Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Anzaman]

Another thing we’re debating internally is whether or not to have something like World of Warcraft’s jumping potion that would work with both levels an story.

No thanks.

[Theodric]

...and it may go without saying but it's a slippery slope. If they do decide to go ahead with something like this then what other aspects of the game will be gutted in the name of 'optional convenience'?

[XiXiQ]

paying for levels is an RMT joke, forget that.

I do see how they can make the story more concise instead (there's an awaful lot of pointless TPing back and forth that can be dumped). You reduce 20 quests to 3 or 4, but can essentially keep the same story, and still need to do the specific quests that open the content as it progresses.

[Huskell]

Is this serious? Man....
People complain that they can't play the classes, can't do some quests and some NPCs (ex: splendors) are on Ishgard, that's it.
One simple solution is to move all the NPCs to other cities. You can even keep the level requirement, but remove the story requirement.
An example would be me, that like to play gathering/crafting, but I'm holding back because I know that I'll need HW to get the new sets and even to do the class jobs above level 50.

I think that locking content by story is bad, but jumping it will destroy the game. No way of jumping quests or levels should be ever implemented or the game will die.

They shouldn't change anything, it's fine the way it's.

[cougarel]

Imagine being a new player at 4.0 and you want to play with your friends. You've gotta run by A LOT of content, taking you over a month if you play 40+ hours a week.

Thank you, but still a bad solution . I've made an alt char to have sch as main and it took me like maximum 2 weeks after 3.1 (playing less than 4 hours in that interval daily), don't know where you took that 1 month from .
Yes, we would have more players , but not quality or long engaged ones, only the kind that rush and doesn't enjoy the content and in the process ruining the experience for the others in the party or group.Also because you are such a friend, you can actually help him clear the content and give insight on the way.
But no, let's have a generic mmorpg like the rest of the market..
I rest my case anyways, the option is for SE to make and ours only to comment in vain.

[DevilsDontFly]

Long post incoming, but here's my suggestion.

I think they should:

1 - Reduce the amount of "be a delivery boy/girl" thing on mainstory. There's a lot of moments on MSQ that you have to keep going in and out of a zone countless times just to chat (Hello Quicksand) or even worse when you have NPCs standing next to each other but for some reason they can't both talk to you during the same action. Just cut it out an put it on a skip-able cutscene or make it like that recent sidequest where you unlock the Haurchefant emote (the summary part of it, not the delivery boy one). Also, give more experience on MSQ up to 50.

2 - Add a "Narrator" system where you can set MSQ to be converted into a "long" cutscene in case you have more levels on your character than what's needed for the quest, or in case you're too ahead of gaming experience compared to where your MSQ is. How this would work? Let's say you're leveling with all your neat friendship items and boots and etc, and you're at level 26 but your MSQ is still asking you to go report your progress at the Copperbell Mines. This system would ask you if you want to watch the cutscene that summs up what happens in between that duty and the next one, to the point you unlock The Bowl of Embers and can progress on it, instantly rewarding you the exp you would have gained if you did the mainstory only instead of whatever you did before (like gettin 2-3 levels on a single dungeon, or doing sidequests). It would still gate players behind a "you have to play the game" but it would make it much less "mainquest grindy" in a way that you wouldn't feel like going back all the way to the whole "deliver this" if you could be already doing something else MSQ-related.

3 - After 50, add that system to the way you get ilvl up to Before the Fall. You would then get a text like It seems like you have enough item level for the next step of Main Scenario duty, would you like to jump to your next duty and watch a summary of the events in between? This way if you're already familiar to the game or have friends that can help you get your ilvl 120-ish gear, or if you have enough gil for it, you would go straight from, let's say The Praetorium to Moogle Hard Mode while watching a cutscene that tells you what happened for you to get there.

Of course this would be a feature that only affects A Realm Reborn, because it's meant to be a catch up system to Heavensward and upcoming expansions, meaning that upon reaching Before the Fall patch you would stop being able to jump mainstory quests, being required to play it the "normal" way from 50 to 60.

This system would still lock players on those small storyquest duties, sort of "forcing" a basic knowledge of how your class works and also allows players that want to skip the mainstory to be able to by just accepting the cutscene summary and then skipping it like any other cutscene in the game. If you want to enjoy the story, you can. If you want to just play the game (while still being gated behind the small list of MSQ duties), you also can.

This is just an idea that I think might help, and that would also benefit people that aren't comfortable with HEALER/TANK roles on a first run a lot.
- On the healer/tank perspective: You already have a really fast que, so experience and time avaliable for it isn't a problem. You can simply run a dungeon twice while trying to get through content and easily get 4 to 5 levels, making the skipping eficient.
- On the DPS perspective: You have long ques, so you'll probably like to do your sidequests for more exp and levels while you wait on your duty, but since it takes so long you might get a lot of extra levels in the process, and even though it's nice, it can be very grindy to do a MSQ with a lot of small steps when you're 5 levels ahead of it.

I think it's a win/win situation, and could appeal to both new and old players, since there's a lot of different ways to level on your first run to 50 and most of the time the Mainstory quest gets far behind of your character's level.

[Ampheni]

I find myself spent most of my time leveling, and I usually hit the point where i can't progress thru the story w/o grinding for levels back when i started at 2.0. So I think reducing the exp required to get from lv1 to lv50 by half would make getting thru all the quests and reach heavensward a lot more bearable, and cut exp required to level from 50 to 60(oh boy that aery grind) by another half when 4.0 release. (IF we're getting higher level cap again)

Also consider making undersize parties gives experience to players that is within the recommended level range for that dungeon(For pre-heavensward dungeons), so they can reach out to their friends should their queue be so unbearably long (I am talking about you dps queues *wink*)

[Anzaman]

I find myself spent most of my time leveling, and I usually hit the point where i can't progress thru the story w/o grinding for levels back when i started at 2.0. So I think reducing the exp required to get from lv1 to lv50 by half would make getting thru all the quests and reach heavensward a lot more bearable,..

They already greatly increased the exp rewards from ARR MSQ with patch 3.0, so it's a lot smoother than before expansion.

[Cakekizyy]

They already greatly increased the exp rewards from ARR MSQ with patch 3.0, so it's a lot smoother than before expansion.

Even with doing all side quests on main, still hit a few spots in MSQ where I had to xp grind to accept next quest.

[Anzaman]

Even with doing all side quests on main, still hit a few spots in MSQ where I had to xp grind to accept next quest.

Hmm, I see - leveled myself about month before expansion came, so I haven't tested how smooth 1-50 leveling is nowadays.