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

[Crevox]

Hello,

You might remember me from a topic I made a while ago. I was a new player just starting out. It's been about a month now, and I just can't find myself logging in anymore.

I played for one month and grinded out like crazy, and accomplished a lot. However, recently, I've just been absolutely burnt out after doing all of it. I haven't done any party content, because all the stuff I had to do before I could just drained me. I haven't logged in for like 5 days. I'm not even done either, because things like Zilart isn't finished and Adoulin isn't started.

Things I accomplished:

-Level 99 SMN, didn't go to Abyssea until 75; Geomancer is like 93 or something
-Nation mission rank 6, Dynamis unlocked and farmed on multiple days
-Zilart beginning
-Aht Urhgan complete, Alexander/Odin
-Chains of Promathia complete
-Zoned into Wings of the Goddess at like level 50, got eaten by a random mob, didn't go back
-3 pieces of 109 AF armor, along with some relic armor
-Barely touched Abyssea "progression", never managed to kill a single zone boss
-Completed various other quests (max gobbiebag, all avatars including Fenrir, Evoker's Ring, the list goes on) along with farming/hunting for various SMN specific items
-Did not touch Adoulin; never got a good reason to go there, wanted to explore it with friends, but friends got burnt out and quit before we even got that far. Beyond that, from the looks of it, it looks like more time gated content (coalition?) and all the other things above seemed to provide better armor/items/worth than Adoulin.

Basically, all the stuff I've done has been a long journey in order to get on the same level as every player; so I can actually do the relevant content. Groups would not invite me for content because I did not have Alexander/summoning skill gear, or my gear was poor, or because I was a Summoner, or some other reason (mission requirement is a common one, there are some other things too). So, I had to gather gear (and finish Aht Urhgan to unlock Alexander). I had to finish Chains of Promathia to upgrade my AF to 109, and get the items from Limbus to make the process much faster (only need half the pages). I had to get nation rank 6 in order to unlock Dynamis to get the relic pieces I needed, as well as various other gears (relic gloves are a good example). Beyond that, the list above touches on it a bit. After all this time, I still have not joined a party for any BCNM/fight/anything; the only party content I've done is EXP (with like 1-2 people) or Dynamis with 1 other friend. Keep in mind, a LOT of doing all of this was time spent researching. I have to understand pretty much the majority of every aspect of this 11 year old game to find out where to get certain items, how the missions work, where I have to go, etc. Learning it all at once gets extremely complex (as a new player, look at the login rewards; you will have NO IDEA what 90% of the stuff is).

The reason why I didn't party up is the requirements. I spent nearly every day working on all those requirements to get ready. If I wasn't "working" on all that, I was exping with friends, or helping them out with the various tasks they needed help with (they have their own list of things they need to do). Also, keep in mind I couldn't do a lot of the stuff by myself, or didn't know how, but thankfully, I got help from a couple nice people.

After all this, the only things I read on the forums are old players saying they SHOULDN'T remove all these requirements or make it faster. They are saying that people should HAVE to take all this time doing the stories and such. Example from another thread:

I know you as someone wants full access to everything immediately out of the box.

Everyone keeps saying stuff like this. How is this the case?

If I was someone who was lazy, and just wanted everything handed to me/instantly... I would not have taken the effort to do all of that. Some of it was quite painful (Chains of Promathia) or really long for dumb reasons (Aht Urhgan, wait until Japanese midnight over and over and over) but they were goals I worked towards and completed. I think there are a lot of things that could be changed (remove the story requirements for content, remove Japanese midnight restrictions, speed up the chains of promathia missions somehow by skipping the dumb fetchquests/warping you or something) to improve the experience for new players, or even existing players.

I started playing alongside a few friends. One came back to the game, the other started fresh with me. I had another friend who wanted to play, but he quit during the trial. The friend who started fresh with me quit after playing for one month; he does not want to re-sub. He's a dedicated MMO player, and I was driving him/trying to push him to do various things, and telling him how important they are, but he didn't end up completing them.

-Level 99 THF, didn't go to Abyssea until 75
-Nation rank 2
-Got to Aht Urhgan to unlock Corsair, did not touch the missions
-Did not touch Chains of Promathia
-Did not get ANY AF, not even the low level
-Did not max Gobbiebag, no other important achievements to note
-Never touched Adoulin

... and he quit. Why? Cause a lot of this is boring. It's work. New players do not want to, and should not have to, go through all this. I was dedicated, and drove myself to do it to be a good SMN. If he isn't willing to do any of that, do you really expect any other new players to do it? It doesn't help that the entire thing is NOT friendly at all unless you alt tab and know where guides are to things. Most of the quests or missions don't even tell you where to go next. It's nice when you can actually think you know where to go, but that's honestly not that often, especially when they say things like "go get me this item" and offer NO EXPLANATION as to where to get it (limit break quests you are the best). There are some quests that they don't even tell you the item names, you seriously just have to guess or something (evoker's ring quest is ONE example). There is almost NO WAY I would be able to convince anyone else I know to play if they know they're gonna have to go through any of this.

I'm going to say that the old players need to stop looking at this game through nostalgia goggles. Times have changed. The game is not the same as it was before. You need to accept change, and move forward, or this game is going to suffer. There are a LOT of things that could be changed, and should be changed, for the game to move forward and prosper for years to come. However, it doesn't help when the majority of the community is straight up rude to new players, or thinks that it's right for them to "suffer the same way they did in the past." The response to practically anything I say is "YOU KNOW IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER IN THE PAST, YOU SHOULD STOP COMPLAINING." I spent a lot of time arguing/discussing various topics (mythic weapons, mission requirements, etc) with people on this forum, and boy, it's been an uphill battle. So many people want all the requirements to stay, and if you don't like it, "too bad this isn't the game for you." I still think this quote is hilarious:

This is RPG, RPG= life simulator.
"playing MMORPG"= your 2nd home, if you can't accept this, then quit, this isn't the game for you.

I find it mind boggling that there are actually people, players, on this forum, that are telling newbies they should quit because they're finding it difficult. You guys are not doing much for your community, or your game, and yet you complain all the time that the servers are lacking people. This does not help. It also doesn't help that everyone in game is extremely quiet and does not want to talk to anyone unless you're already friends with them, and finding a group for anything is really difficult. Rarely do I see shouts for PUGs, and when I tried to join, yeah, you know what happened. I ended up making my own linkshell and shouted recruitment to try to get other new players to join so I could help them out and we could all talk. It worked for a while, I got about 6 other members; only 1 still plays (the others quit I assume, they haven't logged in for weeks).

Anyways, that's my story. At this point, I don't know what I want to do. If you read this far, thanks for caring. I've accomplished a lot, and I still don't know how much more there is to go, or if I'm ever even going to be able to do fun party fights with other people. A lot of the time I've spent playing I've looked forward to partying up with my friends, or even random people, to fight something difficult, a strong boss or something... and after one month, that never happened. Every time I get close to thinking I've accomplished something, something pops up in the way. A good example is the AF109; I gathered all the materials, then was told I have to finish Promathia first... that was very disheartening. Either way, I think I'm just burnt out, having to deal with all of this. I understand SE is trying to make things better, but the existing player base certainly isn't helping a lot of the time. I hope the game continues to improve into 2014, and I might resub at some point (I have the remainder of the month still going since I paid for 2 months), but for now, I think I just need a break at the very least.

Special thanks to the few people in game that helped me out. I am extremely grateful, and I will not forget you. There is 1 person in particular that showed such kindness, helped me out with so many things, and put up with my dumb questions; I cannot thank him enough.

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EDIT: My follow up response to the people posting.

The question becomes: why do people play an MMORPG? For what reason would someone pick up FFXI?

I can guarantee you that the majority of people do not go MMORPG hunting for a good story (and thus, do not enjoy sitting there doing missions all day). The story is a nice thing to have, but people do not find FFXI and go "wow, this game looks like it has a good story, I'm gonna try this MMORPG." People play for a variety of reasons, the biggest probably is to play with friends.

Personally, I play them for the gameplay. The combat. The leveling. The character growth. All of that, put in a multiplayer setting against enemies, and you can have a fun time. That's not to say I don't enjoy the story though; I do. However, I more so enjoy playing with my friends and other people as a player of a massively multiplayer online role playing game. This game actually does a great job of all of this, however, it's starting to make it much harder for you to feel it and get there, mostly due to all the requirements.

For someone like me, I do not enjoy doing nonstop fetch quests; especially when they hold absolutely no difficulty, and they take an extraordinary amount of time, often for no real reason. It is a large time dump. Chains of Promathia was a major offender here. The majority of the quests involve absolutely no combat, and when they do involve combat, it lasts for about 10 seconds and then it's back to running somewhere again. Yes, that's because it's easy now, but either way, it's still boring, especially alone. At some point, I would've loved to go and do it just to see the story, yeah, sure. The problem is that I don't have a choice. I have to do all of this stuff (Zilart, Promathia, Aht Urhgan) for various reasons just to be able to do the content everyone else is doing. And NONE of those 3 things involve me playing with friends or anyone else. Going through Promathia with a friend is not an interesting experience; it's just you both doing it at the same time, no different than you both playing the same single player game across the room from each other.

Why does a "rush to end game" exist? Because I want to play with people. I want to party up, and fight powerful foes, and reap rewards for it. I want to work together with my friends and other people to secure a victory. I want to work towards the same goals as them, and by working together, achieve it. If you look at the things I've done in the past month, that never happened. The closest thing you could say was an EXP party, which I did enjoy. Leveling up was fun. And, you know, with it being the thing you do in MMORPGs, that fits just fine. Being forced to go and do years of old content (which the majority of it is just travel and following some guide telling you where to go) is not fun. It's a chore. Not just a chore, a time-gated chore (you can't keep doing this, gotta wait for Japanese midnight). On an off-topic note, this is pretty much my biggest problem with my Mythic weapon being the best weapon in the game for SMN: the best weapon in the game is achieved solo by grinding for months through time gated content.

So, what did I do in order to reach that scenario? To able to party up with people and play with them? I did what I had to. I researched a lot on what I had to do. I did all the long, arduous requirements. I went around the world and finished all the sidequests I needed to do. I gathered gear from tons of old content, solo, in order to get my character in tip-top shape. I went to obscure locales for items that serve absolutely no relevance to my friends. They certainly have no reason to take that journey with me; they get nothing out of it, and I don't need help with it, it just takes time. And now, finally, after a month, I feel that I am in a state (not an optimal state, but good enough) that I am ready to present myself and fight alongside others. However, I still have not finished Zilart (so I cannot do AA) and I have to work on 20+ days of coalition in order to do Wildskeeper Reives. Beyond that, it's difficult to find a party for anything, let alone a party that will accept me for what I am. Even IF I could find a party, there's still no guarantee I even know what I should even be partying for, especially with all the acronyms used in game.

Then, of course, there's that aura of uncertainty. After this month of playing, what do you think my experience level (not actual character exp, I'm referring to the concept) with partying is? How often did I party up with others and practice playing my class (hint: it's very minimal)? Am I really ready to fight something that's going to be challenging? What do people expect of me? Am I going to screw it up? Am I geared enough? Do I know the mechanics of the encounter, is there something I need to know? Are they going to even accept me if I tell them it's my first time? There is a LOT to understand when it comes to doing these things; and people are not going to assume you don't know, or ask if you don't. They often times just won't tolerate you if you don't.

And that's the other thing: nothing is really explained in this game. I don't think people on this forum understand what it's like to not know anything about the game. In order to learn, someone has to teach you, or you have to read and try to understand the guides online (note: this will take hours due to the amount you have to try to grasp); and even then, they don't teach you everything, especially when it comes to common community ideals and how they do things. Getting into my first Abyssea party was actually difficult. I had no idea what I was doing; what are lights? What is cruor? Where do I go? Should I use this traverser stone thing? What if I screw up and run out of time? Am I going to get more time? I asked multiple party leaders to invite me, telling them it's my first time, and they ignored me. They can't be bothered to explain how it all works, and that was only after I somehow figured out that I should go to the Abyssea in La Theine, and learned that this "Abyssea" thing was actually a good place to EXP after 75. There's no set path of progression in this game, and even now, I am left confused often on what to do. Where should I go next? What should I be doing? These are common questions asked nonstop of new players. What the heck is a Chains of Promathia? Should I bother doing those missions? What will I get out of it? Naturally, often times, they have no one to answer these questions; the game certainly doesn't tell you. The game doesn't even tell you that "this NPC will start the Chains of Promathia story line" so you don't even know what you would be getting yourself into if you listened and did what he wants you to do (see my complaint about the random cutscenes a new player gets for zoning into Jeuno). So what do they do? They go and level up. Leveling up is the clearest, most obvious goal. Apparently, however, this somehow gets classified as "rushing to end game", I guess.

Review all of the above, again, and consider why new players don't stick with the game. Also remember that the community could easily help the situation, however, they're doing the exact opposite, and making things worse.

So now, I began my journey into Adoulin, once again asking these same questions. What is skirmish? Why should I do it? Where are the missions? How many of these coalition assignments should I do? What is bayld for? What's a reive? What should I be doing out here? Why are people fighting the random mobs, is it for exp? Are there quests I should be doing somewhere from some random NPC? What are these weird items I'm getting? Yes, once again: none of it is explained in game. I was able to answer some of those questions by looking at the wikis and stuff, but others, I still have no idea.

Finally, please do stop assuming things of me and everyone else. Not everyone comes into this game expecting "WoW" or to get everything instantly. You need to look at it from a different angle for once.

[OKOA]

Read your post and understand some of your frustrations.

I think most of these reasons explain why this game will never truly see a renaissance. The game only truly appeals to persons with a morbid obsession for self inflicted completionist pain.

With that said, it sounds like you are one of those people. Good job getting all of that done in such a short amount of time!

I say don't quit now that you're finally ahead. Maybe all you needed was a good chance to vent?

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

I find it mind boggling that there are actually people, players, on this forum, that are telling newbies they should quit because they're finding it difficult. You guys are not doing much for your community, or your game, and yet you complain all the time that the servers are lacking people.

It's a feedback loop. The ones who hang onto this game the longest tend to be the ones who have the most invested in the game already, who then flock together into a noisy elitist bloc that other players find repugnant and are driven away by.

As a long-time player myself, I'm spending most of my time lately just doing some of the "endgame" activities that were never accessible to me at 75 or 99. But even that novelty is wearing thin fast as the storyline progression aspects of those activities run out long before the grindy timesink aspects do. Most of my old linkshell has already migrated to XIV and not looked back, and it feels like we few who remain are around more out of habit or spite than anything else.

[Draylo]

Why do you have to rush to end game? You can enjoy the storylines for the various expansion packs, there is a lot of content to do (which you've said how much of it you did) outside of current endgame. For a new player wanting to experience everything the product has to offer, you didn't touch upon most of it. Have you done any assaults or salvage or anything like that? You have to join a linkshell, every server has at least one or two social shells that toss pearls to anyone asking. You also chose the wrong job if you wanted to jump right into the current end game content. That would be better done on BRD or COR instead of SMN.

Main reason I don't help random new people anymore is because they quit so easily just like you did after one month lol. A month where it would have taken a player in 2007ish like a whole year to do the content you did. So now those people that helped you just pretty much wasted their time because you didn't even appreciate the time you spent playing this game in that month. See you again in two months when you decide to come back and waste more peoples time by them helping you and you end up quitting again.

[Crevox]

I say don't quit now that you're finally ahead. Maybe all you needed was a good chance to vent?

Maybe, I just don't know. All my friends are pretty much done with it at this point, so I would be going solo (though honestly, a lot of what I did above besides some of the exping was solo as well, so it wouldn't be much different....).

I'm looking forward to the new relic armors, Cait Sith in March, and other things. I want to do Adoulin and try all that out, but the thought of more missions and waiting for more Japanese midnights (coalitions missions are time-gated I think?) at this point repels me from going there (especially when I'm not even done with Zilart). It gets exhausting, especially since the majority of the time spent doing them is not fighting/combat, it's just auto-run through fields for hours or talking to NPCs.

When it comes to things like doing party content, I don't even know where to start. Like, for example, what if I wanted to go do one of those BCNMs for pages? Or how about some Abyssea zone bosses for Lunar Abyssite/go high five Shinryu? What about that Voidwatch thing? What do I do, just shout in town? I'm going to say I probably don't have the time to dedicate myself to a linkshell with a schedule, nor do I know if they're going to even want to bother doing stuff like that. It just seems so difficult.

[Mirage]

I don't think you'll find anyone here that thinks jp midnight waits are good. I still don't have a problem with having to complete a certain amount of mission lines to get access to stuff though.

[Crevox]

Why do you have to rush to end game? You can enjoy the storylines

Rush? Enjoy storylines?

Dude, there is no clear cut path as to what to do in this game, ever, for anyone. A new player does not even know what a "Chains of Promathia" even is. You have to understand that expecting new players to know they shouldn't just try to level up in an MMO is... not a thing.

The missions, at this point, are not enjoyable. I enjoy reading the dialogue, and there were some epic cutscenes, but as I mentioned in my previous post, the majority of it is "Auto Run: The Game" for hours on end or teleporting from place to place, followed by some random encounter with a monster you one shot (no, making it difficult would not make it more fun, it would just make it take longer at this point). I'm also pretty sure I've inflicted much wear on my alt-tab from looking at guides nonstop.

You also chose the wrong job if you wanted to jump right into the current end game content. That would be better done on BRD or COR instead of SMN.

I played the job I wanted to play. I will admit, I went into this knowing that SMN wasn't "popular" or it was "frowned upon" or I heard horror stories of how it's "crap", but no, I wanted to play the job I wanted to play, and I can't be frowned upon for that. Besides that, I'd like to believe I've done a darn good job getting myself prepared to do the best I can (I have macros to swap all my gear for VARIOUS things, got all the avatars, got so many pieces of obscure summoner gear for skill/BP delay/etc, capped my summoning skill... I could go on). It's not like I hit max level and went "LOL WHERE PARTY I WANT BEAT STUFF UP WITH MY SQUIRREL."

See you again in two months when you decide to come back and waste more peoples time by them helping you and you end up quitting again.

This negativity in the community never helps anyone.

[Draylo]

This game probably isn't for you then. Have you tried World of Warcraft or its twin FFXIV? This isn't meant to be a WoW clone, hence why it has its smaller playerbase who enjoy this type of game.

[Crevox]

This game probably isn't for you then. Have you tried World of Warcraft or its twin FFXIV? This isn't meant to be a WoW clone, hence why it has its smaller playerbase who enjoy this type of game.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the time I spent in FFXI. I wouldn't have played it for an entire month if I didn't enjoy it, but my god... the things this game put me through. Not going to recap, you can press the PAGE-UP key for that.

As for the question, yes, I played both.

I quit WoW a long time ago after playing every expansion up until Pandaland, got bored in Pandaland because of daily extravaganza and quit.

I'm still subbed to FFXIV (legacy 180 day sub), sitting in Revenant's Toll as a full item level 90 SMN. Bored, nothing to do, not entirely enjoying how WoW clone it is, but that's a discussion for another time/topic.

[Xantavia]

Sounds to me like you just burned yourself out, trying to do way too much in a short amount of time. Did you have a checklist and just go down the list with stuff to do? For a game this old, I think it would be better to take it slow. A lot of the missions don't require level 99 to do, but if people chose to do it that way, it removes any sort of challenge and turns it into a speedbump. I myself have barely touched Adoulin and am O.K. with it. Instead, I decided to make a relic by farming the currency myself. Am I looking to do it in a month? Heck no, I'm thinking summer at the earliest for my playstyle.

It seems that FFXI just isn't for you. If you believe the game really doesn't begin until endgame, this system will beat you down. Take the long view and it might be more enjoyable.

I'm going to say that the old players need to stop looking at this game through nostalgia goggles. Times have changed. The game is not the same as it was before. You need to accept change, and move forward, or this game is going to suffer. There are a LOT of things that could be changed, and should be changed, for the game to move forward and prosper for years to come. However, it doesn't help when the majority of the community is straight up rude to new players, or thinks that it's right for them to "suffer the same way they did in the past." The response to practically anything I say is "YOU KNOW IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER IN THE PAST, YOU SHOULD STOP COMPLAINING." I spent a lot of time arguing/discussing various topics (mythic weapons, mission requirements, etc) with people on this forum, and boy, it's been an uphill battle. So many people want all the requirements to stay, and if you don't like it, "too bad this isn't the game for you."

For me, it is not a matter of "I did it, you should do it too". I enjoyed the game the way it was. A lot of people did. We don't want a game we like to shift directions so drastically that it becomes unrecognizable. It happened when the level cap was raised. I came close to quitting when they started adding ilvl stuff. I don't want to run off new players, but at the same time I don't want the game to change from what I fell in love with.