Character Growth: Leveling is part of RPGs

[Alhanelem]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Leveling is just the BEGINNING of the experience of any MMORPG. OP must not be aware that the first MMOs didn't even have a concept of leveling. It wasn't always a defacto defining component of an MMORPG.

Leveling has it's moments, but in the end it's just the springboard you launch off of to reach the rest of the stuff in the game.

[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.

[HiirNoivl]

FROM PRODUCER LETTER:

50% of you thought the pace of leveling was just about right, while 20% felt it was too fast. And then there was the 10% who had more to say on the matter.

For most MMOs, you might expect around 60-70% of players to respond with “too slow”, but as the current leveling speed for FFXIV is intentionally set at a higher pace, I’m fairly satisfied with these results.

Question 4 was for those of you who wished to further express your opinion. (And yes, I did read all of them even if we can’t print them all here!)

The most common response was that the lower levels were too slow, while the higher levels went by too fast. We have no plans to adjust the leveling speed for the current game, but we’ll certainly take these comments into consideration when tweaking the pace for version 2.0.

[Elexia]

I think a lot of of ppl just wanna lvl off one mob at a time taking 2-3 mins to kill like XI, and guess what those days are dead.

Your party failed if it took longer than a minute to kill a mob, which in your words: Guess what? Yoship wants battles for partying to last 60-90s. Also guess what? a lot of people agree mobs die too quickly in this game.

Even if you level up fast, you still have long term goals to complete. From gathering achievements, to relics. no one can cakewalk those stuff.

Nope..fast leveling = fast route to all content.

Spammable Content = complete all content quickly.

Complete all content quickly = People complaining about nothing to do.

XI's pace was perfect because it had content you could do in between of leveling or instead of leveling, plus by time most people finished leveling, SE released even more content. The problem with new age MMOs is they need to make leveling an afterthought and give you all content at once.

[darkstarpoet1]

i agree with the op, but i feel the mmo genre of games have been taken over by the fps instant gratification crowds that want everything able to be given to them with minimal time and effort.

[Betelgeuzah]

Why would you level so fast?

You could do that in the earlier FF's, but most people didn't. Because it is dumb.

There's fun content to be had pre-50, why rush through it? Did you skip cutscenes and plow through the content in FF8 too?

[Churchill]

XI's pace was perfect because it had content you could do in between of leveling or instead of leveling, plus by time most people finished leveling, SE released even more content. The problem with new age MMOs is they need to make leveling an afterthought and give you all content at once.

lol

The only reason you could ever say XI's pace was perfect because you always had something to do was because it: 1) required specific party combinations 2) was ridiculously slow because of pDIF, level correction and lack of any decent gear

Spending all your time LFG and soloing quests =/= good game design, perfect pace
Spending your time shouting or needing to do missions no one wants to help on/has already passed =/= good game design, perfect pace
Weeks on end not accomplishing anything, standing in Jeuno, staring at a moogle =/= good game design, perfect pace

Any comparisons to XI being good had better be limited to story, scenery, or nostalgia because the bulk of what that game brought to the table was terribly incorporated. The only reason I started playing again after the WoTG fiasco was Abyssea, the one good thing XI did (outside of story, scenery, or nostalgia)

The enmity system, combat system, changing gear (leading to sidegrade gear updates (lazy development), massive inventory issues, macro pieces for one ability), damage formulas, back and forth nerf/buff/nerf balancing -> most jobs become useless for majority of events (eg, too many jobs), RNG drop rate system, open world HNM's on 24-72h respawns, the teleporter to Kirin, etc. I, you, anyone could go on with all of the terrible things about that game. Some people kept on despite it, some people didn't, it was terrible regardless.

Oh, and the fact that we have to waste our own time figuring out formulas for everything or what Treasure Hunter actually does is pretty lame as well. Most developers understand that people are playing a game, and want to know how x/y/z effects their character. FFXI? Working as intended.

[darkstarpoet1]

Why would you level so fast?

You could do that in the earlier FF's, but most people didn't. Because it is dumb.

There's fun content to be had pre-50, why rush through it? Did you skip cutscenes and plow through the content in FF8 too?

yeah, also if you want to think about it there is actually way more to do pre-50 than there is post-50 in terms of pure numbers of things to do. people just want to skip by the stuff though because it doesn't interest them.