Quote Originally Posted by Shurrikhan View Post
But then, hypothetically, why would one want to rush along to the endgame of a world that isn't appealing enough to make leveling fun in and of itself? To progress an nonexistent story or one with no basis in the actual world? To put myself through chores with far less freedom so I that I can be more prepared for something also of few choices?

Any solid game will have enjoyable leveling, or generally won't improve by any drastic margin upon ending leveling. I can squeeze out an addiction for otherwise pointless gear-farming from almost any MMO. I want what's FF in it, and that begins for me at the start. I'll enjoy it until it's gone, and then switch to endgame when it's ended.

That's not to say that I don't think leveling, like endgame, could be made more fun or memorable. I just don't consider it a prerequisite to a game that starts "50 levels in". It has enjoyability in itself, generally considered the goal of a game.
I'll preface with not all of this being claimed by you, but at some point in the thread.

Leveling is never fun though, it's either solo grind (WoW), AFK PL to 99 (FFXI now), form a static so your XP doesn't suck and you don't lose your mind (FFXI old) or get PL'd to 30/35, Raptors -> Natalan/hopefully get into a real spiritbond PT so that last 500k doesn't take 10 hours (FFXIV)

If the proposal was kill one crazy, wacky, incredibly fun monster and gain an entire level, sure, I'd be down for that. If the proposal is to force a pseudo-FFXI old type system where you did coordinated actions to kill stuff (which wasn't as much game design as poor game design*) then I'm not really interested. Most people couldn't skillchain, magic burst or gear properly and that's on top of the fact that such a coordinated system demanded specific jobs - meaning the brunt of your playtime was spent shouting or waiting for an invite. This is counter intuitive to any "game" because games are for fun, relaxation, or becoming the very best, like no one ever was.

The kind of memorable fights you want for leveling up, creative mechanics and gorgeous scenery are great and would be awesome if they could be realistically implemented into a game that wasn't gear dependent, player dependent, etc. If this was FFXIV Cloud Strikes Back at Cecil, sure. The more creative, complicated, etc that you get the more frustrating it can be as well. I spent 1.5h going from 45-50 on WAR, I spent 11h going from 43-50 on BRD. That's a huge disparity and complicating fight mechanics only lengthens the gap between a good and a bad party.

I like XIV's system. Grab a healer or two, a tank class, and start running around murdering stuff. Effortless, if I go afk the party isn't over, decent xp even if the party is terrible. It's even fun in a good group of people, and usually not migraine inducing in a bad group.

*XI's system was never "designed" to solely utilize skillchains and magic bursts, it was designed to be incredibly slow as everything in that game was designed to be an incredible time sink. Skillchain/Magic burst was developed by players as the only reasonable way to XP in such a terrible system. People were TP burning as early as late 2003, then again when Dynamis was released and then again when merits were released. ToAU was a godsend as you could begin TP burning as early as Lv50 and maintain it until Lv75.