New (ish) player feedback

Even though I preordered shadowbringers I have only a few months experience in the game. I have done the entire msq, and a couple of days ago made an alt to see what the revamped ARR was like.

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

On to the actual feeback.

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.

Problems this caused was mainly having gear/weapon way lower than my actual level, and if I were to go to a vendor 5k gil for a new weapon is way too high a price for a player that at that point has only 12k... if I were to buy armor too it would have been too costly.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

Problems this caused was mainly having gear/weapon way lower than my actual level, and if I were to go to a vendor 5k gil for a new weapon is way too high a price for a player that at that point has only 12k... if I were to buy armor too it would have been too costly.

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This probably isn't as much of a problem as it appears to be, since the content you can do is gated by quest progress, and quests also give you gear appropriate to their level. If you're level 40 but only doing level 25 content, it's perfectly fine to have level 20-25 gear since your level will be synced down in group content.

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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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I must admit it's been a while (3 years) since I started playing myself, but I don't recall there being that much traveling around before getting my own mount. You stay at one quest hub for about five levels before moving on to the next. I suppose the visit to the Scions' headquarters in Western Thanalan and then being sent to Eastern Thanalan pretty much straight away is quite a lot of travel in a short amount of time. The chocobo mount quest happens after that part and is a level 20 quest. I agree that the chocobo porter network is weirdly fragmented though.

Be sure to also make use of other cheaper forms of automatic travel besides the chocobo porters. The Return ability gives you a free teleport every 15 minutes to a destination you've set beforehand. You can set three favorite destinations for teleports at half price, and if you use an authenticator to log in you also get one free teleport destination. Airship travel between the major cities costs 120 gil, which is quite a bit cheaper than teleporting.

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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 haven't used HoH for leveling myself so I don't know how efficient it is compared to other methods, especially with the waiting times. But the various duty finder roulettes also give good exp, particularly leveling and alliance raids (and MSQ if you have the patience to sit through the cutscenes). Then there's FATEs, beast tribe dailies and hunts, which you can do while waiting for duty finder to pop. Personally I prefer to do a variety of things rather than single-mindedly grind the most efficient method. Check out the challenge log as well, some of those give good chunks of exp.

Keep in mind that pre-50 ARR dungeons have now gear sets, and you are guaranteed a piece at the end of the run. Weapon or Armor.

So it's not really bad for other classes/jobs to get them geared up there these days.

It would be nice to get the Chocobo sooner but it's the same amount of gameplay even if the levels are flying by.

The issue with Chocobos right now is the whistle is obtained from your Grand Company which is hard gated behind the MSQ. Maybe they could make it available in Bentbranch Meadows? But then the default barding would have to change.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

It would be nice to get the Chocobo sooner but it's the same amount of gameplay even if the levels are flying by.

The issue with Chocobos right now is the whistle is obtained from your Grand Company which is hard gated behind the MSQ. Maybe they could make it available in Bentbranch Meadows? But then the default barding would have to change.

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I forgot about all the additional reqs outside of just hitting level 20. It would be nice if the level itself were the only requirement. :X

Teleportation for newbies can get expensive if they're the type to explore everything about in an area. Hell, last night on my alt, I was restricting myself to msq and job quest only and I had about 3-5 "mandatory" teleports, each costing over 500 gil. Now, luckily for me, all my created chrs come with 100 teleport tickets so I save those for the costlier teles but I can see how this can drain a newbie's wallet, especially on a preferred world where you unlock more sidequests faster.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

It would be nice to get the Chocobo sooner but it's the same amount of gameplay even if the levels are flying by.

The issue with Chocobos right now is the whistle is obtained from your Grand Company which is hard gated behind the MSQ. Maybe they could make it available in Bentbranch Meadows? But then the default barding would have to change.

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Ah yes, I forgot to mention this. It would take some reworking of the storyline to allow acquiring mounts earlier.

Chocobo porters also allow renting a chocobo to ride yourself starting from level 10. Details on this seem to be scarce, but I assume you get to ride it until you dismount.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

Teleportation for newbies can get expensive if they're the type to explore everything about in an area. Hell, last night on my alt, I was restricting myself to msq and job quest only and I had about 3-5 "mandatory" teleports, each costing over 500 gil. Now, luckily for me, all my created chrs come with 100 teleport tickets so I save those for the costlier teles but I can see how this can drain a newbie's wallet, especially on a preferred world where you unlock more sidequests faster.

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Out of curiosity, how many and which quests were those? Over 500 gil per teleport is basically 'porting between the major Eorzean cities; I seem to recall the fee between Gridania and Ul'dah being around 350 gil and between Gridania and Limsa Lominsa just over 600 gil. Teleports internal to a region are in the 100-300 gil range. There's a few points in the storyline where the quests have you hopping all over the world, but for the most part they tend to stick in the same region for a while. Doing job quests at the same time can certainly mix it up though.

Early main scenario quests give around 200 gil per quest (although some relatively simple quests give nothing), and around level 20 it seems to jump to 1000 gil or more. Since there's usually a few main scenario quests plus a bunch of side quests at the same location, it should be easy to earn more than the teleport fee before moving to the next location.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

I forgot about all the additional reqs outside of just hitting level 20. It would be nice if the level itself were the only requirement. :X

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Level itself is almost never a requirement for anything in FFXIV.

The main requirement for nearly everything is progress in the MSQ. That is the main, and often only, thing that matters for unlocking other things.

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Originally Posted by tdb

Ah yes, I forgot to mention this. It would take some reworking of the storyline to allow acquiring mounts earlier.

Chocobo porters also allow renting a chocobo to ride yourself starting from level 10. Details on this seem to be scarce, but I assume you get to ride it until you dismount.

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Rented chocobos have a timer to how long you can ride them before the kick you off. But if you know where you're going, you'll have more than enough time to ride a chocobo between Gridania and Ul'Dah. This was especially handy for new players starting in Ul'Dah in Heavensward and ARR since you could use the chocobo to go to Gridania, unlock Conjurer and get protect before the game expected you would have access to it.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

Teleportation for newbies can get expensive if they're the type to explore everything about in an area. Hell, last night on my alt, I was restricting myself to msq and job quest only and I had about 3-5 "mandatory" teleports, each costing over 500 gil. Now, luckily for me, all my created chrs come with 100 teleport tickets so I save those for the costlier teles but I can see how this can drain a newbie's wallet, especially on a preferred world where you unlock more sidequests faster.

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Teleporting is indeed a real pain for new characters (though I think they expect you to use airships and ferries more at low level) which is why I do wish they'd copy the model of ESO where teleports cost more based off how recently you did your last teleport rather than how far you're going, and for low level players, make it free to teleport from a major aethercyte crystal to another.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

It would be nice to get the Chocobo sooner but it's the same amount of gameplay even if the levels are flying by.

The issue with Chocobos right now is the whistle is obtained from your Grand Company which is hard gated behind the MSQ. Maybe they could make it available in Bentbranch Meadows? But then the default barding would have to change.

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It feels like doing that would disproportionally benefit players starting in Gridiania, unless you also have to complete the starting city envoy quest... in which case I can also see the issue that several new players might miss getting their chicken. It's nice that the MSQ points you toward that quest as is, and while it would be even nicer if you got it sooner, it's really not that far into the story that you get it.

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Originally Posted by tdb

Ah yes, I forgot to mention this. It would take some reworking of the storyline to allow acquiring mounts earlier.

Chocobo porters also allow renting a chocobo to ride yourself starting from level 10. Details on this seem to be scarce, but I assume you get to ride it until you dismount.


Out of curiosity, how many and which quests were those? Over 500 gil per teleport is basically 'porting between the major Eorzean cities; I seem to recall the fee between Gridania and Ul'dah being around 350 gil and between Gridania and Limsa Lominsa just over 600 gil. Teleports internal to a region are in the 100-300 gil range. There's a few points in the storyline where the quests have you hopping all over the world, but for the most part they tend to stick in the same region for a while. Doing job quests at the same time can certainly mix it up though.

Early main scenario quests give around 200 gil per quest (although some relatively simple quests give nothing), and around level 20 it seems to jump to 1000 gil or more. Since there's usually a few main scenario quests plus a bunch of side quests at the same location, it should be easy to earn more than the teleport fee before moving to the next location.

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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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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.