Making 2nd and subsequent job levelling more engaging

[bazzfreeman]

Background. I'm 62 years old, and have been playing FFXIV only since last March.

Firstly, I am extremely happy with shadowbringers. As I played through ARR,HW, SB and SHB I was continually engaged with the story and characters. Coming off 13 years in WoW FFXIV was like a breath of fresh air.

So, I play a Bard and a Summoner as my mains. Leveled the SUmmoner to 70, then did SHB as the Bard.

The one thing that i have to complain about is, leveling a 2nd and subsequent job is a pain in the butt. It's frankly, boring.

The Trust system goes a little way to improve matters, but having to run each dungeon 7 or 8 times to level up your 'squad' is, again, not engaging, and running the Roulette (levelling, 50/60/70 and MSQ) over and over again likewise. Fates are little better.

Here's a suggestion - it sounds simple and so is probably very hard to implement.

Make the MSQ repeatable. I'd certainly be happy to re-do the SHB story. It was amazing.

if I had known this was how things worked, I would have simply made a 2nd character instead of doing 2 or more jobs on a single one. The fact that we can do all jobs on one character tells me that this is not what was intended.

I'd imagine it would work something like this. Activate your 2nd job, go to your journal, select the quest series first quest, right-click and choose Reset Progress. It would only be in effect for that specific job. The story is certainly engaging enough that I'd be happy to run it a few times. Like re-watching a favourite movie.

It would make doing those jobs that start at level 1 SO much more enjoyable. I'd guess that for those jobs that start at higher levels not to be able to select starting quests earlier, would be kind of pointless anyway.

It's really too late for my Summoner now, at 75 but it does mean I'm not spending quality time on that character. And also that I'm unlikely to really want to explore the other jobs.

Gearing up with tomestones or gathering mats for Relic weapons is a different kettle of fish entirely. The grind there is expected, if not entirely enjoyable.

I'd really like to know what people think about this. So have at it!

[Raldo]

They did say at some point that they're adding a new game+ mode, though the details haven't been fully explained, nor do we know when it's arriving. The website teasing ShadowBringers even mentions it, but it's obviously not implemented yet, so I'm not sure what the deal is there. Can't say for certain whether or not you'll get any exp from it though.

[bazzfreeman]

I really hope they do SOMETHING to ease the pain of levelling the subsequent jobs. I'm working on gearing my Bard (ie, grinding for tomestones) and I really have to push myself to go back to the Summoneer and queue for MSQ Roulette.



And Square, for the love of Hydaelyn, let us skip the custscenes in MSQL Roulette. Just that would make it 100% better.

[Raldo]

Personally, I like simply queuing for the most level-appropriate dungeon and doing FATEs while I wait, but I completely understand that that's not for everyone. I can only speak for the lv71~79 dungeons, but even as a DPS, the queue time (at least in roughly-peak time) is only like 10~15 minutes.

Leveling roulette is the only roulette that gives me enough exp for me to consider it worth my time, and maaaaaaaybe ally roulette. I don't know how much exp MSQ roulette gives, but I won't touch that one with a 10-foot pole. Knowing I'm going to be synced to 50? Cutscenes galore? No, thank you.

I'll also highlight daily hunt bills as an excellent source of easy exp that a lot of people forget about (though sometimes locating the specific targets can be annoying, and from my experience, spamming FATEs is faster exp than roaming all over the world knocking out each and every hunt target).

[zylo1010]

Didn't they say new game plus is 5.1?

[bazzfreeman]

I can't find the blog/update post that references Game+, so I'll just have to wait.


MSQ Roulette - IF you get Praetorium, it's over 1 mil xp, Castrum, not so much but is shorter.
@Raldo Yes, that's pretty much what I'm doing - running Trust dungeon, queue for highest available regular dungeon roulette, then if I have time, an MSQ roulette. Being synced to 50 isn't bad. Most groups zip through ignoring most of the mobs.



However, and I'm sure most will agree, that is in no way as engaging as running through the MSQ quest chains.

[Besame]

I am not leveling my other battle jobs. Just can't stand the thought after the msq. I am leveling my gatherers and some crafters after.

[Blindheart]

Doing all the roulettes everyday will get you plenty of exp do all 7 roulettes everyday for a week and you can go 70-80 with little issue. The only boring part would be MSQ roulette. In the future they will add beast tribe quests. Doing those everyday till max reputation is usually enough to fully level a class. Maybe with a roulette or 2 tossed in. Fates are exp as well. I dunno how high those go to unlock everything for the new zone but just getting to rank 3 is 70 fates... That's gotta be worth some exp as well.

I've been doing this everyday since launch almost and I have 5 classes at 75. And still enjoying story. I'm guessing I'm halfway through at this point. I dunno. But I'm having fun. I level up each and every class to max so that is a grind but spreading out over the 2 years of the expansion is not that bad. If you only want to play one or 2 classes to max that sounds like a breeze, even if you are just grinding one dungeon over and over again.

[Iscah]

And Square, for the love of Hydaelyn, let us skip the custscenes in MSQL Roulette. Just that would make it 100% better.

It used to be an option, but people wouldn't wait for new players to finish watching them - leaving them behind, insisting that they skip them to keep up, or outright kicking them from the party. So the enforced cutscenes were added to stop that from happening and ruining the story climax for people.

[Alyanna_Elingval]

If you have Stormblood hunts and beast men quests unlocked that's easy exp. You get a little over four million exp doing all 15 hunts and the two sets of SB beast men quests. Takes me about a half an hour or so to do. Then the Shb hunts are another 2-4 million depending on your level. It's easy exp without having to wait in quenes or for fates to pop. In the time I have to play after work during the week I usually do the hunts, beast men quests and 2-3 runs with trusts. Obviously I do more on the weekends. After my main, I have two other jobs at 79 and 77. Half my trusts are lvl 75 and half are lvl 73, which hasn't been as monotonous as I thought.