels.

[TheRealQuah]

A level squish feels like "kicking the can down the road" for when we inevitably hit level 100 again, to say nothing of how much they would need to overhaul every job and encounter to match the changes. ARR alone would be a mess trying to cram everything from 1-50 into 1-30. I mean, if we're getting our job crystals at level 10-15 at that point, they may as well remove the classes we start as before then, because people would barely even get to experience them before they're promoting out of them and a condensed story probably couldn't account for us wasting time with the old guilds anyway.

A secondary leveling track seems pointless though because "prestige level 10" is just "level 110" anyway with some fancier words, and giving it any kind of talent point system would be a waste because this community is too parser-brained to ever pick anything but the BiS build, where anything less will get you kicked and blacklisted when everyone and their dog already gets accused of being prog liars who only exist to ruin everyone else's runs.

I'm not really sure what else they can do, because either the game will fight against them trying to do it (I imagine messing around with any part of ARR could be troublesome with the spaghetti code), or the playerbase will optimize the fun out of it in less than 24 hours.

Well what you would do is halve the levels of everything in the game, but double the xp needed to reach the next level, then nothing changes with progression other than the literal level number. Quests on odd levels get rounded down. Nothing changes then other than the level numbers.

[ReynTime]

I know nobody will like this idea, but I wish they made an expansion that truly worked as a second choice of starting point for new players, including that expansion not being at cap level or 10 levels away from the cap. And using that expansion's design as an excuse to rebalance action distribution at lower levels since the sub lv60 gameplay is absolutely terrible right now. Also have the two new jobs of that expansion start AT that expansion's lower starting level to encourage veterans to join the leveling process with the new.

New players would have their tutorial quest chains in the start of that expansion instead of at the start of ARR like older characters. But the end of the tutorial quest chain would lead into one of the first MSQs that truly begin the expansion's MSQ for the veteran players.

maybe they should make a new level scale for 'chapter 2' of the story where we all start at lvl 1 again. as a universal new starting point. new players wouldnt have to play the whole chapter 1 (2.0-6.55) leaving it as optional content.

that would lead to a lot of questions needing a solution though xD.

I typed before I saw this. It's similar to what I had in mind.

[Astramu]

What benefit would a level squish achieve though? It doesn't make a 100+ hour story to get through to the current content any quicker. Lv55 doesn't achieve anything if every level now takes twice as much experience to get. If you want to start at the current expansion's story SE provides it as a paid option on their online store so its highly unlikely that would make it into the game as a free option suddenly. YoshiP is too rigid with 14's development structure, we're going to end up with lv110 since its the easiest thing to do.

[Mikey_R]

As others have said, by reducing the level, all you do is increase the EXP needed per level, so it makes no difference, level is just a number after all.

If the issue is it takes too long, especially for a new player, I would think the actual wall is the MSQ. If we assume it takes 30 hours per expansion, over 5 expansions, that is already 150 hours and that is just for the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc, not anything after plus the fact that that is likely a lower estimate.

Having some sort of secondary starting point is the most logical thing to do where I would say the start of DT is where the point should be. It is after the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc, I don't think starting at the void is a good point, which leaves the start of DT.

I will also say, I do not agree with having an expansion 'start fresh' as, whilst it might be nice for a new player as they can learn as they go, it would feel really bad for experienced players having to start from scratch, there is already a bad stigma around low level content, so why would you force it onto everyone?

As for levelling secondary jobs, I can also see that as a detriment for someone wanting to try another job, being level 100 and wanting to try, say, Monk, which starts at level 1, that could be a deterrent. A system could be put in place that allows you to choose the starting level, level 1, 50, 60, 70, etc. with the job quests completed up to the unlock level. The caveat here is that you can only unlock up to a point, 20 levels below current expansion level cap, just like the jobs that are released in that expansion.

Really, I do believe the issue is time investment. If something takes too long, people will likely be put off by it and masking it behind something else (halving levels) doesn't address the core issue of time taken. By showing you have ways to skip parts of the time taken, it might draw more people in, especially if it is also made clear that there is a system in the game where you can replay the bits you skipped if you want to.