Leveling in Final Fantasy 2.0

[Hulan]

I play almost every day, my initial point isn't about the leveling system not being viable. But more to do with the fact that it has no real depth or story elements. It's just a repeatable system which is boring to most players. I agree that levequests provide a generous amount of experience.

I'm sorry, I was a bit unclear. What I meant to say was that, yes, you do start with Leves, but SE has done a serviceable job introducing a variety of ways to level into the game - especially on the first class. I didn't even mention how Toto-rak and the level 15 dungeons, when played at level, are supposedly quite spectacularly exp (unfortunately, I haven't tried this yet myself). The point is, I think it's unfair to claim that Leves are the only way to level. As far as I can tell, it's not even the best way to level.

[Jokerz]

Why do people like quest based leveling so much....it's nothing more then "go kill x mob 5 times and come back"...

I prefer group oriented grinding parties cause I prefer the social interaction>.> I don't mind a few quest for the off chance I want to solo a bit or can't get a group, but for the majority of the game to be quest based leveling is just an awful thing to think of.

[Hulan]

Why do people like quest based leveling so much....it's nothing more then "go kill x mob 5 times and come back"...

I prefer group oriented grinding parties cause I prefer the social interaction>.> I don't mind a few quest for the off chance I want to solo a bit or can't get a group, but for the majority of the game to be quest based leveling is just an awful thing to think of.

As someone who also likes parties more than quest based progression, I believe I can still answer your question. People like quest based progression because sometimes (optimally often) it isn't "go there and kill x boars". On the other hand, party based grinding will always be party based grinding. It's a well established formula that isn't about to change. I happen to like that formula, but it's static. Quest based grinding, on the other hand, still has room for potential growth.

In and ideal world, someone will come up with a way to meld the best of both worlds. Make quests social and interactive; give players the chance to level with interesting story-based content that also allows them to mingle and cooperate with their fellow players.

[Jocko]

Why do people like quest based leveling so much....it's nothing more then "go kill x mob 5 times and come back"...

I prefer group oriented grinding parties cause I prefer the social interaction>.> I don't mind a few quest for the off chance I want to solo a bit or can't get a group, but for the majority of the game to be quest based leveling is just an awful thing to think of.

Soloing is not the issue here. There should be a plentiful amount of low and mid game group (along with solo) content to work your way through while leveling. Dungeons, open world NM's, 'horizontal class progression' (such as fighting the avatars as you leveled up SMN in XI, or hunting BLU spells, etc), and party based story content. PLing to 50 and focusing purely on end game raids is not what I would consider a good sense of 'progression', but I seem to be in the minority here

[Zyph]

I prefer party based grinding, because it encourages people to actually interact, instead of a quest based progression which is pretty much "Go kill 10 boars," with maybe some lore and NPC interaction, that you can do solo. Every pick-up party I've been in (in this game) has had great people and wonderful conversation, something you don't really get from quest progression.

Maybe I'm biased from playing Rift, which was like "Do all the quests in this region, oh look they're done, move to the next region, oh hey you're level 50, guess what, everyone is an entitled douchebag."

or hunting BLU spells

Mmmmm... BLU...

[Zumi]

I did my share of leveling in FFXI and the say in one spot grind mobs for 4 to 8 hours for like 10 levels isn't going to fly in today's market. It may have worked back when FFXI was one of very few mmos but there are many more choices today. I could not stand leveling in FFXIV has, its very tedious and dull compared to most anything else out there.

We do know that SE will be adding leveling dungeons in 2.0 with the content finder because they said as much. Queue up run through a dungeon get exp. There was the option to queue up just for exp. That will solve part of the problem.

There is a reason why people like quest chains for exp. It gets you out in the world you see different zones your always doing a different quest. You can go at your own pace and at your own time. Unlike leves it feels like your doing something different each time even though the goals are the same, kill X mobs, collect X items, take them to whatever npc.

Believe it or not in WoW you can grind mobs in 1 spot to lvl cap but almost nobody does that because its boring. The guy who had the world first level 85 character did just that. He went to some high level mobs with a group grinded non stop till cap. Given the choice people will always choose quests, running through dungeons over mob grinding.

Unlike sitting in town waiting for a group that may not even form.

[Jokerz]

Soloing is not the issue here. There should be a plentiful amount of low and mid game group (along with solo) content to work your way through while leveling. Dungeons, open world NM's, 'horizontal class progression' (such as fighting the avatars as you leveled up SMN in XI, or hunting BLU spells, etc), and party based story content. PLing to 50 and focusing purely on end game raids is not what I would consider a good sense of 'progression', but I seem to be in the minority here

Oh I completely agree with you on having mid level content and milestones one must accomplish on their way to cap. But from I see on the forums all the time is people complaining about capped events and not being able to progress fast enough.

[Hulan]

Oh I completely agree with you on having mid level content and milestones one must accomplish on their way to cap. But from I see on the forums all the time is people complaining about capped events and not being able to progress fast enough.

That's the fascinating thing about online forums, people like to talk about what they don't like a lot more than they like to talk about what they do like. On top of that, as far as I can tell, other than a few big names, no one really pays that much attention to who complains about what. It feels like everyone is complaining about something, then when they change it, another group complains about the change and it feels like no-one is ever happy about anything.

I suspect there is a perfectly healthy population who like a deliberate (not necessarily slow), thoughtful, climb to cap with plenty of interesting content along the way. But it's not a hot button topic, so you end up only hearing one side.

[Airget]

I did my share of leveling in FFXI and the say in one spot grind mobs for 4 to 8 hours for like 10 levels isn't going to fly in today's market. It may have worked back when FFXI was one of very few mmos but there are many more choices today. I could not stand leveling in FFXIV has, its very tedious and dull compared to most anything else out there.

We do know that SE will be adding leveling dungeons in 2.0 with the content finder because they said as much. Queue up run through a dungeon get exp. There was the option to queue up just for exp. That will solve part of the problem.

There is a reason why people like quest chains for exp. It gets you out in the world you see different zones your always doing a different quest. You can go at your own pace and at your own time. Unlike leves it feels like your doing something different each time even though the goals are the same, kill X mobs, collect X items, take them to whatever npc.

Believe it or not in WoW you can grind mobs in 1 spot to lvl cap but almost nobody does that because its boring. The guy who had the world first level 85 character did just that. He went to some high level mobs with a group grinded non stop till cap. Given the choice people will always choose quests, running through dungeons over mob grinding.

Unlike sitting in town waiting for a group that may not even form.

Even though Yoshi said that leves won't be the main focus of the game anymore I do hope the system is expanded to make it more organic. I will agree in it's current setup it's nothing but a system used to help casual players level at their own pace, given 8 charges a day, if you do end up using 24 a day then ya you'll get burned out.

Though at the same time it's also a system used to help DoH/L level at a quicker pace by giving Crafters free materials and Gatherers bonus xp at the end of a leve.

Perhaps that's where one of the concepts for DoL will come in, Leves that help to unlock special nodes that can only be accessed by succesfully clearing a set of leves. In a similar sense perhaps DoH will be given leve chains in which they can unlock new recipes.


But ya there's a lot they can do with it, but when it comes down to quest chains used to gain xp. It's really only the minority that takes the time to actually read them, the majority just look at it as kill x get reward GO! Which is what makes the leve system perfect for them, it cuts out all the fat that a player who wants to lv might not be interested in and just let's them get their xp at a faster pace lol.

[Cendres]

Pardon me but I thought the leves were left in and reworked to offer something for the solo/casual leveler a chance to get somewhere whithout having to get organized too much, like fields of valor... Leves are a filler and should not be treated as the main way to level or play the game. Which leads me to believe 2.0 will offer more things to do at all stages of levels and more quests with xp ect... Eventually leves will be there if you want to them or not. It's just that we are so used to them right now everyone defaults to them.

Well hopefully