Possible level/story jumps....really?

[RaizeGraymalkin]

A leveling potion isn't pay 2 win. People really have no clue what that means and toss it it casually. It doesn't help you win or be better. It's just a time convenience item. Nothing more. You aren't going to be Savage ready by using one, depending on what route they go with it.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes you can argue that those are pay for convenience and it isn't pay to win. Why, everything can be really fall in the categories of pay for convenience. I think anything that is exp boost, instant level gain to max level, skip all contents are pay to win. If you go to any Free to Play game with Cash Shop now their hottest selling items are Exp Boost. But here, it even worst since you don't even have to grind. Boom, instant max level and skipping all contents. I believed anything else like cosmetic, server changed, name changed, fall int he categories of not pay to win. I guess different people have different ways of interpreted what is pay to win.

Keep saying it isn't pay to win is just supporting the cash shop and they will see how far they can really push this. What's next? Instant Anima grind because it is too long?

Except what advantages do these players have? Okay, they're now at 50. They'll be utterly useless unless the learn a proper rotation and they aren't geared for even mid-level content. Sure, it will be quicker for them to get caught up now if they put in the dedication, but none of this gives players a distinct advantage over players like you or I. The Anima weapon isn't anyway comparable because that gives a new player the second best weapon the moment they exit the character creator. Take Black Desert, for example. They have a system wherein you lose EXP if you die. Each world boss has a plethora of OHKO tactics, plus you gain higher credit the more damage dealt. So you have people Leeroy Jerkins themselves, die and what's this... they can buy a revival flask that not only removes the EXP loss, but revives them right on the spot they died instead of in a city where they'd have to backtrack to the boss. That's what I call P2W because the system is purposely designed to tempt you into buying something to gain a direct benefit on other players. And the game itself screws you into it with cheap mechanics. FFXIV doesn't do that, even if a jump potion were added.

Despite years of villify the cash shop, SE hasn't exploited it yet. And no, a jump potion isn't that. In vertical progression, you will inevitably reach a point where the task of catching up becomes far too daunting for newer players, especially through who only care about playing with friends. Now I don't necessarily like this, but provided SE includes ways of forcing these players to learn, I don't particularly care either. People want to throw $40-50 on what amounts to a story skip and little else? Meh. Doesn't hurt me.

[Cakekizyy]

For people that say it's not Pay to Win, don't forgot that using the potion you also get 300k, chocobo feather, and complete i70 gears to start. Meaning you can jump right in the game. For people who can't offord or pay for the potion, they are at a disadvantage. Person with paying for the potion will always be ahead of the game.

You get i90 just from doing job quests.

[ADVSS]

You get i90 just from doing job quests.

how much do vendors sell the start up gear in ishgard? isnt that like 125

[Anzaman]

how much do vendors sell the start up gear in ishgard? isnt that like 125

Buying full i115 gear for Paladin would cost 208,294 Gil.

[Zadocfish]

Buying full i115 gear for Paladin would cost 208,294 Gil.

Which is to say, not very much at all if you have a gatherer/crafter leveled well and a good tolerance for boredom. And if you're playing an MMO of any kind, that's a very vital skill.

[Reaperking386]

FF14 is not WOW. The casual content is much harder and confusing for any new player. If you let players hit lvl X for the price they paid, they would complain until the end of days asking for content to be nerfed for them. FF14 is one of the only few remaining games that provide a proper challenge for the casual community.

[Teryaani]

FF14 is not WOW. The casual content is much harder and confusing for any new player. If you let players hit lvl X for the price they paid, they would complain until the end of days asking for content to be nerfed for them. FF14 is one of the only few remaining games that provide a proper challenge for the casual community.

I don't buy this argument. You can reach cap now without knowing how to play your class at all and allowing your gear to do the work for you. I don't like the potion to increase level thing, but this wouldn't create a new problem that we don't already have.

[Velhart]

There are two sides to the argument.

1. When we get to expansions like 5.0, 6.0, or 7.0. Lets say we are at FFXIV 7.0. The first time player who wants to catch up to their friends have, but even if you are skipping CS's, there would be a ton and a ton of content to catch up. It is already quite a trip to catch up from 2.0 to 3.3. Imagine how much you would have to do to catch up, it could be pretty insane.

2. On the other hand, FFXIV is a story driven game, and giving you instant access to areas that you couldn't at your level or progress in the story is a messy thing to program and can be damaging trying to maintain it in the long run.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless SE can come up with something clever, I believe the best route to take is no pay to level feature. Instead, make it so you can get 1-50 from doing only MSQ's alone. Same from 50-60 in 3.0, then 60-70 in 4.0, and so on. Not having to do side quests takes a large chunk of time off. They have already practiced this some for ARR content.

The difference with WoW, despite having a lot of background lore, is not entirely a story driven game. Giving someone access to get to the content their friends are at makes more sense for how that game is structured. In FFXIV's case, I believe it would just be a big mess.

FF14 is not WOW. The casual content is much harder and confusing for any new player. If you let players hit lvl X for the price they paid, they would complain until the end of days asking for content to be nerfed for them. FF14 is one of the only few remaining games that provide a proper challenge for the casual community.

Proper challenge? Like what? If we are going WoW vs. FFXIV, WoW (or at least they use to) has challenging casual content that doesn't completely hold your hand like 95% of FFXIV's content does. SE made Weeping City slightly harder than Void Ark (which was dumb easy) and then people came to complain it was too hard.

[Leowilde]

I'll just say this: enabling players to straight out skip levels is the start of a very bad path. Nothing the devs have said earlier have actually frightened me, but this does. I really do not like this direction they're considering.