What, no levels?

[Cyprius]

Re: What, no levels?

Skill trees weren't invented by WoW. They've been around in MMORPG's before.

I know.. I'm just talking about XIV being influenced WoW in general. Not just in that sense.

[Kafeen]

Re: What, no levels?

I highly doubt your accuracy and damage will never go up.

In one of the interviews, the FFXICore one I think, they mention that the mobs in different areas would be different levels so the player could choose what to fight. If mobs are different levels then the player going to need to be able to advance through those so increases in accuracy and attack will be needed.

From the demo we kind of have an idea how weapon skill increases, this can affect stats such as accuracy and attack. I can see magic working in a similar way but what about other stats such as HP and MP. I wonder how we're going to be able to increase those.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

Re: What, no levels?

This sounds very odd. From what I remember BG pinned Colibris as RDMs based on their stats. They should have worse Evasion than a WAR type mob as a result. Are Marsh Murres not WARs?

FFXIclopedia has the Colibri family as RDM with Evasion Bonus +20. It fits with my data unless I made a mistake. Go figure.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What, no levels?

A level system for mobs can be worked around by a con system for players. If I noted the demo correctly, when you target various mobs, the targeting reticule itself varies in color based on the mob's strength. Green was Easy Prey, Yellow was Even Match and Red was Incredibly Tough, to take the EQ con system and put it into FFXI terms. It was also a lot more time efficient than /check.

Though I do hope FFXIV retains and expands upon the aggro system FFXI had. Many MMOs just had Yellows and Reds plain aggro you and the only difference in aggro was hate radius. They were all sight aggro otherwise.

[Takelli]

Re: What, no levels?

Skill tree's, for example. Like, you make a mage in WoW.. And you could either choose like, frost mage or fire mage. So you kinda choose your own path of skills.

Usually with a system like this, it prevents people from mastering all of the skills and using them all. Most of the skills will be simply not used as they can not acess them, and they aren't "the best" skills.

[Kailea]

Re: What, no levels?

I know.. I'm just talking about XIV being influenced WoW in general. Not just in that sense.

Thats the thing FFXIV is not influenced by WoW, is influenced by western MMORPGs in general, nothing in WoW is really original -.-

[Armando]

Re: What, no levels?

Sigh, I think you're right. There seem to be skill levels. Just you get skillups instead of xp.

I'm sad now

I was hoping for something more revolutionary. Level sync will have to suffice. However, this means it may still be impossible to explore the story without huge disconnects for leveling.

It just wasn't gonna happen. They have an MMO to run, they need a grind to hold players in between more significant events. Your magical no-level system would've worked just fine for an offline game, but I really didn't see them dropping the time sinks below a certain level.

They're going to give us more fulfilling time sinks, but they're not going to do away with them.

And yeah, I think it's kind of inaccurate to say it's being influenced by WoW. More like they're actually keeping up with the times.

[Feba]

Re: What, no levels?

Though I do hope FFXIV retains and expands upon the aggro system FFXI had.

Me too. I'd especially like to see a good ground found between "just use a couple items and blow through the area" and "suddenly, EVERYTHING IS TRUE SIGHT! GASP! LOOK HOW MUCH HARDER IT IS NOW!"

Maybe spells and items helping to shield you, but having enemies be able to see through it. Make it like attack and defense, and add a stealth HP bar (probably invisible); your spell/item has a set time and HP depending on skill/HQ (or maybe have rarer ones awarded/dropped on special occasions, up to perfect sneak/invis as FFXI has), and the enemy has a set 'attack' based on their job/level/skills/NM-status/location (as in, distance from you) and so on. Whenever you'd normally aggro the monster, it instead calculates its StealthAtk against your StealthDef, and deals appropriate damage to your StealthHP. This is basically the monster equivalent of guards in MGS going "huh? what's that?", and adding an element of 'hey did you guys see that' to mob behavior. When your Stealth HP drops to 0, your stealth falls and you're aggro'd.

It just wasn't gonna happen. They have an MMO to run, they need a grind to hold players in between more significant events.

I disagree with this. EVE online did a pretty good job (OH MY GOD, CAN ANYONE BELIEVE FEBA JUST SAID THAT? HOW ORIGINAL. I NEVER WOULD'VE EXPECTED THAT!) of keeping the bar for entrance into big fun activities low, while giving VERY good reason to continue playing and improve your skills. A character only a few weeks old, flying a very cheap frigate, can still be an effective force when they're effectively integrated into the team. And large numbers of such characters can be far more terrifying than a handful of more powerful ships. At the same time, improving your skills makes you more and more effective, you get nicer and nicer ships (which allows you to be more self-sufficient; missions and pirates will eventually become unmanageable in a frigate), you are better able to defend yourself outside of the group, and so on. Saying you have to find a way to hook people, therefore you need a friend, is basically the same as saying that there's no reason to keep playing once you're at endgame. And FFXI players will forget that very few games allow you to so quickly and simply jump to another job and start all over again without losing any of that character's progress.

It's perfectly possible to manufacture an MMO where you basically go directly to endgame, and do a very good job of it. And in a lot of ways, it would be more fun than a grindfest (or at least, it would allow you to DRASTICALLY change the nature of the grind). Missions can be held off by things like time limits, fame (where fame takes not just spamming quests, but literally getting your name out there-- running around town, selling things through whatever replaces the AH, felling horrible creatures NMs, maybe creatures seen as 'pests], etc), etc.

Or missions could even be entirely irrelevant; the storyline could be told in some way that isn't dependent on you doing dressed up quests. I've always been of the opinion that the second best thing you can do to make a world feel real is to not tell the story to the player directly, but to have the story be existing around them. It gets old to be the guy who SAVES THE WORLD, along with five other guys who are apparently only around for the show. And then next month, your LS is going to run a bunch of noobs through it again. Apparently you're ALL the ONLY GUY WHO CAN SAVE THE WORLD.

And FFXIV could one up EVE in this regard-- instead of just having newspapers and the occasional broadcast, you could have NPCs run around in the streets delivering news; some NPCs could be gossips, easily. It would add character. Higher ranked characters could be privy to meetings with heads of state and other important characters (your Trions, your Volkers, your Shantottos, etc.) which would give them better insight into the goings-on of the world than lower characters (presumably the news would trickle out, and be compiled). These meetings could even be handled in real time, with GMs or other SE employees doing the dialogue, interacting with players. How much more epic would it feel to talk to the fucking king when he orders you to go slay a dragon; instead of just standing there reading it?

This would make the story exciting and fresh to everyone, every day. There would be no spoilers, there would be no repeating missions. If you fail, you fail. As an example, besieged. If players do badly enough, or enemies catch people completely off guard, a town could not just lose some NPCs, but be completely overrun and become unusable (or change sides). Obviously, during end-of-the-world scenarios, this would probably not be allowed to happen; NPCs or GMs would work to defeat it anyway. Or it succeeds, and everything gets reset-buttoned. Or time skips forward until after people have basically recovered. Things like that.

And of course it's possible to make a game that doesn't have a level grind without being so drastically awesome.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What, no levels?

Feba, are you sure you're talking about EVE?



Anyway, I don't think its practical to make an MMO where you go from newbie to mega-earthshattering endgame event in very little time.

Again, if time is an issue, MMOs are not for you.

[Feba]

Re: What, no levels?

I didn't say EVE was easy. I said that there wasn't a layer of grinding forced between new players and being able to actually participate in things with other players, including the storyline.

And I think your comment points out two very bad viewpoints, which is why I thank you. They're important, and I disagree with both of them;

1- If you don't have to grind your way to the top, you didn't 'earn' it. I'm not supporting character buying, but the idea that you shouldn't be able to do anything important at the beginning is pure elitism. Should a game have everyone be on an absolutely equal playing field other than pure skill? No. Should everyone start out with super weapons just for the hell of it? No. Does everyone need to throw hundreds of hours into their life in order to be 'worthy' of even playing at the same level as people with these? No.

Look at FPS, or fighting games. Lots of them have RPG-like upgrade systems, but still manage to make it a game everyone can play. Now imagine that you don't need to worry about keeping players competitive, just making sure that the new players can still contribute something instead of being dead weight (part of this also would mean changing the party/claim system).

In EVE, it takes years before you're able to fly the big guns, if you can even afford them. But if your friend invites you to play, you can be actually useful and helpful almost immediately. As opposed to FFXI, where you're stuck basically only being able to ask for help.

2- Current MMOs. If I don't have time to spend two hours a day grinding, why should that matter? Why shouldn't a game allow me to still have fun? Sure, I shouldn't make as much money or have my character progress as much stat-wise, but why should I fall behind my friends because they play the extra half hour a day that allows them to build up EXP at a faster rate; eventually making it impossible to do things together? Why is this a good way to run a game?

Why should I not be able to enjoy the story, because I don't have the ability to pull together a large group of people night after night until we finally don't die? Why should I not be able to hop on a couple times a month and still enjoy a narrative, and being part of it?

[Cyprius]

Re: What, no levels?

Usually with a system like this, it prevents people from mastering all of the skills and using them all. Most of the skills will be simply not used as they can not acess them, and they aren't "the best" skills.

It's not a bad thing that not everyone turns out the same. You can excel in one path or to a bit of everything so-so. Every combination has it's pro's and cons.

[Kailea]

Re: What, no levels?

Yeah great way for multi characters too, develope one to be a master swords man, then another to be a Sage, and one for Archery and then one for crafts ;p

[Feba]

Re: What, no levels?

It's not a bad thing that not everyone turns out the same.

No, but it's better to give your players an amount of upgradeablity that's they'll never reach than to simply say "ok, you went that way, you can never undo it/you'll have to take a penalty to redo it".

The bigger problem with a system that locks you into your role is that if an update gimps a certain role-choice, you can't easily change it. With one that simply allows you to continue expanding your power, however laterally, you just say "aw" and start working on a different branch.

it's also better to encourage individuality by simply giving your players many different ways to perform a task than to say "ok, we don't want everyone to have the same character, so we're going to impose limitations to stop things from getting too common.". Would you rather have SE "pick a weapon", you pick a Scythe, and later on wish you had a spear-- or would you rather have the ability to use whatever weapon, and later decide which one you have most fun using?

Skill trees like FFXI's merit point system are exactly the opposite of the way you want to go. You want people to be able to explore every option, eventually, but make eventually so far off that by the time they complete it, they have more options.

[Cyprius]

Re: What, no levels?

it's also better to encourage individuality by simply giving your players many different ways to perform a task than to say "ok, we don't want everyone to have the same character, so we're going to impose limitations to stop things from getting too common.". Would you rather have SE "pick a weapon", you pick a Scythe, and later on wish you had a spear-- or would you rather have the ability to use whatever weapon, and later decide which one you have most fun using?

That's a pretty bad example to use for whatever point you're making. We're talking about skill paths within weapons, not the weapons themselves.

If a 1H Sword gives you a choice between elemental skillsets, for example, then you choose whatever path you want to take. There could be tons.. Fire, Ice, Water, Light, Dark, Earth, Wind, Lightning - whatever - You can grab certain skills from each path, or excel in 2 or 3 of them. Being a jack of all trades type of thing means you're not going to get the upper end skills, however.

If you switch to a 2H Sword, you start fresh. A new skill tree, it's own.

And why not penalize players if they want to change it up? It forces you to make your choices wisely. We can leave it up to the game developers to think of some kind of system in which if people want to change, you're going to have to pay in some way. The higher you go in skill, the more $$ it might costs to change. Or, the higher you go in skill and decide to change later, you're docked X amount of skill points to distribute all over again. And it actually benefits S-E in the end.. Because if you don't want to bear the burden of changing your skills on a developed character, then you think to yourself "Hey, I'll make a new char!". Then you pay $1 extra per month, and S-E is happy.

There are obviously going to be people with the same builds, which is fine. But it's better than having the cookie-cutter system like in FFXI. The only thing differentiating players of the same job at LV75 was pretty much their gear. They would have all the same skills. I'll admit, I stopped playing FFXI before I hit 75 so I have no idea what merit points are and whatever.

But still, I'd rather have a game that holds some weight on your choice of growth, than to have it be a mindless path where all you do is buy the next available skill or spell.

[Kafeen]

Re: What, no levels?

GMs or other SE employees doing the dialogue, interacting with players. How much more epic would it feel to talk to the fucking king when he orders you to go slay a dragon; instead of just standing there reading it?

For hundreds of thousands of players? Hardly a practical option.