NG+

People have been asking for this for years so, yes, people are going to be doing it even if it doesn't provide any reward. I'd much rather be able to jump into the MSQ I want to relive on an existing character rather than have to slog through it again on a new one.

NG+ giving EXP sounds like a huge exploit for redoing scenario quests to gain levels. You could just keep doing easy "go here, talk to this NPC" quests over and over to get free EXP, which would be pretty cheesy.

In terms of using it, huge *yes* for me. This is a fantastic way to enjoy an entire expansion's worth of story content as at fast a pace as you want, and I haven't played through the previous expansions' quests in years.

I might've been more interested with EXP, but then again, I only have one job left to level anyway.

I'll probably go through Heavensward again at some point, at the least, but I've got enough other stuff to play right now that it's not a priority.

Since mine is a legacy character with the special story flags, I have no desire to play through on a new character. I am waiting for the 2.x story to be added, and then I will be going back through the entire story with my character. I am definitely looking forward to it, it's been years since I last went through.

Some MSQ are literally composed to talking to four npcs, picking up an object, and thats it. 300,000 exp. Doing it four times would be about 1,200,000 of free exp That's a really lousy way to level a job. SE probably knew some players would exploit NG+ to power jobs lvl to 80 with little effort. It's less of a "waste of time" and more of SE thinking smart

A lot of people will be using it, don't worry.

I’m a bit disappointed as well. Other games would have incentives for average joes to go through the game, new bosses, areas, I think a older FF or other JRPG had different endings in NG+, and last but not least, new items. I’ll use a example from the Dark Souls series as I feel it relates to what I’m trying to say well.

When I first experienced a Souls games NG+, I was excited to find out I would be able to get more of the same items, and get more souls from enemies, enabling me to upgrade weapons and level up more effectively at the minor cost of having enemies being a little (little, keyword here) more difficult for the first NG+. Further NG+’s would repeat the cycle of getting more items and souls, but each cycle would be more difficult in turn, and in Dark Souls 3, you could even get upgraded rings by going further into NG+. This system incentivized players to venture into NG*, if nothing changed at all, there would be little reason to experience Dark Souls again, in this game we at least have a decent story, while the Souls series story is poor due to it being vague and a lacking of narrative told by NPC’s, not bloody item descriptions. But that’s Souls and this is FF14, and I am here to say what we can learn from this system and not a bunch of what ifs.

And there are quite a few things we can learn. As you could likely deduce, Souls incentivized players by increasing rewards in some way, whether that be the materials being duplicated (think XP and possibly even Gil in 14) by the game being repeated, or by a increase in difficulty yielding more souls from enemies. I personally think the first optioned mentioned, just having XP being repeated.

This would incentivize players who aren’t very lore heavy to go through NG+ due to a repeat of XP and maybe even Gil, and would also provide another leveling method that would benefit everyone who’s plays this game, especially DPS’s due to their stupid long queue times.

Issue is that even though the MSQ must be apparently experienced in chunks according to what we know about NG+, many of those chunks are little more than drip feeds of dialogue that can be spammed through. EXP is one thing but Gil on top of that? Yeah, no that's just asking for the botters to turn their attention to NG+ to run their programs. I could see them adding a title or mount at the end of the NG+ grind, kinda like how getting all Trusts back up to 80 provides a title for your hassle, but beyond that and you're just asking for too much trouble.

This is also a nice feature for people who used a story skip potion (to immediately start end game stuff, like if they want to do raids and stuff), and then they can experience the story later when they have more time (like during content droughts, in-between raid patches etc).

I'm still unclear on whether NG+ gives xp or not. Guess I should try it myself and see.