Quote Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor View Post
You sign up to play a game to have fun. At those early levels, FFXIV honestly exhibits its worst characteristics. The GCD feels like an eternity to more veteran oriented MMO players in part because you do not unlock any of the abilities which will become a stable of your rotation. Some exceptions notwithstanding. How often is Lancer criticised for literally spamming Impulse Drive a billion times? Conjurer doesn't fair much better only having Stone I and Cure in content that isn't even remotely threatening. On its own, this wouldn't necessarily be a dealbrealer, but ARR has a myriad of fetch quests designed solely to waste your time.
The Company of Heroes 'story' leading up to Titan is twenty six quests long with maybe three relevant to your actual objective. Leveling an alt, I skipped virtually every piece of dialogue and it still ran over two hours of nothing. These are not attributes you want to advertise about your game, especially when it improves substantially thereafter. New players picking up the expansion are itching to try the new content, not be bogged down by hundreds of quests before they'll be able to play with their friends. Even Yoshi himself has acknowledged the many flaws with classes, hence why we will never see another one.

There comes a point where an MMOs has too much content well pasted its life cycle. You cannot expect new players to continuously slog through four year old content. To paraphrase a criticism on the MMO genre in general from Lazy Peon when people bring up how good the endgame is despite boring leveling: "Why don't you make the leveling less shit so I don't quit your game before I get to the good part?"
I was about to say a response but after mentioning Lazy Peon I'm done with this discussion.