Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem View Post
Don't you think this is a bit of an excessive knee-jerk reaction to what is probably not an intended effect of the patch? Did you stop and think that your problem probably isn't going to be permanent?

I find it a stretch to believe that someone could play for two weeks, have fun, then a patch comes along that has a few issues and BAM! I'M QUITTING FOR GOOD!. Give them a chance to straighten it out.
That's pretty much my mentality at this point. I think the OP needs to calm down a bit and just take a break. Along with PLing, the sudden "difficulty" increase from 1-20 doesn't sound like it was thought through by Square (probably because they made 1-20 leveling easier due to feedback from the original beta). This is the issue with patching a live game along the way without providing any sort of beta test server to provide feedback on: you only get to learn about the consequences of your work when it actually starts affecting the players. I am informed by my XI friends that they're actually doing a beta server in XI which allows all players from all other servers to log in and test proposed changes and providing a means for players to give feedback.

IMO when Square has the time and resources to do so they should probably go this route with XIV. I know when asked about a beta test server awhile back Yoshida simply said that they're unable to "at this time", but judging from the way 1.19 was handled, it seriously sounds like any dramatic changes to the game NEED to be tested with the community before becoming live.

Kailok's proposed solution for leveling is also a pretty elegant one too. Obviously it should be polished, but that could be a great way to address the current leveling issues with 1.19.