New Feature - Experience Gain Toggle Option

[Holy_Shenanigans]

This game needs an experience gain toggling option. That way we won't massively out-level the non-instanced open world questing content while going through the main story content.

For example, I want to be able to lock my experience once I hit 50/51, so when I unlock the first expansion I'm not way over-leveled compared to people who experienced it when it was first released. The same applies for every following expansion. It's impossible to prevent your character from becoming over-leveled before reaching the open world content intended for that level. Currently, the only people who get the privilege of experiencing the content at the level it was intended to be played at are those who were at the level cap when expansions go live. I was lucky enough to be one of those players. However, I still would like to play through the story on alt characters sometimes.

This problem can easily be fixed by putting an option in the character configuration to toggle experience gain.

Not everyone who plays this game wants to madly rush through the content as fast as humanly possible to get to end game raiding. I'm sure many people would like to experience content at the proper level, as it was experienced by players who were active when each expansion went live.

I'm well aware of level syncing for instanced fights, and I truly appreciate that feature. But that instance level syncing does nothing for open world quests that are not instanced. I know I'm not the only player who would appreciate this feature.

If it is an optional setting, then there is no downside to it. Those who want to level up as fast as humanly possible would still be free to do so. And those who want to experience the open world quests at the proper level will also be free to do so. It's s win-win for everyone. And something like this should be pretty easy to implement.

[lezard21]

MSQ from post ARR only give 4800 exp. At 80 quests, that's a total of 384k exp. From 50 to 51 you need 864k. Just don't do roulettes and you shouldn't be overleveled.

[Fyrebrand]

I don't think I would ever turn off experience gain, but I definitely get what you mean with regards to over-leveling. With only a tiny bit of extra effort, I had two separate jobs leveled to 50 by the end of ARR MSQ. Now my main is at 54 and I only barely touched a few of the Level 50 dungeons. Am I gonna be almost 60 before I even get to Heavensward??

It also feels super awkward that my WHM now has Afflatus Solace on her skill bar, but I can't use it since it requires the Lily mechanic that doesn't unlock until much later in the story. This probably could have been implemented better.

[Krotoan]

I'm all for giving people options on how to customize their own experience, but.. I can see this being more trouble than it's worth. Someone toggles it off, forgets, then SE starts getting customer service emails and tickets about "compensating" them for their wasted time.

[Jojoya]

I'm all for giving people options on how to customize their own experience, but.. I can see this being more trouble than it's worth. Someone toggles it off, forgets, then SE starts getting customer service emails and tickets about "compensating" them for their wasted time.

Wouldn't be any worse than the other junk complaints and requests they already get about the things players do despite have to click 2-3 confirmation windows asking "are you sure you want to do this?".

I also doubt it would happen often. Most players are in a rush to level, not slow down how fast they're leveling. Someone who had deliberately chosen to toggle off XP to slow down would be far more likely to shrug it off if they forget to enable it again because they wanted to be going slower.

[van_arn]

I don't think turning off xp gain is in the style of XIV. Maybe a quest sync option that ties to the MSQ. That'll help underscore how your level basically doesn't matter until you complete the MSQ, preventing some sprouts from falling into the "level everything in potd even though I only have brayflox unlocked" trap.

[Shialan]

There is nothing to experience in the open world that would feel different if you were at the same level. Everything just takes longer to kill.

[Waliel]

There is nothing to experience in the open world that would feel different if you were at the same level. Everything just takes longer to kill.

Being wildly overleveled for MSQ feels really bad. Starting on a bonus XP server as a new player is one of the worst mistakes one can make in my opinion, unless you want to level every single job to 50 before Ultima Weapon for whatever reason. Being permanently 10 levels above MSQ during ARR just wasn't fun even with all the level syncs when I made a trial account play through it again some months back. And I even switched jobs halfway through.

[kaynide]

I mean, with how many jobs there are, if you're so worried about over leveling, why not just level 2 or 3 jobs at once?

Since Heavansward, I have regularly leveled 1 job using MSQ XP and another with the dailies..almost keeping them even the entire way through. So yeah, at end of expansion I'm good with 2 jobs ready to go.

With the XP boost pre-50, I'd jut level like 3 instead.

[ZedxKayn]

Being wildly overleveled for MSQ feels really bad. Starting on a bonus XP server as a new player is one of the worst mistakes one can make in my opinion, unless you want to level every single job to 50 before Ultima Weapon for whatever reason. Being permanently 10 levels above MSQ during ARR just wasn't fun even with all the level syncs when I made a trial account play through it again some months back. And I even switched jobs halfway through.

MSQ battle content isn't fun period, especially in ARR where some jobs are barely functional, being overleveled only allows the player to crush OW trash mobs with 0 mechanics and I can't see how that's a bad thing.