7th astral era, the new player destroyer.

As the title states I've just seen the 12th person quit and get burnt out by the bland and terrible msq that is 7th astral. After all the bland boring arr content they have another wave to do before getting into heavens ward and don't want to see the waking sands ever again. I will be honest, if it wasn't for starting with 8 rl people back in 2018 I probably wouldnt have made it through this section either. You try to tell players the next xpac content is much better and more interesting but they don't ger it and how could they. Something has to be done here apart from 500 dollar story skips or whatever they cost. These are good people who want to play the game and keep going but the msq in ARR is just a slog of boring crap....let's not drag other boring parts of expacs in here because the 7th astral is really where I see people stop.

If they don't quit in ARR then they would in SB or DT. ARR could be better, yes, post-ARR particularly could still do with some trimming but I think it's safe to say that if ARR isn't for new people then the subsequent expansions are not going to grip them either.

It's an endurance test. This game is full of cutscenes. Every raid, trial, feature, everything has cutscenes and quests and each expansion release has a giant MSQ. If they can get through ARR, they can do everything that comes after.

If they can't get through it then they are gonna struggle later on as well.

I replayed 2.0 recently and I think the story itself was pretty good. Post-ARR is an awful drag and I haven't been able to get myself to go through it again.

The gameplay is atrocious though, with many jobs having less actions/mechanics than it did even in ShB. Going through the arcanist/summoner questline was especially painful now that I know the summons used to have hp bars and positioning to care about (which the solo instances in them were clearly designed for), on top of everything else it lost between ShB and EW.

I didn't think I'd miss being chased down by several extra mobs Emerald Carbuncle decided to pull with its aoes out in the overworld but here I am

After playing through the whole thing, ARR is not that bad. People should just take their time and enjoy the ride if they enjoy the world and storytelling.
The only thing that FFXIV really struggles with is that theres really nothing super meaningful waiting for you at the end, unless you like savage and ultimate.
And the journey isnt a real thing either if you like gearing up and getting stronger, feeling your weight in the open world. Some MMO's do gearing and making you feel more powerful with rare drops, new abilities, potion buffs and other buffs and such a much more enjoyable and moldable experience.

Everything is piss easy in FFXIV and I think its an entry level casual MMO which selfsabotaged any sense of an MMO because of their "players need to be able to play alone" campaign, at best until you reach the endgame where the challenge seemingly lies. Personally I just don't enjoy the DDR style memory game fights, nor do I think the gearing system is good enough for me to even enjoy gearing up. It doesnt help me in dungeons, it doesnt help me in the open world because theres no open world content (no, fates and hunts dont count) its just pure fashion to me. The jobs are very whitebread and they are destroying their identity patch by patch to make everything feel very samey.

most new people burn out because of fomo and their own obsession with the endgame. which is ironic because this game barely has any endgame.
the friends who already play arent a big help either. they told their friend they will play with them but only the new stuff on max lvl, because they already did the old stuff and they would have to interrupt showing their mounts and gear off to new players.
neither will the community and the mentorchat. oh they love to help and sometimes force their help pretty much on new player... but only unsynch. everything else would be a waste of time.
and all the uncountable people repeating the same thing over and over. 'wait til you're at this or that point, the game will get so much better.'

all this creates pressure on the new player who think they have to burn through arr.

of course there is other stuff like a boring and anti-climatic difficulty but oh boy is this community.... well its somerhing.

What really feels bad to me after my times playing NG+ through ARR and 2 of my alts is the fact that gameplay on lower level is just beyond insulting its players intelligence. Maybe if they make that part better, players who’d otherwise don’t care too much about the cutscenes can also have something to entertain them as well?

Shoving all the ‘fun buttons’ to near cap level while leaving almost nothing on lower level … well surprise surprises..! If people enjoy neither the story nor gameplay, they just uninstall the game. Lol.

I enjoyed ARR storytelling. That’s about the only part that kept me slogging through the abysmall low level encounters from my first playthrough to my replays.