Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Zaraaraz]

I'm sorta neutral to this but slightly sided on the Yes.

Reason being is I tried to get someone into this game but lost them to the 2.x slog.
The base 2.0 AAR 0-50 MSQ? fine, that wasnt an issue, but it was all the post 50 stuff from the 2.x updates that made them drop.

This. I've lost several new introducees this way. The story just kept going and going, made them running up and down and left and right and across Eorzea, they still weren't anywhere near the Heavensward content, and on voice chat they kept hearing us having fun with the high end content.

[AreciaRhi]

As long as everyone took the time to learn their class. I'm not sure if it would still be the same though seeing as I meet level 60 players confused on their class. None the less, I look at this game because it's Final Fantasy, not WoW.

[bass9020]

As long as everyone took the time to learn their class. I'm not sure if it would still be the same though seeing as I meet level 60 players confused on their class. None the less, I look at this game because it's Final Fantasy, not WoW.

Thats what would make this even more scary since people out there already can't play correctly. I really don't want to be helping people who bought a leveled character and know absolutely nothing.

[Muin]

Take a cue from Final Fantasy XI and design your expansions like that. A previous poster on page one has already explained the XI requirements for some of the more exclusive and less exclusive expacs. XI's team handled expansions very well. I agree that you shouldn't lock jobs behind play requirements if someone bought an expac to access them. See: FFXI Treasures of Aht Urhgan for excellent strategy in handling a new area but keeping jobs accessible.

It's worth mentioning that FFXI didn't tie several dungeons to story and that speeds things up a lot. (There was only one BCNM fight and one Shadow Lord fight for the original main story.) I understand why the devs want this for XIV but now you find yourself in a pickle when it comes to catching up and time management for players with friends and alts.

As someone with several alts sitting at level 50, I know I am not going to grind that much side-story. There's no EXP reward for the amount of work and the queue for so many 8-man raids from 2.0-3.0 is a time-waste.

You could consider reducing the amount of questing from 2.0-3.0: take out every 'fetch me' and 'horse sniffing' quest and even consider a bypass-dungeon option for those catching up. If they want to do roulettes etc. later, they'll just have to go in and run those dungeons later. That shouldn't be a problem for people who enjoy their dungeon runs. I'd also suggest dropping the guildhest runs from that line of story, and dropping the second mandatory run of Qarn.

Lastly with a former XI expac like Treasures of Aht Urhgan no one had to buy an extra pass from a cash shop for complete access to the expansion pack. It seems counterproductive to make people pay for another item to have full access to something they've already paid for once before.

[Kurogaea]

Sounds like they'd be giving the players choices to skip the story to progress to later content......Don't see the wrong in it. If its the fact that some players E-Peen will be offended I can see why players would be against this, but if there's nothing giving the players a higher chance than others I don't see why this would be a problem. Players can skip parts of the story they were attracted to from all the trailers (looking at the Heavensward one) and play with their friends. SE mentioned a while back players felt discouraged when invited by their veteran friends not being able to run content with them. It may help keep players during their first few days of playing instead of the "traditional" MMO binge. Not sure what I'd call it.

Oh, and story isn't always what players come for.

[Nalien]

I don't see the point in EXP if you're just going to let people skip leveling... Work on more content for the mid-levels and people will be in less of a rush to reach the cap... Palace of the Dead seems to be going in that direction and as usual I'm going to suggest Besieged/Campaign... FATEs are really rubbish... They seem to have gone for quantity over quality with them, XIs Campaign was a vastly superior system that could have worked a lot better with a better Grand Company system too... Having Hamlet Defense back as a new and improved Besieged would be great, too... Stuff that feels like an event that you don't have to be Lv60 to participate in, basically... FATEs just don't feel like an event... They're a boring, lazy grind-fest...

Aside from that, just don't lock new Jobs behind the MSQ again... That was the biggest fault with 3.0 from a new players perspective... Pretty much all of 3.0 was locked behind 2.55, that was a mistake... The geography and lore of the expansion made that slightly difficult, but that can be avoided... Having it so a new area opens up for people in the mid-level, with Jobs and quests being there, would provide a lot... Then you just tie it into the MSQ later... Might seem a waste to work on mid-level quests when the expansion is Lv60-70, but we'll have new Jobs, right? The only quests my Dark Knight had for EXP were Dark Knight quests, if there were mid-range quests in Heavensward to accommodate people not yet at the cap, it would benefit everyone. I'd have more quests to level new Jobs, new players would have new quests to speed up their progress.

Ideally, for 4.0 I'd probably split the story into two paths. A mid-level story focusing on a new area (like Thavnairia) with new Jobs being there, perhaps a few mid-level dungeons and trials. Then a continuation of the main story, following on from 3.5 into somewhere (like Ala Mhigo). Then, as a new player, I'm not left out of the expansion, I have new quests to do and areas to explore. As a Lv60, I have a choice; I can jump right into the story following on from 3.5 as I go for Lv70, or I can pick up the new Jobs and work on leveling that alongside a new story. Eventually tie both stories together, so progress in the high level story requires completion of the mid-level story, and you're done. That's how you make an expansion that doesn't annoy new players... Leveling potions strike me as a lazy, unimaginative solution... Craft a better narrative and work on better content... Slapping better gear on old MSQ quests also isn't what I'd have done, I'd have introduced some new system for mid-level players that makes leveling and gearing up much faster... New players use it to speed up their progression. Existing players use it for new Jobs. Lv70 players end up grinding it for Relic progression... New mid-level content is only a waste if you let it be...

[MomomiMomi]

No. Bad Yoshida. Bad! Go back to your room and think about what you've done.

[Iromi]

I like how he said "I’ve talked to a lot of players familiar with WoW and some of them have said “well why didn’t you have your jumping potion with 3.0?”.

Have you talked to people from ffxi? square enix own previous game heh

[Nalien]

I like how he said "I’ve talked to a lot of players familiar with WoW and some of them have said “well why didn’t you have your jumping potion with 3.0?”.

Have you talked to people from ffxi? square enix own previous game heh

It's a real shame... One of the best things I think XIV could do is just copy Treasures of Aht Urhgan entirely... That was an expansion that knew how to give players a variety of new things to do... So much of XIV just comes off as watered down XI concepts; Guildhests are the sad, bedridden relative of Assaults. FATEs are a monumentally worse form of Campaign... Diadem is... A thing... Hope Palace of the Dead does Nyzul Isle/Salvage proud...

Hmmm have you forgotten that all new jobs was locked behind the expansions in FFXI. Majority of the areas were also locked behind the expansion too.

Rise of the Zilart was locked being Rank 5 IIRC, though the Jobs were not. You could go to Norg earlier to get Samurai and Ninja (though accessing Norg was annoying), and Dragoon was easily unlocked from San d'Oria. Summoner was already in the vanilla game, but Zilart added all the proper summons (Ifrit/etc.) and again, you could go do those without story progression from what I remember.

Chains of Promathia had no new Jobs. The story here technically followed on from Zilart, but you could actually initiate it first and even finish it without doing Zilart... Most people probably triggered it randomly zoning Pugils in Qufim Isle, rather than having it follow on from the events of Zilart... It was also very heavy on level caps in order to let new people progress through it without having reached max level... One nice thing they did here, was create a final quest that tied together Zilart and Chains to conclude the story proper... I'd love XIV to do something like that, give us a quest in Azys Lla with Tiamat if we've completed Binding Coil, for example...

Treasures of Aht Urhgan was, from what I recall, entirely independent. Its main story didn't follow on from Zilart or Chains. You could travel there after a (from what I remember, incredibly annoying) quest and go unlocked Blue Mage, Puppet Master and Corsair.

Wings of the Goddess, was much the same. Independent story. Could go to the areas and unlock Dancer/Scholar pretty much whenever.

No idea about the new expansion, however...

The only thing stopping you from unlocking any of the new Jobs was the same thing that stopped you unlocking any Jobs beyond the starting 6. I believe you need the same Lv30 requirement we have to go about unlocking Advanced Jobs in XI. That was it though, if you had the expansion you could likely go unlock the new Jobs. Not the case here, in order to get Dark Knight/Machinist/Astrologian you needed to clear 2.55. That's the mistake SE made here in entirely ignoring their previous MMO... They should have known better already, heck Chains should have been a huge hint to include lower levels in new expansion content... XI already learned from these mistakes, but XIV is too busy ignoring those lessons and copying WoW...

[mosaicex]

So it begins.

Level skip potion for 19.99$ a pop, soon in Mogstaion™ near you!

Can't say I didn't see it coming.