Square Enix Explains Final Fantasy XIV's Unusual Experience System

[Logan Westbrook]

Square Enix Explains Final Fantasy XIV's Unusual Experience System

Hopefully the idea of playing a jack-of-all-trades in Final Fantasy XIV is appealing, because you might not have any choice.

Final Fantasy XIV [http://www.m.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-XIV-Collectors-Pc/dp/B003O6EFKI ]has a fairly unique setup when it comes to gaining experience: If you play any single class for too long, the number of experience points you gain will start to drop, eventually dwindling away to nothing. This is something that dedicated fans of the game have been angry about for a while, but it's only now that the game's director. Nobuaki Komoto, has explained why it uses such an unusual system.

Komoto says the reason there is a time limit - which is only eight hours long - on accumulating XP for each character class is so that players with more time on their hands don't gain an advantage over those whose time is more limited. He said it was part of the way that the game is balanced, and compared the system to real world fatigue, saying that it was unrealistic for someone to be able to train indefinitely.

It seems an odd choice to bring realism into the discussion. Even ignoring the fact that we're talking about a fantasy MMOG, having to swap to training as a sorcerer or a blacksmith because you've gone over your allotted warrior training time is not a realistic system. The fact of the matter is that a character in Final Fantasy XIV can train indefinitely, just not at the same job all the time. It's not going to stop hardcore players from gaining an advantage over the casual players either. They may level up in a particular class at a similar speed, but the hardcore player will be more versatile and flexible, because he or she will have training in a wider range of classes.

Final Fantasy XIV is released on September 30th for PC, and early 2011 for PS3.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5621786/final-fantasy-xivs-play+limiting-fatigue-system-explained]





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[Orcus The Ultimate]

and i imagined it would copy Morrowind kind of leveling up...

 

[Korten12]

my brother got so pissed when he heared about this system in FF14.

 

[squid5580]

So that is the reason for all the stupidity. They don't want hardcore players to get an advantage? Although charging a monthly sub for a game they don't want you to play and will penalize you for playing does not make sense

 

[Proteus214]

So the hardcore players will be making a LOT of alts and leveling them in parallel. I really hope they know what they're doing because I sure don't. I know that it is not a good thing for someone to play like crazy, but a super-hardcore player will play for however much time they want. If you try to curb that, they will only hate you for it.

 

[Irie Gwynbleidd]

Too long? It's one damn hour a day!

Quote from FFXIVcore:
"Within the first eight hours of play, you can earn 100% experience. The seven hour period following will see your possible experience gradually approach zero.
This system is on a weekly timer. After a week has passed since you began skilling that particular weapon, the timer will reset. It will start anew when you skill up again."

 

[NeutralDrow]

That sounds like something I do, anyway, but I think I'm in the minority. Sounds unusual, to be sure, but I wouldn't think it would work out...

 

[Fensfield]

Oh no, they're trying something new. How terrible.

Maybe it'll work, maybe not. I'm just glad they're trying something.

And for once I'll not be getting punished for my love of exploring multiple character designs.

 

[Scops]

"Komoto says the reason there is a time limit on accumulating XP for each character class is so that players with more time on their hands don't gain an advantage over those whose time is more limited."

Isn't that an advantage in ANY activity? I mean sure, here XP is a stand-in for actual player skill (assuming that FFXIV's mechanics are like most MMORPG's), but how is this different from my friend who is "between jobs" kicking my ass at Gears 2 because he's got all day to play it and get good while I'm at work?

 

[SharedProphet]

Why aren't they taking to heart the lesson Blizzard already learned about this? Frame it as a bonus rather than a penalty, and everyone will love it.

 

[AugustFall]

Meh I won't ash it until I see it in action. I don't like this idea that it's a bad thing people who put more time into something are better. A casual player will get destroyed in any competitive game, if you can just drop in and be as good as anyone else what's the point? Unless it is super fun of course, I guess they are trying to get rid of the grindmonkeys who are all super strong but a better way of doing this is getting rid of grind a la Guild Wars 1 and I'd imagine 2.

Cap the levels early and make the game about good character builds.

 

[Virgil]

I suppose the biggest advantage to the developers is that this limits the rate of character progression to a fixed amount. They will know exactly what the minimum time for advancement between two levels is, and can pace the game accordingly. When the game first launches, this will probably help them a lot.

On the other hand, I don't think it's going to go over so well in practice, and I would bet that the limits will get tweaked quite a bit over time.

So the hardcore players will be making a LOT of alts and leveling them in parallel. ...

That doesn't make sense. Why would leveling a secondary character be preferable to leveling a different job on the same character? In either case you'd be getting an equal amount of 'progression' in each task on one character.

Also, if FFXIV is anything like FFXI, you have a very limited number of character slots and have to purchase additional ones (at a recurring cost).

 

[viranimus]

Well... thats one way to force people who cant stand doing tradeskills, into conforming.

 

[Andronicus]

So that is the reason for all the stupidity. They don't want hardcore players to get an advantage? Although charging a monthly sub for a game they don't want you to play and will penalize you for playing does not make sense

This man speaks the truth. Once you've gotten to the point where you can't level up your character in a particular job anymore, and you don't actually want to level up any of the other classes, the only thing to keep you going is good story and REALLY COOL places to explore. So those better be damn good, otherwise, what's the point? You might as well just stop playing, and the worst part is, you're still supposed to be paying to play the game.

I applaud them for trying something new, but it really isn't going to work, especially not in the sense that hardcore and casual audiences will be equally matched.

 

[icame]

I won't judge until i see how this 'balancing' works out ingame. Actually it probably doesn't matter because from all the video's I've scene this game looks boring and repetitive even by MMO standards.