Thoughts from a casual

[ChiefCurrahee]

The early days of XI were difficult due to the fact that to progress in any meaningful amounts you absolutely had to group. But the co-op play was fun. Each person had a role in a group. Your group was only strong as your weakest link. From puller to tank to DD and healer all had to be working in unison. Setting up the coordination to set off a skillchain and magic burst, made the leveling experience entertaining.

Even if it took a few hours to gain a level, the slower progression made all the difference getting to that next step in your path.

I've been playing GW2 since it launched. I have 3 max level jobs. my first took me about a month to level 1-80 my 2nd play through i did 1-80 in about 2 weeks. The leveling process was so trivial I wore lv 40 armor until I hit level 80. I figured why bother buying new gear, I'm going to be 80 in a matter of days. the upgrade isn't worth it until then.

This to me is poor design of, what I view as a very important part of the game; The journey.

in XI, you looked forward to gear upgrades, learning that new spell, aquiring that new skill. Unlocking the quest chain to search for your AF. The journey was the content of the game. That seems to be lost in todays MMO.

This is something that I dearly hope XIV:ARR finds.

[Alhanelem]

I hope that SE doesn't forego the journey leveling a character can bring to attract more players.

I don't feel this level up "journey" you speak of is what attracts players to an MMO. Some people do have fun just leveling (why they think it's so much fun I have no idea personally) but for most people it's simply a vehicle by which you travel to the content the game has to offer. the content is the meat and potatoes of the game, not the level-up experience. Leveling never has been, and should not be, difficult. Leveling up is the time when you're learning your character and its abilities. Taking something you do over and over and making it unduly difficult will scare more players away than it will attract.

Leveling slower doesn't mean leveling is more fun. Take mapleStory for example. in the early days of the game it took forever and ever to reach the highest level, to the point where only a handful of people actually did it before they nerfed the exp curve, and made exp faster, etc. And when you died, you might lose hours of work. Maybe you'll disagree but that sounds like the exact opposite of fun to me.

[Alhanelem]

The PC is the primary platform for this game. If the PS3 can't do something, it won't get it, or it will be specially designed on that system to work around the limitations. PC users won't have to sacrifice for the PS3's sake.

[Zenaku]

The PC is the primary platform for this game. If the PS3 can't do something, it won't get it, or it will be specially designed on that system to work around the limitations. PC users won't have to sacrifice for the PS3's sake.

yep and thank god we get addon and DX11 ps3 would get the most used addon later added to ps3 by SE so at least ps3 is not that left out.

[schism]

ARR is really missing the magic. Its not going to be there ever again if we keep catering to these CASUAL players hahaha. I really hope they dont take that casual stuff too serious because I really want this game to last longer than 6 months.

[Kyri]

I felt 14 was waaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to easy to level, even before powerleveling and I definitely feel it needs to ramp up on the difficulty. I was very disappointed when we got jobs and didn't have to level them, more bleh when everyone on the server had all the AF the very next week. Someone powerleveling could seriously get like 20 levels in the time it took me to write this. Though I love this game and it's my #1, that's disgusting><

[Ruisu]

The game should be harder in general, not FFXI hard, because I want an actual difficulty and not that artificial crap. I'd rather everyone experience the same difficulty in order to make people less awful at the game, but the dev team isn't willing to risk gaining less subs. So whatever. Game should be harder in general, though.

[Yrusama]

I think what XIV misses most from XI is something you brought up: the ability to chat during battle. There were countless times I accidentally let a party member die as a WHM because I thought I had time to direct or inform the party between cures. I remember having some really in-depth conversations with parties in XI, even players who I knew I might never see again. In 1.0, however, if I joined a Natalan party nearly all of my attention was spent on the battles. There was literally no time to socialize. How do you develop a significant bond and trust with a party member if they're a stranger for the duration of a 4-hour party? Needless to say, my friends list didn't see many updates. I'll admit I made a couple of friends while crafting and chatting in Ul'dah.

[AmandaHuggenkiss]

How do you develop a significant bond and trust with a party member if they're a stranger for the duration of a 4-hour party?

Easy.
I had pure social shells I would invite players I met to.
Also, I never had issues typing chat at anytime during 1.0 game play.
Maybe playing with a controller helped that...

[Zenaku]

I think what XIV misses most from XI is something you brought up: the ability to chat during battle. There were countless times I accidentally let a party member die as a WHM because I thought I had time to direct or inform the party between cures. I remember having some really in-depth conversations with parties in XI, even players who I knew I might never see again. In 1.0, however, if I joined a Natalan party nearly all of my attention was spent on the battles. There was literally no time to socialize. How do you develop a significant bond and trust with a party member if they're a stranger for the duration of a 4-hour party? Needless to say, my friends list didn't see many updates. I'll admit I made a couple of friends while crafting and chatting in Ul'dah.

You meet a lot of cool people the few that want to talk and you end up adding them to your friendlist. In Dungeon runs in wow i end up meeting awesome people but they was in other worlds which end up sucking ass they have to make a char on your world and give them some start money so they can level up quick or you join and they give you starting money overall it sucked. I met a few awesome people doing party one of them i'm still friends and that been over 1+year i did that party in ffxiv so ya you could meet awesome people partying.