Stop the Grind-to-the-Endgame madness!

[Firon]

I don't think you should generalize. Even though I understand it, because of the market trend.

However, the only good part, and the only fully enjoyable one, of an MMO does not have or need to be the endgame. That's the whole point of all this writing.

As things stand right now, with this trend, your statement, removing the sarcasm, does make perfect sense. Oh, ok... leave the sarcasm in, if you want. :-)

So ppl are not allowed to go what they think is the best part of the game? If you wanna take your time and lvl slow do so. If other ppl wanna rush to the cap let them do so. All i see is here ppl that wants everyone to lvl slow with them.

[darkstarpoet1]

So ppl are not allowed to go what they think is the best part of the game. If you wanna take your time and lvl slow do so. If other ppl wanna rush to the cap let them do so. All i see is here ppl that wants everyone to lvl slow with them.

even if it's not what they consider the best part of the game there will always be people who rush to cap. some people love to compete so they are going to be either the first person to do it or will strive to be the one that done something the best. i love to compete and want to put my very best up against someone else at their very best and see how we compare. in a mmo you at your best and me at my best are when we are capped.

[Rutelor]

So ppl are not allowed to go what they think is the best part of the game? If you wanna take your time and lvl slow do so. If other ppl wanna rush to the cap let them do so. All i see is here ppl that wants everyone to lvl slow with them.

Then we really write very poorly, or you grossly misunderstood us, Firon. Pity!

[Rutelor]

even if it's not what they consider the best part of the game there will always be people who rush to cap. some people love to compete so they are going to be either the first person to do it or will strive to be the one that done something the best. i love to compete and want to put my very best up against someone else at their very best and see how we compare. in a mmo you at your best and me at my best are when we are capped.

Of course, Darkstar, nobody is about to take the competitiveness out of the game. Neither is anybody saying you should not, as an individual, beat us all to the endgame, if you so please. Those of us who agree in this thread are against the design trend that wants to make the path from beginning to endgame, short, quick, and perfunctory. That's a different thing.

[Viritess]

I'd like to bring up something i find interesting. If we look at the last players poll, a large amount of respondants replied that they we're atleast pleased with the current leveling speed which is slightly boosted.

Yoshi-P's comments on that we're quite interesting to me:

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.

Of course any pool can have many unknowns that will effect an persons vote. Knowlage of PL (i thought it was a banable expoit when i started, because i had never seen any other game allow such a thing, and i ran like hell ^^) Party availability etc.

What i find interesting is Yoshi-P's expectation of "Usual" being much higher on too slow. And where the respondants actually placed. Now depending on SE's goals for leveling speed they may or may not lower the leveling speed. But i would caution any ority (majority or minority) on avoiding compromise.

I have no experience in FF11. But i've played other slow grind, enforced X time to skill up. Seperate skill % gains, quick to max style exp systems. But i think the most reasonable stance for myself is that we are atleast for the current player base around the sweetspot, plus or minus.

Myself i have no desire to see level cap become a gated community. And i appritate how SE designed Job quests to bring party play in for additions to your class instead of roadblocks.

I can understand the desire for a more enjoyable journey before "end game" but enjoyable does not need to = slow either.
Some games try to extend that "joy" by making for example 5 slots of gear and giving 1 piece per those five levels. Giving the slow leveling a sense of improvement by gradually increasing a characters power. But when you then hit the 6th level, you start replaceing what was, a set. And this continues sometimes causing some people to just want to get to the end so they can have their gear and keep it.

My main point is everyone is going to have a differing opinion on the speed to get to cap. And everyone is going to have a different opinion on what is fun on the journey there.

And also whatever speed you personally belive is the correct one, look at our current style of content, not the dificulty per say, but the changing class/job requierments from one to another and multiply your desired speed times 7. That is what you will be asking new players coming in to ultimately obtain. And thats just concidering the combat classes (ignoring the current needs for Hamlet.)

Tl;DR; Everyone wants a fun journey, but if the destination sucks, thats no fun either. Theres plenty of room for both without making the journey long and slow.

[darkstarpoet1]

Of course, Darkstar, nobody is about to take the competitiveness out of the game. Neither is anybody saying you should not, as an individual, beat us all to the endgame, if you so please. Those of us who agree in this thread are against the design trend that wants to make the path from beginning to endgame, short, quick, and perfunctory. That's a different thing.

now that i completely agree with. i think leveling is much too fast and will hurt the game in the long run. i believe leveling from 1-cap should have an enjoyable journey there.

i took it as more of a slap against people that played the game hard to be the first to do something in your op. i apologize for mistaking the intention because i agree with the speed being too fast part.

@viritess i took his statement as saying he had it too fast on purpose, but didn't realize he has set it so fast that the majority of the people went away from feeling like the normal mmo players felt. i don't think he intended to get such a high percentage to believe it's just right because the norm for a mmo is the opposite. i don't even know if he realizes just how fast leveling in this game is atm because he added too many ways to increase sp and it's already been seen how well his Q&A team does at finding issues and bringing it to their attention..

[Viritess]

@viritess i took his statement as saying he had it too fast on purpose, but didn't realize he has set it so fast that the majority of the people went away from feeling like the normal mmo players felt. i don't think he intended to get such a high percentage to believe it's just right because the norm for a mmo is the opposite. i don't even know if he realizes just how fast leveling in this game is atm because he added too many ways to increase sp and it's already been seen how well his Q&A team does at finding issues and bringing it to their attention..

I suppose its open do debate exactly what hes thinking when he responded in that Dev Letter. But i think you may be readying too deeply into it. His wording, barring changes in translation, shows no real surprise to me. Just a comparison between most MMOs and this one, which he has set at a particular pace.

As far as SE knowing exactly how fast leveling takes I would wager they have more relevant numbers at their disposal about the entirety of the playerbase then we do in our particular circles.

QA questionable or not, past experience tells me the playerbase through sheer numbers will often find issues well before the developers themselves. So i would fail to see how the correlates to leveling speed, since the speed itself is "intentionally" set.

Though as i said in my reply, I shy away from delaring majority/minority besides the little evidence we've been provided. In all the most solid evidence we have been given is the players poll. I can't claim myself that a majority of players don't feel this is like an MMO, as you claim. I know it feels like an MMO to me, allbeit top heavy in levels in my smallish circle.

In Yoshi-p's Dev letter he said he was satisfied with the results. That does not mean he is satisfied with the current leveling speed being too fast, too slow or where it is now. I read that as being satisfied with the ruselts compared to where he has set the current leveling speed.

It will now be up to him/his group/and SE in general to decide at what speed they wish 2.0 to flow to cap. The real question i think we should focus on is not too fast or too slow. Its will there be content to take a class from 1-50 and be fun, and as un repetitive as possible? Will that content be able to survive a single person 7+ times from 1-50? is it Fun/interesting? Will it be the 4th 5th time doing it?

If a person who has all current combat classes maxed, no matter how you got there, sees an 8th class/job in 2.0. The once through new content is bount to be something interesting due to how new it is. But as current players, we may only have to roll through that content once. And not again until another class is released.

Its the new players. The people we're looking forward to joining us, and helping keep the game we injoy healthy, Vibrant, funded and ever growing we should be most concerned about as far as level speed goes. We know the tricks already. We're bound to be faster even if doing the same thing new players are.

And lastly i suppose i just don't always see level cap as the end of the journey. That greatly depends on SE and how they decide to proceed with story and "progression" at cap. Infact i belive the most challengeing journey may be the one you can't out level.

Since i'm a bit tired i may be rambling at this point. so i'll stop here and look forward to the discussion ^^

[Rutelor]

now that i completely agree with. i think leveling is much too fast and will hurt the game in the long run. i believe leveling from 1-cap should have an enjoyable journey there.

i took it as more of a slap against people that played the game hard to be the first to do something in your op. i apologize for mistaking the intention because i agree with the speed being too fast part.

@viritess i took his statement as saying he had it too fast on purpose, but didn't realize he has set it so fast that the majority of the people went away from feeling like the normal mmo players felt. i don't think he intended to get such a high percentage to believe it's just right because the norm for a mmo is the opposite. i don't even know if he realizes just how fast leveling in this game is atm because he added too many ways to increase sp and it's already been seen how well his Q&A team does at finding issues and bringing it to their attention..

Yes, on retrospect, I should've done better with the title... it confused many, not just you.

[darkstarpoet1]

In Yoshi-p's Dev letter he said he was satisfied with the results. That does not mean he is satisfied with the current leveling speed being too fast, too slow or where it is now. I read that as being satisfied with the ruselts compared to where he has set the current leveling speed.

It will now be up to him/his group/and SE in general to decide at what speed they wish 2.0 to flow to cap. The real question i think we should focus on is not too fast or too slow. Its will there be content to take a class from 1-50 and be fun, and as un repetitive as possible? Will that content be able to survive a single person 7+ times from 1-50? is it Fun/interesting? Will it be the 4th 5th time doing it?

don't get me wrong i am not trying to flame. i just looked at it as he was satisfied that so many people were so far outside of the norm 50-60% normally think it's too slow and here 50% think it is about right because he has it set intentionally high in this version to keep people within the same range with each other. the fact that he states himself that he has the speed intentionally high right now leads me to believe that it is only a temporary measure.

[XxOstiaxX]

Yes please do slow the pace of leveling, i need more time to stare at the emptiness of the world as i grind on the 16478646467 gazillion dodo.....