Punishing divas who jump ship before a dungeon even begins.

[Sylve]

While I agree with pretty much all you said, I can't agree with this.
THERE IS NO FRACTAL IN THE EXPERT ROULETTE! </rage>
I got Neverreap EVERY SINGLE DAY for the last week and a half! FUCK YOU SE! If I have to carry one more totem, I'm going to snap!

Its more like Alwaysreap, lol.
One day i wanna try ignoring Totems and having the tank gather em up for an AoE blast. Might be faster than dropping DPS to move totems only to have to deal with that one that always sneaks through close to the end.
They have bugger all HP, So one day I'll give it a shot.

And that was a sensible solution to XI's wasteland-beginner-experience, and worked well at release +6 months. It still worked well at release +1 year, but was beginning to get tiresome. Now, it's just a dumb way of approaching the game, as is layering even more vertical gear progression, when you bottom end hasn't budged.

At some point, it makes sense just to have a cut off, and start from scratch. You can't be in a situation like XI were a new player is perhaps a year or so of grind behind cap. Nor can you have a situation where someone who's been playing the game for three years is still being asked to run lvl 15 Sastasha. You've gotta bite the bullet at some point.

The roulette makes low level queues no worse than high level queues. Thats a pretty fair achievement on its own. Yes, it does suck as an old veteran to run some of the easiest content in the game again, but the tomes you get (Or XP if you're leveling a new job) make it worth sucking it up for a 30~ minutes.
The only improvement to the Roulette System i would like to see is for it not to dump a party full of 60s into Tam Tara normal, lol. It probably just needs an automatic provision to avoid dropping those parties into super low level content.
That alone would greatly reduce the frequency of getting those initial dungeons.
But at the end of the day, The Roulette is just going to keep on trucking into the next few expansions, picking up more dungeons to add to the pool as you go. RNG says then you should see less of the really low content.

[Amberyl]

RNG says then you should see less of the really low content.

Supply and demand says that, you mean? And yes, that's the theory. Less people come in at lvl 1, we see less of these really old instances in the Roulettes. Except even now, the game is attracting tonnes of new players, and will probably continue to do so well into next year, (because the monster that is PS4 sales, because brand recognition recovering, because WoW is haemorrhaging numbers, because it's a damn good game, etc.)

How much longer do we keep the status quo? Surely it makes sense just to cut the fat at some point, and rejig progression? If completing ARR and HW is going to be mandatory to enter the next expansion, you're talking about putting a casual player a good twenty to thirty mandatory instances behind everyone else. That's just getting silly. I know HW was light on mandatories at launch, but by the time the 3.xx patches have run their course...?

[Sylve]

Supply and demand says that, you mean?

I suppose. But really, when was the last time you got Sastasha and saw a New Bonus? I don't think iv'e ever seen it. Altering the system to avoid dumping you and 3 other capped players into content no one needs would fix that. You would only ever do it if the Demand got really high, which would only happen during the Launch period when we get an influx of new players.

As to the mandatory story stuff for new players. Thats actually not a problem, and IMO, plays to the benefit of XIV, especially over WoW.
It has to do with story cohesion and giving new players content for what they paid.
WoW has a huge problem presently in that the world no longer makes any kind of sense. You have to buy 5 expansions to play WoD but you never see the content in those expansions because no one does it. Even leveling a new character through the affiliated zones, you get halfway through said expansions zones and hit the level break to go to the next expansion.

With XIV you get ARR base story/content, 2.1 - 2.55 story content, then you get into HW and you get all of the attendant patch content. Next expansion will keep adding new content for a new player to enjoy.
Yes, there will be players who don't care about the story and just want "to do raids". Unfortunate for them to be sure. But i don't think they're in the majority.

There are a LOT of early MSQs that is just fat padding. Heavensward cutdown on that a lot. But i don't think we need to start cutting Dungeons out of the MSQ. Especially as the reason behind the desire to cut them out is to benefit veteran players not wanting to do them than new players.

No offense intended at all, But if you do not wish to do that older content, you have the option to simply not do the Roulette's. They are not mandatory. A veteran player need never even look at Sastasha ever again. So there is little need to rejig progression for the lower levels.

[Amberyl]

I suppose. But really, when was the last time you got Sastasha and saw a New Bonus?

Sunday, I believe. And I got Darkhold and Garuda with new bonuses this week too. Don't forget which server cluster you're on

No offense intended at all, But if you do not wish to do that older content, you have the option to simply not do the Roulette's. They are not mandatory. A veteran player need never even look at Sastasha ever again. So there is little need to rejig progression for the lower levels.

I have three classes I absolutely love, and have no desire to drop any of them. I also want to try the new ones from HW when I get time to level them. Roulettes are mandatory for me, given the play time I have available, or I'll simply never get enough tomes to gear up.