The skill progression is atrocious

[Lumberfoot]

This game has one of the most boring early game experience I've ever had, and its because of the imo atrocious skill progression. I don't understand why the first 30-50 levels only gives you the bare minimum to play with only to have a sudden burst of skills between level 50-70. For example, Dragoon spends the first 25 levels essentially only doing a 1-2 combo and the next 30 levels doing a 1-2-3 combo with the occasional jump attack. Black Mage spends the first 59 levels spamming fire 1 until OOM and then briefly switching to ice for MP regen. Bard spends 30 levels applying 1 dot and the spamming heavy arrow. Every other MMO I've ever played have had a fast skill progression in the beginning that pans out as your level increases, and I think there is good reason for that.

Firstly, its important that the game is fun enough to play so that the players keep their interest. I had quit this game several times because I simply found that it took too long to get to a point where the gameplay seemed to get fun.

Secondly, you are able to figure out if you actually like the class/job you've picked. As it stands in FFXIV, it takes far too long to get the core skills of a job to figure out if you like it or not. For example, black mage is drastically different pre- and post lvl 60 and I would never have played that job till 80 had I not known this beforehand.

What's wore is that a lot of your time is spent doing lower level dungeons through roulettes and the like, so even when you get to the higher levels you often end up in lower level situations where your skills are locked away.

Simply put, I would personally like to see that the acquisition of skills is condensed to the earlier half of the game and I think that would only benefit the whole experience.

[RyuDragnier]

Leveling is so fast these days from 1-50 that it's not much of an issue too much, at least IMO. Though i do agree with the annoyance of losing moves every time you get level synced to a lower level. That always irks me.

[Driavna]

Leveling is so fast these days from 1-50 that it's not much of an issue too much, at least IMO. Though i do agree with the annoyance of losing moves every time you get level synced to a lower level. That always irks me.

Yes, we level fast but most of the available content will be synced down since the real gatekeep is MSQ. I agree with OP, some changes will improve new player experiences and that's important for retention.

[Cetek14]

And it's only going to get worse with each expansion.

All jobs should have full kit at lvl 50, and from that point only traits that eventually upgrade animation (with option to toggle them off, in case you don't like new animation, would be great for MCH to disable heated actions). Change my mind.

[RicaRuin]

And it's only going to get worse with each expansion.

All jobs should have full kit at lvl 50, and from that point only traits that eventually upgrade animation (with option to toggle them off, in case you don't like new animation, would be great for MCH to disable heated actions). Change my mind.

... just animation, no new skills or mechanics post 50? That sounds... even more boring than the current progression. No more fun about finding out how rotations work each expansion.

[Cetek14]

... just animation, no new skills or mechanics post 50? That sounds... even more boring than the current progression. No more fun about finding out how rotations work each expansion.

I'm especially bored when my job gets pruned when syncing down.
Current system is undeniably bad, and i personally see two options - full kit at lvl 50, or fixed level sync. FFXIV has the worst level sync system, and i wouldn't be surprised if it's going to "kill" the game sooner than later.

[Jirah]

... just animation, no new skills or mechanics post 50? That sounds... even more boring than the current progression. No more fun about finding out how rotations work each expansion.

You just described MCH , give or take 1 skill

[Lumberfoot]

Leveling is so fast these days from 1-50 that it's not much of an issue too much, at least IMO. Though i do agree with the annoyance of losing moves every time you get level synced to a lower level. That always irks me.

Sure leveling is fast at that point, but its still several days of what is essentially a chore if you're doing it outside of MSQ. I'd much prefer if the time I spent playing a game was fun.

And it's only going to get worse with each expansion.

All jobs should have full kit at lvl 50, and from that point only traits that eventually upgrade animation (with option to toggle them off, in case you don't like new animation, would be great for MCH to disable heated actions). Change my mind.

Well if they just build on what the job already got it wouldn't have to be. I didn't manage to get into the game until ShB, but from what I understand jobs often undergo quite large changes with new expansions?

[Absurdity]

Well if they just build on what the job already got it wouldn't have to be. I didn't manage to get into the game until ShB, but from what I understand jobs often undergo quite large changes with new expansions?

This is basically the result of job changes over the several expansions. SE wants to keep the amount of skills at roughly the same number. What ends up happening then is that some low level skill gets removed or baked into another skill and the new additions are for the +10 levels you gain with the new expansion which leads to low level content becoming increasingly mindnumbingly boring.





This is a really old screenshot of either ARR or early Heavensward, take a look at the skills you had at lvl 30 and then take a look at what skills you now have at lvl 30 on monk.

[DRKoftheAzure]

It's because casual players can't handle 4 buttons in their rotation after 10 hours of gameplay so to coddle them they had to gut half the skills across the floor.

It's less about being casual and more about being lazy... because I am casual enough to not do Savage or even Ultimate fights, but even I can tell those encounters are not for me, and I respect that there are people who want to do that sort of thing... in fact I'm about as casual as you can get (i.e. doing dungeons/raids/trials/ that aren't pre-70 GNB because why would I play older content that forces me to be pre-70 GNB when I find pre-70 GNB boring), and I can do play GNB as optimally as I can in the more casual content... assuming I can actually do my rotation before the trash mobs in the first big pull die before the next big pull... And BLM and SAM just NUKE EVERYTHING with single target skills...

This is basically the result of job changes over the several expansions. SE wants to keep the amount of skills at roughly the same number. What ends up happening then is that some low level skill gets removed or baked into another skill and the new additions are for the +10 levels you gain with the new expansion which leads to low level content becoming increasingly mindnumbingly boring.





This is a really old screenshot of either ARR or early Heavensward, take a look at the skills you had at lvl 30 and then take a look at what skills you now have at lvl 30 on monk.

Also what you said...