Low level gameplay: A growing problem

[Allegor]

The complaint I hear the most is that combat is unbearably slow because of the gcd - just lowering the level requirement for at least one ability that people can weave in could solve a lot of downtime (considering class balance, of course) For me, personally, melee dps jobs were a snore-fest before 40 ish, and groan loudly whenever the roulette throws me in an ARR dungeon.

[Mahoukenshi]

The complaint I hear the most is that combat is unbearably slow because of the gcd - just lowering the level requirement for at least one ability that people can weave in could solve a lot of downtime (considering class balance, of course) For me, personally, melee dps jobs were a snore-fest before 40 ish, and groan loudly whenever the roulette throws me in an ARR dungeon.

As an actual new player, I can partially agree. I story-played originally Guild Wars 2 which is more action orientated if it matters, but when I started out on my Lancer, it did feel rather slow-ish on a "feeling"/guts basis. As in the attack animation felt slow and the time between skill use and auto attack made this feeling more prominent. I dunno what exactly changed at my current level (outside of new skills), but maybe it's the minimum skill speed on my gear that makes the CD feel more fluid, paired up with the basic "1-2-3" ST skill combo and Jump. Maybe it's because my mind switched back to tab-targeted gameplay as when I leveled Paladin and Maurador, I didn't have too much of that sluggish impression. Spamming Rock on Conjurer is monotonous, but not too bad so far. The Paladin's board and sword feels quicker and a bit fancier, while Maurador has more "Oomph" behind it. Again that's from a guts-based point of view based on FATEs, job quests and MSQ, which is my main focus, as I'm not really good at technical gameplay observations and these in-depth stuff.

[RowanLauron]

Ironically that's one reason why wow bored me. A lot of classes you get your full rotation below lvl 30,the only things missing were higher level traits that streamline it, but I found that boring.

In ffxiv, you have something new every few levels that augment your rotation, makes leveling meaningful, but that's my opinion.

[Ronduwil]

Everyone who has played through to endgame has experienced the frustration of queueing for leveling roulette and getting something like Sastasha or Tam-tara and losing 80% of what makes your job fun to play.

Maybe at level 51 I'm too new to understand, but why do you need to queue for leveling roulette to level? From what I can tell so far, there are more than enough levequests and side quests to make leveling roulette completely optional.

[MariaArvana]

Maybe at level 51 I'm too new to understand, but why do you need to queue for leveling roulette to level? From what I can tell so far, there are more than enough levequests and side quests to make leveling roulette completely optional.

Levequests are pretty much only useful up to level 50, and even then that's debatable when dungeons give tremendously more exp for the same effort. Side quests are also one-time only; if you want to level more than one job to 80 side quests aren't an option.

Leveling roulette, along with most of the roulettes, are designed to give the player giant EXP bonuses in exchange for the player signing up to do whatever content the roulette chooses to give them. Its meant to populate queues so that way no one gets stuck trying to queue for something, because there'll always be high level players queueing for leveling roulette due to the huge exp it grants. The unfortunate downside to this is that a level 79 player can get thrown into say, the level 15 dungeon, where 80% of their abilitys/attacks are removed due to the level sync to make sure things are balanced, resulting in a very slow, snore-fest experience.

[Mugear_bahamut]

Maybe at level 51 I'm too new to understand, but why do you need to queue for leveling roulette to level? From what I can tell so far, there are more than enough levequests and side quests to make leveling roulette completely optional.

In higher levels there are no battle leves anymore because only a small amount of players did them in HW, side quests don't give that much EXP, roulettes give you EXP by percentage based on your level.
Maxed players can still obtain a good amount of gil/tomestones/seals. The worth of doing them are intentional, otherwise there would be no point.

[ArcanoJones]

I disagree. You don't have to have lots of buttons to push to have a good time. I actually find the feeling that you are just starting to learn things and your just a rookie very fun.

[Barraind]

The low level experience is pretty awful if you've played MMO's or RPG's before.

Its an exceptionally badly paced tutorial that at this point goes 50+ levels.

The only thing thats saving it is the ability to hit 800-900% xp bonuses on preferred servers, so you actually get to the levels you have meaningful combat well before you actually "should" as determined by the MSQ (which is one reason I hate the gating the MSQ does).

aside from that EVERY MMO has the same low level experience

Every? no. Theres a good number that will give you a full ability lineup within an hour or two of starting. Designers have realized you dont need 30, 40 or 50+ levels to get used to how skill combos on a long GCD work.

Even older games have revamped their low level experience so it isnt "press a button, stare off in the distance, press a button, pretend you're doing things". We arent in the early gen MMO's, and havent been for a long, long time.

[ArcanoJones]

The low level experience is pretty awful if you've played MMO's or RPG's before.

Its an exceptionally badly paced tutorial that at this point goes 50+ levels.

The only thing thats saving it is the ability to hit 800-900% xp bonuses on preferred servers, so you actually get to the levels you have meaningful combat well before you actually "should" as determined by the MSQ (which is one reason I hate the gating the MSQ does).




Every? no. Theres a good number that will give you a full ability lineup within an hour or two of starting. Designers have realized you dont need 30, 40 or 50+ levels to get used to how skill combos on a long GCD work.

Even older games have revamped their low level experience so it isnt "press a button, stare off in the distance, press a button, pretend you're doing things". We arent in the early gen MMO's, and havent been for a long, long time.

I cant think of any that give you everything within an hour. How would they keep you coming back. If there is nothing to work for. I agree with the comment that MMOS all have basically the same low level experience.

[Physic]

I cant think of any that give you everything within an hour. How would they keep you coming back. If there is nothing to work for. I agree with the comment that MMOS all have basically the same low level experience.

tgey don't give you everything, they give you a core of abilities though, and we aren't talking about a few hours in ffxiv, we are talking days to weeks. As for how to keep it interesting, interesting encounters, horizontal growth, etc.


the key isnt having everything, but having fun stuff. mid go low level has gotten more and more incomplete with each expansion