Thoughts on Level Squishes

[MsQi]

Stat and level squishes serve no purpose in this age other than to disrespect personal progression and to placate people who are scared of big numbers. They should not be doing things just because Blizzard does them.

That said there are ways to avoid an ever increasing level. 99 or 100 is a good place to stop leveling and then move on to alternate forms of character progression. They can have lateral expansions with parallel storylines. Adding a manual level sync feature would help a lot here.

[GeminiReed]

... and to placate people who are scared of big numbers. ...

Like new players?

Deep leveling grinds are a significant barrier to entry especially when a game does not offer a reasonable catch-up mechanic. XIV has the double whammy of layering a mandatory story grind on top of a leveling grind that's getting too close to triple digits. Just the story requirement alone garners a "lol, nope" when trying to convince friends to join, having to tell them they'll need to burn through 80+ levels is a deal killer.

And in before the inevitable "journey" whine: If we wanted a that we'd play single-player games.

Unless Square is planning an XI style maintenance mode for XIV and a follow-on MMO up their sleeve they'll need a far more comprehensive story compression than the recent effort along with any level squish. Or at the very least make story optional.

[Morningstar1337]

Like new players?

Deep leveling grinds are a significant barrier to entry especially when a game does not offer a reasonable catch-up mechanic. XIV has the double whammy of layering a mandatory story grind on top of a leveling grind that's getting too close to triple digits. Just the story requirement alone garners a "lol, nope" when trying to convince friends to join, having to tell them they'll need to burn through 80+ levels is a deal killer.

And in before the inevitable "journey" whine: If we wanted a that we'd play single-player games.

Unless Square is planning an XI style maintenance mode for XIV and a follow-on MMO up their sleeve they'll need a far more comprehensive story compression than the recent effort along with any level squish. Or at the very least make story optional.

They could also repeat what happened with ARR where the 1.0 story and quests were made unavailable and a new story would take its place (with a means of access current dungeons/trials/raids, prolly via the echo as a story justification). Or have a new jumping on point with a new shorter prelude that leads up the new expac's story. For example, a story that explores what happens while the WoL and Scions were on the Frirst and Garlemald (Assuming that's the focus of 7.0)

[MsQi]

Like new players?

Deep leveling grinds are a significant barrier to entry especially when a game does not offer a reasonable catch-up mechanic. XIV has the double whammy of layering a mandatory story grind on top of a leveling grind that's getting too close to triple digits. Just the story requirement alone garners a "lol, nope" when trying to convince friends to join, having to tell them they'll need to burn through 80+ levels is a deal killer.

And in before the inevitable "journey" whine: If we wanted a that we'd play single-player games.

Unless Square is planning an XI style maintenance mode for XIV and a follow-on MMO up their sleeve they'll need a far more comprehensive story compression than the recent effort along with any level squish. Or at the very least make story optional.

Way to cherry pick. But if a new player finds 99 levels intimidating they are not really interested in an RPG. You start at level 1, you advance to higher levels, that is the entire point. As I said "lateral expansion". They could start a different storyline that would be a choice at the beginning that would take players from 1 to 99 but maybe in a different location or world with new zones. Current players could pick it up in a slightly altered version. Maybe it would all be from the perspective of someone in the Empire.

There would be a whole new series of dungeons, raids, quests, beast tribes, etc., at 50, 60, 70 etc. This would give people multiple storyline to level multiple jobs through and lead to a bigger more expansive world.

[Morningstar1337]

Way to cherry pick. But if a new player finds 99 levels intimidating they are not really interested in an RPG. You start at level 1, you advance to higher levels, that is the entire point. As I said "lateral expansion". They could start a different storyline that would be a choice at the beginning that would take players from 1 to 99 but maybe in a different location or world with new zones. Current players could pick it up in a slightly altered version. Maybe it would all be from the perspective of someone in the Empire.

There would be a whole new series of dungeons, raids, quests, beast tribes, etc., at 50, 60, 70 etc. This would give people multiple storyline to level multiple jobs through and lead to a bigger more expansive world.

I'd be all for that, but I think that's gonna require several dev teams and a lot of coordination to get that out in a single xpac, and doing that over multiple expansion would need to have something closer to XI's system to pan out and would likely entail that there be level capped version of the raids for those that are already capped.

[MsQi]

I'd be all for that, but I think that's gonna require several dev teams and a lot of coordination to get that out in a single xpac, and doing that over multiple expansion would need to have something closer to XI's system to pan out and would likely entail that there be level capped version of the raids for those that are already capped.

Doesn't have to be in one expac, especially is they start soon. One expac could be a new 1-30 or 1-50 experience with slightly sped up leveling. At some point they gain access to the old world. May have to make the world more open where you don't have to advance a storyline to enter zones. For existing players the new story could be on the premise that you are a spy infiltrating the Empire. New players might experience the original MSQ as an echo.

[Iscah]

Like new players?

Deep leveling grinds are a significant barrier to entry especially when a game does not offer a reasonable catch-up mechanic. XIV has the double whammy of layering a mandatory story grind on top of a leveling grind that's getting too close to triple digits. Just the story requirement alone garners a "lol, nope" when trying to convince friends to join, having to tell them they'll need to burn through 80+ levels is a deal killer.

The thing is, they've altered the EXP gain upwards instead of the level requirements downwards. You can get through the story faster than you did previously, even if the levels haven't changed.

Personally I'd like to see a further boost to low-level battle EXP (rather than one-time-only quest EXP) so you can get over those dull early levels quicker - possibly implemented as a further armoury bonus for secondary classes.

[linayar]

That said there are ways to avoid an ever increasing level. 99 or 100 is a good place to stop leveling and then move on to alternate forms of character progression. They can have lateral expansions with parallel storylines. Adding a manual level sync feature would help a lot here.

Actually, they don't need to move on to alternate forms of character progression because they already have it: item level progression.

With MSQ being mandatory (and I hope it stays that way), leveling can be removed and your character can progress via item level alongside story progression. The only unique things leveling progression still provides in this game is quest/instance requirement (which can be shifted to item level requirement) and threat immunity in the open world (which can be shifted to story progression).

That said, as long as the game and players' game devices can handle it, there's no problem with an ever increasing level and stats and numbers in general.