Discuss: Should new jobs start at level 1?

[Zairava]

This is a topic I think is worth discussing, at least recently more than in the past.

I know they're thinking of what to do past the lvl 100 cap in 7.0, but with new job(s) comes an increased starting level.

The main issue that I've seen experienced is that for new players (and perhaps even some vets), it can be quite overwhelming to have a mid to high level kit when just starting out the job due to the sheer amount of abilities you start out with. Experience gain is so fast that they can start trying out jobs like Gunbreaker and Sage early.

What happens here is that for some people, this could be their first time trying out tanking or healing, and they're being shoved into level 60/70 content and are trying to find their ground instead of starting from level 1 and learning gradually more comfortably, like with Gladiator or Conjurer.

This of course can be fixed by whacking the dummy and reading tooltips or watching a video. That's not always guaranteed for the other players entering the instance, though, so they potentially get someone who flat out doesn't know the basics of their kit.

What do you think?

[Elkanah]

.

All the playerbase needs to do is READ their tool tips. 85% of the community can't do that already, and 90% of the community cant do basic mechanics in a dungeon without dying. There's no point in fixing the mechanic of level 1 to 99 if players are just bad in general (cause they dont wanna learn).

[Zairava]

All the playerbase needs to do is READ their tool tips. 85% of the community can't do that already, and 90% of the community cant do basic mechanics in a dungeon without dying. There's no point in fixing the mechanic of level 1 to 99 if players are just bad in general (cause they dont wanna learn).

Yeah, I can agree with that. The same reason I wish they'd take a few steps back regarding job design.

[Icecylee]

Low level tank/healer don't really teach you anything meaningful about how the classes play at high level anyway. Hell, for healers it actually installs bad habits (with the kits as they are now) that you need to *unlearn* to play well at higher levels. Maybe it's different for DPS which haven't regularly had their abilities removed and recycled into higher levels, but I can't think of a single reason to start any class lower than 50 these days, there just aren't enough abilities in the lower levels now. Progression's a lot different than it was back in ARR.

[Zairava]

Low level tank/healer don't really teach you anything meaningful about how the classes play at high level anyway. Hell, for healers it actually installs bad habits (with the kits as they are now) that you need to *unlearn* to play well at higher levels. Maybe it's different for DPS which haven't regularly had their abilities removed and recycled into higher levels, but I can't think of a single reason to start any class lower than 50 these days, there just aren't enough abilities in the lower levels now. Progression's a lot different than it was back in ARR.

Honestly, the progression is a problem in itself.

They improved that for Monk with EW launch, I'd like to see them improve the leveling experience for the other jobs as well.

[ForsakenRoe]

You could have the new classes start at level -90 and make them level up 190 times to get to level 100 in the next expansion, it doesn't change the fact that some people just don't read their tooltips, don't care to improve, don't want to take advice etc. The 'tutorial' of levelling the class does not work for a lot of players. As an example, at what point does the game tell a new player that the potency of a DOT is dealt once per 3 seconds? When someone sees 'deals unaspected damage over time with a potency of 40, duration 30s' on their DOT, I can completely see why someone would not use it. 'Stone's like 210 potency, and this is only 40? Why would I use this it's weak af' because it doesn't tell the player (at least to my knowledge) that it does '40 per 3 seconds, for the duration listed, therefore 400 in total', they can just as easily interpret it as '40p total, over the 30s duration', making it average out to like 1.5 per second which sounds absolutely trash

I don't think the game ever told me what Refresh (status) did either, I had a bit of a moment at level 35ish levelling WHM where I couldn't work out how to get MP back (not realizing it was Shroud of Saints), luckily a quick Google helped solve that one, but point stands: important things like 'how DOTs work' and 'how do I get MP back' need to be explained ingame, if they are not already.

Also yeh, if new classes were forced to start at level 1, then the whole 'oh get 10 levels so you can play the new expansion as the new class' becomes 'oh get 90 levels first', that'd take so so long for zero gain. In fact, I'd rather have it the opposite: People who preorder expansion and register the code (and therefore cannot refund anymore, they've 'locked in' their purchase) should be able to pick up the new classes, two weeks before the launch of the expansion. This gives them 2 weeks to get those 10 levels, allowing them to do the story at the same time as everyone else

[ty_taurus]

You could have the new classes start at level -90 and make them level up 190 times to get to level 100 in the next expansion, it doesn't change the fact that some people just don't read their tooltips, don't care to improve, don't want to take advice etc. The 'tutorial' of levelling the class does not work for a lot of players. As an example, at what point does the game tell a new player that the potency of a DOT is dealt once per 3 seconds? When someone sees 'deals unaspected damage over time with a potency of 40, duration 30s' on their DOT, I can completely see why someone would not use it. 'Stone's like 210 potency, and this is only 40? Why would I use this it's weak af' because it doesn't tell the player (at least to my knowledge) that it does '40 per 3 seconds, for the duration listed, therefore 400 in total', they can just as easily interpret it as '40p total, over the 30s duration', making it average out to like 1.5 per second which sounds absolutely trash

I don't think the game ever told me what Refresh (status) did either, I had a bit of a moment at level 35ish levelling WHM where I couldn't work out how to get MP back (not realizing it was Shroud of Saints), luckily a quick Google helped solve that one, but point stands: important things like 'how DOTs work' and 'how do I get MP back' need to be explained ingame, if they are not already.

Also yeh, if new classes were forced to start at level 1, then the whole 'oh get 10 levels so you can play the new expansion as the new class' becomes 'oh get 90 levels first', that'd take so so long for zero gain. In fact, I'd rather have it the opposite: People who preorder expansion and register the code (and therefore cannot refund anymore, they've 'locked in' their purchase) should be able to pick up the new classes, two weeks before the launch of the expansion. This gives them 2 weeks to get those 10 levels, allowing them to do the story at the same time as everyone else

You know, it would actually be a lot more clear if DoT tooltips read like this instead:

"Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 400 over the span of 30 seconds (40 potency every 3 seconds)"

[Shurrikhan]

If you want people to learn, you'll need a combination of real challenges that aren't so lenient as to allow most members to fail the learning check without any unavoidably noticeable feedback of that failure and enough intuitive... and on-demand support to make how to improve both in the moment and in the future to be understandable to nigh every player.

Without a decent 'difficulty curve' to curate learning opportunities, the 'learning curve' becomes a third-party / optional happenstance, because it literally has neither decent access nor featured reward in-game.

[Arohk]

I know they're thinking of what to do past the lvl 100 cap in 7.0, but with new job(s) comes an increased starting level.

I can only recommend they do a level squish, the first job should still take the same time as now to get to max level, but secondary jobs need to level a lot faster, or how will newer players ever be able to catch up to the current expansion.
As it is now, you need to run each dungeon 3-5 times then proceed to the next higher dungeon.
oh you want to play a healer? better grind those exp for weeks from 1 to 100, tough life, it is already really hard to get new players ready for the current content.
The amount of time it takes for new players to level, unlock all the content, get gear is such a big demand on their time already.

ARR = Level 1-30
HW = Level 30-35
SB = Level 35-40
ShB = Level 40-45
EW = Level 45-50
??? = Level 50-55

[ForsakenRoe]

I can only recommend they do a level squish, the first job should still take the same time as now to get to max level, but secondary jobs need to level a lot faster, or how will newer players ever be able to catch up to the current expansion.
As it is now, you need to run each dungeon 3-5 times then proceed to the next higher dungeon.
oh you want to play a healer? better grind those exp for weeks from 1 to 100, tough life, it is already really hard to get new players ready for the current content.
The amount of time it takes for new players to level, unlock all the content, get gear is such a big demand on their time already.

ARR = Level 1-30
HW = Level 30-35
SB = Level 35-40
ShB = Level 40-45
EW = Level 45-50
??? = Level 50-55

I'd do similar, but halve everything after next expansion. We'd be at level 100 going into what should be 110, we halve everything so that anyone who was level 100 is now 50. Divide every level requirement for duties ingame already by 2, and round down any decimals to an integer number. Then you have ARR 1-25, HW 25-30, SB 30-35, SHB 35-40, EW 40-45, 7.0 is 45-50, and the new expansion can be 50-60 if they want, this buys them 5 more expansions of time. Dividing all levels by 2 makes it easy for the maths on what level content goes at too. TEA is now level 40. UCOB/UWU are level 35. A levelling dungeon example, Bardam's Mettle (65) becomes level 32 (should be 32.5, but rounds down), etc