Possible level/story jumps....really?

[RiceisNice]

Judah_Brandt explained the reasons why saying "there already unskilled players so it doesn't matter" is not the right way to go about this quite well so there isn't much need to explain my point of view beyond this.

You and Judah missed my point. I'm saying that its not going to increase the amount of bad players because of the level jump, but rather its going to occur for the same reason it's occurring now. The jump in mind isn't going to straight up drop you off at level 50 or 60 (with a 70 cap), but rather have a series of introduction quests where it introduces your job abilties. How long do you genuinely think it takes to understand the foundations of positionals, 1-2-3 combos, and job mechanics with an npc and tool tips explaining it to you? What exactly are you expecting in a EX roulette, because there is a huge difference between someone who doesn't understand basic gameplay mechanics (and deals sub 400 dps at i220) and those who do but don't optimize it (which would hover around 800 for example)

entire kit dumped on me over like, 4 quests. with no pseudo flowchart and nothing but tooltips to go off of. I had an ability book list of all my abilities, I had talents I could select, and that was it.

So I wound up just hitting buttons, and hit the buttons that light up. Carried me through dungeons (when bear tanks were not soloing the dungeon for me), carried me through the open world.

You're not looking hard enough, there's literally a tab in your spellbook that shows your core abilties, recommended usage and when/how to use it.
The interface is all there, and you can always click the exclamation mark for more information on skill setup. This is no different from FFXIV where you read your abilities as you gain them.

As denoted by them losing 50% of their subscribers only 3 months into the expansion? Cause you could hit level cap in a few hours to a couple days and see everything and have nothing left to do besides facebook garrisons in a week flat.
... Then they leave because there is nothing to do at level cap besides raid.

You even mentioned it yourself that people leave because there's nothing to do at level cap. That and a level boost are not mutually exclusive to each other.

Again, I'm not advocating for a level boost as of now, it's far too soon into the game's life for it to be necessary. However I feel taht they do need to trim down the fluff on the MSQ, because that;s ultimately the bottleneck to how fast you can progress, not your level. Though alot of the reasons people keep saying it's a bad idea just doesn't make sense provided that the boost is properly done, nor do people acutally understand why WoW blundered as bad as it did (and its not because of the level boost, I can tell you that right now considering I've played my fair share of it).

[The_Last_Dragoon]

snip

Unfortunately Rice, not only are you dumping a lot of programming onto SE by saying that they'd have to pump out ~30 min tutorial for each class along with the level jump, but you are defeating yourself through your own logic. Sure, the bad players that are already trickling through to the lv60 content would be there regardless of a level skip, but I've known quite a few players who learned a lot during their climb to lv50. A 30 min tutorial will not prepare a player to think on their feet and respond with the same experience that someone who has been playing the class for 50 or 60 levels beforehand has. As I stated much earlier in this thread, I do approve of them skipping the Patch storylines and letting new players opt for a recap cinematic instead, but I DO NOT approve of any skipping of the MSQ. This means that I hope that they never implement a level skip, though I would approve of something with "Recruit a Friend" giving a major experience boost (Pretty much as if that player had the Armory bonus for their first class) as long as you are in a party with the friend that recruited you.

[RiceisNice]

Unfortunately Rice, not only are you dumping a lot of programming onto SE by saying that they'd have to pump out ~30 min tutorial for each class along with the level jump,

That's on them if they want to make something to work positively for a change. Everytime they try to cut corners with designs it's always turned out terrible, things like WM and diadem are perfect examples of that.

but you are defeating yourself through your own logic. Sure, the bad players that are already trickling through to the lv60 content would be there regardless of a level skip, but I've known quite a few players who learned a lot during their climb to lv50. A 30 min tutorial will not prepare a player to think on their feet and respond with the same experience that someone who has been playing the class for 50 or 60 levels beforehand has.

Again, how long do you genuinely think it takes to grasp the concept of a 1-2-3 combo without anything more than the ingame hints and tooltips? How about NPCs describing it throughout the way? Sorry if I'm overestimating the average player's competency, but it's not that foreign of a concept for a game, especially with skill highlights. For most classes they don't even get their third hit combo until level 26. Nor is there any resemblance of "thinking of your feet" when it comes to playing your class because its almost entirely rotational, the few exceptions which don't actually happen until post 52 (and in this case, we're not boosting them to cap in the first place, but somewhere around like level 50 on one job). Likewise with dungeons, with their habit of undertuning the mechanics, not to mention as something as telegraphed aoes should be a universal knowledge after the first time you see one in the open world.

As I stated much earlier in this thread, I do approve of them skipping the Patch storylines and letting new players opt for a recap cinematic instead, but I DO NOT approve of any skipping of the MSQ. This means that I hope that they never implement a level skip, though I would approve of something with "Recruit a Friend" giving a major experience boost (Pretty much as if that player had the Armory bonus for their first class) as long as you are in a party with the friend that recruited you.

The MSQ thing is so integral to the plot that you possibly can't skip it without breaking the lore, even job quests are tied to it. This is the primary difference between a boost here vs WoW. However, if the game does last long enough to have a rather high level cap (and consequently, loads and loads of MSQ), the option should be available for people to get straight into the new expansion with friends/personal experience if they so desire, and catch up on the lore via supplemental materials.

[Syhrwyb]

When you level a class/job, you learn how the class/job works and how it synthesizes (or clashes, even) with other classes/jobs.

That was a good joke. I've seen an embarrassing number of people with all level 60 classes and jobs that play as if they just roll their face on the keyboard. Bad players are going to be bad and will continue to be that way no matter what. Won't matter if they start from level 1 or from level 50 or 60. I see no problem with this potion when vote kick is a thing if people are so worried about skill. I know there has to be a compromising way to implement this potion.

[Theodric]

Many of the earlier dungeons and trials have mechanics that show up in later dungeons, trials and raids. Players who have fought Titan, for example, will be familiar with the idea of a circular platform and the risk of being knocked off when fighting Ravana and Sephirot. Exceptions exist, of course.

Though a change such as this risks alienating a lot of players and worse yet making a lot of content suddenly irrelevant - including crafting/gathering. If people can buy and/or skip levels then a lot of equipment suddenly becomes less relevant and less profitable. Which means that the focus will inevitably shift to end game gear for the most part - which, in turn, on populated worlds will flood the market and people will undercut each other until the price for that goes downhill too. Much like what happened in WoW, actually.

[mirta000]

Make old content still relevant, and by relevant I mean "add rewards". For the exception of the EX primals, everything else basically grants no lasting rewards - if you don't count glamours.
What about giving us the possibility of doing dungeons under a time limit, or giving titles or glamour stuff for doing a dungeon in a certain way? These are just 2 of the things that would help IMMENSIVELY to keep content up.

1. They kind of been doing that by adding orchestrion rolls to old content :P doesn't make it more appealing for enough people though.
2. You have to be really careful with adding certain conditions, or else you'll end up with Gold or Bust mentality from Wildstar. See, depending on deaths, the timer and how many objectives you completed the game would rate you bronze to gold and give more rewards to gold. The moment people would see that it's not a gold run, they would leave the instance.

[Vejjiegirl]

Yoshi-P mentioned the China Cash Shop in his interview, I took a look at the shop and gathered some information regarding the progression and leveling packages they sell.
Information was put in its own thread if you want to take a look.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...umping-Potions

There is no tutorial built in, you instantly get level 50 along a Job book with your class skills included and your sent on your way.

[Alleo]

A big fat NO from me...that would be so horrible.

First, I am not really sure how they would do it? I mean to run the roulettes which are necessary to get our "dear" stones and gear, players need to complete all those dungeons in the roulette? So they will jump ahead, be at 50 or even worse 60 and are standing there with nothing to do because they first need to run all of those old dungeons?? If so why would we even need such a potion? Just press the skip button if you have no interest in the story..


Even more bad players...I already die a little on the inside if I think about the lvl60 monk that only does one attack...(yes true story sadly) I don't want to know how many more such players will be in the endgame that have no idea about the class..or the game in general. I mean they had to nerf Steps of Faith because so many people could not clear it..I think that says more than enough about some of the players..

People saying that they only want to raid..why exactly are you playing FF14?? The raids in this games are four bosses every 6(?) months? But not only do you have to still farm your gear to be able to challenge them but you need a certain understanding of your class to beat it and I am sorry I cant believe that someone is that good that they will play their class on a savage level by only reading it up..and after you done those raids you will just unsub again because there is nothing worthwhile for you to do which is not in the interest of SE...the same can be said to all of those people that only want to reach endgame..really its not that fantastic..I had the best time in the game when I was leveling up..getting help from my FC mates and now helping our newbies through it..Other than that its nothing more than capping all days long and maybe some crafting and gathering (but if this is not for you, you have even less to do)

We have people in our FC that started the game this year and were already 60 not even one month later..some skipped cutscenes, some did not so it does not take that long..especially with all those exp boni..And sometimes its really shocking what some players ask..not only would they be able to answer it themselves if they just read the ingame tools..but some of it was explained in quests but if you jump over it you will miss that...not sure if I want even more of such players...


If they will implement such a thing in the future than please don't make this something that you can buy ingame...Sell it at the mog station (even though this would finally make it a true pay to win store ) but it should cost a lot, maybe 50$ or even more so that people will really think about using it..but the best would be:

NO potion ever!

If someone cant take their time to go through the game than there are enough other games out there, that might be better for their taste...and if your friends don't want to play with you than you might just have to accept it..better than getting such a potion, using it and after three months canceling your sub because you are bored..

[Adventica6]

Usually companies come out with these bad ideas when they are losing subs and when implemented lose even more.

Someone above yoshi really needs to come in here and set stuff right, this isn't how final fantasy works.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Usually companies come out with these bad ideas when they are losing subs and when implemented lose even more.

Someone above yoshi really needs to come in here and set stuff right, this isn't how final fantasy works.

You mean the same people that thought FF13 was the best thing ever?