New (ish) player feedback

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

So the first actual mandatory teleport that could cost you over 500gil, starting from Vesper Bay, is when you get the memorial quest (its part of the choosing your GC story here). Other teleports were not actually mandatory but rather necessities and/or interest points that I highly doubt anyone would ignore (hence the air quotes I put over the word). For example, to unlock the hair styles, you unfortunately have to travel to each state and pick up a package from an npc, then go back to Jandelaine. If you want to unlock your first dances of the game, that's another travel around the states, which once again, depending from where you tele, can get you close to 500. So the pattern becomes that if you're looking to unlock something in the game from early and you're in a preferred world where you level very fast and more unlock quests show up rapidly practically everywhere you turn, you could rack up quite the travel debt, especially if you're a complete newbie and you're trying your hand at just about everything. Like wereotter mentions, there are other venues to diminish those expenses and experienced players playing on alts may use those frequently but I just don't see a new person remembering those or making use of those frequently once they attune to an aetheryte.

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I guess it must be because I'm a penny pincher in game and out, but I always take note of the cheapest ways to do things. For quests asking me to travel between the cities it just felt natural to use the airships with their 120 gil fee. I've even gone as far traveling from Gridania to Ul'dah for free by first going to the Gold Saucer and from there to Ul'dah. I've arranged my free and favorite teleport destinations so that I can get to any major city for no more than 499 gil (though Crystarium is on a 15 minute cooldown because of Return, but that's hardly ever an issue). My typical route to the Doman Enclave is teleport to Kugane (499 gil), take aethernet to Ruby Price (free) and teleport to the Enclave (250-ish gil - cheaper than to do it directly from Kugane because Ruby Sea is closer). This saves me about 250 gil which is an utterly insignificant amount of money compared to how much I own, but I still do it because savings.

Maybe there should be a travel planner which would show the best route to your destination.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

I have all crafters/gatherers to 70+ apart from fishing and have unlocked the shadowbringers beast tribes and recently got my adorable Porxie mount <3

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Yay! Grats! It's a wonderful mount, glad you're enjoying it! :D

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

On a preferred server the xp is way too much, I do have the aetheryte earring and the 30% hall of the novice ring, also the friendship circlet.

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Completely agree. I have alts on some of those servers and even without additional xp boosts like from gear the xp gain is very high. I agree there should be a boost for preferred servers, but it should not be as strong as it currently is.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

I was level 35 when I got my chocobo - I think for new players there is far too much running around, and most new players cannot afford the teleportation costs. This I can tell you will turn new players away - especially those from WoW. Chocobo porters are nice and all, but they are not connected enough - maybe it's time to make those porters fly?

I think you should get your chocobo at level 10 - taking some strain off all the busy work.

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The chocobo porters are quite cheap, especially in lower lvl zones. To me this says that this is intended for use by players who do not yet have a mount. I disagree with reducing the lvl requirement for a mount to be as low as lvl 10, however I completely agree that chocobo porters should be better connected. Chocobo porters do fly in HW and beyond zones. I suspect that this is not yet the case in ARR because player mounts flying has been introduced there in just the last major patch, which is only about two weeks ago. I think it's only a matter of time before they can fly there too.

By the way I came from WoW to this game and the current mount system or porter system did not annoy me at all. But every player is different. I just happen to feel this way. It's fine if someone else doesn't. I can understand where the criticisms come from.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

With crafting & gathering I enjoyed it, but did resort to macros in the end to make the process faster. One thing I would love to see is the addition of a crafting bag so all mats go there not taking any space in our regular or retainer inventory.

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The dream. THE DREAM. I would adore a crafting bag. Even if it only held raw materials that can be gathered. Even just that would vastly improve things for me.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

The sprout icon is amazing, I was anxious at first that this would draw negative attention to me being new, but I had nothing but positivity from it. My only complaint is that it drops off too early and I couldn't turn it back on - when I changed from dps to tank I felt I really needed the sprout back.. so if we change to a brand new role maybe allow us to put it back on so others can understand I am new to that particular role.

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The sprout icon does need to persist for longer. I suspect its drop off point has not been updated in quite a while.

You bring up an excellent point about changing roles. Just because you are no longer a sprout does not mean you have experience in every role. I think it would be a good idea to have the icon reappear when you play a role that you have recently unlocked. Maybe a slightly different icon to signify you are new to the role but not new to the game.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

I know I may get some negative feeback from this, but I'd love game+ to actually award xp so that is another option to level my alt jobs.. waiting 1 hour for one run of Heaven on High isn't my idea of fun.

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I also would like if New Game + gave xp, even if it's less than the first time you do the quests. I understand SE don't want the quests to be farmed for crazy xp or gil, but even just a little would be nice.

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

That's all I can think of for now, I love this game so much it's my new home after 13 years in another mmo, but in my humble opinion a few quality of life improvements would help in a big way.

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Your post was a nice read and you did bring up some truly valid points. I'm delighted that you're enjoying the game. Hopefully some of the things you want to be improved will come soon.

That sprout icon thing is such a good idea.

Although maybe you will then have people activating it not because they're new but because they can use it as a cushion to fall on when they perform bad, lol.

You lose the sprout icon after getting through 2 expansions and close to 300 hours of content. That should be plenty. Its not meant to hand-hold you through the entire game.

If you are playing a new role and leveling, just say so, people are understanding.

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Originally Posted by Penthea

The sprout icon does need to persist for longer. I suspect its drop off point has not been updated in quite a while.

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They've updated when the sprout icon gets turned off a couple of times now, most recently at the start of Shadowbringers. At the moment, the sprout icon turns off when you complete all of Stormblood's MSQ content and also have 168 total hours of /playtime. (It might be starting Shadowbringer's MSQ that triggers it, but I don't actually know. They're so close to being the same thing that they're effectively the same.)

This means that if someone never progresses past Stormblood on a character then they will never lose their sprout status on that character without manually turning it off. If a new player buys a level and story skip to get to Shadowbringer's content right away then they will still have 168 hours of logged-in time before losing the status. With how short ARR is now, it's also more conceivable that a new player or alt could have less than 168 hours playtime and reach Shadowbringer's and so still keep the icon until they reach that amount of time.