Hello;
In most MMORPGs I have played there is a level restriction on who you can group with. There are also level restrictions (or suggestions) for content (such as dungeons). In EQ2 they allow you to mentor (lower your level to that of someone in your group). If you group with someone much higher than you (who is not mentored down) you will not get exp for the encounter.
How is this handled in Final Fantasy XIV?
Is it based off your level?
Is it based off the rank of your current equipment?
Are there restrictions on who can be in your group?
Is there a system to allow you to group with lower level friends?
Is there a system to let you know if you are the right rank/level for an encounter?
Are there restrictions on content based off rank/level?
Thank you in advance to anyone able to offer some insight to these questions.
~ Madd Bomber 83
Comments
The game is not released yet. I don't recall reading anything that specifically address' these issues.
I think it is well known that the game is not released yet. There is information about the mechanics of this game. So..... yeah.
Is this mechanic covered by the NDA? You guys have been up to level 20 now yes? How did the grouping restrictions function?
The NDA is still in effect and information pertaining to some of what you have talked about may or may not be in the game but details have not been released regarding them.
I hope whatever the restriction is that they have some mechanic in place to allow you to group with anyone. One thing we love about EQ2 is that any of our characters can play with eachother.
FFXI have this system I think. Anyway the game is not out yet so there are no high lv players anyway. If you start the game at release everybody will be the same level range, so many to group with.
I would prefer not to see a level-down/mentor system in place. I think it will already be very difficult to balance the classes such that someone who has been mixing and matching a few different classes will be just as useful to a party (and just as viable soloing) as someone who sticks to one single class.
You're asking for a system that would take someone of physical level X (and any number of class levels among all classes) and slide them up or down to physical level Y and expect them to be on par with a normal character of physical level Y. I think it would be too difficult to get it right and not leave room for exploitation or trivialization of content.
The point is a system that allows you to group with anyone. Some games scale everything down, others don't let you use skills that are a higher level than those you are scaled too.
It is hard to make a system that is abuse free, but since we are talking about a PVE game having an overpowered player is much less important than in a PVP game.
I should add that any multiplayer game that prevents you from playing with your friends / family is lame.
Its actually pretty rare to be prevented from playing with your friends and family directly. I assume instead you're griping that one character doesn't get any benefit from babysitting? As long as nothing is stopping you then ask yourself whether playing with friends/family is more important or personal progression and then act accordingly.
I suspect they will try to mimic the job switching of FFXI to some extent which means if you want to play with someone lower level you'll switch jobs however that's done and play something that's closer to their own, I'm betting that the way the game is being setup up that any kind of mentoring system would be extremely wonky, but its always possible there's an easy way to do it in their framework and that they planned ahead.
That is IF you start with everyone else. To make matters worse USD 3 for every new toon (excluding the one you start with) makes anyone who wanted to create low lvl toon would think twice. As the game progresses (assuming no new "massive" addition to the community) you'll be left out.
TL:DR If you left out, you'll be left out.
In Everquest 2 when you mentor your effective level is lowered to the person you are mentoring. All your stats and abilities are scaled to be similar to that level (although they should tweak it down a bit further, but that is another topic). This creates a situation where grouping with a lower level person is challenging to the higher level player as well (you don't just one shot stuff).
This does a lot of things.
I can invite my friends and family to play the game and start grouping with them from day 1.
Low level players in a guild/clan can get members to fill that last spot or two in a group / raid.
High level players can experience areas they missed while leveling up, and because they are mentored to the apropriate level they can experience that content as a challenge.
You can revisit favorite encounters you experienced while you leveled up.
There are a lot of benifits to a mentor system. It does not have to be set up but simply the ability to play with lower level characters as if you were the same level as them is a huge necessity. I didn't even think about the 1 character per account aspect. What happens when I outlevel my spouse? Can we just not play with eachother until she catches up?
Even if the system offered no benifit to the higher level player, it would still be welcome.
You sorta missed my point, nothing physically stops you from playing with them except you. Under the vast majority of systems you are forced to choose between yourself and others when there's a level or skill disparity. The system is nice if it can work to benefit both players more less, but it is a luxury, not a necessity.
Mentoring systems are useful of course, but the way the job system works in FFXI and likely from the vague understanding I have in FFXIV it's more difficult because of multiple advancing areas. Adventure levels, job levels, etc. My point is even if there's no mentoring system you can still play with the people you want to, but you're forced to make a choice between the selfish and the selfless, its not really the games fault that you and your friends/family have different playing styles or times.
Answer this then... 2 years from now you have leveled all your jobs up a good amount. You finally convince your friend to join you in the game. How are you going to switch jobs then? You can't, and now you can't play with him. In other games you could just make a new character, not this one.
Torment1982... I got your point, I don't think you got mine. It is not a choice between selfish and selfless if this game sets it up like most others did when they were first released. I'm sure you are familiar with it but let me refresh your memory. When a lower level player groups with a higher level player and they attempt content intended for the lower level player the LOWER LEVEL PLAYER tends not to get exp or credit. Not only that but there is no challenge to the higher level player. If they attempt higher level content the LOWER LEVEL PLAYER gets one shot. So where in that does the higher level player demonstraight selflessness or selfishness. The LOWER LEVEL PLAYER is the one that is hurt by this system. Keep in mind that this is the new player, i.e new revenue that is hurt.
In addition, where do you get saying "its not really the games fault that you and your friends/family have different playing styles or times". Seriously? I go back to saying that this is a multiplayer game intended for you to play with friends/family and make new friends / guild mates. While it is not its fault that people have different play styles it will be its fault if those people don't have a system in place to still play together.
If your job outranks your party they should give you the option of lowering your rank/level so that you can still play with that party. They could similarly scale your gear/stats as well. They could even throw in an EXP penalty or disable your exp all together. There is no reason in a PVE game that this mechanic should not be in place.
Why would you make a new toon? If you just switch your gear then BOOM, your a new class at a reset level, since you have an independant level for each class or "Weapon type" you equip.
So when your friend wants to roll and try the game, just switch your sword to a staff and then go level with him. Very easy.
This will work at first, yes. But what happens 2 years from now when you've leveled all your jobs some?
if it is anything close to FFXI it will take you more then 2 years to get them all to max. And if you played that much, then get another character slot and do it again i guess. But I doubt you would want to roll a class again after the time it takes to level it up once.
I got a reply in another thread (http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3663774/thread/283497#3663774). Thank you all for the discussion. I don't intend to take part in it anymore.
Well yah, with 20 jobs it took me 5 years to get them all above 10+... 3 of them are still under 20.. 4 of them under 30.. you get the idea.
Without anything but FFXI to base my thoughts on this, I would assume if they do add in a mentoring system, it would be similar to FFXI.
You level down to the chosen persons level, and from there your weapon caps are lowered to max for that level (if you have gotten it above that number), aswell all gear would be reduced in effectiveness ( defense lowered, stats lowered) to correspond to your lower level; aswell you would lose any spells/abilities you have above that lower level.
on a side note, if you manage to level up every class in 2 years including new ones thay add in that time.... then you probably suffer from a sever lack of vitamin D, and need a life, preferably one that deals with the outdoors.
Then pay $3 dollars for another char other wise to bad.
I'm sure they will have level sync just like they do with FFXI. If not at release it will come sooner or later. People need to stop crying about creating extra characters though. This game isn't for the people that like to make new characters every 2 months.... unless you have the cash and can afford to do that. lol! Don't like it don't play it. Although I do think they should give us at least 2 more free character slots for either muleing or playing on multiple servers.
My theme song.
unless you leveled all classes i dont see the issue
you just need to switch to new class and you are back to level 1
my punches are as strong as kicks
That is not correct. While you can switch weapons to change your class, your physical level does not change. If you pick up a spear for the first time and go out as a Lancer with a class level of 1, you still have a very high physical level which means your HP and MP, STR, DEX, etc. are much higher than someone who just started the game. At this point, what we don't have much information on is the way that experience will be awarded in a group. Do I steal all the exp for myself if I'm physical level 50 as a Lancer4 in a party of level 4s?
People have done a good job of explaining the benefits of a level-down system but I believe there are some serious drawbacks as well, even if they are a bit more subtle. The big one is the balance problem. Even in a regular WOW-style game where you pick one class and level from 1 to the cap, there is no easy way of arbitrarily "scaling down" equipment and stats to match what a lower level character should have. This problem is magnified in a game where you choose your stats as you level, and FFXIV's class system would seem to make it straight-up impossible.
Another problem is insularity. As maddbomber already mentioned, a mentor system lets a low level guild group within a fill that last spot with a high level member. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's bad because it discourages people from interacting with other players outside the guild. Where you'd otherwise have to recruit a tank and play with someone you've never played with before, instead you can just grab any tank you know at any level. It creates stagnation because you're more likely to always play with the same set of people, and it lessens the quality of the game for unguilded players because it becomes that much harder to make your way into an established group of players.
And one thing to think about for those who feel that it is the game's responsibility to provide you with the ability to play with anyone: let's say there are 4 friends and they are all the same level, but they are also all healers. There's really no way for them to play together... no sane player is going to waste their time in a group with so little damage for anything but a laugh (or perhaps out of pity). Is it up to the developers to create a system that allows these players to play together — maybe by letting them temporarily slide into a DPS class and scaling their equipment to that class's equivalent — or are they justified in saying that players do not have an inherent right to party with anyone and everyone?
Well wrote, I have some comments and I guess I'm back into the conversation.
The big one is the balance problem. Even in a regular WOW-style game where you pick one class and level from 1 to the cap, there is no easy way of arbitrarily "scaling down" equipment and stats to match what a lower level character should have. This problem is magnified in a game where you choose your stats as you level, and FFXIV's class system would seem to make it straight-up impossible.
From what others have said about past games by SE, your level will just be bonus. The scaling will come from your job rank. In this case a higher level player playing a low level rank will have an advantage. One poster said it was enough to be a benifit but not enough to make you over powered. This is with or without any form of scaling on your rank.
EQ2 does not do a very good job of this. Hopefully SE will be able to fine tune it some. I would like to note as a common theme that since this is a PVE game having 1 player being overpowered in a lower level group is not such a big deal. This is amplified when anyone can be any class with the same character. If it were PVP it would be different, but its not. The important thing is being able to group and still face a challenge.
Another problem is insularity. As maddbomber already mentioned, a mentor system lets a low level guild group within a fill that last spot with a high level member. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's bad because it discourages people from interacting with other players outside the guild. Where you'd otherwise have to recruit a tank and play with someone you've never played with before, instead you can just grab any tank you know at any level. It creates stagnation because you're more likely to always play with the same set of people, and it lessens the quality of the game for unguilded players because it becomes that much harder to make your way into an established group of players.
This is a good point.
EQ2 had a problem with its guild leveling system. Basically you could min/max the system by having a guild of all active players of a certain size. This made it difficult for community reasons. They fixed it by removing that system. If SE makes a guild leveling system that is tied to number of active players this could amplify the problem. If they don't (as in there is no reason not to have whoever you want in your guild assuming they are a good fit) then I don't think you will see guilds become exclusive because they don't need to be inclusive.
And one thing to think about for those who feel that it is the game's responsibility to provide you with the ability to play with anyone: let's say there are 4 friends and they are all the same level, but they are also all healers. There's really no way for them to play together... no sane player is going to waste their time in a group with so little damage for anything but a laugh (or perhaps out of pity). Is it up to the developers to create a system that allows these players to play together — maybe by letting them temporarily slide into a DPS class and scaling their equipment to that class's equivalent — or are they justified in saying that players do not have an inherent right to party with anyone and everyone?
In all the games I have played that included a mentor like system the healing classes could dps/tank at least a little. In these cases a group full of healers while comical also works. I know this is side stepping your point, but...
As another side step, in this particular game you can be any class, so 4 friends who all primarily heal could group together with one being a tank, the other 2 being the dps, and the last one remaining a healer (assuming he can mentor).
So, I don't think this line of thought has a place. To answer your question though, a developer is justified in saying whatever they like, it is thier game. To get more specific, I do not think we have an inherent right to access all the content in the game with any combination of players that we want. I do think we have the right to access a decent amount of enjoyable and challenging content with any combination of players though. Should we be able to take on the hardest group encounter with a subpar group? No. Should we be able to run some quests with eachother and take on some challenging content with a subpar group? Yes.
Again, thank you for your well thought out post.
You guys fail to remember that this is not like all your other guilds, you can potentially be part of 50 guilds if you wanted. In FF you are part of Link Shell and you get a Link Pearl, you can have as many pearls as you want so you can be in more than one guild, you can have a small buddy guild a larger raiding guild, a leveling guild and so on and so fort.
So if you want or need to level or play with some one else and they are in another guild they can give you a pearl and wam your in there guild (LS) now. And as the job (weapon) level allows you to kill lower level mosters since your weapon level is low even though you will no longer be leveling your physical level the lower level weapon (job) will still put you at the level of the mob you are fighting so if your fighting a lv 1 bunny or bat or what ever it can still kill you if you are using the low level weapon even if you have a bit more HP and stuff that does not mean you will live through the encounter.