Is 1-20 Too fast?

[bsphil]

I've seen some speedrun videos online of players playing a new character and showing how fast it takes to get a Bare naked rank 1/phys 1 noob character up to 20. with the right set up and in a group it literally takes about 15 minutes from the time you get out of the starting cutscenes to the time you hit rank 10. Then another hour at the most to hit rank 20. This feat in Final Fantasy XI took approximately 10 hours of dedicated play. And most players didn't head to Valkurm til they had atleast 2 jobs to 10 or 15 and had time to farm the gear they needed to perform a job.

FFXII it took atleast 8 hours of dedicated play to hit the 20's if you were grinding ahead of the story (I know, I faught Alarunes in the desert till 30 with just Vaan and Penelo.)

FFIX took about 6 hours IIRC.

FFVII you hit 20 about the time you left Midgar which was about 5-8 hours.

ffVI I can't even remember how long it took to get to 20.


I feel the first few ranks are too quick. They fly by like a cannonball leaving you feeling like there wasn't as big an accomplishment getting to what would normally be a huge milemarker. Rank 20 is about 1/3rd of the way to cap

But then theres a sudden change in leveling speed. The amount of time it takes to get from 20-50 is three times per level in some cases to what it was for 1-20.

I'm just concerned that the speed it takes to go from 20 then all of a sudden it all tapering off all at once will result in burnout for a lot of players.

MMO =/= offline RPG. Leveling speed tends to be much more uniform in offline games until you get to the very end of the story.

Not at all worth comparing.

By the way, no, 1-20 is fine. For new players it will be slow, and that's fine. For experienced players who already have a high physical level and extra gear and know exactly where to go and what to do, it's fine being quick.

[Cairdeas]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree that R1-20 is too fast. I'd like to spend more time at the R1/R10/R20 camps -- it seems a shame to me that we zoom through the first 20 ranks and spend so little time at the camps for those ranks doing those leves and grinding on the mobs. Not to mention having your progress slow down do dramatically after can be discouraging, IMHO. And this is probably a strange thought, but I kind of feel that making R1-20 so easy and quick doesn't really help with the issue of class uniqueness.

I don't think it should take more time overall to hit R50, but I think the curve should be evened out a bit. Just my two cents! ^^

The same effect happened in XI a lot before they fixed the XP Curve there.

1-50 was easy. But as soon as you hit 50 and started going past it XPing was tediously slowed down to drastic levels and as a result a lot of players simply stopped playing that job once they hit 50 and went and leveled the next Flavor of the month job to 50. Once they got all the jobs they thought they liked to 50 and had no other choice they forged past to 75 on their favorite.

[DeadRiser]

MMO =/= offline RPG. Leveling speed tends to be much more uniform in offline games until you get to the very end of the story.

Not at all worth comparing.

By the way, no, 1-20 is fine. For new players it will be slow, and that's fine. For experienced players who already have a high physical level and extra gear and know exactly where to go and what to do, it's fine being quick.

Have you played since the game first launched? The way we leveled was tedious but atleast people knew how each class or job worked. It is way too fast now. Seriously, you shouldn't be able to rank up to 5 in one leve. It should be gradual

[Dreamer]

R1-20 is only quick if you know how to do it that way.

In it's current state, R1-20 is just right; if you're a new player, you're not going to know how to optimize your SP.. If you make it harder to rank up from 1-20, the people you are going to hurt most are those new to the game; veterans will simply re-optimize their leveling process and still finish it relatively quickly.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

3 days of playtime is a month playing 3 hours a day. This is not really casual. I think you'll have to stretch it to 2 month if you want to use this qualifier.

In fact, 3 days to max level is the current standard for solo progression (in Rift or WoW, for instance). You can level faster in those games by doing group content.

Here, I was advocating 3 days of playtime doing a group based content to max a single job.

Since we are not really supposed to play a single job, it looks like a good compromise to me: allowing everyone to get a rank max in 2 or 3 months (the worst case being a casual playing in solo), yet requiring more than a whole month of playtime to max every single class.

I think the whole balancing should work around this idea: a casual player (1.5 days of playtime a month, maybe) playing in solo should be able to level a single job to rank max in less than 2 months. This, of course, including rest xp/fatigue, whatever they decide to call it here.

If you don't at least balance around that, you will never have more than hardcore dedicated players on this game, which is not something we want, I guess.

no i mean literaly 3 days. DCUO at launch was 1-30. which is 100% soloable. By a week EVERYONE had 1 30 working on a new character as of launch. by the first mnth people had 4 level 30s. MMO are NOT fast games. your numbers is for single player games not mmo. They want ppl loged in everyday to justify a fee. even if its for 2 hrs. the faster you hit max level the less you have to do. Yet the mindset is ppl want to level up fast. Gamers now a days beat games fast. And basicaly want a no grind mmo (which doesn't exist.) MMO are ment for PROLONGED game play not fast game play.

If you want to se a no grind mmo play DCUO. only "grind" is for gear, and that is if people allow you to do the content.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

That isn't the complaint here. The complaint is.

1-20 Takes less then 2 hours. 30 minutes under optimal Circumstances. The XP curve is borked the whole thing needs rebalanced.

tbh no mmo has a balanced leveling curve the higher the level the longer it takes. What PLAYERS did is ease the exp/sp per hour. And found leveling "sweet spots" for certain ranges. But all mmo have that issue of slow and fast sprints. Also no it doesn't take 2 hours to go from 1-20. trust me. I never hit 20- yet. And I tried all cities. You guys seriously "whine" over the dumbest stuff. Can't yall just play then game and only whine over game flaws? Leveling 1-20 in 30-2 hours or 3 days is not a game flaw.

[AlexiaKidd]

no i mean literaly 3 days. DCUO at launch was 1-30. which is 100% soloable. By a week EVERYONE had 1 30 working on a new character as of launch. by the first mnth people had 4 level 30s. MMO are NOT fast games. your numbers is for single player games not mmo. They want ppl loged in everyday to justify a fee. even if its for 2 hrs. the faster you hit max level the less you have to do. Yet the mindset is ppl want to level up fast. Gamers now a days beat games fast. And basicaly want a no grind mmo (which doesn't exist.) MMO are ment for PROLONGED game play not fast game play.

If you want to se a no grind mmo play DCUO. only "grind" is for gear, and that is if people allow you to do the content.

OMG the 7th Umbral Era is upon us, the end is nigh, I actually agree with Kilta O.O

Even from a pure business stand point surely the idea is to keep people playing. If you make the levelling part super quick then all the players have left is endgame to keep them entertained and how long will that last. I know some people like the idea of hitting cap asap but I sit on the other side of the fence. For me I actually like levelling up, unlocking new things and working towards that next goal. However that is a department FFXIV is lacking in severely for me as when I am ranking up I have nothing to look forward to at that next rank at the minute.

For me FFXI had the perfect curve, if you don't include all the time spent LFG the actual distance between ranks and time needed between ranks was fine for me. The main thing though was that I was driven to get to that next step all the way and that made it not seem like a huge grind as there was something just around the corner if I got these next few ranks. Then once I hit cap and actually started looking at endgame it was like all that ranking up was like a huge tutorial and I had only just scratched the surface of what content was on hand. So for me that is where FFXIV is currently dropping a lot of points.

[Nabiri]

For me levelling up and gaining ranks is part of the journey and progression. If it is handed to you on a plate then they might as well start you off at level cap. In single player FF games you grind your levels where needed and there is challenging content and milestones on the way and that is how it should be in FFXIV. The problem is that the game is just a grind and there is very little in between.

They need to put in those milestones along that journey to make it worthwhile, it shouldn't just be a rush to endgame before you hit content there needs to be sustenance along the way. I do think that 1-20 is too fast but they can't slow it down until the game content in place to break up the grind.

Playing FFXI I never understood why some people would rush to max level. To me leveling WAS content.. Gaining levels so I can wear that next new piece of gear, get that next important quest like chocobo/airship access.. Go to that next new leveling area. There were many things along the way that made it fun. But the best part for me was the leveling parties. The people. People made it fun. I loved having to party with people to level. That to me was the real content.. The journey to the endgame. Once I got to the end I honestly got a little bored of the repetition.

What would fix it to me is if they slowed down 1-20 and added things to accomplish.. Like a chocobo access quest at rank 20, or 30. If Armor was limited by rank, and you could look forward to that new rank because of the gear that would come with it. And we need more of a push to party up with people.. For real parties.. none of this 5 minute leve party junk. I miss those good old 3 hour groups where you could get to know people.. make friends, and have fun.
If they fixed all that, I'd be willing to start my character over so I could enjoy a real game.

[AlexiaKidd]

Playing FFXI I never understood why some people would rush to max level. To me leveling WAS content.. Gaining levels so I can wear that next new piece of gear, get that next important quest like chocobo/airship access.. Go to that next new leveling area. There were many things along the way that made it fun. But the best part for me was the leveling parties. The people. People made it fun. I loved having to party with people to level. That to me was the real content.. The journey to the endgame. Once I got to the end I honestly got a little bored of the repetition.

What would fix it to me is if they slowed down 1-20 and added things to accomplish.. Like a chocobo access quest at rank 20, or 30. If Armor was limited by rank, and you could look forward to that new rank because of the gear that would come with it. And we need more of a push to party up with people.. For real parties.. none of this 5 minute leve party junk. I miss those good old 3 hour groups where you could get to know people.. make friends, and have fun.
If they fixed all that, I'd be willing to start my character over so I could enjoy a real game.

Exactly and that is what I miss, glad I am not the only one that feels that way ^^

[Gracious]

Personally, it took me one hour to get a job from 1 to 10 with no guild leve's. But it took me at least a couple of days to get it to 20. It was fast, but it is nice to be a little stronger when one goes exploring for new Aetheryte's or new areas.