I can't suggest this game to new players unless they already know people that play.

So I started a week ago, and I don't have a lot of time between multiple jobs to play. I do have ample time, though, usually spanning 3-4 hours in one sitting.

Since dungeons are intrinsically tied to the story quests, it means players have to complete a dungeon before continuing. Even though I'm a healer, I've waited upwards of 4 hours to do dungeons just to get to my next story quest because nobody is running the lower level dungeons. Imagine how bad this is going to be for someone who chooses to buy the game a few months from now?

I feel like if you didn't start during the initial surge of leveling players you are pretty much going to be sitting dead in the water unless you know people willing to run legacy content just so that you can get anywhere -_-

Does anyone else feel this way?

larger issue to people not running dungeons is fates being so much better, everyone ran it for story, ran it a couple more times, discovered fates, forgot about it forever even on alternate classes.

It's cool fate grinding is viable, but other forms of leveling need to match it or people will only do it and we will suffer the issues it brings up (lack of learning, gear and dungeon experience, issues like this with lower end dungeons)

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Originally Posted by MrSmiley

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I can see your perspective, but whether you tell me to sit through 10 tutorials or spam only 1 ability to level 50 I'm going to be a decent player because I want to be. Even though dungeons seem incredibly easy, I still read up on them before hand as well as proper rotation. I'm not sure if I buy into FATEs pumping out bad players per say, but it is an interesting point none the less.

I just see the low level well drying up in no time to the point that prospective new players will turn away because the game's current situation will create an absolute brick wall in their progression. Want to do the next story mode quest? Too bad. You have to wait 3 weeks for an ifrit group because everyone who's been playing is busy in the new shiny raid X and has no reason to help you.

you wern't doing something right somewhere. i'm a tank (my healer is 50), and I literally get instant queues.

apart from those instanced dungeons, this game is practically solo-able. i believe this game is already doing a decent job balancing the solo and compulsory contents. there are complaints, but waiting 3 to 4 hours as a healer isn't one of them. you could have literally /sh-ed for help and people would have helped you given that kind of hour.

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Originally Posted by Shuon

you wern't doing something right somewhere. i'm a tank (my healer is 50), and I literally get instant queues.

apart from those instanced dungeons, this game is practically solo-able. i believe this game is already doing a decent job balancing the solo and compulsory contents. there are complaints, but waiting 3 to 4 hours as a healer isn't one of them. you could have literally /sh-ed for help and people would have helped you given that kind of hour.

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Maybe it was just a bad time to try to do dungeons, then. I tried asking in shout to no avail. I don't mean to sound whiney about it because I am still patient enough to wait through it, but it's something I've never had to deal with in previous mmos. I'm just doing a bit of forward looking, and I can't see anything but it getting harder and harder for new players to do anything once they hit their first required dungeon that everyone else hasn't been to in months.

I feel like they need to either untie dungeons from the leveling progression, or better give people an incentive to do the early dungeons/trials.

Make sure that all languages are activated in the duty finder menu. If you play at weird hours it really helps. I tend to work on my low level classes in the morning and it helps to get the odd german group for dungeons.

I heard this from people too that the lower instances can take quite some time to get a group together. I mean we don't que up for Sastasha and copperbell mines anymore do we? Think this is something they need to look into and maybe that will come in form of a daily where they make quests that require to do lower level dungeon and give some tomes for the effort. I mean if we do castrum 20 times a week or do some other dungeons aswell that give like half the tomes of castrum, I wouldn't mind doing them.
Doing only AK and castrum runs are kind of boring after a couple of days.

that's a decent idea, although I still can't seem to grasp why you are having trouble with these compulsory dungeons. i literally just finished halatali cuz a friend needed it. i went as tank and he as dps. instant queue. you just got real unlucky i guess.

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Originally Posted by Shuon

you wern't doing something right somewhere. i'm a tank (my healer is 50), and I literally get instant queues.

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LOL, so everyone's doing it wrong who isn't a tank.

/shakeshead

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Originally Posted by Kraggy

LOL, so everyone's doing it wrong who isn't a tank.

/shakeshead

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I'm positive you misconstrued what I said. What did you think I was trying to imply?

I meant the OP might have dropped off the queue due to reasons he did not realise i.e. technical aspects.

all you need to do is join a FC, its easy to get people to run them. We all have 2nd, 3rd, ... classes to level and while we know how good the exp from dung at that level is great, unless we know its with someone we know or other competent players, its not always worth the wait. If we could join a FATE group while in solo queue then i'd do the low level dungeons, but many classes trying to solo FATEs without a group isnt worth the time. Given this, we join a fate group and say screw the dungeons unless someone. we know from FC/LS needs it

To me, the biggest issue with Fates is the Grand Company points. People need/want those points, and Fates are the only avenue that really grant a good amount of both GC points and experience. If they added GC points to dungeons, more people might play them.

That said, at level 42 as a Scholar, I really like having all pink-level items and getting the stat boosts from the gear I found in dungeons.

I think SE should give bonuses to high level players for leveling syncing and running the story dungeons. Or alternatively, the story dungeons should give additional rewards beyond normal dungeons which might encourage players to run their alts through the story dungeons. Perhaps if the armory bonus included dungeons and fates it could balance things out.

GC points from Dungeons. Enough said.

Hopefully SE implements incentive for lvl 50s to run lower level dungeons. This would really help queue times, not only in the low level dungeons, but in some of the end-game queues as well.

Also, I strongly suggest shouting for a FC. FCs should be your main source of dungeon groups. Duty Finder, as you have found, can be very unreliable at times. You can also try shouting in the area in which the dungeon is located for other members to run it with. I have had moderate success doing that.

Fates give better rewards (in seal and FC gear), also faster leveling.

Dungeons are slower, but way more fun. Also it helps you refine your class mechanics.

I leveled my first tank (WAR) through dungeons and quests. I am leveling my PLD through fates because its just crazy fast. Dungeons *can* be quick if you have a decent group. I will say I have had to wait almost an entire minute for a que once..

If I had to lvl through fates the first time, I think I would have quit the game. While fast, they are BORING, and ZERGY. Also they generate players who have not learned the mechanics of their class. I would rather take dungeons if they upped the xp gain a tad bit, and also gave seals for completion.

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Originally Posted by nocks

To me, the biggest issue with Fates is the Grand Company points. People need/want those points, and Fates are the only avenue that really grant a good amount of both GC points and experience. If they added GC points to dungeons, more people might play them.

That said, at level 42 as a Scholar, I really like having all pink-level items and getting the stat boosts from the gear I found in dungeons.

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You can trade in pink / green items you got from dungeons into the GC for 50-150 seals each. It's worth it if you don't want a really bad low level materia from it.

I'd probably say the same to someone if were to recommend the game, don't play without friends. The duty finder is 100% toxic in who it puts you with. I've never seen so much bullying and whining in any game I've played before. This mostly only starts at level 50, but thats when all you really have to do is grind dungeons so it's unavoidable unless you bring in some friends.