Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Aled]

I don't often post here (usually I just check in to read/lurk) but I felt compelled to respond to this thread to get my two cents out there. As many people have pointed out before me, I am all for making the experience for new players more streamlined (whether it be cutting out extraneous quests in the main scenario or something similar), because who doesn't want to play with their friends? But I think the idea of a "jump potion" or whatever it would be called would do more harm than good. When you level a class/job, you learn how the class/job works and how it synthesizes (or clashes, even) with other classes/jobs. Unfortunately, I have been in a dungeon run (Lost City Hard Mode) where the tank admitted to purchasing his account - he did not understand tanking basics, and it made for an awful run that ended in a vote abandon before reaching the second boss. We tried to give him advice, but nothing would stick. It was as if he fed himself to the sharks. He did a disservice to himself by not learning to play the game, and quite frankly, he wasted the rest of the party's time. This is what I imagine would happen significantly more often with a "jump potion"-type item.

I understand the desire to be caught up with friends and/or the rest of the player base, but will this level of instant gratification in the form of a "jump potion" keep the new player(s) hooked or will they be looking for the next thing to bring them that instant gratification? I know I am just reiterating what others have said at this point, but I just wanted to chime in. There has to be a better way.

[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.

[LalafellDown]

at least 2.55 requirement kept the bots away

[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.

[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?

[CassandraJean]

I agree that allowing people to skip levels sounds... unnecessary? It isnt that hard to level your first class as you follow the story quests. In fact with all the quests available it's really easy to zoom through leveling.

Like some people mentioned earlier, I think it's that the new jobs were locked in this new area that upset some players. I can see maybe shortening the 2.0 MSQ to help people get through it faster. (or giving people the option of doing lots of small quests for exp or skipping to major story quests) It was very, very long. Not unbearably long as we played through it as the patches came out but going back and leveling an alt I found myself many times cursing how many fetch quests there were.

[Altanas]

Rather than Jumps, SE should look into how Bioware dealt with progression in SWTOR.

Basically, they removed the need to do side quests, 4-man dungeons, and streamlined progression to just the main story line and class quests.
Then with the quests they left in, like dailies, they changed them to auto-complete when you finished the objective. You didn't have to report back to the end NPC anymore. Its also perfectably doable to solo dungeons since other game changes there.

This is really what SE needs to do. The MSQ should be streamlined. All fetch quests turned into just dialogue, and less back and forth finding an NPC in the middle of no where only to go back to town again.
Basically, that would end up with blocks of quests just turned into lumps of dialogue/cutscenes, which is fine, you can just watch it.

In addition however, SE should go one step further and make all 1-50 story quest dungeons soloable (they could use the scions as npc helpers like in the recent warring triad instance). Theres only 9 mandatory dungeons from 1-50 to redo like this. Leave the roulettes alone tho so you can still do them as a party if you want. Were those dungeons made solo, the dungeons could operate like Hall of the Novice and actually teach the player the skill usage and rotations in this solo setting which is actually more useful than the Hall of the Novice as it is in a real instance.

That way new players can breeze through the content without skipping the essentials, there will be no roadblocks gating their progress, and they get to learn skills and how to weave them all together as each dungeon bracket increases.