The Echo - Episode 4: "Paying More for More"

Hey everyone, just so you know The Echo team want's to hear from you in order to improve our podcast. Please leave a compliment, comment, complaint, etc. so we can continue to improve.

http://www.ffxivrealm.com/threads/the-echo-podcast-wants-to-hear-from-you.11108/

It's coming we're just facing a few scheduling conflicts atm, we hope to have episode 5 out by next week.

when is the next installment of this podcast coming along?

I've got mixed feelings on all of this.

It took me a few months, easily, to get the Archmage title (CNJ, THM, ARN all Level 50). Main Scenario and Hunting Log alone is not enough to get even one class to 50 atm - you have to do at least some sidequests or otherwise grind out FATES, Levequests, Dungeons, etc.

I will say Dungeon grinding DID really teach me how to play my WHM, however, because of the way dungeons slowly ramp up in difficulty throughout the game, I got plenty of practice before working my way up to healing the harder 4 mans/8 mans. The main difference between this and something like EQ2s Heroic Characters, for instance, is that it would allow people to more easily have multiple classes on one character.

And I too believe that leveling is one of the core parts of any MMO, contrary to what some other players might believe. I've always felt that many players miss out on a lot by skimming the dialogues by madly racing to the level cap.

That said, as I've argued to death already on this board, the general unappreciativeness and arrogance of a lot of NPCs in this game compared to other FFs and MMOs I've played really turned me off from doing a lot of the side quests. If the power level feature came around, I would likely save it for when a new Job came out that strongly interested me gameplay-wise (but maybe not so much lore wise) and use it for that.

I know that one of the biggest complaints about Runes of Magic is that the Cash Shop items are too powerful and hence it is pretty much "Pay to Win" and there are concerns that Rift is becoming the same way as well. Hopefully SE knows what they're doing here...

You can argue that the earth is flat and Yao Ming will make a return to basketball, doesn't mean it holds water. Most players, especially brand new players, take much longer than a "week or two" to hit level cap. Many players are still getting through a lot of the pre-endgame content months after the official release. It seems to me, the players who would benefit most from a straight-to-50 MT are the ones who could have leveled themselves in that short timeframe - in which case, why not just do it?

And, frankly, if you don't enjoy running dungeons, getting new gear, doing quests, slaying monsters, learning story, and leveling up, it sounds like arena MMOs would be better-suited to that playstyle than an MMORPG. The distinctive part of this genre IS the story, IS leveling up, and IS immersing yourself in a fictional universe. I feel that players subbing just to try to beat game mechanics are always going to be dissatisfied, and that's really their problem for not reading the box. I wouldn't, for example, go to a steakhouse and complain that I can't get a steak 5 minutes after ordering.

Yes, the devs should try to appeal to a variety of playstyles, and try to encompass those playstyles in the types of content they make - to an extent that it best serves the overall genre of the game without diminishing it; which a level-cap bump clearly would.

Nichigo, half the reason people quit various MMO's is because they get to max level too quickly, and once there there is not enough end game content of any relevance for them to partake of.

This game only has a maximum of 50 levels per class. The vast majority of the quests in this game are not repeatable. Which means that once they are completed the first time, they are well and gone forever for that character. This means that the vast majority of players have to level up additional characters through alternative means. And if they want to play through the games content again, they have to create an alt character.

While there is plenty of "End-Game" content in this game, being allowed to skip straight to 50 by means of a cash shop item, would in fact be detrimental. Especially for characters playing the Tank Classes. This is because they would not get the experience playing the lower level dungeons that is necessary to teach them how to successfully run the end game dungeons. As such I do not advocate in any game the inclusion of cash shop items that enable the speeding up of the leveling process.

The one exception to this rule is in the case of Perfect World International. The reason for this is because it takes over 4 Billion Experience Points to get to max level, and the last time I checked, the highest amount of experience you could get at any one time was somewhere around 100,000 XP off of a Boss, and that is with a x12 Modifier from a Experience Point Boost Item. In essence, the game is nearly impossible to get to max level in a reasonably short period of time without these experience boost items. But that is the only exception to the rule, and since we don't have that kind of experience system, we have no reason to require such a service at the present or even future times.

Even Final Fantasy XI didn't really require experience boosting items to get to maximum level. And the system that they did introduce to expedite the leveling process was far more efficient than whatever could be achieved via a cash shop, and would allow Square-Enix to maintain its current policy of Subscription Based Gaming instead of going to a cash shop based system.

Really there is no reason for Square Enix to go to a cash shop based system at the current time.

Then again, you can argue that pre-50 stuff only provides you a week or two of actual novel content (even to the brand new player) because of how easy it is to complete. ..not to mention that content isn't really being added to that part of the game.

I personally don't think allowing people skip the 1-49 content would cause people to miss much...especially if it's not something they'd enjoy anyway.

TBH, I found the opposite. 1-50 really did teach me how to "play my class", or at least set my expectations for the types of encounters this game had to offer (read: watch for red circles and avoid them). True, the learning process takes a giant step up in Coil, but frankly, Coil is about 1% of this game (or 100%, I suppose, depending on your preference). There were some missteps in terms of skill progression (getting to do dungeons on a Gladiator without flash right off the bat being one), but generally when a new skill was introduced, I found it was generally (or comparatively) well-tested in the equivalent content.

Maybe it's safer to say that 1-49 did a good job of teaching me what a skill was useful for, and when/how to use it, rather than how to min/max it.

'course, I haven't levelled all classes & jobs.

I think a level bump to 50 would really harm this game, regardless of the fact that the game developers would have to be mad to even be considering it this soon into the game's life cycle. The developers are running on a time frame of about 2.5 months before player fatigue/ennuie sets in, and then kickstart interest again with new content. Honestly, an MMO's longevity is inextricably linked with its time sink. Yes, you'll lose a lot of players over the long haul with long time sinks, but on the other hand, if there is no time sink whatsoever, if you can frankly just port to the content you want, why in the world would you continuously pay a monthly subscription? Less subs = less new content = less players paying the subs = less content, etc. etc. etc.

Also, historically, cash shops aren't pay-to-win (those kind of MMO's die quickly). They're usually quality of life, vanity, or equivalent items.

Just to insert into the cash shop discussion: If a leveling service was introduced, it *might* hurt. But it also might get more quality players into the game that don't necessarily care about the *grind* to get to the REAL content. To be quite honest, my experience from 1-49 has not been one that really taught me how to play my class. Level 50 is where I learned how to play all my classes because fights started becoming more involving and less forgiving. In fact, I'd dare say that sometimes 1-49, in this game, is actually detrimental to players' development because they can get away with so many BAD habits and BAD practices during the easier dungeons. Level 50 ends up being a chore in breaking these habits.

People like me aren't really concerned about the fluff that exists before 50.

As far as the "why buy the game if you're not going to play it"...people are playing it..the way they want. They're just taking the option to skip what they don't want to participate in (or what isn't FUN for them). Not everyone (actually most people) don't want to play 100% of what this game has to offer. The great thing about an MMO is that people can play how they want to.