Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Jadub2k]

(Continued from page 14)


Me personally, I like knowing my character is equally important (if not more) as every other character in the game. But I guess that's just me in this feeling. And while I don't mind at all or am I against a story skip option, your time (and possibly enjoyment) in this game will be much shorter then everyone elses. So why not just try (at the very least) to get what you pay for ya'know, but its whatever at this point I guess. I apologize for the long winded post but really needed to get that out lol

[Anzaman]

I could somewhat understand the idea of boosting alt-jobs to 50 (with 60 as cap) - since leveling up them is quite boring; spam dungeons, leves and/or fates all the way to level-cap *yawn*, but it's still something for player to do. One member in my Free Company kept himself very busy with leveling every single job to cap (60) and after that his activity started to drop lower and lower.

[Jatoi]

snip

I'd imagine people will use the level jump as an excuse for not being acquainted with their abilities, as the way those skills are spread out amongst leveling is to assist in familiarizing yourself with them. I would personally be embarrassed to be a level 60 player who used the level skip and be mentored. Speaking of which: Picture the stigma that will have on the player who basically bought their way to level 60. That should be a turnoff itself.

Of course, we'll have people standing up for this by advocating putting gasoline on an open flame via "we already have a substantial amount of bad players so why the hell not do this?" but that's no excuse.

[Zadocfish]

Yeah, I'm not behind enough already. I need new players getting into content I haven't unlocked yet before I get anywhere close. 9_9

[RiceisNice]

Level boosts is where WoW fucked up.

My buddy got me a Warlords of Draenor pre-order, it came with a free level 90 character boost.

Thanks to that character boost I did not see any of the previous content from before WoD. I got in, leveled up 10 levels, got to play with a bunch of people who like me did not know how the fuck to play our class. By the time I got to level 100 I was bored of the game.

To be fair, you didn't have to use the level boost. The option for you to use it is available to jump into expansion content with your friend or to play the game from scratch. Not to mention the classes in WoW are so incredibly streamlined they literally hand you the basic fundamentals that go well beyond the tool tips (there's an entire section in your ability tab that gives you a psuedo-flowchart), there's no possible way that you wouldn't understand the core fundamentals of your class unless you really werent paying attention (or just didn't care)

[Noshpan]

There are people whom have played this game since 2.0's launch who have no clue what the fuck is going on with the story. But these are the types of people who don't care if a game has a story behind it.

I remember when Heavensward just launched, the forums were filled with threads complaining about it being mandatory that they complete the 2.0 main scenario right up to Steps of Faith. Now that the MSQ for the Dragonsong War has ended, we know that the horizon for the next expansion isn't quite so distant anymore.

Personally I am against being able to purchase character boosts. Even in WoW (I've only had 2 and those are the ones that came with purchasing Warlords of Draenor and pre-purchasing Legion). WoW* can get away with this easier than XIV, since the game isn't as story-heavy. You can play WoW without ever stepping foot into a dungeon or raid, XIV is considerably different.

For the time being, instead of offering an item that boosts character levels, remove the requirement of having completed the 2.0 MSQ up to Steps of Faith. The moment that they reach level 50, let them start progressing through Heavensward content. And if they want to go back and finish the rest of the ARR MSQ, then they can do so at their leisure. And once the new expansion releases, they should remove the requirement of having to complete Final Steps of Faith in order to do the new expansions content once they reach level 60 (at least at some point). I think that's what quite a few folks want in the first place.

*I did use the level 90 boost that came with purchasing Warlords of Draenor on my Orc Mage that was level 64 at the time. Even though I was not familiar with a Mage at end-game level (at the time, I've only leveled Druid, Hunters and Paladins to max level) I did look up a guide on how my Mage's rotation should go in both single-target and AoE combat. But, again, I'm experienced enough with playing MMOs in general (having 16 years of experience doing so) to know where to look to do research on the roles that I play.

[Miste]

You learn what you take from it. I've played with people that have multiple 60s and still can't grasp their basic job mechanics (SMNs not building aethertrail, DRGs not upkeeping BotD). For others who read their skills as soon as they get it, can generally grasp it as soon as they learn it by piecing it together (such as DRGs getting each ability post-50, likewise with BLM). The game in general is so undertuned that poeple who don't know their basic job mechanics are the dime-by-a-dozen, and I hardly feel that getting a free boost to 50 would exasperate the issue.

I said in a previous post (which was the one the person I replied to quoted) that I realize this already happens without the level boost. I just personally hold the opinion it will make it worse. There will be even more people not even knowing the basics because they level boosted and immediately got tons of abilities all at once and won't have any idea what any of them do.

Everyone learns at different speeds but I think its a well known education fact that most humans learn better with more evenly paced system; learning aspects a few at a time instead throwing them into 40 different new math formulas all at once; it causes information overload which usually leads to more prolonged confusion. They also might get help from fellow players along the way of their leveling journey which helps them learn even more, boosting will skip this too since you won't have to run any group content to level up.

Imagine getting into Titan HM with fresh boosted 50 (or 60) healers or tanks. Players that have been playing for years still can't do this fight without dying or falling off (with the experiences I've seen). I can't imagine being able to clear with healers or tanks who basically just started playing that day and already attempting content that was considered one of the hardest fights in the game (until Titan EX came along) when it was released.

A new player bonus in the content is one thing. A boosted player who doesn't know any of the icons for their abilities since they didn't have to level it from scratch is just going to be bad. You wouldn't even have memorized what spells/abilities are linked to what icon graphic. I can just imagine a healer spamming Esuna thinking that's the icon for Cure when it isn't because they didn't have the leveling process to memorize their icons.

So I still think it will make this problem more prominent.

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.

[Snugglebutt]

For the time being, instead of offering an item that boosts character levels, remove the requirement of having completed the 2.0 MSQ up to Steps of Faith. The moment that they reach level 50, let them start progressing through Heavensward content.

No.

That would be giving RMT 100% easy access to ruin and infest HW content just like they do with ARR content. The story gating which incorporates multiple hard level 50 dungeons and trials has stopped RMT getting it's claws into HW content. You will not find a RMT bot army anywhere in HW zones, you will not find an RMT city /say or /shout chat spammer in Ishgard either. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar unless they can here and now provide proof that RMT has managed to get past that gating which to-date no-one has. Proof that is not just a singular/individual legitimate player who decided to bot after manually working through that gating.

[Voltyblast]

For the time being, instead of offering an item that boosts character levels, remove the requirement of having completed the 2.0 MSQ up to Steps of Faith. The moment that they reach level 50, let them start progressing through Heavensward content. And if they want to go back and finish the rest of the ARR MSQ, then they can do so at their leisure. And once the new expansion releases, they should remove the requirement of having to complete Final Steps of Faith in order to do the new expansions content once they reach level 60 (at least at some point). I think that's what quite a few folks want in the first place.

This. Instead of going for the jumping potion of whatever, just make the MSQ less mandatory or completely optional.

People who want to do the story will follow it like usual (because you want to follow it, right....?) and those who don't want to or don't like it will just play the game without being forced to follow years of story.

BUT WAIT, HOLD YOUR KEYBOARD.

I get it however, I get it: this is a Final Fantasy game, it's "supposed" to have a story, it's "supposed" to be epic, yadda yadda yadda, but let's face it: some people play this game for the gameplay, some people play mmorpgs for the gameplay and not for the story. And don't start compare RPGs with MMORPGs please. Some of the players may say that "this game might not be for them", however you won't get anywhere by being niche anymore or if you follow a certain group of people: Wildstar tried to follow the old school WoW raiders and make the content super hard and look what happened: it's on life support, despite being quite an amazing game in my opinion.
I'm not saying that FFXIV is doing bad but by simply making the story optional for those who don't care about the story, you'll get more players inside. More players, more dosh, more content. We all win.

Or else just enjoy your jumping potion and have a good day "shrugs".

No.

That would be giving RMT 100% easy access to ruin and infest HW content just like they do with ARR content.

Then ask SE to improve this situation: locking a zone behind a story just to help with the botting situation is a very poor excuse.

[Noshpan]

No.

That would be giving RMT 100% easy access to ruin and infest HW content just like they do with ARR content. The story gating which incorporates multiple hard level 50 dungeons and trials has stopped RMT getting it's claws into HW content. You will not find a RMT bot army anywhere in HW zones, you will not find an RMT city /say or /shout chat spammer in Ishgard either. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar unless they can here and now provide proof that RMT has managed to get past that gating which to-date no-one has. Proof that is not just a singular/individual legitimate player who decided to bot after manually working through that gating.

Except that RMT already does. You would have to be delusional to think that Steps of Faith has kept RMT from Heavensward content.

Then ask SE to improve this situation: locking a zone behind a story just to help with the botting situation is a very poor excuse.

RMT and botting is akin to fighting computer viruses. It's more reactionary than pre-cautionary when it comes to new ones. And you can never 100% get rid of them. For the moment, I'd settle for an easier, less time consuming means to report RMT & bots.