Info about the Chinese Cash Shop "Level Jumping Potions"

[Colorful]

In short, in my experience it's really frickin' hard to get people to play/join this game, and the retention rate isn't very good either. To add to this, a number of people in my free company left the game to go play Blade and Soul. These people were really into FFXIV and they really did enjoy the game. After they left for Blade and Soul they never came back. Something that makes the game less like work, and more fun could only be beneficial, and if you end up in groups with players who don't know their roles and are unwilling to take advice and learn to play properly, well, there's always the option to Vote Kick.

That boils down to poor game design, and then placing a band-aid that's not a proper solution but rather a way for them to profit from their own mistakes (which would incentivise not fixing the issue, and continuing on with that poor design for further expansions). A story in a game should not be a chore, especially in a Final Fantasy game, that doubles down for when you lock almost all content behind it unlike other MMORPGs. Cut out the filler quests, boost the EXP from the quests left over and boost the EXP gained from the Heavenward MSQ so the newer players aren't forced to do every side quest in the area to be able to progress the MSQ... especially when that content is not voiced which is a huge turn off for a lot of people I've attempted to recruit, but also incredibly boring story and gameplay wise.

Now you have players who have actually played the game up to 60, done the content and enjoyed(?) the MSQ, are familiar with the basic systems of the game and MMORPGs in general. You have to remember that a lot of players interested aren't MMORPG players and may have not even played as they're playing it for the Final Fantasy name alone, dropping those kind of players in would go terribly for both them, and the players that play with them. People who buy the level boost in WoW are current or returning players so it's not a huge deal skill wise, WoW doesn't see much fresh players unlike FFXIV (from what we've told).

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That boils down to poor game design, and then placing a band-aid that's not a proper solution but rather a way for them to profit from their own mistakes (which would incentivise not fixing the issue, and continuing on with that poor design for further expansions). A story in a game should not be a chore, especially in a Final Fantasy game, that doubles down for when you lock almost all content behind it unlike other MMORPGs. Cut out the filler quests, boost the EXP from the quests left over and boost the EXP gained from the Heavenward MSQ so the newer players aren't forced to do every side quest in the area to be able to progress the MSQ... especially when that content is not voiced which is a huge turn off for a lot of people I've attempted to recruit, but also incredibly boring story and gameplay wise.

Now you have players who have actually played the game up to 60, done the content and enjoyed(?) the MSQ, are familiar with the basic systems of the game and MMORPGs in general. You have to remember that a lot of players interested aren't MMORPG players and may have not even played as they're playing it for the Final Fantasy name alone, dropping those kind of players in would go terribly for both them, and the players that play with them. People who buy the level boost in WoW are current or returning players so it's not a huge deal skill wise, WoW doesn't see much fresh players unlike FFXIV (from what we've told).

I had the same thought. If they condensed the 2.0 down and eliminated a good chunk of pointless fetch quests (looking at you Company of Heroes), it would make digesting the game much easier on newer players. But someone else pointed the issue in doing so. The devs would need to rewrite each and every portion of the game they condensed otherwise things might not lineup properly. That will take time and resources away from developing new content for 4.0 itself. If they could find a means to do something like this without it impacting anything else, then I'd be all for it. If not, well...