Level Progression/Questing

[KiriA500]

What I meant was that as of today, MMOs tend to be more about what there is to do at level cap, not about the levels in between. Look at the gripes people had with SWTOR. Quite a few people complained that there wasn't enough content at release as they all raced to level cap, a few I know that had to cancel their subscriptions because there was nothing to do other than PVP. And I don't think it was completely the developers fault here. Bioware does wonders with RPGs and progression. It is the players. Many of us just want to get to the end as quick as possible. I have even seen a few people that don't even read quest logs for half a second. They go to the guy with the exclamation point and immediately click accept as they stack up a countless number of quests on their quest log.

Even if the devs got rid of the streamlined mechanic of telling you exactly what you have to do, the players will be upset at being felt forced to read through all the text that the writers painstakingly put together. Believe it or not, there's a story in that wall of text! We have a mindset now that all that matters in an MMO is the "end-game content".

On a side note, it has never made sense to me how a mother can lose her child and ask you for help, then immediately mark on your map exactly where her child is! If you know exactly where she is, then you didn't lose her! What is a search type quest when you don't actually have to search?

The problem with those other games is that literally all they have is end-game. Final Fantasy XI was unique in that you could level multiple jobs at once. There was a broad range of mid-level content to do (BCNM, etc.) to obtain fantastic gear to use while leveling these lower jobs. This is great, but also a huge problem in design.

With games like World of Warcraft, if you want to continue to better your character, you have to beat all the newest dungeons. Once you get all the best stuff, a new dungeon comes out, thus giving you more drive to get better stuff. In Final Fantasy XI, gear was hardly ever added, so there were very few options to go for. The reason people spammed low level content in XI was because they were trying to go for the ONLY option available to them. Nobody actually wanted to just stay level 20 the entire time while doing BCNM20 for Astral Rings, they were doing it just for the sake of getting one of the very few MP rings in the game, so they could better their main class, which was much higher level.

I feel that games should have mid-level content, obviously, but I don't think making the leveling process worse just for the sake of having to be stuck in mid-level longer...just for the sake of being mid-level. Everybody is playing an MMO to reach the max level, because that's why you fight things to begin with.

For your side note:
Maybe bandits took the child, and a mother isn't capable of fighting them to save her daughter. I mean, not everyone in Eorzea is an adventurer...there's a chance she knows where they ran to, but is unable to do so herself. Be the hero, save the girl!

[Gramul]

Everybody is playing an MMO to reach the max level, because that's why you fight things to begin with.

I fight things because they're often the obstacles I have to face when I want to go through an adventure. Leveling just means I'm getting stronger the more I fight. I'm not playing to reach max level. Max level is a side effect of me enjoying the game a lot.