Leveling {Poll}

[Jynx]

I personally think that a hardcore player should take about 2 weeks (Playing really hard) time to get a class to cap, that doesn't include job quests or gear aquisition in the mean time.

Casual players should take about 1-2 months obviously depending on the time/energy they are willing to invest.

[Picoman]

The true test will come when people compare a party of Classes vs a party of Jobs.
A party of Classes can beast through most of the exp mobs pretty fast.
Its likely that a party of Jobs will be able to take on higher level mobs that are not used to exp on currently.

Therefore, i suggest, boosting all mobs HP by 50%.

[Felis]

Therefore, i suggest, boosting all mobs HP by 50%.

Or cap link chain bonus by 750 exp

[Wynn]

Try levelling 3 gathering classes and tell me its not hard work :P

I'm at 37 MIN, 39 BTN, and 41 FSH. I don't really feel even the harvesters are hard to level. Though they used to be quite tedious. Not so much anymore though.

[Razor]

Yoshi said in a post a loooong time ago that he envisioned that a player, who only plays a couple hours a day, should be able to reach max level in around three months. 90 Days * 2 Hours a day is 180 hours of constant exping. If you are a hardcore player for whom bodily functions, basic human needs, and "responsibilities" don't apply; thats about 10-12 days at 16+ hrs.

That sounds reasonable to me. There are only 7 DoW/M classes, and since jobs won't have their own independent exp, taking several months to a year to max everything out is not a blasphemous concept. In the future I think SE will be more inclined to add more jobs than classes (the point of the job system is versatility and there's little point in maintaining a 1 class = 1 job) so all the extra jobs won't add any additional "goals" or "length" to the game. In the future, even if it took XI speed to get from 1 to 75 (like 9 months+), once you actually get that 75, it would unfold into like 2-3 jobs anyway so you're still getting 3 for the price of 1.

This high-speed leveling is fine for right now since SE is trying to reward/keep the few people who still play the game, but after 2.0 they should definitely axe the leveling speed a bit. Or at the very least, make 50+ substantially slower. Let the new players get to 50 easily then actually have to take time and dedicate to a class to reach higher caps.

EDIT: Although this is going to sound contradictory (since I just offered some lengthy input on the matter), the balancing of player EXP gain should really be a decision that Yoshi-P and the game developers make almost exclusively of their own opinions. Every player is going to say "yeah! I wanna have all 50s with no work at all!" but that isn't healthy for the game. There are only a marginal percent of the player base (probably the only those of us who have any kind of game development experience lol) who acknowledges that instant-leveling isn't always a good thing, but that there needs be a sufficient balance.

[Dragon]

IF they plan to raise the level cap, they WILL have to address the current reverse leveling curve, no matter what you want to believe.

I personally think that a hardcore player should take about 2 weeks (Playing really hard) time to get a class to cap, that doesn't include job quests or gear aquisition in the mean time.

Casual players should take about 1-2 months obviously depending on the time/energy they are willing to invest.

I agree, and yet I'm pretty sure that it is something Yoshi said he thought so too at one point, how ironic.

[Reaujien]

This is gonna be a long one but it's something that worries me so I put some time into my post..here we go. D:'


I went from level 42-50 within a 6 hour period on my MRD. My opinion is that it's too fast. When you level so quickly it doesn't give you the proper time to get acquainted with your job. I know people who have level 50 classes that have no idea how to play it. Not because they are bad players, but because they got it to 50 within two days. Sure, make lower levels faster so you can get through them, but as you level there needs to be a definite point as to where you start noticing a difference. If there were more levels overall this wouldn't be such a big deal, as you would have more levels to push through. However, since the cap is currently at 50, 40-50 at least should be stretched out even by a little bit.

This is not, however, saying I like grinding. Honestly, I hate it, but that just means that with 2.0 FFXIV needs to be able to come up with more options for leveling in groups (Dungeons built for 35+~50 that are actually worth something as far as gaining experience goes, as well as gear, and perhaps Hamlet Defense or some other things when 2.0 comes out). I remember I looooved leveling via Campaign in FFXI because it felt so much more epic than grinding did even if it was slower. I would love to see us be able to level off a large-scale PvE battle in FFXIV, though I know we won't be able to at least until we see what Hamlet Defense is all about.

As it stands, the only reason we level so fast is because if you're holding a chain of high level mobs, you can typically get anywhere from 800-1200 per mob, more if your party is quick. As these die so quickly and come in groups of 3-4+ typically (at least in the strongholds), you can get anywhere from 3-4k exp per group. As you have to wait for spawn times and time taken to kill them, I would say it takes about 3-5ish minutes in a good party to kill the whole group and wait for respawn. Now if you take 3500 and say you stay at a steady pace for an hour, you could make around 70k exp per hour (49-50 only takes 110k exp) and that's if you're only staying in one spot. People who have the entire place/mobs to themselves can easily make that 130k+ if they round up all the mobs. This wouldn't be possible if mobs weren't so easily taken out.

Solutions:

A possible solution is to consider the strength of monsters in comparison to a player's level. If they were to simply readjust the difficulty of monsters/enemies based on level to something that didn't die within 10-20s, and took skill/strategy, then the EXP wouldn't be coming as quickly but would also be more rewarding.

1-20 should take enough time for players to get a general feel of A) What their class is/does and B) How to play it effectively (if it isn't already obvious). These should also be the beginning steps of learning to solo/play in a party.

From there, 21-40 should be about further learning how to play solo or in a party and how to play with others. It will give them time to learn the most effective tactics to kill different types of mob families (i.e. mob weaknesses), and better learn the party mechanic as well as becoming antiquated with the changes (as the job system is coming).

From 40-50, as they should have already learned how to effectively use the party mechanic, it should be about learning to master your job and get it ready for whatever Endgame there is.



TLDR;/Conclusion: The later levels are rushed through entirely too quickly. Players need time to learn how to play their class/job on the way to 50, not rush the whole way there and then learn afterwards. It will do for now, but after 2.0 and the new maps are brought in, I would like to see a change in the flow of exping to make it a more fluid yet meaningful experience. Again, sorry ramble, but this is an important issue, and I take it seriously.

Good post - refreshing to read; especially compared to the "your post makes me angry and so i bash you and shove my opinion down your throat like i be right" posts. And, yeah, I too am hoping for a more meaningful, rewarding, and, what I feel is very important to me in a fantasy online RPG, memorable experience while xping (a.k.a, progressing/growing my character) once 2.0 comes out.

[Rokien]

Just right still is win!

Naa, you are being closed minded right now. Take a look at Kinda + Very. It shows that more people think the leveling is faster than what it should be(reason why I put kinda there ).

To help this(as other people have said) set an exp cap where you can't get above 500 or something. That would help a lot, kinda how in ffxi you couldn't get more than 300 or something a kill(don't remember).

I've also been thinking of re rolling my char when 2.0 comes out, but then I think... do I really wanna kill ifrit/moogle 100 more times?

[Coldfire]

A limit would be bad. Killing stronger mobs wouldn't be rewarding then anymore. Instead they should reduce the party bonus a bit and split the experience between parties depending on damage dealt for each enemy.

[Coglin]

Try levelling 3 gathering classes and tell me its not hard work :P

Its not hard, work. I actually kind of like the gsthering classes, and at many points in the process, you can do 2 quest in a 10 minute time span, for 20k XP. I think gathering is very much an easier task then crafting, by miles.