I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Inarukja]

I'm playing 14-day-Free trial. After a week of my play, I love the game and decided to buy the full game when the free-trial end.
But this thread makes me afraid to buy the game for some reasons

[Camiie]

I'm playing 14-day-Free trial. After a week of my play, I love the game and decided to buy the full game when the free-trial end.
But this thread makes me afraid to buy the game for some reasons

Don't worry about what other people think, especially the people here (including me). This is one of the worst places to get unbiased opinions about XIV. If you enjoy it that's all that matters, and I doubt you have anything to worry about as far as XIV going away anytime soon or anything like that.

[Inarukja]

Don't worry about what other people think, especially the people here (including me). This is one of the worst places to get unbiased opinions about XIV. If you enjoy it that's all that matters, and I doubt you have anything to worry about as far as XIV going away anytime soon or anything like that.

XIV ?? I didn't talk about XIV. I hate XIV ARR. I like 1.0.

_____________________________

I mean I'm playing FFXI 14days-free-trial and I'm loving the game.
I like MMORPG that gives me the new experience, not copy other game and add something (like XIVARR).
Even XI is old, but it is something new for me. The game mechanic is fun, the musics are touching (I'm and old FF fan), etc. I like the game when it tells me nothing to do. It's fun that I have to figure out myself what to do to progress through the game. And it is more fun if I can ask what to do from the community and get a good answer.

Then I just found this thread and read through to page 10-11. What I've got from reading this.
I have to solo everything in an MMO game, really ? I know this is and old game so most of the players are veteran. Some old contents are needed to clear for endgame progression, some are just for fun, some are waste of time to do. It's fine even I do this "alone" in a "Multiplayer" game, BUT it's like I will never reach veteran player. How long will a new player catch up and enjoy playing this game as an "MMO" ?

Is there any "NEW FRESH PLAYER" like me that just start in 2012 or 2013, not a returning player, that can catch up with veteran and enjoy this game as MMO ?
If the answer is yes, I might buy this game because I still want to get in to the game and enjoy it. Even it will take me months to achieve that.

ps. I was a strong Final Fantasy fan. I've played all FF1-FF14 except this game, FFXI.

[bungiefanNA]

I'd say Tiktaks' REDDIT LS on Asura server shows that yes, new players can make it to the level of veteran players. You could join that when you have the full game and are allowed to trade with other players to get a pearl. I've also got an LS full of people in SanelyInsane on my server, a lot of new ones that have come to the game in the past year. Both LS have people that will assist in mission completion. How fast you catch up depends on how much time you have to play, but a month seems reasonable to being able to do an endgame event of your choice if you have about 10 hours a week.

[Elexia]

Don't worry about what other people think, especially the people here (including me). This is one of the worst places to get unbiased opinions about XIV. If you enjoy it that's all that matters, and I doubt you have anything to worry about as far as XIV going away anytime soon or anything like that.

Heh, the sad thing is, you say this yet on any XIV community you get noting but biased opinions and any "unbiased opinion" generally have people trying to tell you you're wrong. Fancy that.

[Camiie]

XIV ?? I didn't talk about XIV. I hate XIV ARR. I like 1.0.

I misread what you typed, but my point stands. Don't worry about other peoples' opinions, especially those on a forum like this.

Heh, the sad thing is, you say this yet on any XIV community you get noting but biased opinions and any "unbiased opinion" generally have people trying to tell you you're wrong. Fancy that.

Yeah I wouldn't listen to them either, or the people on the WoW forums or any other game really.

[Bukota]

I'm playing 14-day-Free trial. After a week of my play, I love the game and decided to buy the full game when the free-trial end.
But this thread makes me afraid to buy the game for some reasons

Sorry I didn't get to a reply sooner, but had a busy weekend enjoying the game.

I wanted to make sure I got to it though, and that I made the point that despite all of us posting in this doom and gloom thread, most people that actively post on this forum currently enjoy and play the game.

If you are into the storyline of other Final Fantasy games, then this one offers SO MUCH.

Now is the best time to come back and experience it in its totality.

The major complaint in this thread is by/for people who are not driven by the desire to do missions and follow the story.

And while I would still argue that it would be nice to have that option for my friends who felt that missions were just a challenge of seeing who could scroll through the meaningless text fast enough, I'm afraid some of the people who have argued that "maybe this just isn't the game for them" may be right.

For my money, there still seems to be quite a bit of partying going on in Abyssea, and I was able to break through some major boundaries this weekend by grouping there with other players.

Even though that is just mindless exping, it seems to me that there is a platform to make those connections.

[Mirage]

Inarukja: You have some catching up to do, but it isn't an impossible ordeal. There are some gear pieces that are easily obtainable even for new players, and that act as "gear resets" for the game. It's not the best, but it's good enough to jump directly into the current events that are part of the path to the best gear. As for the missions and quests you need to do, many of them involve a bit of legwork, and it might be hard to find people who are willing to help you with old content if they need to run for a long time to even get where it is. You might need to do most of the old content on your own, but you'll probably be able to get help with the final stretch of the mission lines, aka the "last bosses" of each expansion and such.

Currently there is an issue in the game where you're actually leveling slower by teaming up with others before you reach level 75-ish. It is not intentional, but a side effect of some things SE recently added. They'll probably sort it out sooner or later, but sadly that is the case right now. If it wasn't for that, I would say you'd probably be able to team up with 1-2 random people in some areas while leveling to the top, but right now i'm not certain. At 75+, most of the leveling is done in large grind-groups and they are fairly easy to get into.

Due to its age, it is a very top-heavy game. A large number of players have just about seen everything there is to see in the old world, and many have probably helped dozens of people through the content before. Eventually, even the more helpful players get kind of tired of it all, but I'm sure there are still some people left who are up for it.

One of the most important things is to get to know people fast, long before you feel that you need help. It's easier to help people you've known for a while than it is to help someone you've never even talked to before. I go pretty far out of my way to help people that i've known (and like) for a little while, even if it's just a week or two.

[Afania]

Don't worry about what other people think, especially the people here (including me). This is one of the worst places to get unbiased opinions about XIV. If you enjoy it that's all that matters, and I doubt you have anything to worry about as far as XIV going away anytime soon or anything like that.

Opinions about ARR on this forum is 10 times more unbiased than any other ARR related forum I've read lol, barring BG. So far the only negative opinion I see here about ARR are boring side quests and the lack of longevity. Those flaws are pretty much agreed by the majority. Pointing out flaws in a game =/= biased opinion.

Go to ARR official forum or other ARR forum, you see fanboys defend for every bad design direction made by SE. That's real biased opinion.

[Crevox]

Currently there is an issue in the game where you're actually leveling slower by teaming up with others before you reach level 75-ish.

This was an extremely common theme I noticed in game. Nobody wanted to party up to kill anything because they'd rather solo with their trust NPCs and not split exp/drops.

However, what they don't understand is that in many scenarios, you can gain more experience in a party through the eminence and book objectives, by killing enemies quicker. My friends and I started doing exp parties in areas like 5-10 levels below us, on easy prey mobs. The individual mobs gave "meh" experience, but we plowed through them so fast that we were finishing eminence objectives/book objectives and receiving better EXP/hr than if we were solo. Beyond that, it was a lot more fun, turning the usual "pull, kill, rest for 1 minute, kill again" into a non-stop massive battle of enemies constantly attacking. We fight and fight, people constantly pulling new enemies into the pack, taking on so many enemies at once, using our abilities as the jobs we were to do everything we could to survive. MP management was key for the people in the party that needed it, but with things like Refresh, food, and other items (Destrier Beret, which was often used because level syncing low level areas to do this was often the best). MP wasn't even really ever a problem, and if it was, all it took was for that person to sit and the battle to rage on. Even level ups played a part: they actually happened at a consistent enough rate that by the time we needed MP, we leveled up and got it all back.

This was a lot of fun and actually better exp than taking your trust NPCs and soloing monsters. It became even better when the double exp event ended, as the monster exp didn't change much at all from the event ending, yet, eminence and book EXP stayed the same. We got to play the jobs and make use of their abilities to their fullest, having MANY close calls and epic, fun scenarios for us to engage in. I still remember a lot of situations where a party member would come running back with a ridiculous number of monsters and someone in the party would say "run, we can't do this" and we would fight it out, and somehow come out alive. It became an ongoing challenge and joke to try to push the limits of what we were capable of, and use our abilities in creative ways to survive. This was probably the most fun I had in this game for the duration I played it.

The problem is that things like this go unnoticed. It's a strategy to gaining EXP, but it's not obvious by any means, so newbies don't do it. Combine this with the fact that it doesn't take long before newbies get told about the mythical "Abyssea worm party" and you end up drastically reducing the potential life span and fun of leveling for those that haven't done it a ton of times already.