new players screwed?

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Originally Posted by Svennyblaze

I'm dps I've never waited over 40ish minutes for a duty. I could go to that dungeon right now and get in in an hour at the very max.

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o.O Isn't a hour more than 40 minutes as is 50...

didn't read the previous replies but:

1. dungeons exp is pretty decent with rested bonus all the way up to stone vigil (temple may prove otherwise because ppl die a lot)
2. there are a few dungeons ppl tend to run a even after its lvl range to farm (and collect) gear - namely: sastasha, tamtara and copperbell (foestriker, acolyte and plundered) and brayflox (cavalry, infantry and battle mage)

so not really... I was on thm just yesterday and got into dungeons within 15 to 20 min.

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Originally Posted by Naberrie

That may not be accurate. They mentioned in the last live letter that they were planning on doing monthly Live Letters before 2.1. Monthly. Plural.

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And they have been doing monthly letters for some time now, what yoshi was saying is the LAST letter will be in November.

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Originally Posted by gelectrode

So my friend wants to play ffxiv, great. he gets the game and is now level 20 and is trying to do probably pirates. So he is in Q for 4 hours and cant get a group. Then it hits me, i cant run him though by my self and there is no reason for anyone pass this quest to ever run it again since fate spamming is so much better. No one is making more chars other then there 1 because there is almost no need.

So what now, my friend is ok because i can hook him up with 2 more people to help but how does a brand new player with no friends on a server do anything with this game at this point?

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I did it last week with Arcanist. The queue time was around 25 minutes.

They should have NPC solo type dungeons.
Easier runs with like the Scions or even your Retainer can have a class.
It was bound to happen.
Once you started late in game, the newbie content is going to die.

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

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Originally Posted by Pinworms

I can see this happening. Luckily I realized this when I first started and blew through the story...I was taking my sweet time, and started thinking...what if everyone finishes the story missions? Who will que for the story missions then?

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Everyone who click on "Random dungeon" in the DF to get the special reward for it. The option come with 2.1
And everyone who want a gear from them for the vanity system, that is also coming in near future.

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Originally Posted by Milmoko_Gemoko

Be nice, unequip your soul crystal for half an hour and play with your mate :p
I've been wonderin around Thanalan and helping low level Thurm's do FATEs with my tank, granted I dont have my soul crystal yet but it helps level my Alt class :)

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Why would you unequip your soul crystal? You can use jobs below level 30, you just won't have access to any job specific actions (you will still have bonus stats however, and SMN/SCH pets will still be used instead of Arcanist pets)

Anyway, while I would agree wait times for story content are increasing, its still not hard to form a group within your server, and they're adding a party recruitment function to make that easier.

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Originally Posted by NaruWhitehelm

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

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This game, or rather the community of this game, does make that a little hard. I tend to see hatred spewed a lot of the time whenever someone mentions they're new to a dungeon while pugging. Add to this that duty finder doesn't often pair you with people on your server, and that for the lower end stuff (if you play during non-peak hours especially) often doesn't net groups via shout remotely quickly... and that people in FATE groups rarely talk (I've tried talking to them a few times).. it can be pretty hard to make friends. Finding an FC sometimes isn't hard if you look in the right places, forums being one.. but not everyone comes to the forums, I would wager a large amount of the population skips them entirely.

Point being, it can be difficult to do. As another in this thread, and myself, mentioned.. we were late to FFXI and the community was god awful, elitist, and not helpful in the slightest. Judging from the forums, I'd say a lot of new players will run into the same things here. Yes, there are good people here and there that don't mind helping out (I certainly don't when I see someone asking for help), but those people are generally hidden under a lot of awful experiences unless you're lucky when you're late to a game.

My sister and bf started the game and had no problem getting into the lowbie instances like Satasha/Haukke Manor ( no I didn't go with them nor did they shout/have friends pre-existing besides myself.) A good bit of times depending on the time zone of your friends/servers you should try clicking "all languages." I find a lot of newer players don't do this and it cuts out a huge portion of the duty finder population. I have done Haukke Manor a few times on my lowbie class (paladin) and got instantly in during (5-11pm est). I like leveling with FATEs and dungeons it helps learning a whole different class.

Sadly, they did run into some rude elitist and it gave them a bit of a sour view of the game. =/

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Originally Posted by Sunarie

This game, or rather the community of this game, does make that a little hard. I tend to see hatred spewed a lot of the time whenever someone mentions they're new to a dungeon while pugging. Add to this that duty finder doesn't often pair you with people on your server, and that for the lower end stuff (if you play during non-peak hours especially) often doesn't net groups via shout remotely quickly... and that people in FATE groups rarely talk (I've tried talking to them a few times).. it can be pretty hard to make friends. Finding an FC sometimes isn't hard if you look in the right places, forums being one.. but not everyone comes to the forums, I would wager a large amount of the population skips them entirely.

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I Agree with a lot of what you are getting at so here's my proposal then, We just need a more fine tuned way to search for Free companies a built-in UI search for them, Then you could find your own based on what you are looking for elitist,casual,social,low level, high level, crafting, whatever. That does not seem out of the way of possibility.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2rrro15.png

Haukke manor, this was day 3 of trying to do the story. The previous 2 days I waited about 1.5 hours each before giving up.

Yup waited for copper mines for over 3 hours, nada <.<

that apply to most mmorpg, the early dungeon of the game ALWAYS die. If a player join the game late, the new player will always be able to find new friends, new FC and new LS if he shout or looking for shout in main city or on the field,or pray that you ll get in.

I know there are plenty of high lvl tank & healer queue on low lvl dungeon to help ppl sometime but not all the time.

In regards to Haukke Manor, even as a tank with my girlfriend playing healer already in party for DF to fill the DPS slots - we ended up having to put off that storyline dungeon until the next weekend's prime-time. But yeah, during the week - it just wasn't happening.

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Originally Posted by DenzelTaru

looks like we found a fate grinder :P

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Since when is that a bad thing?

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Originally Posted by gelectrode

So my friend wants to play ffxiv, great. he gets the game and is now level 20 and is trying to do probably pirates. So he is in Q for 4 hours and cant get a group. Then it hits me, i cant run him though by my self and there is no reason for anyone pass this quest to ever run it again since fate spamming is so much better. No one is making more chars other then there 1 because there is almost no need.

So what now, my friend is ok because i can hook him up with 2 more people to help but how does a brand new player with no friends on a server do anything with this game at this point?

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It's an mmorpg, make some friends. Not all of us play to increase the size of our e-peen and reach lv50.\

EDIT: Duty Finder is/will ruin mmorpg gaming. It negates the need for human interaction. Stop expecting everything on a silver platter and go talk to people. Make some friends.

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Originally Posted by MdT

Haukke manor, this was day 3 of trying to do the story. The previous 2 days I waited about 1.5 hours each before giving up.

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Might be because you're playing on a legacy server. Your folks were mostly endgame-ready when ARR hit, and according to a friend legacy characters can't even do the new story?

I dont know... when I level other classes/jobs I do Dungeons a lot. Even though Fate might be the most efficient way, I dont care. I do some Fates, some Guildhests, some Leves and Dungeons and some left-over side-quests. Longterm motivation and sanity needs diversity.

Most people in my FC do lower level dungeons for alternative classes, too. Not everybody is a "Fate-Zombie"

So I do use the DF a lot for lower dungeons and the queues as Healer are almost instant, as DD maybe 20-40 minutes. So there are still a lot of people who do low level dungeons and enjoy them.

The best way to progress for any player, new or old, is to find a good LS or FC that supports their members progression. I don't understand why people spend so much time queueing for DF groups (which may not even complete the content) when they could just ask 3-7 LS people (or even shout) to do the content with them. LS and FC groups are especially useful when you're doing the content for the first time because they can teach you the content (and won't even try to make you skip cutscenes). All server forums have LS and FC recruitment threads so finding one shouldn't be difficult either.

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Originally Posted by gelectrode

So what now, my friend is ok because i can hook him up with 2 more people to help but how does a brand new player with no friends on a server do anything with this game at this point?

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Make your first class a tank, problem solved.

j/k, but really make some friends, join a FC, there's plenty of people willing to help

A lot of FCs advertise in the cities... so new Players wont have such hard time to find a FC.

And most new players do have at least some MMO experience, they should at least marginally know how to find a FC inside and outside the game. I mean, browsing Forum, googling your Server etc. etc. thats not that hard. ;-)

Sure, there are players that prefer to be not in a FC... they do have to rely solely on shout or DF and that might take patience as a damage dealer... but its still doable. The game cant take care of all social aspects of community. You can only blame the designers for going 4-man-party instead of ideally 6-man, where 4 damage dealers would have fit into a group.

You should not have to roll a tank or a healer. The game has its many flaws. It is amazing one player game, but not a very good game for "repeat play". Dungeons play is severely broken when it comes to time spent and rewards. Lower level dungeons are dead, pretty much a waste of time when you can do other things that are more rewarding. They really should focus on fixing the content post 50s, and how to make those lower levels dungeons not becoming a one time play through for everyone. Why wasting resources on PvP and housing system.. those can come in patch 2.2...

I thought about this when playing myself. Requiring Dungeons to advance in the story will likely become a massive problem a year down the line because everyone will already be max level.

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Originally Posted by Animation

post castrated

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Agreed with most of this. People will help if you ask. FFXI gave you no incentive to help newer players. I joined the game in 04 almost 2 years after it came out and there was no shortage of help to be found, even though sometimes it would take a while to get a group going.

And what do FATES have anything to do with this? yes its better EXP but for the love of god its not like everyone currently in the game ONLY grinds fates. I could care less how long it will take me to level my monk alt who I made a new character for. I plan on doing all the dungeons with him so that I can learn my class. Most people will see an advantage to doing the dungeons at some point. Just because FATE grinding happens to be the most effective and boring way to level doesn't mean that the community at large would be unwilling to help someone out for all of 45 minutes it takes to run Sastasha/Tam Tara

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Originally Posted by VidulaSaix

I thought about this when playing myself. Requiring Dungeons to advance in the story will likely become a massive problem a year down the line because everyone will already be max level.

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FFXI required you to do dungeons as well. Notoriously, mission 2-3 (IIRC) required a full party of 6 to down a boss. Thought it would be impossible to get a group to help me with that after that content had been surpassed 2 years earlier. But guess what, i joined an LS, asked people to help, and cleared it for all 3 nations.

Make friends, socialize, get people in the community to come together. Use something aside from the duty finder.

if all else fails, take the hour out of ur life and level a tank/healer and q in .01 seconds -_-

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Originally Posted by Luvbunny

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I do agree that some rewards need to be added for doing lower level content to make them appealing to do "just because" but really, in an MMO playing with friends is the most enjoyable part of the game, so why not do it to help people out?

Once i figured out that I can do a dungeon in literal .01 seconds in DF as a tank, i decided that I would rather try to actually play with people on my server. I go around and shout and ask my FC. if no one wants to, or if were missing 1/4 players, we fill in with DF.

People want to do everything IMMEDIATELY. Be patient, and you will get the content done.

What would you suggest as an incentive for higher level players to do lower level content? there are a ton that come to my mind.

What's a Free Company?

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Originally Posted by Animation

PLEASE.. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT FATES!! - You have the ability to shout for party members, he could just level Conjurer to 15 for an instant queue then finish the dungeon and continue his way, no queue is 4 hours. The longest queue I've had as a DPS was 44 minutes. Why don't you go help your friend? You can use your current gear it'll sync down..

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leveling my thaum , 2-3 hr ques for Halatali. Sorry bud, but they DO take that long sometimes now.

J, E, D, F all selected even.

I have an FC , who are mostly either trying to either finish storyline, relic up, or DL farm.. why would I bother them to help me in a lvl 20 dungeon, and why would they want to. There is no incentive , sure they can be "nice" and do it.. but honestly , how many times have you pretended not to see a request in FC for help in some crap early game dungeon that you just dont want to deal with on your current schedule? It happens quite often, everyone does it at some point, it happens and its understood.

The game needs more incentives for people to WANT to run a lower end dungeon every now and then when asked, or are bored.

From personal experience, I've had all my dungeons queues be pretty short (Halatali was like instant). Also, we can't blame SE for the FATE grinding problem. I don't think they knew that players would only play the game to get to max level, rather than trying to play their class in a group. Hopefully SE lowers the FATE exp and doesn't just raise dungeon exp because that'll lead to too much of a power creep.

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Originally Posted by Jubez187

From personal experience, I've had all my dungeons queues be pretty short (Halatali was like instant). Also, we can't blame SE for the FATE grinding problem. I don't think they knew that players would only play the game to get to max level, rather than trying to play their class in a group. Hopefully SE lowers the FATE exp and doesn't just raise dungeon exp because that'll lead to too much of a power creep.

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I'm guessing for another tank class? Halatali opens at lvl 20 right? And ofc que is instant as a tank, that's the main thing everyone waits for.

Yeah I figured this would be a problem when Dungeons were forced as part of the MQ. It's not surprising, really. Hopefully patch 2.1 helps with it with the incentives for the lower level dungeons.

Difference is in most other memo's your personal character story is not stuck to these low level dungeons. Can't imagine what this is going to be like for somebody new a year from now when everybody is going to be at top level whatever the cap is at that time.

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Originally Posted by Shneibel

that apply to most mmorpg, the early dungeon of the game ALWAYS die. If a player join the game late, the new player will always be able to find new friends, new FC and new LS if he shout or looking for shout in main city or on the field,or pray that you ll get in.

I know there are plenty of high lvl tank & healer queue on low lvl dungeon to help ppl sometime but not all the time.

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while leveling my GLA i noticed that queues for the first three story dungeons were really long even as a tank. i'm talking about 45min+ ...
this just doesn't seem right to me at all.

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Originally Posted by kollwitz

while leveling my GLA i noticed that queues for the first three story dungeons were really long even as a tank. i'm talking about 45min+ ...
this just doesn't seem right to me at all.

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How would you propose to force others who are past this point in the game to queue up? The problem isn't the queue - when no one else is trying to get in that dungeon then it will be a long time. it is always best to go at it with a premade group. Even when someone is new they can shout for help and there are people who will help.

If his friend is new then he should help his friend out with queue'ing up with him while teaching him how to shout for help. heck..he could even tell him to queue up as his main class then switch over to e DoH / DoL and level that until he gets in.

This is only an issue because the dungeons/primals are required to advanced the main quest. This was a horrible design decision.

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Originally Posted by Alquamire

Might be because you're playing on a legacy server. Your folks were mostly endgame-ready when ARR hit, and according to a friend legacy characters can't even do the new story?

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This is irrelevant with DF. DF mix you up with people from all the other servers in the same data center.

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Originally Posted by Roaminggnome

Difference is in most other memo's your personal character story is not stuck to these low level dungeons. Can't imagine what this is going to be like for somebody new a year from now when everybody is going to be at top level whatever the cap is at that time.

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I can imagine that in a year the party requirement for the beginner dungeons would be changed to 2-4 party members

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Originally Posted by gelectrode

So my friend wants to play ffxiv, great. he gets the game and is now level 20 and is trying to do probably pirates. So he is in Q for 4 hours and cant get a group. Then it hits me, i cant run him though by my self and there is no reason for anyone pass this quest to ever run it again since fate spamming is so much better. No one is making more chars other then there 1 because there is almost no need.

So what now, my friend is ok because i can hook him up with 2 more people to help but how does a brand new player with no friends on a server do anything with this game at this point?

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FATES are better yes. I, however, hate them. I run dungeons quite frequently on my alt classes. What I do is make things with my GSM, put them on the market, log out in an in go to sleep for 5-6 hours.Then, wake up and set the DF to the first 3 dungeons to level my THM until I run out of bonus XP. Rinse and repeat. I can't be the only one. No way.

Longest Q for dungeons I've seen is 35min. I'd rather fate grind in between story dungeons.

Dunno if it's been mentioned, but in the upper right corner of the Duty Finder make sure you've got all 4 languages checked. That helps to get parties faster.

DD classes will always have a long wait for dungeons, nature of the beast. There are people out there who prefer to run dungeons rather than FATE grind, just have to find them. Shouting for a group might work.

I just did Sastasha last night after waiting 20 mins on pugilist. Try to run it during a time of day when a lot of people are on, you might have better luck.