Level Progression/Questing

[Gramul]

Why do people want to set up camp somewhere and grind the same monsters for hours on end? Why is this a thing? And why do people want this to be the best/fastest way to level up, as opposed to varied content that will feed you lore and make you explore new areas? What the f**k?

Community building, not bound by quests telling you where to go, filter out terrible players, all sorts of stuff.
Never a huge fan of it myself, but I can recognize the appeal. It's for people who prefer a more gradual experience. A more mellow take on progression because they feel more satisfied when reaching a new tier for their patience and commitment.

[Wolfie]

Not even SE cared for the dialog when they showed off the video. Quest grinding is the exact same. It's there for grinding and making you level up. If every MMO "fed you lore with quest chaining" why is it that most people don't give a shit for the dialog it displays..?

When you're on a rail you're not going to be exploring, you're going to be led to the exact point of the quest and back.

You are "on the rail" regardless of whether you level via solo questing, group questing, grinding, dungeons, PVP, or whatever the hell. That is what happens in MMOs, you level up really quick, and there are definitely going to be people who don't give a rat's ass about stopping to read through the quests or to explore or whatever while leveling up.

The difference is that in pure monster grinding, you don't have the option to pause for a sec and read the dialogue. You have nothing aside from straight up killing monsters. You can get the same experience by setting up an Excel spreadsheet and banging in a bunch of numbers.

[KiriA500]

Community building, not bound by quests telling you where to go, filter out terrible players, all sorts of stuff.
Never a huge fan of it myself, but I can recognize the appeal. It's for people who prefer a more gradual experience. A more mellow take on progression because they feel more satisfied when reaching a new tier for their patience and commitment.

Eh, not really.

-All the important stuff in World of Warcraft is still heavily party driven, so you still get the community building.
-Instead of a quest market telling you where to go, you had an internet guide. Everybody partied at the same places at the same levels.
-End-game had TONS of terrible players. It's not hard to be bad at an MMO.

I don't really see the "being satisfied" as an excuse. Half the time, when I beat something in FFXI, I thought to myself "about damn time." Yes, there was a challenge, but to say that games like World of Warcraft don't have challenges simply because leveling up isn't one of them is silly. I never understood why simply gaining levels in FFXI is seen as some sort of accomplishment...it was just time consuming.

Not even SE cared for the dialog when they showed off the video. Quest grinding is the exact same. It's there for grinding and making you level up. If every MMO "fed you lore with quest chaining" why is it that most people don't give a shit for the dialog it displays..? I know someone will say: "It was to save time"...yet plenty of other companies had no problem letting dialog in quests flow naturally like you're reading it.

When you're on a rail you're not going to be exploring, you're going to be led to the exact point of the quest and back.

I can't tell you how many people I had to explain what Dalamud was to in 1.0. Some people who play MMO's just don't care about story, they're all about 1337 skillz and uber pwnage!!!1 Just because some people skip all the quest stuff in other games doesn't mean everyone does. Stop generalizing because you hate WoW.

[Wolfie]

Community building, not bound by quests telling you where to go, filter out terrible players, all sorts of stuff.
Never a huge fan of it myself, but I can recognize the appeal. It's for people who prefer a more gradual experience. A more mellow take on progression because they feel more satisfied when reaching a new tier for their patience and commitment.

You can build a community by making fun and easily accessible group content (this is what the content finder is), and not by forcing people to do unashamedly naked grinds by making it the only viable option or by far the best option.

[Gramul]

You are "on the rail" regardless of whether you level via solo questing, group questing, grinding, dungeons, PVP, or whatever the hell. That is what happens in MMOs, you level up really quick, and there are definitely going to be people who don't give a rat's ass about stopping to read through the quests or to explore or whatever while leveling up.

The difference is that in pure monster grinding, you don't have the option to pause for a sec and read the dialogue. You have nothing aside from straight up killing monsters. You can get the same experience by setting up an Excel spreadsheet and banging in a bunch of numbers.

Well, that why there's quests separate from regular grinding in those cases. And because they're not based solely on experience gain, they have room to avoid the Kill X of Y quests so many themepark MMOs have, which is something I did appreciate from them.

You can build a community by making fun and easily accessible group content (this is what the content finder is), and not by forcing people to do unashamedly naked grinds by making it the only viable option or by far the best option.

I think both are completely valid.

[Elexia]

Stop generalizing because you hate WoW.

These are your words. I like Warcraft, not how everyone deems WoW to be the creator of the genre and best MMORPG around when I've played far better Korean MMOs. WoW got boring quick just like GW2 gets boring quick, especially because of systems like this because what do you prefer?

Quality or Quantity? You can say Quality all you want but I guarantee you'll be the first person in line bitching at SE when there aren't enough quests to level you and you have to do...*shudders* something else to level.

[Wynn]

I don't find sitting in one place pulling mobs to be community building, just sleep inducing.

[Wolfie]

Well, that why there's quests separate from regular grinding in those cases. And because they're not based solely on experience gain, they have room to avoid the Kill X of Y quests so many themepark MMOs have, which is something I did appreciate from them.

As opposed to "Kill X monsters until you're high level enough to get this quest, then kill Y mobs for this quest until Z item drops"? Or let's not forget the ever important, "to get access A you must complete quest B several dozen times". The good games are not going to have this disconnect between leveling and questing.

I think both are completely valid.

[Arcell]

I think the main thing people want is options. We shouldn't be locked down into being forced to questing like GW2 and newer MMOs do, nor forced to grind like they days of old.

Also, hi noc. I miss you.

And people will have options. As Yukikaze pointed out above, there are more ways to level than just questing. Side-quests won't, and certainly can't, be the only way to level. What if you finish all the quests and still have classes to level? Need other ways to level, which we will have.

[Elexia]

You can build a community by making fun and easily accessible group content (this is what the content finder is), and not by forcing people to do unashamedly naked grinds by making it the only viable option or by far the best option.

SE themselves stated Quest Chaining is the Primary option for level progression. Do you know what primary means? They also said monster grinding is inefficient for leveling, so yeah, giving options while taking away an option. So you have options..but you're only hurting yourself by doing other options.

Funny how it's acceptable and perfectly ok for SE to take away options because you dislike that style of progression.

And people will have options. As Yukikaze pointed out above, there are more ways to level than just questing. Side-quests won't, and certainly can't, be the only way to level. What if you finish all the quests and still have classes to level? Need other ways to level, which we will have.

SE already touched on this, they said there will be more than enough repetable quests to sustain your classes for most of your leveling career as well as there being a mid-level leveling dungeon.