Level 100 and Beyond

[Kemeko]

Imagining an ideal system past level 100 that would be a balance to a base system cap of level 100 by introducing a Master/Soul Crystal System.

1. Points can be gained through progression of Main Story Quest that can be used to buy skills with older animations dating as far back as FFXIV 1.0, as well as new skills to further enhance your base toolkit playstyle while still keeping to the job identity and lore. This will save a bit on budget because of the many unused animations gained over the years. To avoid it turning into a grind fest since only one job at a time has access to Main Story Quest progression, all jobs will each have points reflecting your current progression. For jobs below 100, they will not have access to the points until they reach 100, at which point they would have access to all the points for their job. Alternatively, Main Story Quests will increase the base cap of the Master/Soul Crystal System and you can grind out the points for each job.

2. Allows for a rework of a job without having to actually rework the job, unless the base job is fundamentally flawed. New skills can have revamped effect while keeping power balance in check. They can share the same recast of their specific counterparts in the base toolkit, to ensure that you can have the option to avoid hotbar clutter if you chose to with minimal detriments. (Ex. A dragoon jump would be an ogcd in the base kit, and the revamped skill would be a gcd with increased potency.) (Ex2. Rage of Halone can come back with the same effect as Royal Authority.) (Ex. Some skills with dots can have the revamp version as a single hit with a slightly lower combined potency.)

3. Grinding for power is avoided since job skills gained or bought past 100 are simply animation glam or a readjusted skill for varied playstyle and personal comfort. Power is gained through item level though, so the natural grind and progression is still there without excess.

4. The already built in Actions Compact View would make it easier to identify which skills would be their counterparts.

5. Eases stress on newer players by letting them know that level 100 base job is just as strong as those with Master/Soul Crystal levels.

6. Mob identification from 1-99 remains the same, but mobs at level 100 will now be written as 100 (ilvl ???). With item levels still increasing past level 100, new areas will still have a mob level of 100, but this will remove the confusion of how strong the mobs are in relation to your equipment.

7. Horizontal progression can now be achieved with the only limit of certain content being locked behind Main Story Quests. Materia will still progress higher to match newer item levels. Still thinking of how to handle the unused item level gear starting at level 100 and 10 years down the road, though much of the current gear is unused when breezing through Main Story Quests so that may not be much of an issue, since they would still be there for glam purposes or Main Story progression. New fights and zones could be naturally item level synced to avoid power creep when only accessing new areas for gear and returning to progress other content.

*This post may be continuously edited with ideas.

[Amenara]

3. Grinding for power is avoided since job skills gained or bought past 100 are simply animation glam or a readjusted skill for varied playstyle and personal comfort.

It sounds like you are trying to do a gimp version of FFXI's post level cap gameplay. A staple of MMOs is player progression and even FFXI had the merit point system which increased player power and now the master level system which does the same while maintaining a "Level cap" of 99 and allowing players to continue to grind to become stronger.

I don't think SE can do anything but level squish or just keep plowing ahead as the game isn't really designed for horizontal progression or a stalling of character growth. If there is no real player progression there is no gameplay reason to continue playing past the level cap.

[RitsukoSonoda]

It sounds like you are trying to do a gimp version of FFXI's post level cap gameplay. A staple of MMOs is player progression and even FFXI had the merit point system which increased player power and now the master level system which does the same while maintaining a "Level cap" of 99 and allowing players to continue to grind to become stronger.

I don't think SE can do anything but level squish or just keep plowing ahead as the game isn't really designed for horizontal progression or a stalling of character growth. If there is no real player progression there is no gameplay reason to continue playing past the level cap.

Also bear in mind that FFXI also had 1 thing available to players that FFXIV doesn't when it came to progression. FFXI had an abundance of horizontal progression options which allowed the game to stay at the same level cap for years while releasing new content and expansions. This also made things like Relic weapons more appealing to players as their long term goal because there wasn't a mindset of the weapon being obsolete when the next expansion launched. However the reason for FFXI's abundance of horizontal progression options stemmed from options found on the in game gear itself as jobs weren't pigeon holed gear wise into only having options for 1 stat + vit, gear could have skill bonuses, add skills, weapons could have added effects of their own, some even had impacts on the character's elemental affinities. FFXIV has steadily been losing the RPG aspect of it's MMORPG classification resulting in what some have called the MMO version of Mystic Quest. The game's story is good and it is entertaining enough to attract players. However the question arises of whether or not the game can really be considered a JRPG anymore.

[Tiramu]

I think buggering about with level squishes or new levelling systems once we reach Lv100 is a horrible idea that tries to solve a relatively simple problem with an obtuse solution. We have an established character progression path that flows relatively smoothly (if not a bit too quickly). 50 levels on the base game and then 10 levels per Expansion, and that works fine.

Other RPG's have level caps beyond 100 and its not without precedence in FF either. The only good argument for not going past 100 I've seen is that it could be daunting to newcomers to see that they have 110 or 150 levels ahead of them. But, by that point they'll have the base game and 6+ expansions to make their way through anyway which would be a far more daunting prospect than the levels.

[Amenara]

I think buggering about with level squishes or new levelling systems once we reach Lv100 is a horrible idea that tries to solve a relatively simple problem with an obtuse solution. We have an established character progression path that flows relatively smoothly (if not a bit too quickly). 50 levels on the base game and then 10 levels per Expansion, and that works fine.

Other RPG's have level caps beyond 100 and its not without precedence in FF either. The only good argument for not going past 100 I've seen is that it could be daunting to newcomers to see that they have 110 or 150 levels ahead of them. But, by that point they'll have the base game and 6+ expansions to make their way through anyway which would be a far more daunting prospect than the levels.

I think the FFXIV problem is that there is no job ability system outside of what you learn from leveling up, which means one of two things is going to happen with more and more levels being added: you are going to have ability bloat from adding new skills every expansion, or you are going to have more of the current problem where jobs get thinned out to prevent bloat which means your job won't feel complete until higher and higher levels which is a disincentive for new players as the gameplay gets more and more stale.

[Tiramu]

I think the FFXIV problem is that there is no job ability system outside of what you learn from leveling up, which means one of two things is going to happen with more and more levels being added: you are going to have ability bloat from adding new skills every expansion, or you are going to have more of the current problem where jobs get thinned out to prevent bloat which means your job won't feel complete until higher and higher levels which is a disincentive for new players as the gameplay gets more and more stale.

Sure, button bloat is a thing. But, making abilities scale intuitively (i.e. Cure > Cure 2), and consistently across jobs would help, and making future use of more upgrading abilities could help mitigate against bloat. Also cutting fluff.

[Amenara]

Sure, button bloat is a thing. But, making abilities scale intuitively (i.e. Cure > Cure 2), and consistently across jobs would help, and making future use of more upgrading abilities could help mitigate against bloat. Also cutting fluff.

I agree, I have been an advocate of redoing the level of skill acquisition for a while and I want SE to give all jobs the majority of their kit by level 50 and finish fleshing it out after that through a few new abilities and traits instead of having most jobs feel very incomplete till after level 60 or 70. It is already a problem with SE's design philosophy and without them changing that it will only feel worse as the level cap gets higher and higher.

[Tiramu]

I agree, I have been an advocate of redoing the level of skill acquisition for a while and I want SE to give all jobs the majority of their kit by level 50 and finish fleshing it out after that through a few new abilities and traits instead of having most jobs feel very incomplete till after level 60 or 70. It is already a problem with SE's design philosophy and without them changing that it will only feel worse as the level cap gets higher and higher.

I agree on this, I think we could clear a fair few buttons from jobs even without changing current skill acquisition, and clear quite a few through adjusting how skills are activated (i.e. more job gauge or job mechanics stuff). We have a tendency to throw more buttons at it through progression, often leaving obsolete buttons lying around or adding a button for something that could be an upgrade for something else, or a job a job gauge or mechanics buff.

For what its worth, here is what I'd do for a few jobs.


White Mage:
Cure direct upgrade into Cure 2
Medica direct upgrade into Medica 2
Cure 3 rename to Curaga
Swiftcast upgrade and merge with Thin Air turning the 2 buttons into 1 (they're typically used in combo anyway, and are so infrequently used that turning a 3 button combo into a 2 button combo isn't affecting job depth).
Remove Lucid Dreaming and turn it into a job gauge ability that requires activation
Could do the above with Presence of Mind too tbh.

So thats 5 or 6 buttons removed from WHM - a job that currently doesn't fill an entire 3 hotbar setup.

Then, I'd like to see them adjust the DPS skills and give us a Healer/DPS swing job gauge where we can shift power into DPS or Healing abilities and activate buffs, a bit like BLM. So shifting to healer would improve healing potency at the expense of DPS and increase MP regen, and DPS mode improves damage output at the expense of healing potency and improve cast times. Lv90+ content could then see us get new tiers of spells that replace the ones we have and expand the job gauge more. I think WHM, the quintessential FF healer, should be a low skill floor, high ceiling type job a bit like BLM - easy to pick up and play but difficult to master and optimise.



Astrologian:
Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2.
Helios upgrade into Aspected Helios
Remove Undraw (Draw already redraws a card, maybe have a timeout on the drawn card)
Make Lucid Dreaming a passive job gauge ability, different mechanics to WHM but its barely needed and again, do your job gauge mechanics right and get your buffs

4 buttons removed, but they could also turn a few abilities into Job Gauge buffs, like having Aspected Helios upgrade into Celestial Opposition via job gauge buff.


Black Mage:
A little harder because its one of the tightest jobs in the game for ability usage. But there are opportunities for upgraded spells here, and lots of them.

Rename tier II spells to -aga
Have Blizzard I upgrade directly into Blizzard II since it's never used
Have Fire I upgrade directly into Fire II (have a Fire IV chain combo reset the timer, serving the same purpose as Fire I does now at higher levels)
Scathe upgrade into Despair
Remove Lucid Dreaming (serves no purpose at all)


Personally, I wouldn't mind most personal buffs that we keep on cooldown being whooped and moved over into the job gauge where we have to activate them through job mechanics.

[Seraphor]

We already have a "post level cap" system of progression, it's called ilevel.

The thing class/job levels are actually used for is story progression. That week you spend after an expansion drops, requires you to gain exp to progress through the story.
Other than that, it just serves as a gating system for playing new classes/jobs at endgame.

So I don't see why a 'master level' style system should be such a bad idea.

From a story progression perspective, it would be identical. Master level 10 would basically be the same as level 110, but you still only 'see' level 100 as the max level.
This Master level could be player specific rather than class/job specific. This way, you might need to reach level 110 to finish the story, but you only need to reach level 100 to play a second job at endgame.

[Amenara]

We already have a "post level cap" system of progression, it's called ilevel.

The thing class/job levels are actually used for is story progression. That week you spend after an expansion drops, requires you to gain exp to progress through the story.
Other than that, it just serves as a gating system for playing new classes/jobs at endgame.

So I don't see why a 'master level' style system should be such a bad idea.

From a story progression perspective, it would be identical. Master level 10 would basically be the same as level 110, but you still only 'see' level 100 as the max level.
This Master level could be player specific rather than class/job specific. This way, you might need to reach level 110 to finish the story, but you only need to reach level 100 to play a second job at endgame.

Would master levels be tied to player power or would it just be arbitrary numbers that just change aesthetics like the OP suggested? I don't think MMOs work without a form of player progression, especially with the addition of a new expansion. FF11 is completely designed around horizontal progression, FF14 is completely designed around vertical progression. Unless everything about the game changes, I don't see shifting FF14 to horizontal progression working.