Final Fantasy XIV to limit how quickly you can level

Final Fantasy XIV will ship with a system that will see avid players earning less experience the more they play.

The system is based around a weekly timer. Up to the eight hour point, players will receive full experience for kills and quests, beyond that the rewards will gradually decrease until, after a further seven hours, players stop levelling completely. The limits are separate for each skill--equipping a different weapon levels a different skill in FFXIV--so it's not quite as dire as it sounds (although the experience cap isn't affected by changing weapons). If players hit the 15-hour cap leveling their sword skill, they can swap to a ranged weapon or crafting tool and level that for another 15 hours. With 18 skills total, you'd have to play for 270 hours in a week (a.k.a. impossible) before you hit an actual hard cap on your ability to progress your skills.

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.