Just remove leveling altogether if it's such a hindrance.

[Shurrikhan]

I don't care if we keep leveling on not (Obviously we will) the hyperbole of removing levels is mainly to point out to people. What is the point of levels when there is no content or anything within the process?

As it stands leveling doesn't do anything that it currently should exist for. Leveling should at least.

1. Introduce you to the game world
2. Encourage you to explore
3. Teach you that your character has limitations
4. Show your characters growth over time
5. Encourage experimenting with new skills
6. Give a sense of accomplishment when you can overcome a task that was previously thought impossible.

ext~


Right now leveling is just a bump in the road to get to the end of the game.

Well, I've gotten 1, 3, & 4. At least that's half, right?

Honestly though, what MMO do you know have has all of these components down perfectly?

Even the highest ranking MMOs don't generally encourage exploration so much as force A-B-C-D-E-F hub movement, with as much freedom as A-B-C-D-F-E instead.

Experimentation requires a system that has worthwhile ability to be experimented with. If our stats worth something, and Haymaker still equipable to an Archer such that you were now your team's official ranged-evasion kiting tank, that's quite some experimentation. But, apparently it looked ridiculous, thus removed.

Giving a sense of accomplishment from something that could not be had or done before requires that the action is fun and challenging enough regardless of it's relationship to your past experiences. Anyone can kill a level 22 that they couldn't at level 16. Anyone can kill that awesome, annoying little NM that loves to eat travelers on the way to different city-states eventually, and gain a faint smirk from doing so, but actually enjoying it simply requires that the fight is enjoyable.

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I'd prefer that leveling stayed lengthy, but it really does need improvement. I don't necessarily think that comes from adding "content", in its functional definition of something that is fun until out-leveled, so much as better systems for more free-form enjoyment. Some content is needed. But I think the ability to experiment, to have intuition and intelligence shine through in challenging situations, and a world that you'd be crazy not to want to explore are far more important. These are all baseline systems, the same for 50 as for 30. If anything, I'd like for 50's to feel a bit disappointed by being expected to spin their gears in the endgame when they could just be having fun.

I certainly wouldn't want to see the leveling experience 'improved' based on other MMOs' conventions. You can't take what's already just marginally satisfying and expect it shine. Slap C grade material onto a different game and the best it's going to get is a B grade result, and here closer to D.

While there's nothing intrinsically good about an original idea except that it won't be stale automatically, it at least has the advantage of being tailorable to what a game already has. FFXIV has a niche, and they should be expanding on it, rather than closing the gap with others--find something that it alone has, and absolutely master it.

For me, that could be the world and free-roam gaming, or a vivid world full of minor characters, or a deep world understory. FFXIV could crack open any of these, as long as it's solid through and through.