Stop the Grind-to-the-Endgame madness!

[Elexia]

I think there should be more content for lower levels, or at least content that doesn't require having certain jobs at 50. For instance, casinos (like the possible golden saucer style place in 2.0) and a few more lower level dungeons would be a good start.

If they remove power leveling sure. If not, low-mid level content is pointless since you spend all of 2 hours in those level ranges.

Yes that's an exaggeration but you blow past low level content like it's nobody's business in XIV, remember Shposhae? Yeah exactly. No point going to it when you can power level through those levels.

[Rutelor]

If they remove power leveling sure. If not, low-mid level content is pointless since you spend all of 2 hours in those level ranges.

I concur.

R

[Hyrist]

If they remove power leveling sure. If not, low-mid level content is pointless since you spend all of 2 hours in those level ranges.

Yes that's an exaggeration but you blow past low level content like it's nobody's business in XIV, remember Shposhae? Yeah exactly. No point going to it when you can power level through those levels.

I disagree.

No matter how many exploits you will attempt to plug, the players who are obsessed with progress will always find an exploit. Manaburns, Arrow Burns, TP Burns, Astral Burns, are all evidence to this from FFXI.

Conversely, Power-Levling is not a common practice even with it as easily available as it is here in FFXIV.

The speed of leveling is not the problem - it is the long term reward for content is. Think back to Chains of Promithia, how many people still do ENMs? How many people REMEMBER all the ENMs? Or BCNMs? The only ones that are recalled are the ones with rewards that benefit high level players. The span of how quickly or how long it takes to reach that level doesn't matter.

It does not really matter how you slice it - without flat out removing levels there is going to be content that is overlooked unless you make it relevant to endgame players. Period. If it is relevant to endgame players, the level the content is introduced is irrelevant. Therefore the solution is to make low to mid level content significant to endgame players. Then you make it so that low and high level players can play side by side in this content, and you have a system that kills the absolute rush to endgame.

The leveling speed is completely, and utterly irrelevant to the solution. The accessibility and significance of low and midgame content to higher level players is.

I'm sorry. I understand the concept of going on a journey and working to be better is significant to you. But Leveling is not the only means in which this feeling can be established. Slowing down leveling, however, does significantly slow down accessibility for players to play together, because those at endgame will have endgame concerns, and those who are leveling up will only have leveling up concerns.

Without bringing these two together, we will play together less, unless you force people to play together by choking out solo content. The point of this game is to play together. So the solution to that must make it so that players are enticed, rather than forced, to play along. If you make it forced, by dragging along the leveling span, we will bleed players like water from a broken dam.

If you make content profitable and accessible to everyone, then the leveling span is insignificant, you're growing into a stronger character/player by gaining real experience adventuring. Sad that the solution is so binary, but the problems here are that severe.

[Rutelor]

I disagree.

No matter how many exploits you will attempt to plug, the players who are obsessed with progress will always find an exploit. Manaburns, Arrow Burns, TP Burns, Astral Burns, are all evidence to this from FFXI.

Conversely, Power-Levling is not a common practice even with it as easily available as it is here in FFXIV.

The speed of leveling is not the problem - it is the long term reward for content is. Think back to Chains of Promithia, how many people still do ENMs? How many people REMEMBER all the ENMs? Or BCNMs? The only ones that are recalled are the ones with rewards that benefit high level players. The span of how quickly or how long it takes to reach that level doesn't matter.

It does not really matter how you slice it - without flat out removing levels there is going to be content that is overlooked unless you make it relevant to endgame players. Period. If it is relevant to endgame players, the level the content is introduced is irrelevant. Therefore the solution is to make low to mid level content significant to endgame players. Then you make it so that low and high level players can play side by side in this content, and you have a system that kills the absolute rush to endgame.

The leveling speed is completely, and utterly irrelevant to the solution. The accessibility and significance of low and midgame content to higher level players is.

I'm sorry. I understand the concept of going on a journey and working to be better is significant to you. But Leveling is not the only means in which this feeling can be established. Slowing down leveling, however, does significantly slow down accessibility for players to play together, because those at endgame will have endgame concerns, and those who are leveling up will only have leveling up concerns.

Without bringing these two together, we will play together less, unless you force people to play together by choking out solo content. The point of this game is to play together. So the solution to that must make it so that players are enticed, rather than forced, to play along. If you make it forced, by dragging along the leveling span, we will bleed players like water from a broken dam.

If you make content profitable and accessible to everyone, then the leveling span is insignificant, you're growing into a stronger character/player by gaining real experience adventuring. Sad that the solution is so binary, but the problems here are that severe.

I would like to entreat you to entertain conjecture of this:

A serious array of content at different levels of the game, all of them capped, and with auto level-sync features enabled. All of this content grants relevant gear that doesn't become obsolete (perhaps because it scales its stats as you advance in level). Make it difficult to obtain (I am not saying statistically impossible, mind you), but also make the content grant tangential rewards that, on their own, justify the time and energy expenditure on said content. Do this through organic planning that goes beyond the current level cap for the game, so that you don't find yourself constantly superseding items that were granted in past content. Or if you can't totally do this, at least keep revising the stats of the old gear, so that it never loses its viability in game.

I totally agree with the statement in which you affirm:

Therefore the solution is to make low to mid level content significant to endgame players. Then you make it so that low and high level players can play side by side in this content, and you have a system that kills the absolute rush to endgame.

If this is a puzzle for the developers, then it's one totally worth their time to try to solve.

What I don't agree with is this:

Therefore the solution is to make low to mid level content significant to endgame players. Then you make it so that low and high level players can play side by side in this content, and you have a system that kills the absolute rush to endgame.

It's my opinion that speed has less to do with the fact that end-game-level players refuse to look back on past content, than with the fact that celerity of leveling makes the process feel perfunctory, almost unnecessary, and ultimately boring. It also tends to burn the real end-game content quickly, since the population gets to it too easily, and bores of it as fast. Then, the only solution is to add more content. This is not bad, but it ends up producing a game along the lines of World of Warcraft which, for all its virtues, felt de-centered, disperse, almost to distraction, and with a fundamental lack of connection--even worse, connectivity--between all its disparate parts. People moved away from the previous expansion and never took another look at it, because it fell passeé, superseded.

R

[Shurrikhan]

I would like to entreat you to entertain conjecture of this:

A serious array of content at different levels of the game, all of them capped, and with auto level-sync features enabled. All of this content grants relevant gear that doesn't become obsolete (perhaps because it scales its stats as you advance in level). Make it difficult to obtain (I am not saying statistically impossible, mind you), but also make the content grant tangential rewards that, on their own, justify the time and energy expenditure on said content. Do this through organic planning that goes beyond the current level cap for the game, so that you don't find yourself constantly superseding items that were granted in past content. Or if you can't totally do this, at least keep revising the stats of the old gear, so that it never loses its viability in game.

This. I would love to a system that can auto-sync difficulty. As for gear, how about this simple option: you wear what you want to wear, and level the gear to your liking (within the limits of the gear) as you go. Some sets are more adaptable, other able to further push specifics, like AF gear into class-specific bonuses or primal gear into an encapsulating element. Realistically, a well made light leather jerkin will serve some style of play just as well as a legendary full-plate serves a raid tank.

The only issue after that is insuring that crafting remains a part through more than just repairing, without requiring it to level the gear. Really, you should be able to take a leather jerkin, eventually add rivets to make it studded leather, band it over with metal (banded leather) or attach scales (scale mail). These general armor-type differences should change how it levels, with a varying immediate change in stat composition (generally on a small change unless changes to the armor are drastic, playing off old stats to a new purpose) and then new lines of growth. "Attire" or "gestalt" composition of your gear should do likewise. Playing on components, with the ability to level something tangentially in common between all of the parts, or keeping them separate so they can be more fine-tuned to mixing and matching with other sets instead of to this one set. Materia then, really is essentially your leveling experience with that gear.

(I'm sure I'm missing a lot; this is going really quickly through my head.)

All that's left after that is how well you want stats to be usable for at least some playstyle of any class. Is it really such a bad idea to have a Lancer who wears a cloak, who uses high Mind to increase the blast radius of abilities like Impulse Drive and the effect of his Surges, intellect to increase the critical rating bonuses on Vorpal and Impulse, or in a random different combat system example, something like casting fire magic onto one enemy only to skewer it through the enemies behind him on an en-galed Lance. Any kind of stats should be useful to someone. Armor type, though getting even rarer between the two on an oddball class playstyle, as well.

[Shurrikhan]

It does not really matter how you slice it - without flat out removing levels there is going to be content that is overlooked unless you make it relevant to endgame players. Period. If it is relevant to endgame players, the level the content is introduced is irrelevant.

Someone finally said the extreme yet reasonable. ...I'd love to remove levels as long as there are different ways to progress the character (gear/a reformed materia system/making one's own abilities/world-story/plots/NPC relationships/a vast number of other things that have no definitive place in 'levels' except to milestone that system, which is otherwise unneeded).

I don't see why every game has to try to poorly sum up all manners of progression in power (at least until endgame) into these clunky tiers.

That said, any progression of other sorts, when increasing stats more than complexity (and therefore skill-gap), will run into the same problem, even if less obviously or severely. But at the same time, the solution (a higher "level" being a higher grade of player who's able to take more advantage of his skill, not by stats but by increased skill-gap or tools of that sort) already sends development in the direction of better character development.

**Though it's not a major part of what I was saying earlier, let me address the idea of highest "levels" (combat power, really; though highest tiers can be found in plenty of other categories...) only being for elite players, a bit of a slippery slope off what I said above.

I honestly don't see a problem with this. If they became the elite of the game, they did so by playing elite-ly. That playstyle is not going to be appealing to others, or they'd already be playing that way, just how they enjoy it. Meanwhile those who prefer doing things besides pouring their efforts and skill into combat, can do that. Or both.