After playing for a month...

[Arriverderci]

It's also near impossible to FATE grind unless you're in Dragonhead or Coerthas +
since lower levels are a dead zone...I knew FATE's were going to be dead soon, early levels will be dead just like every other MMO.
They rely on FATE's to level now look.
Not only that, the random lag and crap is killing this game.

[Starlord]

It's also near impossible to FATE grind unless you're in Dragonhead or Coerthas +
since lower levels are a dead zone...

You can do "some" FATEs solo, however FATEs like "Cancer". You can't even do >.>.

[Shiyo]

Maybe FFXIV isn't really suited to people used to play with a more 'hardcore' attitude. In short, not for people used to play 6-8 hours a day

You're right, the current end game is designed for people who play 3-4 hours PER WEEK.

Not a sustainable business model for a monthly sub MMO at all.

Are people still playing that "You rushed to endgame!" card over 2 months after release? Really? I have friends who work fulltime, went away on vacation for 3 weeks and are level 50 with a relic. The excuse no longer works, if you honestly think it takes over 2 months to get 50 in this game without rushing I don't know what to say. Use your brain, I guess.

Leveling is super quick and easy, you'd have to basically afk in town or go out of your way to not gain EXP and takes more than 2 months to ding 50.

[Phaylis]

Almost all mainstream mmo content when released can be steamrolled if a few days to a week. The last three expansions of WOW you could get level cap with a few days, be raid ready in less than a week and Hard Core guilds in Pandaria had downed the Hard mode same week upon its access. MMo used to I would say cater to more of a crowd who could invest hourss upon hours to accomplish anything and with time spent you felt a sence of accomplishment. But WoW really pushed the MMo away from that and slowly made them more casual friendly. Now what would take games months you can do in a few days. I miss the days of EQ with epic leveling and spending hours getting to know people since took time you really connected with people. However 6-8 hours a day 4-5 days a week for like 4 weeks to get from 49 to 50 I never will miss.

[zdub303]

However 6-8 hours a day 4-5 days a week fro like 4 weeks to get from 49 to 50 I never will miss.

Developers need to get away from the 'game starts at 50' mentality. Maybe that involves moving away from a classic rpg level system.

If the game starts at 50, but there is no endgame content... then really there is no game.

[Recycler]

I'd consider myself a casual but determined player. I had 2 50s to begin with from 1.0, but decided to level a new class from 1 (conjurer) in ARR to experience all the game has to offer.

I've been playing about 5 - 10 hours per week, ~70 hours in total since release. I've run CM/AK to death, have full DL, relic and 1 iLvL 90 body piece since yesterday. I got to the point now where I'm just running around in low level areas to help out beginners by popping some random heals. Unfortunately, there are very few lowbies around, so I'm basically done with the game. I don't see patch 2.1 changing the situation either. It will probably net me some more hours with Crystal Tower / new dungeon / EM primals, but I doubt this will last for longer than a couple weeks max.

So yeah, I'm bored. Coil is not an option as I don't have the time to organize it / get a static group.

Disclaimer: I'm not interested in gathering or crafting or leveling another alt (FATE grinding, no thanks). I don't want to amass gil and I already have the best gear, so there is no point for me.

[Thriar]

Very bored.... Having said that I have 50 MNK,CUL, and GSM. Only thing I do is spam Castrum and do my 8 AK runs a week. The level system is very boring in this game, I find myself falling asleep in the middle of the day when grinding fates. The only other MMO I played was FFXI and leveling in that game took a lot of time but was never boring to the point I wanted to sleep, FFXI you couldn't level from 1-50 (75) in level 10 gear like you can in XIV. In FFXI you had to be geared and do your job or you would get your sorry butt kicked from the party, XIV you join a fate party tag a mob smack it a few times and presto! max exp from the fate real fun........ not!

You haven't played XI in a few years have you? You can do that in XI now too ^^

SE realizes that for the masses, leveling cannot take months upon months if they expect to retain customers. People think abyssea ruined XI but abyssea gave XI its second wind to remain a MMO in today's current market.

The problem SE is running into that Trion did very well with rift is the rate of introducing content. They're not satisfying the same concept they had during leveling that they need at end-game and that is end-game content getting pushed out faster than your average player can complete. BC is not enough for your average player. They made a big mistake not including crystal tower at release. Trion for the first year and a half pushed out end-game content faster than most if not all other mmos on the market. F2P kind've changed that but under Scott Hartsman, it was constant content ONCE A MONTH. Not every 3 months like SE likes to think is aggressive. And this wasn't bad content, this was quality content.

If anything, SE should've taken a page from Trion in this department.

Oh did I mention how awesome their customer service was and how awesome their dev interaction was with the community. Because it was pretty awesome. I wish that game never went f2p

[Tupsi]

You're right, the current end game is designed for people who play 3-4 hours PER WEEK.

Not a sustainable business model for a monthly sub MMO at all.

1.5 million last reported and going on its 3rd month without a major update - It seems to be sustained just nicely.

[Winzhi]

1.5 million last reported and going on its 3rd month without a major update - It seems to be sustained just nicely.

Yeah lets see what the number is in 2 months when the subs start for real. People will still buy the box now and then but the box sale will decline soon.

[Starlord]

I think some people are taking Yoshi's word of " Game starts at 50" a bit to seriously, and using it as an excuse. I know Yoshi-P said that, and I think he was referring to 1-49 as learning your class, learn to communicate, Learn the mechanics of the game etc. 50+ ( that includes level cap increases) is where you really need to buckle down and took all of which you learned into the battlefield.

When level cap increases, and you have to start leveling again ( which can very likely happen within the next 2 patches), will "Trash mobs" be a threat? Will it be harder to get 10 levels from 50-60? Will it take longer than 1-50? These are questions we should keep in mind when heading into level cap increase territory.

2 years from now when by then a new expansion comes out, will that endgame be any better than the endgame we have now? I feel when he said Game starts at 50 I don't think he really literally meant at 50. That's personally how I feel about it.

Yeah lets see what the number is in 2 months when the subs start for real. People will still buy the box now and then but the box sale will decline soon.

With any new MMO, there's a honeymoon phase and after that weeding out phase. With 1.5 million ( and seems to be growing still), even if 50% of that population were to quit ( and I am expecting that to happen), SE is still in good shape with 500-750k subs. In fact Yoshi-P was aiming for much less than 500k. In the end, the game will most like be a success even 3 years from now.

Time will surely tell.