Thoughts on Level Squishes

[Vyrerus]

Word. The 50 to 60 gap in terms of power is the largest power gap the game has experienced. Tank HP quadrupled. Damage from DPS quadrupled.


I don't think we need stat squish. Doesn't really serve any purpose, other than maybe making things look more orderly. A squish wouldn't speed up how fast people get to endgame either, since all EXP gains would be reduced proportionate to whatever the level squish was. In fact, their methods for implementing a squish are kind of limited. If they ever do, do one, I wager a lot of old stuff breaks lol

[CaptainLagbeard]

At most, ARR is the only part that could really be level squished... And even there's very little bloat as a whole. A very large majority of the level ups actually matter in some way.

The biggest reason I think why WoW did their big level squish was because over half the levels actually did nothing except make your character weaker because you gained absolutely nothing and every enemy scaled up to your level and they gained more damage and HP from your level up...

FF XIV doesn't have THAT problem.


For stats, I think a mild rebalancing down the line maybe, reducing everything's damage and health so you don't reach completely insane levels of HP and Damage.



Edit:

For clairty's sake, I made this thread less because of a fear of big numbers (Disgaea is one my my favorite game series) and more to see if that could solve the issue of SE removing skills and spreading them out so many levels (because they seem hell bent on a maximum amount of skills). More button creep concerns than stat/power creep.

For having too many buttons...

Well, there some skills that really don't need to be their own separate button. Those could really be just combined to a singular button that changes. Some obvious examples include, on DRG Jump and Mirage Dive. BLM Lay Lines and Between the Lines. AST Draw and Play. MCH Rook/Queen and Overdrive.

I'm sure there's others like that out there that could easily save space without removing any skills.

Another thing would be weaponskill combos for the physical classes could be consolidated under singular buttons, although this would mess with MNK and SAM due to Perfect Balance and Meikyo Shisui, so it's not a perfect solution.

[linayar]

For clairty's sake, I made this thread less because of a fear of big numbers (Disgaea is one my my favorite game series) and more to see if that could solve the issue of SE removing skills and spreading them out so many levels (because they seem hell bent on a maximum amount of skills). More button creep concerns than stat/power creep.

A level squish wouldn't really solve that "issue" because the skills will still be distributed over the length of the expansions.

[Raikai]

Level and stat squishes, as well as ability prunes and class/job revamps is something that every MMP that follows XIV and WoW's models have to run with.

The cumulative aspect that each expansion brings adds up to that. There's no way things can go unchecked for a decade of expansions, it becomes jarring for both veterans and newcomers.

Job/Class revamp is also a necessity, or else you'd have unmanageable amount of buttons after 5 expansions. The challenge though is for the new features/spells/mechanics to be as engaging as they once were. The problem with WoW there is that they DRASTICALLY change their systems and class designs every expansion and that is terrible for the playerbase.

These changes, squishes and revamps, are big and they are needed eventually, but the devs need to time it right.

[Seraphor]

I don't see the value of a level squish when there's still 300+ hours of MSQ to make it through before you reach level cap anyway. It's not as if you ever need to grind out levels to progress through the game, the MSQ offers more EXP than you need up to 70, and you'll likely overshoot into the mid-high 80's before you get there anyway.

A stat squish however could end up being useful, given the insane damage and HP figures we're approaching.

Skill reworks and trimming away has happened every expansion and isn't about to stop.

[MsQi]

Level and stat squishes, as well as ability prunes and class/job revamps is something that every MMP that follows XIV and WoW's models have to run with.

The cumulative aspect that each expansion brings adds up to that. There's no way things can go unchecked for a decade of expansions, it becomes jarring for both veterans and newcomers.

Job/Class revamp is also a necessity, or else you'd have unmanageable amount of buttons after 5 expansions. The challenge though is for the new features/spells/mechanics to be as engaging as they once were. The problem with WoW there is that they DRASTICALLY change their systems and class designs every expansion and that is terrible for the playerbase.

These changes, squishes and revamps, are big and they are needed eventually, but the devs need to time it right.

This is the small thinking that is destroying the mmorpg. The “everything must be on the bars, and be useful most of the time” mindset is catering to the adrenaline junkies that WoW catered to so they could dominate the industry. These are the people that would jump ship as soon as things a little less exciting, leaving little for those that would commit to a longer, deeper game nothing of substance.

The Archetypical "Wizard" is a seeker and keeper of knowledge of all things arcane. They would know thousands of spells, most of which would serve no purpose in combat, but have other uses. Many would be situational. They would have spells they choose to use in combat that set them apart from other wizards; a personal flare that fuels the stories about them.

Similarly a Martial artist often learns multiple disciplines, at least so they know how to counter them, but may pull from them in certain situations.

Not everyone wants to play like that, but allowing it, gives people more options. They could choose to focus on one area or branch out.

[CaptainLagbeard]

I think the biggest problem with fitting things onto action bars comes in with the gamepad.

I don't think it's particularly effective to start scrolling through multiple setups mid-fight, the most you can easily do is switch between two. This kind of puts a hard limit of 32 buttons to share between the job's skills and role skills. A little less than on a keyboard and mouse setup if you'd have 3 actionbars.

[Vyrerus]

I think the biggest problem with fitting things onto action bars comes in with the gamepad.

I don't think it's particularly effective to start scrolling through multiple setups mid-fight, the most you can easily do is switch between two. This kind of puts a hard limit of 32 buttons to share between the job's skills and role skills. A little less than on a keyboard and mouse setup if you'd have 3 actionbars.

Nah, it's just a matter of adapting. It's fairly easy to R1 cycle through as many hotbars as you can memorize skill locations for. The hard limit is 128 hotbar buttons. I use 3 Cross bars on PS4 to maximize skill use, and for the jobs like PLD that have a couple skills more, and need the third crossbar. People just don't want to, but I mean, plenty of people don't want to press more than five buttons so...

[Seraphor]

Nah, it's just a matter of adapting. It's fairly easy to R1 cycle through as many hotbars as you can memorize skill locations for. The hard limit is 128 hotbar buttons. I use 3 Cross bars on PS4 to maximize skill use, and for the jobs like PLD that have a couple skills more, and need the third crossbar. People just don't want to, but I mean, plenty of people don't want to press more than five buttons so...

There are three methods of swapping xhotbars, and none of them are perfect, they are all an extra step that can take time, and introduce additional button presses. When people complain about the extra time it takes to target other party members for AST cards, adding more hurdles like this is obviously a set back.

While it's a little subjective between 1 and 2, I find they're in this order of how cumbersome and disrupting of gameplay they are:

1. Expanded Xhotbar: Pressing and holding R2>L2 or L2>R2 opens up an addition 8 buttons each. +16
2. WXHB (Double Xhotbar): Quickly double tapping R2 or L2 toggles an addition 8 buttons each. +16
3. Scrolling through all available xhotbars with R1: Most time consuming, and progressively moreso the more xhotbars you have activated. Full 128 available. But it's not too bad if you limit it to just one more set (16 buttons) of skills.

In either case, each method adds unnecessary additional steps, and the more of them you have activated, the worse it gets. So it's reasonable that you should only be expected to utilise one of them at a time, so that they remain as options for ergonomic customisation.
This means you shouldn't need to use more than your basic 16 buttons, plus your additional 16 buttons from your additional chosen expansion method.

That said, if additional skills were more situational, and you could say, have set loadouts for certain types of content, that wouldn't be a problem with cycling through your xhotbars with R1 to get to the xhotbar you need for a piece of content and stick to that one.

I too use 3 xhotbar sets on Ps4, however one of those is purely for out of combat use. In combat I'm restricted to 2. I hate having to scroll or toggle mid fight, so I only use the 'holding down' method of the expanded xhotbar.

(I find I lose track of scrolling, so it'll take me a couple extra moments to cycle back through to get where I want, that's a couple of seconds of hesitation in battle, big no no. Also toggling xhotbars doesn't work well for me, I'm liable to accidentally hit the shoulder buttons twice instead of once for my expanded bars, change my xhotbar unintentionally, and then while I'm relying on muscle memory I'll hit the wrong skill, even bigger no-no. I've Rescued people instead of using my od shield (Benison/Intersection) before because of this)

[Raikai]

T
The Archetypical "Wizard" is a seeker and keeper of knowledge of all things arcane. They would know thousands of spells, most of which would serve no purpose in combat, but have other uses. Many would be situational. They would have spells they choose to use in combat that set them apart from other wizards; a personal flare that fuels the stories about them.

Sorry but I disagree in the sense that is small thinking, because I think I didn't convey my message as I wanted. Give an example of a MMO that follows the same model of XIV that accumulated skills, levels and stats for a decade of expansions without a change/revamp or a prune?

I'm not speaking about situational spells, but rotational ones. It's simply not feasible for the type of MMORPG that XIV is, and how the action-based combat functions. Can you imagine having a rotation of 15 different buttons plus conditional skills while still having to keep an eye on the surroundings? Alternative to this, like you mentioned, would be choosing a proper rotation from a bigger pool of abilities, but sadly XIV does not follow a customizabiity aspect, as everything is very cemented.