Levelling in ARR

[Rowyne]

I couldn't be more excited about ARR's leveling model, which promises to be content-based (more on that later in my post).

I have played what is commonly thought of as the main two styles of MMO leveling, both party-grind and quest-based. Here are two of my experiences:

Grinding: FFXI was my first MMO, and I played it for four years. I started in January 2004, when your only means of progression past level 15 was to get in a party and start killing monsters. It was alright, but that wasn't the really fun part of the game for me. I enjoyed the questing (which I actually do read all my quests, thank you). Except for Norg, my fame was maxed the way it was intended, through questing. I never turned in a single piece of millioncorn. I loved the missions (such a simple thing as the rank 2-3 dragon fight was so epic back then). I loved the story. Exploration, crafting, gathering, fishing. These were all fun activities, but removed from the leveling process. And that is the part of the game that became the most frustrating for me. It wasn't because I ever had trouble finding a party on my main. I was a WHM and often had to turn down blind party invites while I was in the middle of something else. But as the game progressed and the population moved ahead in levels, it became harder to fill those last couple spots. Sitting there in town, nervously hoping you don't fill one spot just to lose another to someone who simply can't wait anymore (because it's already been an hour) is not a memory I cherish. And the parties themselves weren't really all that great, either. At first it was fun, but places like the Dunes and Yuhtunga/Yhoator jungle just became places of bane and frustration. I don't remember socialization and meeting new friends, I remember arguments about power-leveling (those who threatened to leave the party if there was a PL'er, and those who wouldn't party without one). Or the parties in stone silence, because you spent an hour putting the group together, now you wanted to concentrate and get as much exp as you can out of it before it broke up. Or the parties after Aht Urghan, which consisted of standing in the same zone for 10 levels and beating on nothing but Colibri, and it was so mind-numbingly boring because if the party knew what they were doing, the WHM had nothing else to do but keep up buffs. At one point, during all this, came Besieged, and it was the best thing since sliced bread! Here's 700 people all looking for a party, so you could easily jump in, or you could even do it solo. And, as long as you survived, you got exp! And no danger of down-leveling, no matter how many times you died! That was a major clue that leveling options were severely missing from the game.

Quest-Based: My husband played WoW, and I swore I'd never play it, due to its cartoony graphics. But after watching him running 40-man raids in Molten Core every Saturday, I finally gave in. He created a new character with me, and we started a new tradition of our questing static duo. We started doing the quests, and it immediately hit me that you could get all the way to level cap without having to depend on 5 other people! I asked him, "But, how do you learn to play in a party so you know how to raid?" He said, "Oh, that's what dungeons are for." So around level 20, we asked some guildmates to get on their alts and we ran through Blackfathom Deeps (yes, we did it level-appropriate). It was more than just the normal stand-in-place-and-kill-monsters, it felt like adventuring! We were completing quests, we were killing bosses, getting gear and loot, gaining exp, and learning how to play our classes as a team. I found as I played, I no longer cared about my levels. I was having so much fun playing the game, I didn't even notice when I leveled up. The game devs knew that people often had more than one character (in fact, many are alt-o-holics), so they wanted to give players different ways to level each character to curb burnout. Not only is there questing, dungeons, and PvP battlegrounds, but the questing gives you options, as well. When you finish an area, you often have the choice of moving on to more than one zone. The only exception is the high-level questing in the Cataclysm zones, which has been criticized by many as being too linear, to which I agree. This taught me that, no matter how good the game is, bad questing can leave you with a lack-luster experience. Classic, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King all had amazing questlines (I can't speak for Mists of Pandaria, I haven't played it). Quest quality is now what I look for in a good MMO.

With ARR, we will have more options than ever before. I think some people are seeing that quest-based leveling will be one of those choices, and are having this knee-jerk reaction that it will be the only option. Yoshi-P said it will be a content-based leveling model, not just quest-based. Think about this: Out of the gate, ARR will have more options than WoW in its 8 years of experience. Main storyline, quests, levequests, dungeons, raids, Grand Company content, F.A.T.E., and grinding. The emphasis is being put on a story-based experience, which storytelling is what has always set Final Fantasy apart from other RPGs. If any franchise can pull off a fulfilling questing experience, it would be FF. We started to see what they were capable of in 1.0. The sidequests weren't very exciting, but don't forget, they were added as an afterthought (just like Tera, who tried to shoehorn quests into the Western version of a game that wasn't originally designed for them, and it turned out badly). Just think of what it will be like in a game that was set up that way from the start and wove them in with real intent. But if questing isn't for you? You have many other options to choose from. And not many games have the luxury of including a FFXI fanbase, who still seems to prefer old-school grinding. I think you'll find enough like-minded individuals to play the way you want.