Low level gameplay: A growing problem

[linay]

Usually seems more like "Can I have at least halfway decent gameplay along the way, too?" to me...

The gameplay's the same from level 1 to cap. Just the buttons you press differ.

[Shurrikhan]

The gameplay's the same from level 1 to cap. Just the buttons you press differ.

Good thing every expansion is pointless from a gameplay perspective, since surely Savage feels just like Halatali and there's nothing that can be added that would ever change or enhance gameplay?...

[linay]

Good thing every expansion is pointless from a gameplay perspective, since surely Savage feels just like Halatali and there's nothing that can be added that would ever change or enhance gameplay?...

Indeed, so people can play whatever content they want knowing it's the same gameplay because it's the same game and not something totally different.

[Rubiss]

Perhaps they should do what they did with the healers and give you most of your rotation before level 10. They can trickle in buffs and skills you hardly use until 60+.

[Felis]

Perhaps they should do what they did with the healers and give you most of your rotation before level 10. They can trickle in buffs and skills you hardly use until 60+.

I would not count Wind->Stone->Stone->Cure as a rotation

[MistakeNot]

The story/MSQ is just fine the way it is. No need to change that.

I do agree however that it is a problem that so many classes and jobs do not get even their base rotation until quite late. They need to get the base rotation skills as well as some of the more iconic other skills earlier. Waiting until near level cap for the good skills is not a good idea if the level cap ever increases - as it does in FFXIV.

The only problem then becomes what to give people at later levels so those levels do not feel empty. Some skills can of course be saved until late levels, and apart from that one can increase the use of improved skills that we already see some of. ("Stone" becomes "Stone II" and then "Stone III", etc.)

[kidalutz]

New game +

aside from that EVERY MMO has the same low level experience

[Makeda]

aside from that EVERY MMO has the same low level experience

ESO doesn’t but also reveals that the solution is radically extreme. At launch ESO had these kinds of problems, so i their One-Tamriel patch they made everything scale to max level. You do still have to unlock abilities but the system there is different so you don’t unlock with levels you unlock by spending skill points which you can earn by exploring and finding skill shards or levels or both.
They essentially made “level” a moot concept for 90% of the content.

That is how you solve this, but many will feel the solution is worse than the problem. ESO losr a lot of players when they did it, but then gained back 10-100 times more new ones.

So you can fix this issue, but it will cost you most of the current player base and there is no guarantee you can find new ones like ESO did.

So how might this look in FFXIV? Scale ALL instances content and all FATES... UP... to max level. Scale people that enter them up as well. Can SE do it?

Yes...

This would be essentially like making the whole game scale the way PotD and HoH do.
But how many people would unsub if they did that?

[Mugear_bahamut]

As I mentioned in another thread, the boringness with synced instances can be solved by limiting potency instead of limiting skills when synced.
Although some harassment might come from leveled players to first-time players(due to lack of skills), so SE obviously doesn't implement this.
I still hope they do this because the main reason for this boringness everyone suffers from is the lack of skills.
In altering this, you get to train with the same complete skill set you do at max/higher levels even though the potency is minimized.

I hope this comes off right lol

Edit:
If anyone is wondering how this can be done, basically, you take a skill potency(ex. 800) and you are leveled max(ex. 80),
you divide the skill potency 800 by level count 80 andit goes --> 800 / 80 = 10
So that skill potency will be "10" at level 1. Let's say from level 80 you sync to a level 55 dungeon...
You take that level 1 skill potency "10" and multiply it by dungeon level (54) --> 10 x 55 = 550
Therefore, that skill's potency will be "550" in a level 55 dungeon.
All this while your skillset is a level 80 skillset with the potency reduced.
It will be just like doing a level 80 dungeon at a low level!

The disparity with noobs and high-level players will certainly be noticeable if you have different skill sets and the same potency.
The solution to this is to leave the low level potency for unsynced players as it is right now and only do this math with synced players.
This way, low-leveled players will have higher potency to make up for the lack of skills.

[Mistyregions]

New game +

aside from that EVERY MMO has the same low level experience

Say that last part louder, for the people in the back!

Has anyone played a MMO where you get a full kit of skills right off the bat? You know why we need to trickle feed skills in? Because you master the class as you go. You get comfortable with one set, then we add another button, then another.

Why am I correct? I have played with to many people who buy skips and don't even know the core rotation let alone slamming them with something like MCH.