Character Growth: Leveling is part of RPGs

[Enma]

I always liked exping my characters, in all RPGs I've played. Here in FFXIV after the balance of EXP that sort of satisfaction has been removed. I'm happy for you if you think that it's perfect as it is, I wanted just to say that maybe it sould be balanced a little better... This is my opinion.
I simply don't look at leveling as a mean to do endgame contents, but as a content itself. As in any other Final Fantasy......

[XxOstiaxX]

Yes please slow leveling Up! So i can have a chance to do all the exciting and awesome content we have at 1-45 level Range!! I mean Grinding is new and exciting right ?

[Mattia]

Yes please slow leveling Up! So i can have a chance to do all the exciting and awesome content we have at 1-45 level Range!! I mean Grinding is new and exciting right ?

Only thing new to me is having to solo a healer class 1-40 before actually making a damn party.

[Churchill]

Only thing new to me is having to solo a healer class 1-40 before actually making a damn party.

Working as intended.

[Leira_Raine]

Only wanting to throw my two cents:

Here in my mind, I found that, "The journey is more important than the destination." I'm sure most of you have heard of this saying, and after getting to 50, it is actually quite true. I LOVED exping in 14. Endgame I feel like there is no more progression, and I feel lost. Not to mention not a lot of people seem to want DRG for their endgame events (people would then say level something else, but I wanted to play the game with my favorite classes of all time, even in endgame). The journey was the most fun I have had in this game. I was always competing with a close friend, or just giggling and laughing through deaths. But after all that, it feels like, what now? I did all the story quests I needed to do. I tried leveling other classes, but it just does not feel the same. Honestly, I like the leveling progression. I do not powerlevel or have anything to do with it, and I do not get into grinding parties. It wasn't fun before on other servers, and it won't be fun now now or in the future.

OP, I totally agree with you. I say do not make the leveling slower or faster, but throw in more challenges along the way (which they are planning to do anyway, so I'm happy).

I also do not care about overleveling for anything to the point that it makes a challenge too easy. I'm not in FFXIV for the endgame, I'm in it for the journey to that with my friends.

[Duelle]

Endgame I feel like there is no more progression, and I feel lost.

The game has nowhere near the amount of content needed for "progression". We don't have a 10-man Stratholme, a 20-man Dire Maul, 40-man Molten Core, AQ20 and AQ40, 40-man Naxxrammas and so on.

Not to mention not a lot of people seem to want DRG for their endgame events (people would then say level something else, but I wanted to play the game with my favorite classes of all time, even in endgame).

This is more due to encounter and class balancing still not being near ideal and old habits from this community not dying as quickly as they should.

[yoshikwalla]

My definition of grind is "doing the same thing over and over." This means that there is no content that I could do in order to make my time better used in a game.

A good example of this is AION around launch (before they added a bunch of content to fill the gaps). I do every quest and campaign I can to about 1/2 to 3/4 of a level. Then there is NOTHING but repeatable quests that do nothing to hide the fact that I'm grinding my buttocks off my uncomfortable chair (Back when AION first launched I had a horrible chair lol. It gave me back problems).

AION has 60 levels now, and just barely has enough story and quest content to justify one character. Final Fantasy XIV has you leveling from lv1-lv50. And leveling from lv50 again. And leveling from lv1-lv50 again, and again, and again. And this game has barely enough story/grand company/class/job content to justify levelling ONE class to lv50 without grinding your way to kingdom come.

I just got my first lv50 (MNK ftw!) and I'm already done with the main scenario quests, the pugilist quests, the monk quests, every Grand Company/Maelstrom Quest except a fair few, and have almost done every instanced dungeon this game has to offer. I'm pretty much at the end of the game. All I need is 50,000 seals (which is easy peasy), one more promotion, my relic weapon quest, 2 more Grand Company Quests, and I've finished Final Fantasy XIV as a Final Fantasy Game.

Leveling isn't a main part of Final Fantasy as much as it is its backbone. It's the infrastructure in which the story lays itself onto. Final Fantasy XIV doesn't need each class to take longer. Getting 4 classes to lv50 means levelling up 200 times. There's far too much leveling up in this game to justify its lack of content.

Want character growth like a Final Fantasy game? Players are grinding to lv50 on their alt classes because there's pretty much no content left after one lv50. Give us content to justify slowing down and smelling the roses, because right now there are no roses left to smell. Make it so that once we get to lv50 we only hit the tip of the ice burgh. Then the people who want a Final Fantasy story - who want character development - can finally slow down to smell the roses.

[Judge_Xero]

I always liked exping my characters, in all RPGs I've played. Here in FFXIV after the balance of EXP that sort of satisfaction has been removed. I'm happy for you if you think that it's perfect as it is, I wanted just to say that maybe it sould be balanced a little better... This is my opinion.
I simply don't look at leveling as a mean to do endgame contents, but as a content itself. As in any other Final Fantasy......

Balancing is pretty good IMO.

1) Casuals can actually get 1 lvl 50 in a decent amount of time
2) Hardcore can get all 50's in a reasonable amount of time.

For casuals: grabbing all Sidequests in each of the cities and then completing them while you do leves is a great and fun way to level a class. The sidequests are both funny and compelling IMO.

i have every class capped and have since november or somewhere around there and i say leveling is wayyyyyyy too fast. i guess you were wrong.

Lots of hardcore players have for a while. Botters were even faster.