Beyond Level 100

[Aidorouge]

A level squish is not it, it comes with too many issues. Things are already being gutted from earlier levels in order to be put in later ones. If you squish levels, that would mean the entire levelling process would become extremely boring at earlier levels. A first-timer would feel like the MSQ is a slog due to barely levelling throughout it, and they have to go through every expansion just for a few abilities.

As opposed to the current system where you gain 10s of levels of "dead air" where literally nothing changes on the job? Where you have to wait until 80-90 to get your actually full and proper kit? MCH only has 45 skills + 22 traits for example, and that's being generous and including the Rook/Queen attacks separately, the generally useless role actions that aren't exclusive to the job anyway, and traits that literally just say "makes thing do more damage" without actually changing anything on the job.

You could have the job gain one skill per level and it would be done by the time it hit 70, leaving 30 levels of nothing right now. Getting Full Metal Field at 70 as the new DT cap would not be fundamentally different than getting it at level 100 for the current DT cap, and you might even gain access to certain parts of the kit way earlier than before because by cutting the fat in-between, previous capstone abilities become part of the new leveling process instead.

Giving us some other leveling track where we gain another 10 levels of "prestige" or "merit" or whatever would just be 7 or so levels of more useless fat, with a whopping one new skill (that's probably just an old skill with a flashier animation) and 1-2 traits of meaningless potency boosts along the way to "level nu-10 that's totally not level 110".

[LanceSummers]

As opposed to the current system where you gain 10s of levels of "dead air" where literally nothing changes on the job? Where you have to wait until 80-90 to get your actually full and proper kit? MCH only has 45 skills + 22 traits for example, and that's being generous and including the Rook/Queen attacks separately, the generally useless role actions that aren't exclusive to the job anyway, and traits that literally just say "makes thing do more damage" without actually changing anything on the job.

You could have the job gain one skill per level and it would be done by the time it hit 70, leaving 30 levels of nothing right now. Getting Full Metal Field at 70 as the new DT cap would not be fundamentally different than getting it at level 100 for the current DT cap, and you might even gain access to certain parts of the kit way earlier than before because by cutting the fat in-between, previous capstone abilities become part of the new leveling process instead.

Giving us some other leveling track where we gain another 10 levels of "prestige" or "merit" or whatever would just be 7 or so levels of more useless fat, with a whopping one new skill (that's probably just an old skill with a flashier animation) and 1-2 traits of meaningless potency boosts along the way to "level nu-10 that's totally not level 110".

I never said a new system would just be a reskin of the current system. It would be new and function differently, I'm sure the devs would think of something.
Vertical levelling in a different form is what you are suggesting. My thoughts for replacing it past level 100 would be adding a horizontal progression system, not just a reskin of the current vertical progression system.

[Aidorouge]

I never said a new system would just be a reskin of the current system. It would be new and function differently, I'm sure the devs would think of something.
Vertical levelling in a different form is what you are suggesting. My thoughts for replacing it past level 100 would be adding a horizontal progression system, not just a reskin of the current vertical progression system.

Vertical systems aren't perfect, given the inevitable problem that comes with out of control ever-higher numbers, but horizontal systems can quickly erode into "illusion of choice" which is why I don't consider them flawless either.

[LanceSummers]

Vertical systems aren't perfect, given the inevitable problem that comes with out of control ever-higher numbers, but horizontal systems can quickly erode into "illusion of choice" which is why I don't consider them flawless either.

I don't see them further being able to further implement the vertical progression levelling system, button bloat is a major issue and the experience of how jobs play at lower levels needs to be considered. Frankly their only options are to stop the vertical progression system altogether and only do ilvl increases or add a horizontal progression system past level 100. I prefer the latter because it's something they can add onto later with each expansion, the former is an option but it doesn't feel like a good one.