Final Fantasy XIV game director Nobuaki Komoto has confirmed that his upcoming MMORPG
curbs your experience points completely after 15 hours’ play in a single week in the
interest of balancing the game for people who can’t play it all the time.
“First off, the main concept behind FFXIV is allowing those players with little time
on their hands to play effectively, and game balance is based off of that,” Komoto
told fans in comments translated by FFXIVCore (thanks VG247).
“Furthermore, it is being designed to not give those with more time on their hands to
play an unfair advantage.”
The idea seems to be that after eight hours’ play in a single week you gradually stop
earning so much XP and skill points, and if you continue playing for another seven
hours you stop earning them entirely.
Later in his post, Komoto wrote that these figures may be tweaked. “We have plans to
make the limit more palatable in answer to all the tester feedback we received
concerning this,” he said.
“Also, since experience points fatigue carries over despite changing weapons, we plan
to make it not so harsh.”
Judging by Komoto’s comments, the game automatically resets your earning potential at
the end of the week.
“Surplus experience is currently not being used,” he added. “However, we have
received many comments suggesting some sort of reward be put into effect regarding
it, and we think that’s a pretty interesting idea. We don’t want to get ahead of
ourselves, though, and we’re currently investigating the possibilities.”
Check out our recent preview of Final Fantasy XIV for more. Although given that we
subtitled it, “A confusing first meeting with Square Enix’s new MMO,” perhaps not.