ffxiv really needs some variation in the levelling system.

[Rogalicus]

- Beast Tribe quests

Limited to 12 per day, low experience.

PVP

Many don't like it in general, but even if they did, PvP is shit.

- FATE spam (if you're really bored)

These and levequests take much more effort than dungeons with much less EXP.

I don't get the "it's all just dungeon spam" complaint about leveling because guess what I did to level alts in WoW for the better part of 10 years...

All your other options are dungeon spam. You can do quests between dungeons in WoW, which makes leveling much more tolerable. I leveled some alts exclusively by quests.

[kaintk]

- Dungeon roulettes (leveling, 50/60/70, trial, alliance raid)
- Deep Dungeons (PotD 1-60, HoH 61-70)
- Beast Tribe quests
- dungeon spam via Trusts (71-80)
- PVP (I leveled 5-6 jobs 61-70 in SB this way while also getting their anima weapon light grind done)
- FATE spam (if you're really bored)
- Bozja (71-80) as of 5.3

I don't get the "it's all just dungeon spam" complaint about leveling because guess what I did to level alts in WoW for the better part of 10 years...

I do agree that the xp from side quests is way too low. That said, I made a decent bit of bank from ShB side quests a couple months ago by selling the gear I got from them.

well, last time i play, the problem was you HAVE to do the dungeon to advance in your quest
that is the difference with WoW, in warcraft, you do dungeon if you want but its not block your quest advancment
that said, i only played FF14 vanilla,, so i dont know if the system has really changed :P

[Katchii]

Limited to 12 per day, low experience.

It's actually a fairly decent amount of experience. I always just used them as something ELSE to do while waiting for my roulette queues to pop.

Many don't like it in general, but even if they did, PvP is shit.

Agreed.

These and levequests take much more effort than dungeons with much less EXP.

These can be done in addition to dungeons, since DPS classes specifically have a queue timer. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

All your other options are dungeon spam. You can do quests between dungeons in WoW, which makes leveling much more tolerable. I leveled some alts exclusively by quests.

You can do quests in between dungeons in FFXIV, especially with beast tribe quests, levequests and FATE's. The regular world quests will eventually all be used up, though. But, yes, unfortunately you can't really level alt jobs using quests in FFXIV but even so, it's not or doesn't have to be JUST dungeon spam.

- - - Updated - - -

well, last time i play, the problem was you HAVE to do the dungeon to advance in your quest
that is the difference with WoW, in warcraft, you do dungeon if you want but its not block your quest advancment
that said, i only played FF14 vanilla,, so i dont know if the system has really changed :P

There are a ton of dungeons and trials that are part of the story, and you are required to complete them at least once at that part of the story to advance the MSQ. That hasn't changed.

But it's certainly not just dungeon spam for leveling or for doing the MSQ.

Depending on the data center you're playing on and at what time you're trying to do those older (or even newer) dungeons/ trials, the wait time in queue isn't usually any more than 10-15 minutes as a DPS class. However if you're trying to do these and queue during off-peak or super late hours on your data center, you're going to have a bad time.

[Rogalicus]

It's actually a fairly decent amount of experience. I always just used them as something ELSE to do while waiting for my roulette queues to pop.

Well, maybe in expansions, ARR beast tribe quests give some pittance like 7-10k EXP when you need over 400k for one level.

These can be done in addition to dungeons, since DPS classes specifically have a queue timer. They don't have to be mutually exclusive.

They can overlap with queue and if I'm not mistaken, if you don't finish it and go to dungeon instead you get absolutely nothing.

But, yes, unfortunately you can't really level alt jobs using quests in FFXIV but even so, it's not or doesn't have to be JUST dungeon spam.

That's why I don't understand why they didn't give NG+ proper experience rewards, as it is now I don't see myself ever doing it.

[Katchii]

Well, maybe in expansions, ARR beast tribe quests give some pittance like 7-10k EXP when you need over 400k for one level.

It takes like 5 minutes to finish a complete set of particular beast tribe quests. And it's still something you can do while waiting on your queue. 30k+ experience for ~5 minutes of work is really decent.

They can overlap with queue and if I'm not mistaken, if you don't finish it and go to dungeon instead you get absolutely nothing.

Yes, the FATE or Leve you're literally in the middle of and gets interrupted by you accepting the queue pop and taken to the dungeon results in zero rewards from the FATE/Leve completion itself. I don't recommend doing Leve's because of this since you lose one of your allowances too, but FATE's, there's really nothing to lose here. They're really just something else to do while you wait for your queue to pop to supplement your xp. It's still more productive than just sitting in town waiting for the queue.

That's why I don't understand why they didn't give NG+ proper experience rewards, as it is now I don't see myself ever doing it.

100% agree with this. I actually started a completely new alt character on another server to see the story again rather than do NG+, because with zero rewards, it just didn't make any sense for me to play it. I'd rather play through on an alt that gets the rewards (that I'll never play other than for story reasons) than on my main character because it felt completely pointless with no rewards.

[Hyral]

- Dungeon roulettes (leveling, 50/60/70, trial, alliance raid)
- Deep Dungeons (PotD 1-60, HoH 61-70)
- Beast Tribe quests
- dungeon spam via Trusts (71-80)
- PVP (I leveled 5-6 jobs 61-70 in SB this way while also getting their anima weapon light grind done)
- FATE spam (if you're really bored)
- Bozja (71-80) as of 5.3

I don't get the "it's all just dungeon spam" complaint about leveling because guess what I did to level alts in WoW for the better part of 10 years...

I do agree that the xp from side quests is way too low. That said, I made a decent bit of bank from ShB side quests a couple months ago by selling the gear I got from them.

I mean two of those are also dungeon spamming, one isn't in the game yet, PvP queues are pretty much dead, and the others barely give any exp for the time investment.

They should really increase the exp gains from FATEs, Beast Tribes, leves, side quests, and let NG+ give rewards. Not to make those things optimal compared to dungeoneering else the queue times will vanish, but at least make them worthwhile.

[Forteofgray]

- Dungeon roulettes (leveling, 50/60/70, trial, alliance raid)
- Deep Dungeons (PotD 1-60, HoH 61-70)
- Beast Tribe quests
- dungeon spam via Trusts (71-80)
- PVP (I leveled 5-6 jobs 61-70 in SB this way while also getting their anima weapon light grind done)
- FATE spam (if you're really bored)
- Bozja (71-80) as of 5.3

I don't get the "it's all just dungeon spam" complaint about leveling because guess what I did to level alts in WoW for the better part of 10 years...

I do agree that the xp from side quests is way too low. That said, I made a decent bit of bank from ShB side quests a couple months ago by selling the gear I got from them.

Fates and non-story quests give very, very little experience. It really is all dungeon spam outside of story quests. You do beast tribe quests for the rewards, not the experience. Doing POTD and HOH isn't as great for experience as people claim. I was doing it non-stop for days after getting to 40ish and it gave maybe one level per run, taking 20-30 minutes each time whereas dungeons give a level and then some for 15-20 minutes of work and that's not including the daily bonuses.

Sidequests aren't even worth doing and neither are fates as they give a pathetic amount of experience. Once you grind out the story quests, the only reasonable way to reach level cap is dungeon spam. The game leans too heavily on dungeons. There isn't much "world" content and what exists isn't worth doing. Every major content patch, the big thing is always dungeon/raid bosses. I got burned out after 3 months because I was sick of spamming dungeons and then standing there going "what now?".

[Katchii]

Fates and non-story quests give very, very little experience. It really is all dungeon spam outside of story quests. You do beast tribe quests for the rewards, not the experience. Doing POTD and HOH isn't as great for experience as people claim. I was doing it non-stop for days after getting to 40ish and it gave maybe one level per run, taking 20-30 minutes each time whereas dungeons give a level and then some for 15-20 minutes of work and that's not including the daily bonuses.

If your deep dungeon runs were taking 20-30 minutes each time, you're doing something seriously wrong. I spam ran deep dungeons to level and anything more than 15 minutes was super long, with most runs being ~10 minutes. Especially Heaven on High. Which floors were you doing?

Sidequests aren't even worth doing and neither are fates as they give a pathetic amount of experience. Once you grind out the story quests, the only reasonable way to reach level cap is dungeon spam. The game leans too heavily on dungeons. There isn't much "world" content and what exists isn't worth doing. Every major content patch, the big thing is always dungeon/raid bosses. I got burned out after 3 months because I was sick of spamming dungeons and then standing there going "what now?".

Not that I disagree, but FATE's, side quests, and beast tribes are there to supplement the xp you can get from dungeons and dungeon roulettes. You can do those things while waiting in queue therefore increasing the total amount of experience you'd gain in the same time frame (meaning it's more xp than simply waiting in town for the queue to pop).

Sadly though, yes, end game is almost entirely dungeon spam, which is why I go through the story content, see the new stuff released in each patch, level up one ore two alt jobs while I still feel motivated to and then unsub until the next patch drops.

[Faroth]

Certain levequests are very efficient, though the fact that you have to go out of your way to find out which is a problem.

and yeah don't see why they don't just make 1-off quests give something beyond an insulting amount of experience

In ARR, there were levequests where you could hit the marketboard, stock up on a stack of HQ items for a leve, and then it was just port from Limsa to Mor Dona and run out to deliver.

Got half a level per turn in and it was a glorious way to speed level.

I actually preferred the leves at different places sending you around more than the consolidation in Heavensward with all of them in Ishgard.

And then in Stormblood they became crafting only leveling.

Regarding the OP, though, MSQ roulette isn't a crap shoot. You still get good xp, and more combat xp (remember your food buff) from Castrum and the run time is 20 minutes (potentially under 20) as opposed to a near set 45 in Prae. Prae is a huge payout, but Castrum isn't bad for ~20 minutes either.

Beast tribes are worth it when you're level appropriate post ARR.
For jobs I don't care much about, I just yearn for hitting 70 so I can do the Pixie quests. 2/3 or at least half a level per day + MSQ run and I slow level them. But at 60 the HW ones are good and at 70 the SB ones are good. Just not anywhere near the jump those dang pixies give.

[Wangming]

When I did a mad dash in the last days of ARR to level up as many jobs I could to 50, my main weapons were Grand Company leves. Temple leaves are also a nice source in the Heavensward areas. The Main Scenario roulette also helps a lot. Hell, the Praetorium can nearly give you a level on its own. With food and armor bonus, it is quite nice. I also have the preorder ring, so more bonus.

[Byleth]

I agree with this. 70-80 is a special kind of pain at the moment. It's either grind each dungeon 7 times, spend all day doing FATES or just take your time and do Roulette/Beast Tribe over a week or so.

[Katchii]

I agree with this. 70-80 is a special kind of pain at the moment. It's either grind each dungeon 7 times, spend all day doing FATES or just take your time and do Roulette/Beast Tribe over a week or so.

I did a combination of all of that and went from 72 - 80 in about 2 days.

I did Pixie dailes while in queue, did all the roulettes, made sure to target my challenge log, and did 1-2 extra dungeons after that on the first day. Repeated that on day 2 and I truly only grinded from ~78-80 (had like 500k xp to 79 and then just ran Mt Gulg 3-4 times to ding 80 and be done with it.

There were 15 FATEs thrown in there for me to finish up my Shared FATE achievements, as that was how many FATEs I needed in The Tempest.

[Byleth]

@Katchii - Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I finished of PLD a couple of days ago. For the next few jobs though, I think I'll just take it easy and let Pixie + MSQ Roulette level them over a week or so. Less stress and burn out that way.

[Katchii]

@Katchii - Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how I finished of PLD a couple of days ago. For the next few jobs though, I think I'll just take it easy and let Pixie + MSQ Roulette level them over a week or so. Less stress and burn out that way.

Yeah, doing roulettes and dailies is really easy and at a relaxed pace, you get about 1.5 - 2 levels a day doing that, if you do all of them which depending on the queue times can take about 2.5-3 hours which isn't exactly short, but is doable.

For those that want to grind out more than that, the Trust system is an option, which I guess is fine, if it just weren't so freaking slow but it IS something you can do over and over again and get xp and gear from.

That said, I really just wish they'd add at least xp rewards for New Game +, because leveling alt jobs after getting through the MSQ is more tedious than it needs to be. At this point I'm only doing it for the Amaro and to free up my inventory.

[Itori]

Quests, dungeons, roulettes for massive exp gain, palace of the dead and the SB variant, pvp, fates, levequests, and beast tribes, how much more variation do you want?

[Azerate]

Yes. Leveling of alts is utter trash in FF14 sadly. I wanted to play that game casually and level some alt jobs but it was just unbearable. The worst part is that you can't really sit and "power" grind the leveling. You have to wait for all the weird daily and hourly cooldowns.

Quests, dungeons, roulettes for massive exp gain, palace of the dead and the SB variant, pvp, fates, levequests, and beast tribes, how much more variation do you want?

-Roulettes are only one time a day thing, rely on other people, and are gated behind queue times.
-Levequests are just poor man's version of wow's daily quests that are limited to like 5 per hour. Not only is it boring, but also caps very quickly.
-Pvp is always enjoyed by a small subset of the player base, and I'm not part of that subset, sadly.
-Tried palace of the dead but didn't really like it.

So with all that said, leveling of an alt job for me was basically doing 1 dungeon, 1 raid and 1 challenge boss or whatever they are called. After that I was forced to stop.

Yeah, doing roulettes and dailies is really easy and at a relaxed pace, you get about 1.5 - 2 levels a day doing that, if you do all of them which depending on the queue times can take about 2.5-3 hours which isn't exactly short, but is doable.

For those that want to grind out more than that, the Trust system is an option, which I guess is fine, if it just weren't so freaking slow but it IS something you can do over and over again and get xp and gear from.

That said, I really just wish they'd add at least xp rewards for New Game +, because leveling alt jobs after getting through the MSQ is more tedious than it needs to be. At this point I'm only doing it for the Amaro and to free up my inventory.

Yeah that is my problem right there. When I'm in the mood for leveling, I wanna do it for longer spans of time, without having to rely on some once-in-a-day event and other people. Any system that almost hard caps me at 1 level a day for fixed number of activities is a bad system for me personally.

[Katchii]

Yeah that is my problem right there. When I'm in the mood for leveling, I wanna do it for longer spans of time, without having to rely on some once-in-a-day event and other people. Any system that almost hard caps me at 1 level a day for fixed number of activities is a bad system for me personally.

Well, there are grind options at every level of the game to get xp. None of them are nearly as efficient as the roulettes are (though PotD and HoH come close in an efficient group), but that doesn't mean they don't exist or that the game is "forcing" you to stop getting xp when the roulettes you've chosen to do are completed for the day.

Your statement about the game almost hard capping you at 1 level a day is unequivocally false, BUT the options after roulettes do suck, but they ARE there. If you chose not to do them, that's on you, but the game does give you options to get more than the "1 level a day" from the roulettes, if you choose to use them. The game isn't forcing you to stop, you're choosing to stop after you've done what it is you're willing to do. That's a very profound difference.

[Itori]

Yes. Leveling of alts is utter trash in FF14 sadly. I wanted to play that game casually and level some alt jobs but it was just unbearable. The worst part is that you can't really sit and "power" grind the leveling. You have to wait for all the weird daily and hourly cooldowns.



-Roulettes are only one time a day thing, rely on other people, and are gated behind queue times.
-Levequests are just poor man's version of wow's daily quests that are limited to like 5 per hour. Not only is it boring, but also caps very quickly.
-Pvp is always enjoyed by a small subset of the player base, and I'm not part of that subset, sadly.
-Tried palace of the dead but didn't really like it.

So with all that said, leveling of an alt job for me was basically doing 1 dungeon, 1 raid and 1 challenge boss or whatever they are called. After that I was forced to stop.




Yeah that is my problem right there. When I'm in the mood for leveling, I wanna do it for longer spans of time, without having to rely on some once-in-a-day event and other people. Any system that almost hard caps me at 1 level a day for fixed number of activities is a bad system for me personally.

If youre lvl 71+ on any of those alts you can do the highest lvl dungeon available, 3 runs and a lvl up, solo fates in between queues, or use the trust system, may be a little slower but free greens to turn into seals or desynth and make money. Om currently lvling my tanks like that and i get about a lvl every 1.5-2hrs.

[Azerate]

Your statement about the game almost hard capping you at 1 level a day is unequivocally false, BUT the options after roulettes do suck, but they ARE there.

So effectively yes, it does hard cap you.

I have nothing against grinding. I played rpg games my whole life and grinding was one of the things I enjoyed the most actually. But if you make grinding completely unviable and you create a situation where a 10 hour grind is worth as much as a 20 minute instance that is on a daily reset, you are effectively invalidating the point of that grind completely and at that point, only madmen do it. So while you are technically not "forbidden" to grind, it's a dumb and pointless thing to do.

And yes, the 10 hour vs. 20 minute was a hyperbole, so don't feel glorious after writing paragraphs of explaining how my numbers are inaccurate, as it was not my point to be accurate but rather to explain the problem. FF14 in its current state is a game where it doesn't feel worthwhile to level up in other ways than daily roulettes.

[Katchii]

So effectively yes, it does hard cap you.

No, it doesn't. How is the fact that multiple options exist "effectively" hard capping you? It could barely be considered a soft cap considering many of the options can be done as many times as you want for as long as you want and are at least half as efficient, if not better, than roulettes.

I have nothing against grinding. I played rpg games my whole life and grinding was one of the things I enjoyed the most actually. But if you make grinding completely unviable and you create a situation where a 10 hour grind is worth as much as a 20 minute instance that is on a daily reset, you are effectively invalidating the point of that grind completely and at that point, only madmen do it. So while you are technically not "forbidden" to grind, it's a dumb and pointless thing to do.

If the differences in efficiency were THAT profound, you'd have a point, but they're not. You get about 1/4 to 1/2 a level for each max level instance you do (if not more depending on what level you are) and they can be completed in about 30 minutes from 71-80 using Trusts. From 1-71 I'd argue that PotD and HoH are far more efficient methods of grinding, if you're not a tank.

If you felt compelled to, you can grind your way to 50 in less than a day, grind from 50-61 in ~4-6 hours and grind from 61-71 in about ~5-7 hours. I've done it. Yes, it sucked and is mundane as hell but it CAN be done.

And yes, the 10 hour vs. 20 minute was a hyperbole, so don't feel glorious after writing paragraphs of explaining how my numbers are inaccurate, as it was not my point to be accurate but rather to explain the problem. FF14 in its current state is a game where it doesn't feel worthwhile to level up in other ways than daily roulettes.

You can't just hand wave it away like that. The entire premise of your stance is that the alternatives to roulettes are so inefficient that they may as well be invalid as a method of grinding, which is nonsense.