The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

I had a 7000+ characters response typed but I cant send it (or edit) from phone

The short version is, dont force people to play the story if they dont want to, WoW does this well

Proposed solution: If you are in a party with a friend, the person further in the game can bring their buddy to the duties they dont have unlocked, and add a <Mercenary> tag next to their name. Also, let them teleport with you to areas that are further ahead as well (assuming they have the Expac bought) with some exceptions like the first or out-of Etheris areas. Warframe does this and it works wonders for friends that just want to hang around and play together

The sad reality is that they probably would say that it costs too much to implement, but yeah, letting new players PLAY the game would work wonders for new player retention

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

With how streamlined the levelling process is, there's just absolutely no reason to explore the world outside of doing the story, and obviously that can be done anyway, but it's like... When it's that streamlined, where you actually need to make an effort to not out-level the story, then just gets meaningless and hollow.

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Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

It's a really common problem in storytelling. The next chapter has to be bigger and better than the last and eventually everything scales to the absurd. There is a similar problem with character traits that become more and more exaggerated over time until they dominate a character's personality and leave them as nothing more than a caricature of an actual person.

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True, but the massive jump in stakes is what makes it so jarring in this case.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

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I believe they have made vague references to the fact they didn't like how it broke up engaging with the story.. But don't quote me on that one...

I also remember it very fondly... For the most part ARR was mostly smooth, but between 42-50 you had quite a few level stops... That was sooo nice, because it was around the time of Coerthas and Northern Thanalan, so you'd catch those fate trains, seeing people get trounced by Gorgimera.

It was actually the same in HW and Stormblood but it wasn't as noticeable, since it was mainly between x8-x0 where you'd hit walls with experience.... As for when they changed it, I am pretty sure it was around the time when they did the reallocation of dungeon exp from being trash/boss allocated, to just specifically boss allocated.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

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Because a lot of people skipped sidequests I'd assume, especially with there being too many for most new players to bother with on top of 5 expansions+ARR+patches.

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I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

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Endwalker was the first expansion to do it, although they slightly undercalculated it - easy to solve with a sidequest.

Honestly, I think a lot of people jump into FFXIV expecting it to be an MMO first, but it’s really a JRPG with MMO elements, not the other way around. I think the devs have also said that. So yeah, the story is long… but that’s because it’s literally the main attraction.
It’s not designed to rush you into raids or min-maxing builds right out the gate, it’s meant to slowly pull you into a whole world, like any big Final Fantasy title would. The payoff is amazing if you’re in it for the journey, not just the endgame.

That doesn’t mean the game’s perfect for everyone. Some people bounce off the length or pacing and that’s okay. But saying it’s not “new player friendly” because there’s too much story is kind of like saying a novel isn’t beginner friendly because it has too many chapters I think..

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Originally Posted by XtremePrime

They mentioned it during Endwalker but quickly went back on it saying that they wish the players to experience the entire story.

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I personally know somebody who literally gave up on the game (early as DT launch) midway through SB because it was taking way too long to reach endgame as she want to get into raiding with our FC.

She wanted to experience the story of the game instead of just skipping cutscenes when I suggested that, but ultimately felt that it was not for her. I keep wondering how the wish for new players to experience the entire story is not workable in the long run, especially after one or two new expansions post Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I personally know somebody who literally gave up on the game (early as DT launch) midway through SB because it was taking way too long to reach endgame as she want to get into raiding with our FC.

She wanted to experience the story of the game instead of just skipping cutscenes when I suggested that, but ultimately felt that it was not for her. I keep wondering how the wish for new players to experience the entire story is not workable in the long run, especially after one or two new expansions post Dawntrail.

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SE may be relying on new player churn to pad the player count. It's a counterbalance to the problem of quitting by those do reach endgame, and find little to do if they don't raid.

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Originally Posted by Raraka

I had a 7000+ characters response typed but I cant send it (or edit) from phone

The short version is, dont force people to play the story if they dont want to, WoW does this well

Proposed solution: If you are in a party with a friend, the person further in the game can bring their buddy to the duties they dont have unlocked, and add a <Mercenary> tag next to their name. Also, let them teleport with you to areas that are further ahead as well (assuming they have the Expac bought) with some exceptions like the first or out-of Etheris areas. Warframe does this and it works wonders for friends that just want to hang around and play together

The sad reality is that they probably would say that it costs too much to implement, but yeah, letting new players PLAY the game would work wonders for new player retention

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Nah the solution is even easier. They have NG+ in the game already. Just let people select the story they want to start at.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Job kit depth and combat content design.


It is subjective, yes, but for the life of me, I can't think of a boss with above-average difficult outside of the first boss of "Luigi's Mansion", and even that can be easily cheesed.

• Reduce boss health by x% from start of mechanic, or mechanic continues applying another vuln stack every few seconds, eventually one-shotting, or to end pursuit phase which would otherwise kill someone.
• Kill adds or they explode, wiping the party.
• Kill add in time to create safety zone/launch pad, or wipe.
• Break barrier in time to stun mob and thereby survive heavy damage.
• Kill thing before it seeks down and kills a random target.
• Kill thing before it apply enough stacks, which explode upon reaching 3 for half your life's worth of damage... as an AoE.
• Can stunlock thing and burst it down to prevent tank receiving 40% more damage taken.
• Mob triples its damage after a cast X seconds into the fight and has untelegraphed cleaves that hit tanks for about 30% of their HP before said buff.
• Or, hell, even just actually threatening full pulls +/- environmental mechanics.

...Have these been purged from memory as well as implementation?


Cumulatively, from original, pre-power-creep XIV across to Shadowbringers? CC. Add gathers. Triggering ICDed environmentals. TTK management around DoTs and TP. Baiting out AoEs and other specials to reduce tank damage intake.


I said the opposite. I don't think job kits were unique in being simplified, I don't think encounters now are more complex than seen earlier, and I certainly don't think the simplifications were done just to support the shifts (simplifications towards DDR alone) in general combat design.

The simplifications to job design and content design are simply iterations of the same desire to smooth things down, not end and means to one another. DDR-fixation didn't cost us job kits. DDR-fixation cost us the bulk of what all we used to have in content design beyond DDR, while present smoothed-down job kits cost us what idiosyncrasies --the fun, the meh, and the fugly-- we had available in prior kit iterations. They didn't need each other to have narrowed down as they did. Interdependence between them only so far as caster mobility and the frequency & duration of discrete 'Move!' mechanics, which have been used as much as they have only because... we've apparently forgot how to design in anything else that could be of interest.

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I see where you're coming from and we have indeed lost the examples you gave which in my opinion are characteristic of ARR design for the most part. There was still a couple here and there in HW though, but nothing as harsh as Tam Tara Hard, Sirius, etc. I think they noticed because you can still find some of those mechanics in HW dungeons but they're so watered down in power that they don't really matter and people just bruteforced through them (see for instance the 2nd boss of the Aery and how nobody knew its actual mechanics, and they're super interesting actually... or were, since they changed everything with duty support anyway).

But that's the thing. All of what you listed, I find interesting and never considered it remotely hard. I've never seen people struggling with it like I've seen people struggling with what you say is not above average difficulty. The expansion where I've started to see people struggle and hit walls in dungeons was in ShB. It's been of course ten times worse when DT hit. And the main problem is that the majority of the players do those perfectly fine, leaving the people walled by it completely behind because the gap is night and day. I do remember older dungeons with their battle design, and more people had troubles being optimal or playing well, but I don't remember a lot of actual walls. The difficulty was more organic and a lot less binary and that's why they were infinitely superior to my eyes. You could wipe as a party because a mechanic wasn't done properly (see the most egregious cases like Sirius, etc), which doesn't happen much those days, but i'd argue this was healthier than having that one singular player that keeps face hugging the floor because they're the only one that can't deal with the DDR, and will feel extra bad because of it.

The current model doesn't promote teamplay and interplayer support. The current model that seems to pride itself into thinking it is more welcoming to players by looking mechanically easier, actually pushes people away.

I'll however disagree on that last part, as it is absolutely obvious with a lot of job changes notably the latest BLM patch that they do this specifically to accommodate for increased pacing and DDR.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

But now that you mentioned it, the escalation of stakes became a complete mess in XIV. Up until the end of Stormblood the threat was comparatively small scale, maybe a nation in danger, at most a continent.
Then comes Shadowbringers and we suddenly need to save an entire world, even if that world is basically reduced to a few regions.
And in Endwalker we jump from that to saving the entire universe and all of existence.

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That's been an actual staple of FF stories so I can't really blame them for that (or many RPGs in general). Does it cause issues in a MMO setting without a clear terminal point to the story? Yes, but that's why I really coped before DT that the next expansion would move to a new planet or world to start something over (while still offering us other quest series back on Etheirys ofc). Obviously too daring, it was not gonna happen, but I liked to entertain the thought nonetheless.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

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As someone that meticulously plays through MSQ by doing all the sidequests at the same time for immersion (and I like the world building more than the story writing), I still used to hit some xp walls during progression when expansions released, notably in ShB for example at level 77 -> 78 in Ahm Araeng, but that's not the only spot it happened. I had to level up a little to catch up. They used to dramatically buff msq xp for older expansions, or during the current one near the latest patches because we often had returners or new players reaching the top by just beelining the msq.

They generalized this reward buff for Endwalker, where doing as I do literally brought me to lvl90 on my main job when I was still doing lvl85 quests so I could actually level two jobs instead of one, and not hit a single xp wall, so now they just buff msq xp directly at release essentially.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I'll however disagree on that last part, as it is absolutely obvious with a lot of job changes notably the latest BLM patch that they do this specifically to accommodate for increased pacing and DDR.

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This made me think... Are we ever going to see a turret caster again who needs to be very precise about their placement versus uptime?
BLM 8.0's patch notes: Every ice spell is now instant-cast on Umbral Ice lol.

Why they're doing this? To accomodate the faster doubled-down DDR? To me it just speaks hints on how they want to have less work balancing fights. In theory, it should be easier to plan an encounter if you don't need to account for certain jobs having limited mobility.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Why they're doing this? To accomodate the faster doubled-down DDR?

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Yes. There was a comment in the patch notes that said long cast times and immobility are incompatible with their vision for high-end fight design.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

This made me think... Are we ever going to see a turret caster again who needs to be very precise about their placement versus uptime?
BLM 8.0's patch notes: Every ice spell is now instant-cast on Umbral Ice lol.

Why they're doing this? To accomodate the faster doubled-down DDR? To me it just speaks hints on how they want to have less work balancing fights. In theory, it should be easier to plan an encounter if you don't need to account for certain jobs having limited mobility.

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If the amount of movement required for every encounter in the game stays the same, then no, I don't think we're gonna see turret jobs anymore unless it radically dials back to pre EW/DT levels at the very least.
Because let's be real, BLM has stopped being a job being precise about their placement versus uptime after SHB, or even during SB (kinda in between). It's become a job about mobility casting, whether or not its spells were long casts by default or not. It's been a job about burning mobility tools in a clever way (or on a memorized spreadsheet per fight) in order to keep casting while moving. After HW it's ceased to be a job with no mobility tool other than swiftcast (on 90s) and sharpcast (on 60s) with literally zero insta casted spells but the occasional thundercloud that was about POSITIONING. Bring HW BLM into anything post ShB and the job would just not work at all, because HW wasn't about moving all the time.

#NeverForgetMao

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Originally Posted by Valence

But that's the thing. All of what you listed, I find interesting and never considered it remotely hard. I've never seen people struggling with it like I've seen people struggling with what you say is not above average difficulty.

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Then that's where we differ. I've seen quite a few wipes in Tam Tara Hard, in Stone Vigil Hard, in pre-nerf Pharos Sirius, against Mist Dragon, even some wipes against whatever the HW white dragon was called, the last and second-to-last bosses of Keeper of the Lake, in Wanderer's Palace HM, Gubal Hard, and Saint Mocianne's, against the last boss of Ghimlyt Dark, and even the last of Anamnesis Anyder, the first of The Twinning, and the second of Hero's Gauntlet, etc., etc.

In all of Dawntrail thus far, despite leveling almost exclusively via dungeon spam (doing async commission work while in queue as DPS) and doing the daily Expert Roulette to reach weekly caps, there's only been two bosses I've seen multiple wipes on: the last boss of Skydeep Cenote and the first boss of Strayborough Deadwalk. Despite the added movement requirements of, say, Yuweyata last boss, I still have yet to see more than a couple wipes in total not caused by d/cs across all other Dawntrail dungeons. And that's far from a small sample size of runs.

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I'll however disagree on that last part, as it is absolutely obvious with a lot of job changes notably the latest BLM patch that they do this specifically to accommodate for increased pacing and DDR.

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I disagree. Even pre-prancing BLM could manage the most movement-intensive fights when well played. It was dumbed down not because the fights specifically needed it but because they thought players wanted it dumbed down in that way.

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Originally Posted by Valence

It's become a job about mobility casting, whether or not its spells were long casts by default or not. It's been a job about burning mobility tools in a clever way (or on a memorized spreadsheet per fight) in order to keep casting while moving.

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It always has been. Even in ARR under wrap-over MP (able to get a natural MP tick just after using Fire spell, since the MP-regen-prevention was slightly delayed) and double-quickened casts (when you could get a second spell hasted by the opposite element if you queued it fast enough), BLM played around smart use of mobility opportunities. That's always been what made it an interesting "turret" class -- constraints and ingenuity therearound.

The differences since have simply been how much excess one has (how many mistakes one must make before they feel potency loss, and how sharp or cumulative that cost is), but make no mistake that we had those kinds of capacities to min-max around movement even before -- it's not a new concern, nor even a newly emphasized one by any significant margin.

Again, I suspect that the reasons for BLM mobility increases, which are in further excess of need, follow the same lines of reasoning as the simplifications to Monk, Viper, Ninja, etc., none of which were warranted by or required by fight design, either.

Tl;dr: Again, no, we can have fights less limited to DDR under the present kits and we could have managed the current levels of DDR even before each job's latest wave of simplifications. The two merely come from a similar aim, rather than the one requiring the other.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Then that's where we differ. I've seen quite a few wipes in Tam Tara Hard, in Stone Vigil Hard, in pre-nerf Pharos Sirius, against Mist Dragon, even some wipes against whatever the HW white dragon was called, the last and second-to-last bosses of Keeper of the Lake, in Wanderer's Palace HM, Gubal Hard, and Saint Mocianne's, against the last boss of Ghimlyt Dark, and even the last of Anamnesis Anyder, the first of The Twinning, and the second of Hero's Gauntlet, etc., etc.



In all of Dawntrail thus far, despite leveling almost exclusively via dungeon spam (doing async commission work while in queue as DPS) and doing the daily Expert Roulette to reach weekly caps, there's only been two bosses I've seen multiple wipes on: the last boss of Skydeep Cenote and the first boss of Strayborough Deadwalk. Despite the added movement requirements of, say, Yuweyata last boss, I still have yet to see more than a couple wipes in total not caused by d/cs across all other Dawntrail dungeons. And that's far from a small sample size of runs.

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You misunderstand. I specifically said that wipes used to happen a great deal more, even in dungeons. It was a recurring thing actually, and part of life.
Individual, constant deaths from the same exact player from DDR though, that was almost unheard of. That same player that just keeps dropping dead while everybody continues, that's something more new. That's what we traded the team wipes for. That poor soul that just cannot get through the dance and has to get dragged by the healer/tank all the way to the finish line.

I do agree with the assessment, actually. I just don't agree on which one is better than the other especially because team wipes back in older dungeons were rarely 100% binary and pointing universally at one single culprit either. It was a team effort, and a team mistake. Was there a lot of back and forth and tension between tanks and healers? Sure. I don't think a functional trinity system could even avoid that problem, but I'd be open to suggestions. I just disagree with the path that SE has chosen to fix the problem (aka, just break the trinity until it limps through).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I disagree. Even pre-prancing BLM could manage the most movement-intensive fights when well played. It was dumbed down not because the fights specifically needed it but because they thought players wanted it dumbed down in that way.

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Nobody said BLM couldn't. When well played is the important part and why even the devs said that was the exact reason they changed it (unless they did lie), and I can see why. I think people just don't realize how much more demanding by the patches BLM has become to play over time in relation to an ever inflating pace and DDR everywhere.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

It always has been. Even in ARR under wrap-over MP (able to get a natural MP tick just after using Fire spell, since the MP-regen-prevention was slightly delayed) and double-quickened casts (when you could get a second spell hasted by the opposite element if you queued it fast enough), BLM played around smart use of mobility opportunities. That's always been what made it an interesting "turret" class -- constraints and ingenuity therearound.

The differences since have simply been how much excess one has (how many mistakes one must make before they feel potency loss, and how sharp or cumulative that cost is), but make no mistake that we had those kinds of capacities to min-max around movement even before -- it's not a new concern, nor even a newly emphasized one by any significant margin.

Again, I suspect that the reasons for BLM mobility increases, which are in further excess of need, follow the same lines of reasoning as the simplifications to Monk, Viper, Ninja, etc., none of which were warranted by or required by fight design, either.

Tl;dr: Again, no, we can have fights less limited to DDR under the present kits and we could have managed the current levels of DDR even before each job's latest wave of simplifications. The two merely come from a similar aim, rather than the one requiring the other.

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Strong disagree there. BLM was less about movement and a lot more about positioning which is a gigantic difference to my eyes. The paradigm is just not the same at all for the reason I exposed, but I feel that I don't want to continue there because I'll go back in circles just repeating my arguments.

This is also why a lot of BLM players have eventually started hating on the modern design or just dropped off the job over time, if just to cite a few from those forums like Mao or Taranok. And like them, I hate what they did to BLM and encounters all the same.

For a while I tried to get friends to play, but the reality I had to accept was that aside from the (mandatory) dungeons and trials, there just isn't a lot of reason or way to play together when your levels and msq progress are very different. Sure, I can follow you around while you watch three hours of cutscenes and run from one spot to another, but for the most part this game is a very solo experience.

Tomestone gear being locked behind MSQ progress only makes it worse - there is no reason to become overleveled when you can't get tome gear for a level 90 because you're still in SB while your tomes are capped from running roulettes with friends. It's like the actively discourage you from playing together unless your MSQ is done. (And there are only so many jobs to buy gear for if you're taking your time with the story, assuming you even want to play everything.)

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Originally Posted by Valence

Strong disagree there. BLM was less about movement and a lot more about positioning which is a gigantic difference to my eyes. The paradigm is just not the same at all for the reason I exposed, but I feel that I don't want to continue there because I'll go back in circles just repeating my arguments.

This is also why a lot of BLM players have eventually started hating on the modern design or just dropped off the job over time, if just to cite a few from those forums like Mao or Taranok. And like them, I hate what they did to BLM and encounters all the same.

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I didn't disagree that it's about positioning. You cannot, however, change positions without movement, nor prepare that available movement without timing phase changes or banking resources, which we'd been doing since ARR. It wasn't just 'pick a starting position and hope for the best'.

It's precisely because the amount of movement tools we have now are excessive for (not demanded by) our typical encounters even now that BLM feels less skill-expressive in that regard. We should want to know when to early swap, etc. Now, we have little to no reason to, which has made the kit feel less involved.

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I do agree with the assessment, actually. I just don't agree on which one is better than the other especially because team wipes back in older dungeons were rarely 100% binary and pointing universally at one single culprit either. It was a team effort, and a team mistake. Was there a lot of back and forth and tension between tanks and healers? Sure. I don't think a functional trinity system could even avoid that problem, but I'd be open to suggestions. I just disagree with the path that SE has chosen to fix the problem (aka, just break the trinity until it limps through).

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I made no claim on which one is better. I just pointed out that we didn't merely go from low difficulty to high difficulty but rather from having many more factors of difficulty towards a more singularly "DDR" focus.

When people say they want to play through the story together but the game doesn't facilitate that, what exactly is their expectation of collaborative play? Aside from having to disband the party for solo instances, which is annoying but a rare occurrence.

Well, it really hasn't changed FFXIV's claim office.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

Today i was talking to my sister again, and asked her when she might continue to play the game.

So i give you some of her responses why she and her friend doesn't continue playing for now , they are somewhere in the middle of Shadowbringers before they quit some months ago.
And i do agree wholy with her.

Even though she likes the story overall and the characters, and she knows the game has a lot of cool things to offer from what i showed her, here is the main issue:

The story is too long and not multiplayer friendly.

We are now several years and multiple expansions in the lifespan of FFXIV, but the MSQ gets longer and longer and longer ever since. It simply takes way too long now to get through it all, we are now at 300+ hours to the end of Dawntrail, if not more. A casual player will take months to get through it before reaching the current content of the game, also unlocking all trials and dungeons takes a really long time.

There is also the other problem that the MSQ is a mostly single player experience, she tries to play with her boyfrined but beside dungeons and trials there is pretty much no multiplayer content or reason to run around in groups. You can't do any of the story sequences ina group because they are all solo instances.
they sit literally next to each other at home, but have barely any interaction in the game together.

Then there is the problem of unlocking dungeons, trials or raids. You can't simply do anything together in this game if one player hasnt unlocked a thing.

Another critique is that the MSQ has almost no combat interactions, when she took a longer break and got back into the game, she forgets what she is even doing with her class because unless you do a dungeon there is no combat during MSQ, you maybe kill one or two easy mobs for a quest but thats it, and then it is just running around and talking again.

> MSQ needs more combat elements to keep the player awake in between dungeons and trials.

I do not suggest buying a story skip to get there, because then you know nothing about what is going on, but something must be done to reduce the lenght of the MSQ, it must be cut and trimmed down by 30-50% at this point. A lot of not plot relevant quests must be removed or turned into side quests to keep the story.

fazit: The game fails new players as an MMO, but also kinda fails as a good single player experience because of its excessive lenght and boring gameplay elements during the MSQ part.

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I really don't understand the complaints mentioned here. I started playing FFXIV around the time Coils was introduced, when level 50 was still the cap. Regardless, it felt like there was more content available at level 50 than there was on my trip from level 1 to 50. And, honestly, I couldn't have been more happy about that. I was thoroughly enjoying the game and my only thoughts about the seemingly endless amount of content ahead was that there was more of the game I loved to enjoy. It was impossible to see that as a bad thing.

FFXIV isn't like some other MMOs where all of the fun stuff is locked behind an end-game. Most of its systems (like 8 man trials) are introduced on the way to 50, and by level 50 you've seen most of what there is to see gameplay wise. Everything beyond that is just variations on a theme. Yes, the designs of dungeons and raids get more interesting as the expansions roll by, and classes have more options. But they were good to start out with and the improvements over time just make the ongoing experience all the more enjoyable.

I have played and enjoyed this entire game with friends and (outside of grinding something specific for myself) never alone, and so I don't understand the complaint that the game isn't multiplayer friendly. And complaining that there is too much story, when the narrative is arguably one of the game's strengths, is like complaining about having too many romantic encounters. Sorry, I had to think of a PG way to say that.

Now, if your friend doesn't like the story (and there are people who don't, who just want to grind their way to max level and take on whatever challenges await there), that's understandable. But that doesn't mean there's a problem with the game. It just means this type of MMO is probably not for them. Or settle on a story skip - you're worried that they won't know what's going on, but it doesn't seem like they really care, else they'd be happily consuming the story. I enjoyed it so much that I went through it twice when new-game plus was introduced, and wouldn't want to see it reduced at all.

I would like to see more combat woven into the story, but often the most entertaining form of that comes from the solo-duties as the kill-tasks out in the open world can be spoiled by the presence of random players. This MMO is certainly not like WoW or Everquest where you spend more time grinding on mobs than anything else, and I'm not really sure I want it to be. FATEs exist for that option.

If I were a new player coming into this game I would be in heaven. But that's because I enjoy the game and there's a lot of game here to enjoy. So I don't think the game fails for new players, but that doesn't mean it can or should be a game for everyone.

Personally, I agree with this.

Any new player I've tried to get to join hasn't stayed. People tout 'oh the story is amazing though and it's not their game if they won't stay'. Sure. Maybe it isn't their game.

But that attitude won't attract new players, especially as older ones are bleeding away. I'm only here still because of roleplay - this game has so much less to offer than games like WoW, which is getting more true considering they're adding housing. All of my stories are tied to FFXIV though and thus, I'm staying.

But that isn't the case for many people, who will leave given the game just...isn't offering a point to play for many now, and not much to keep new players playing. People can yell 'well that's their fault they won't stay' all they want. It won't help the game grow.

There has to be something done but SE seems to want to continue listening to people who think it's blasphemy to offer a non-purchaseable skip.

In the very least, content shouldn't be totally blocked by story.

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Originally Posted by TheRealDesastr

Personally, I agree with this.

Any new player I've tried to get to join hasn't stayed. People tout 'oh the story is amazing though and it's not their game if they won't stay'. Sure. Maybe it isn't their game.

But that attitude won't attract new players, especially as older ones are bleeding away. I'm only here still because of roleplay - this game has so much less to offer than games like WoW, which is getting more true considering they're adding housing. All of my stories are tied to FFXIV though and thus, I'm staying.

But that isn't the case for many people, who will leave given the game just...isn't offering a point to play for many now, and not much to keep new players playing. People can yell 'well that's their fault they won't stay' all they want. It won't help the game grow.

There has to be something done but SE seems to want to continue listening to people who think it's blasphemy to offer a non-purchaseable skip.

In the very least, content shouldn't be totally blocked by story.

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But this is an MMO that focuses heavily on story, and for some players that's the main appeal. I don't see a world where the story is essentially shelved and this game becomes another WoW-clone. That will only cause it to be appealing to a different audience, not necessarily a larger one.

I do agree that non-story elements in this game, particularly in the open world, could use a lot of improvement. For as much as FFXIV relies on FATES they have always been one of the game's weaker activities. Guild Wars 2 has their own version of FATEs which are, for whatever reason, much more interesting and engaging (to me) than FFXIV's FATEs have ever been. The presentation and execution of them is just awful.

Outside of that we just have field-combat in the open world, which I think is doomed to dull because FFXIV is a tab-target MMO. That will never be exciting, especially to the type of people you probably hope to attract. The only time it gets remotely interesting is with the occasional A or S Rank as they have more than two mechanics. I don't think we're going to see FFXIV turned into an action-combat game anytime soon. So how else can it be improved? I played WoW for 6 years and I can't really say it was any better there.. perhaps only a bit more fun because the open world encounters were more dangerous.

FFXIV's dungeons can be entertaining, as can trials and raids. And unlike most MMOs crafting is fantastic fun, at least until you start relying on macros and guides to essentially automate the gameplay for you (at which point you come to the forums and complain crafting is boring).

But outside of that it's the field-content in the open world and the story, and of the two the latter is definitely the stronger feature of this MMO. There is a lot of story content in FFXIV I still haven't consumed, and I will say that almost every time I pull at one of those random threads I walk away from the experience thinking how crazy it is that I almost didn't experience that hidden gem, and that's almost always because of the presentation and story.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I don't see a world where the story is essentially shelved and this game becomes another WoW-clone.

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Is anyone asking for that? The issue keeps getting framed as a binary one where the story has to overshadow every other part of the game or it has to be irrelevant. Those are only the most extreme options. The length of the story stops having downsides when it stops interfering with the MMO side of the game. I also don't see any benefit to making the story required when it comes to player interest. If anything, letting the player choose when to engage with the story should lead to the least burnout because there are no competing goals like trying to catch up with friends.

Going back and changing the structure of the game from ARR to DT would be a lot of work so there might not be many feasible ways to make changes there, but the future is an open book and I think the game could benefit a lot from allowing more player freedom and interaction.

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

Is anyone asking for that? The issue keeps getting framed as a binary one where the story has to overshadow every other part of the game or it has to be irrelevant. Those are only the most extreme options. The length of the story stops having downsides when it stops interfering with the MMO side of the game. I also don't see any benefit to making the story required when it comes to player interest. If anything, letting the player choose when to engage with the story should lead to the least burnout because there are no competing goals like trying to catch up with friends.

Going back and changing the structure of the game from ARR to DT would be a lot of work so there might not be many feasible ways to make changes there, but the future is an open book and I think the game could benefit a lot from allowing more player freedom and interaction.

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But you know the formula - the introduction of new (especially leveling dungeons) are usually woven into the story, which provides players with the option of running them with NPCs who are part of the story (and a reason for those NPCs to be there). What you're essentially asking for is to have that content separated from the story, which in turn will make the experience worse for those players who do enjoy the story. Or you're asking the developers to create twice as many dungeons so players can level and gear up via the story route or a non-story route, and I doubt that is feasible under their current development schedule given that they already seem to be struggling with their pace.

A story-skip option is available for those who want to catch up to the current expansion, and while I would never use one it seems like the entire effort to wrap a bow on the previous 10-year story was at least in part to provide potential players with a new starting point to jump to. And if they do and discover they actually like the current story they can always tackle the previous expansions at their leisure through the New Game Plus feature. It's not the perfect way to digest an MMO, but it's a pretty decent option, and one that is available *right now* without shaking up the formula in unwanted ways for long-time players who have actually enjoyed the design from the last ten years.

Between Endwalker closing off the last ten years, Dawntrail starting a new adventure, the New Game Plus feature and the story skip option all being available now, there has never been a better time to bring new friends into the game who have been holding back because they didn't want to progress through multiple expansions to reach the end-game. Can we at least agree on that?

What they really should do is to split the MSQ from each expac apart and implement some sort of hub where new players would be able to choose which story/expac to pursue. That would also mean that they make the absolute baseline like materia melding, mounts, travel, etc a default and not a ARR progression.

For example, in Guild Wars 2 (which also locks content behind story progression) you can just activate/deactivate storylines from different expacs via menu and at least go where you want. Want to hop directly into the newest thing? No problem and you're not really penalized or at a real disadvantage either.

Now, obviously that is gonna create some kinda paradox and inconsistencies, where you would go from someone dead to that someone being alive again and so. But I think that still would be a lot better than the current implementation, where newcomers are asked to play for ~200 hrs to get to the first 'beacon of light' (which I personally think is Stormblood) or to fork out 25 bucks for something they might not even continue to play in a weeks time.

do the gacha game thing where it asks "hey this is spoilers do you wanna do this content anyway"

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Originally Posted by PyurBlue

Is anyone asking for that? The issue keeps getting framed as a binary one where the story has to overshadow every other part of the game or it has to be irrelevant. Those are only the most extreme options. The length of the story stops having downsides when it stops interfering with the MMO side of the game. I also don't see any benefit to making the story required when it comes to player interest. If anything, letting the player choose when to engage with the story should lead to the least burnout because there are no competing goals like trying to catch up with friends.

Going back and changing the structure of the game from ARR to DT would be a lot of work so there might not be many feasible ways to make changes there, but the future is an open book and I think the game could benefit a lot from allowing more player freedom and interaction.

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Welcome to the FF forum, where everything is a false dilemma logical fallacy.

Also, people have been a big fan of the WoW story. DESPITE why people think, WoW is also a story driven MMO - its just broken into campagins. A lot of people are really enjoying the story of latest expansion TWW. I think the story is a bit short and can be confusing to players that havent played previous stories AND ALSO its an issue that they did shelf some earlier stories like classic when Cataclysm came out, but everything that happened before is still cannon.

Realistically, I'm not sure what the answer is, but even from a casual context, play through 500 hours of story so you can kill some things in OC with your friends is not the play, and the things available in ARR that Gyson described are largely either solo activities or largely dead content (with exceptions such as PvP). Like, thinking of level 50 content, really what is there? Gold Saucer, glam, pvp, and afking in limsa?

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Originally Posted by Gyson

But you know the formula - the introduction of new (especially leveling dungeons) are usually woven into the story, which provides players with the option of running them with NPCs who are part of the story (and a reason for those NPCs to be there). What you're essentially asking for is to have that content separated from the story, which in turn will make the experience worse for those players who do enjoy the story. Or you're asking the developers to create twice as many dungeons so players can level and gear up via the story route or a non-story route, and I doubt that is feasible under their current development schedule given that they already seem to be struggling with their pace.

A story-skip option is available for those who want to catch up to the current expansion, and while I would never use one it seems like the entire effort to wrap a bow on the previous 10-year story was at least in part to provide potential players with a new starting point to jump to. And if they do and discover they actually like the current story they can always tackle the previous expansions at their leisure through the New Game Plus feature. It's not the perfect way to digest an MMO, but it's a pretty decent option, and one that is available *right now* without shaking up the formula in unwanted ways for long-time players who have actually enjoyed the design from the last ten years.

Between Endwalker closing off the last ten years, Dawntrail starting a new adventure, the New Game Plus feature and the story skip option all being available now, there has never been a better time to bring new friends into the game who have been holding back because they didn't want to progress through multiple expansions to reach the end-game. Can we at least agree on that?

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Story skip is really a shitty solution to bring up, "Yeah buy the game for $60 or whatever than spend $15 on a sub then spend another $40 on a story skip and we can play together! Or grind out 500 hours of story!"

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Originally Posted by 0blivion

do the gacha game thing where it asks "hey this is spoilers do you wanna do this content anyway"

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Runescape 3 started doing this and its actually kind of nice. They let you do 6th age story quests before you complete the 5th ones but RECOMMENDS you complete 5th age story first. Not 100% sure its the right solution, but I would probably propose a hybrid between WoW in FF

WoW forces you to accelerate to the current expansion.
FF forces you to crawl through 6 expansions of story to play content that isn't either dungeons or dead.
Why no create an accelerated path that perhaps catches you up to DT or whatever the current expansion is but gives the option to take the slow-msq route?

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Runescape 3 started doing this and its actually kind of nice. They let you do 6th age story quests before you complete the 5th ones but RECOMMENDS you complete 5th age story first. Not 100% sure its the right solution, but I would probably propose a hybrid between WoW in FF

WoW forces you to accelerate to the current expansion.
FF forces you to crawl through 6 expansions of story to play content that isn't either dungeons or dead.
Why not create an accelerated path that perhaps catches you up to DT or whatever the current expansion is but gives the option to take the slow-msq route?

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Oddly, it feels as if they could have done what many thought they might - namely let new players actually start from Dawntrail.

When you consider the facts that Dawntrail:
- Makes pretty much no reference to anything that came before Tural
- basically withdrew our 'Warrior of Light' title (I don't recall it being used at all, even by those who referred to our character by that title previously)
- Turned the Scions into generic friends
- Doesn't give us any narrative reason to return to Eoreza

I mean, considering the fact that it seems as if they went out of their way to ignore everything that happened prior to Tural/Dawntrail it does seem confusing that they didn't create a 'new player point'.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Oddly, it feels as if they could have done what many thought they might - namely let new players actually start from Dawntrail.

When you consider the facts that Dawntrail:
- Makes pretty much no reference to anything that came before Tural
- basically withdrew our 'Warrior of Light' title (I don't recall it being used at all, even by those who referred to our character by that title previously)
- Turned the Scions into generic friends
- Doesn't give us any narrative reason to return to Eoreza

I mean, considering the fact that it seems as if they went out of their way to ignore everything that happened prior to Tural/Dawntrail it does seem confusing that they didn't create a 'new player point'.

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Vrtra's cameo wouldn't have made any sense, though that scene doesn't make any sense anyway.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Vrtra's cameo wouldn't have made any sense, though that scene doesn't make any sense anyway.

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Somewhat - I mean, the reference to Radz-at-Han wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't played Endwalker, and it certainly wouldn't have the same impact as it did on those of us who know who Vrtra is, but otherwise there isn't really anything else in the scene that requires knowledge of the pre-Dawntrail MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Somewhat - I mean, the reference to Radz-at-Han wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't played Endwalker, and it certainly wouldn't have the same impact as it did on those of us who know who Vrtra is, but otherwise there isn't really anything else in the scene that requires knowledge of the pre-Dawntrail MSQ.

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Even so, it doesn't particularly matter. I would imagine SE would give the option to start on ARR or start on DT and wouldn't force the DT route. If you wanted all the context and the story was the primary reason you started, you would naturally start ARR. If you wanted to raid or do other endgame activities and story was secondary, you likely accept that you will miss out on some details.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Even so, it doesn't particularly matter. I would imagine SE would give the option to start on ARR or start on DT and wouldn't force the DT route. If you wanted all the context and the story was the primary reason you started, you would naturally start ARR. If you wanted to raid or do other endgame activities and story was secondary, you likely accept that you will miss out on some details.

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The trend I've seen in a few games now is either an option on character creation or an option after the tutorial, with some having both.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Story skip is really a shitty solution to bring up, "Yeah buy the game for $60 or whatever than spend $15 on a sub then spend another $40 on a story skip and we can play together! Or grind out 500 hours of story!"

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I understand your point, but at the same time that's a bit of an exaggeration. The game can be purchased for $40, a sub is $13, and the story skip is $25. So that $115 price tag you're suggesting is actually $78. And it's not just a multi-expansion story skip - it levels a character's class to 90, provides them with a full set of level 90 gear, a half a million in gil, and saves them however many months of subscription cost it would normally take to progress through A Realm Reborn and four additional expansions. If it even saves you just two months of subscription time then it's paid for itself. That is not that horrible of an ask, especially compared to what $25 normally gets you in most modern online game's cash shops.

I'm not wild about the term "grind" in the context you're using it in, because "grinding out 500 hours of story" is.. you know, playing a Final Fantasy themed game. But if people want to skip the main draw of a Final Fantasy game then at least an option exists.

I don't know, if I wanted a specific friend/sibling to play this game with me, but they didn't want to have to play through 500 (or however many) hours of content alone just to catch up, I'd just offer to play through the game with them (the New Game Plus option provides long-time players with the means to do this alongside new players). As I mentioned earlier, I went through this entire game with friends - we voice the unspoken dialogues to each other and all that other embarrassing nonsense to make everything more entertaining and a shared experience. Your newly introduced friends don't have to play through multiple expansions alone without you, and you get the benefit of a front-row seat to all their reactions as the story unfolds.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

I understand your point, but at the same time that's a bit of an exaggeration. The game can be purchased for $40, a sub is $13, and the story skip is $25. So that $115 price tag you're suggesting is actually $78.

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Since we are talking about playing with friends at the endgame, a new player would have to buy the complete edition which does cost you $60.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

But you know the formula - the introduction of new (especially leveling dungeons) are usually woven into the story, which provides players with the option of running them with NPCs who are part of the story (and a reason for those NPCs to be there). What you're essentially asking for is to have that content separated from the story, which in turn will make the experience worse for those players who do enjoy the story. Or you're asking the developers to create twice as many dungeons so players can level and gear up via the story route or a non-story route, and I doubt that is feasible under their current development schedule given that they already seem to be struggling with their pace.

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There are already side quests with their own stories that are separated enough from the MSQ to be completely optional. Non MSQ dungeons could function in a way that is similar where they have a story but it's not tied to the main narrative. As optional content there would be less need to design them around NPC's but if that was still deemed necessary, pick someone besides the scions (until the player reaches a point in the MSQ where their appearance makes sense).

This would require more dungeons to be made like you point out, though it's not clear to me if this is asking too much of SE. It's not unreasonable to request improvements and I wouldn't mind if they had to divert some resources to build some new ideas that break away from their very predictable formula.

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A story-skip option is available for those who want to catch up to the current expansion, and while I would never use one it seems like the entire effort to wrap a bow on the previous 10-year story was at least in part to provide potential players with a new starting point to jump to. And if they do and discover they actually like the current story they can always tackle the previous expansions at their leisure through the New Game Plus feature. It's not the perfect way to digest an MMO, but it's a pretty decent option, and one that is available *right now* without shaking up the formula in unwanted ways for long-time players who have actually enjoyed the design from the last ten years.

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Having to pay more just to make the game more accessible sounds backwards to me. I also wouldn't consider making MSQ optional to be shaking things up any more than a story-skip would. The MSQ is will still be there, and it could even benefit because it would no longer need to accommodate players that want to participate and those that want to get to other content - yes there is a story skip but not everyone is going to take it, the skip wasn't enough to keep parts of the MSQ from being trimmed or adjusted in the past. The optional non MSQ dungeons would exist for everyone and could even be used to create alternative methods for completing the MSQ. What if at some point you need drop X and you can choose to search for it in MSQ dungeon Y or optional dungeon Z?

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Between Endwalker closing off the last ten years, Dawntrail starting a new adventure, the New Game Plus feature and the story skip option all being available now, there has never been a better time to bring new friends into the game who have been holding back because they didn't want to progress through multiple expansions to reach the end-game. Can we at least agree on that?

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It's a mixed bag. NG+ was a glaring omission for what is supposed to a story focused game. The story-skip is one way to get around having to go through the story before doing other content, but why pay to solve a problem that the devs created and also encourage them to keep on the same path? Not everyone is going to want to do that and I feel like that is very understandable. A more open ended way to play the game isn't just a new player issue anyway, it's something that can improve the experience for all players. I can only speak for myself, but SE's very tight control over MSQ progression doesn't enhance the story or the gameplay for me.

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Originally Posted by Altina_Orion

Why no create an accelerated path that perhaps catches you up to DT or whatever the current expansion is but gives the option to take the slow-msq route?

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Some kind of catch up path would make a lot of sense and help prevent players from being lost by skipping the story entirely. It would also be a good alternative for alt characters.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Since we are talking about playing with friends at the endgame, a new player would have to buy the complete edition which does cost you $60.

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Whoops, you are correct. So it would be $60 for the game, $25 for the story skip/character boost, and $13 for a sub once your included 30 days are over. That's a $94 total. But, again, if the story skip saves you just two months of subscription time then it's paid for itself.

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Originally Posted by Gyson

Whoops, you are correct. So it would be $60 for the game, $25 for the story skip/character boost, and $13 for a sub once your included 30 days are over. That's a $94 total. But, again, if the story skip saves you just two months of subscription time then it's paid for itself.

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$94 Is still a lot to ask for a friend to invest in a game they may not even like, thats why the Free trial is what usually get people on board, try out the game, then commit

Aside from that, the issue is again, player retention, and playing with friends. A $94 price tag is not a solution that sounds welcoming to a new player, the game should make it easier to play with friends, not charge more just to have the privilege of having fun with friends

And no, we are not asking for the story to be shelved on the side, just asking for a way to make it less of a pain point when it comes to progression and group play