Quote Originally Posted by Pence View Post
The above post by Issac made me realise how bad this is.

Why do we even have levels? (Re: Travestys post).

From what I gather Yoishi wants friends to play endgame together instantly; but if you don't know anyone that plays you have to work for the right to participate in endgame.

Why bother working on content under 50 if you're treating it as junk? Awesome, you added a Lv.15 dugeon that become obsolete the moment you added it. Hello XIV Cataclysm. (Not getting the reference? WoWs latest expansion seems like they spent the majority of the time re-developing low level'd zones than endgame content where they should have been focused. In the end they delivered 30% in the expansion you purchased, and 70% in updates of old outdated areas)

As far as I'm concerned this is just a dirty 'We're too lazy and underfunded to add level sync'. (Not a complete XI fanboy, I played WoW longer, and other games even longer). Level sync in all its forms, both the anoying 'buy outdated Lv.30 gear to participate in Promies' and 'Gear syncs with you', was one of the defining features of XI to me. It allowed content to remain current and challenging while giving low-leveled players access.

When I first got to 30 in XI I seen all these cool looking players at 75. I wanted to earn the right to be one of them, I wanted to slave away so people could look up at me. I knew who was the shiz in the job, and who was just shiz. I had mentors and I waved at other main-healing non-summoning summoners and eventually became the one who mentored them in soloing bombs (Because sadly it was better EXP).

It may seem like I'm going on a tangent but it's all relevant. The partying, the grind, the communication of it all gives a sense of community. It gave you an identity...you stuck it out for months leveling a healing job...that says something about you...the Samurais named Sephirothxxx will deny it, but it gave identity.

TL;DR, nerf the exp already.
I generally agree with what you've said, but people need to stop thinking it's 2003 and realize that the paradigm for MMO's has shifted dramatically since that time. The core demographic of MMO players has changed from the guys playing games like EQ1, and it's spiritual successor FFXI, to people playing games which more closely represent the Blizzard model. I'm not saying it's better, but that's just the market environment right now. Niche games exist, and for good reason, but I don't think SE was or is trying to capture that market. They essentially proved that they want a piece of the "casual gamer pie" when they stated they were going after World of Warcraft (an arrogant if not hilarious comment.)

If SE still wants to turn this game into more than a niche game, which I think they do, then they need to have design goals and philosophies to satisfy both crowds. The farther along we get, the more I think that's exactly what they're doing. For example, two versions of Ifrit; two versions of Darkhold, and now we come to the new XP system. It should be slowed down, but if you're expecting a game like FFXI or EQ1 where it takes you a year to hit level cap, I think you will be disappointed in the final outcome. Leveling needs to remain relevant, but I think people advocating for XI style leveling need to take off the rose tinted glasses. I don't want people getting to 50 in a week, but I also don't think it should take months to hit level cap. Why must we have an extreme one way or the other?