Will 8.0 Expansion Cap @ L55 ?

[SalamanderIX]

Whatever they do, I really wish we'd be level 99 instead of 100 next time around.

It's hard as a final fantasy fan.

[Mikey_R]

But none of those new players are likely to go back and play the bits they skipped,

Maybe not, but the option is there if they do want to.

especially when they have veteran players breathing down their neck all day telling them everything before level 110 sucks to do. (Just like they do now where "only level 100 matters".)

This isn't what I see ingame, at least, not in my circles. The vast majority of the time it is more along the lines of 'Enjoy the story', 'Take your time', etc. The only place I see the more negative sides are on social media and the majority of the criticisms are from veteran players who have the experience of max level content. New players do not have the max level experience to alter their view of the early level combat. So this is an issue of the player base projecting their own feelings on someone else rather than letting the player make up their own mind. (Just as an FYI, this also doesn't mean low level combat couldn't be improved).

You might bring some people in but I can't see this kind of setup KEEPING them in the game when they've "seen everything worth doing" in their free month and are told they can quit and come back in a few years to do 120 content because that's the new "only thing that matters". It's short-term gains at best, and all while equating ARR/HW/STB/SHB/EW/DT to being the "filler arc" now because new shining starting point with none of that stuffy old baggage of a story to stop people from sitting in endgame PFs all day instead.

Most people do not have the time to go through 2 expansions worth of story (assuming this is when 8.0 releases and they can skip to DT) and the end game stuff in one month, between jobs, family, other hobbies, they might only have about 10 hours a week to dedicate to the game, if we assume 30 hours for the story, that is 60 hours for 2 expansions worth and that doesn't even count the end game stuff, which is going to be varied depending on when they join. So, assuming 10 hours a week, you are looking at 2-3 months worth of 'content' to get through and even then, this is assuming that all they do is content and don't do other things with their friends. Maybe, once they do finish the story, they want to know how they got to that point, so they start working though the story that was skipped to get all the context.

Ultimately no one really knows how someone is going to play the game or what their experience is going to be, so looking at things from a narrow, specific point of view, it is potentially going to look bad. But expand that view and you have a much larger scope of the types of players that play the game and realise, not everyone is like that. Different people play for different reasons and we shouldn't ignore them.

[Aidorouge]

Ultimately no one really knows how someone is going to play the game or what their experience is going to be, so looking at things from a narrow, specific point of view, it is potentially going to look bad. But expand that view and you have a much larger scope of the types of players that play the game and realise, not everyone is like that. Different people play for different reasons and we shouldn't ignore them.

Except my way of playing the game isn't well catered to, and even routinely ignored or mocked given the common sentiment towards casual players. I can't "take my time" playing through (or even just trying out) anything when the majority of veteran players just want to rush to endgame and sit there while insisting all new players should be speedran to the end to join them, or "enjoying the story" becomes incredibly hard to do when the game locks MSQ progress behind mandatory group content like Crystal Tower and Trials.

One of the biggest problems I've had with this supposed "MMO" for over 3 years now is an overall lack of people to do anything with from the time I started ARR all the way to the beginning of Endwalker, and I don't like that the solution everyone keeps trying to feed me is that I Just need a skip button into endgame Dawntrail while telling me everything prior to it sucks and "isn't worth doing". It makes the whole game feel meaningless when it's being condensed to some hardcore raid simulator where people just want you around to have another warm body to join their PF meat grinder.

If people are going to act like the MMO part is an afterthought, then I would like an expanded Trust system and more stuff be doable unsync solo so I can at least attempt to experience the prior content that so many people want to bury and forget about for only the newest and shiniest expansion content. I see so many other people complain that content in this game has a shelf life of 2-3 weeks and it's like yeah, no kidding, because everyone is always in some damn rush for some reason and acting like the MSQ is some terrible obstacle. It almost feels like I'm being punished for NOT buying a story skip, but not by the game, but by the community, usually while also being told I suck for being a casual and that I should "just quit already". So if people get their skip button for new players and alts (alts I might add that won't be around to do older content with either), then I want a button that lets me go back and do the content they all skipped whether that's with NPCs or an even stronger unsync.

It was bad enough starting on a "dead data center" when I began on Dynamis, but it's even worse being on a populated (even congested) data center like Primal and having the game still feel dead. At least let me have simulated life to do stuff with while you all leave me behind.

[Catwho]

I disagree that we need to stat squish. I think starting at level 100 in 8.0 is fine.

What they need to do is make the 8.0 story something that can be jumped into without playing levels 1-100, include the option to start over in ARR as a level 1 OR to start at level 100 in the new content of 8.0 with a unique speed run tutorial on the chosen job.

Level 100 job skip and story skip edition costs an extra $10 over the base 8.0 expansion, for people who just want to jump into the action.

Maybe the level 100 newbies wake up in 8.0 with amnesia, don't remember anyone or anything, get a montage echo flashback of everything that happened in those levels, but have full access to The Unending Journey if they want to ARR. And they can go back to Eorzea and start over on a job quest at any time, or New Game Plus if they are lost in the plot.

Regardless, whatever the 8.0 story is should be severed enough from 7.0 that you don't need to have played it to be invested.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I disagree that we need to stat squish. I think starting at level 100 in 8.0 is fine.

What they need to do is make the 8.0 story something that can be jumped into without playing levels 1-100, include the option to start over in ARR as a level 1 OR to start at level 100 in the new content of 8.0 with a unique speed run tutorial on the chosen job.

Level 100 job skip and story skip edition costs an extra $10 over the base 8.0 expansion, for people who just want to jump into the action.

Maybe the level 100 newbies wake up in 8.0 with amnesia, don't remember anyone or anything, get a montage echo flashback of everything that happened in those levels, but have full access to The Unending Journey if they want to ARR. And they can go back to Eorzea and start over on a job quest at any time, or New Game Plus if they are lost in the plot.

Regardless, whatever the 8.0 story is should be severed enough from 7.0 that you don't need to have played it to be invested.

I'm fine with this if it were FREE to a subscription. Allow one character to boost to L100.

It should not cost money for one boost. Other MMOs give you the free boost as soon as you subscribe, that's how it should work.

[Psycha]

Personally I would stop the levelling at 100, and replace it with farming skill points that you can exchange to unlock new optional actions which replace existing ones, allowing you to customize your job's aesthetics and playstyle. Giving players options like this would also help to alleviate the problem of divisive job changes.

Don't turn the game into WoW with talent trees please.. Then we'll see toxic BiS builds for jobs come out day 1.

[Psycha]

Yes but when is too far?

Starting this game at L1 and hearing you have to go to L110 sounds painful as sin. It doesn't attract new players if the mountain is too big to see over.

What we need is fresh blood. That's the only way this game stays alive.

The mountain that has caused new sprouts to quit or flat out not be interested is the MSQ requirement bloat.. Doing 300 or sometimes with some people 600 hours+ of MSQ from ARR to DT currently is a mountain of a task..

They need to stop locking content behind MSQ and make story optional at this point, some people prefer to stick to gathering and crafting and THAT with some systems are locked heavily behind MSQ grind.

Every single person I got into the game so far has bought the MSQ skip which I think is what SQE wants anyway cause ye more money.. Create the problem, sell the solution. Most of them as well bought a job skip too so they could play their intended job they wanted to play when looking into the game. 8 out of 12 are still playing but the rest quit once they saw the MSQ grinds after DT story and the blue quest chain grinds for further systems to be unlocked. Boo hoo I know grind is grind but alot of FF14 quests are tedious messes now after they passed on being old content.

ARR 2.0 wont fix anything if it is done.. All it will do is cause HW/SB 2.0's to be asked for next.

[Veritas-Ancora]

Don't turn the game into WoW with talent trees please.. Then we'll see toxic BiS builds for jobs come out day 1.

I would ragequit if we got talent trees.

They're nothing but toxic BiS nonsense and I quit WoW over it. When I was forced to switch from DPS to Tank in Death Knight many moons ago, I stopped playing.

But honestly I don't think Yoshi P wants them, otherwise we'd have shared classes for our jobs (beyond Arcanist) and so far Yoshi P has never seemed to be interested in that.

I think we're honestly safe from talent trees.

[KisaiTenshi]

Yoshi P said that something drastic must happen to not endure level bloat.

So will we see all of our levels halved, and the cap reduce from 100 down to L50, giving 5 levels per expansion?

I think this is the most logical and easiest way to reduce the hefty load of 110 levels. Unless they're coming up with a whole new leveling system, which a lot of people seem to be against (Eureka leveling, for example).

Are we crunching our levels into halves at this point?

I don't think they will change anything as is. You have to realize the only reason to do anything (like MP being capped at 10000) is because underlying netcode requires more bytes. That's why the TP meter disappeared, that's why the number of buffs and debuffs are limited, that's why skills and spells disappear in every expansion, that's why we don't see monsters with 9999999999999999hp. Because to update that x many people in the raid/zone is expensive.

If they are only using one byte for level, and it's signed, then the maximum number is 128. Hence they have to do something. The sooner the better

What I feel they might do is leave the main game level at 100, and instead press down on the job levels alone so they can all be acquired at character creation, and leave the class quests as they are to keep the storylines intact. Equipping the job stones just treats it independently like it does now.

Like the problem with getting new players into the game presently, is that players want to play with their friends and not have to play the entire game and job quest just to catch up to their friend, especially if they just want to play raids and don't care about MSQ.

So maybe the right answer there is separating the MSQ and Raid levels entirely. MSQ only levels the character upon completion of the dungeons, and you're otherwise capped no matter what EXP you have.
Raids then use the POTD type of leveling mechanic where the player is explicitly set to a level with the stats you would have at the end of the content for when that content was released with that job. So all raids are at least somewhat of a challenge instead of a faceroll once it's not current content. Playing the raid multiple times eventually makes it easier as the base level is saved until a maximum level is achieved, but it never achieves a level of ease that phases can be skipped.

[Turtledeluxe]

That's not a bad idea in itself, but there will be one meta build for every job, and people will be excluded from endgame raid content, or maybe even other content when they don't play that one meta build

They need to find some other solution than avoiding this forever. It's nonsensical. Why are we designing a game around whatever small % of players who actually do this?

And I know that's a hot take but idk, sorry it's just the facts. It does not make sense to design a whole game based on one game mode, just like the game isn't designed based on PvP.