What most turns new players off from FFXIV?

[Shurrikhan]

One thing that always seems to come up in these discussions is the 2.5 GCD.

There's a lot of good to be said about the 2.5 GCD; the longer timer allows for positioning that many lock-on Monks otherwise would not be capable of with a jiggly tank or mob crowding/repositioning (granted, they'd be fine if they turned that off and just, awkwardly, stood in the center of the large mob for smaller travel distances despite a moving back/flank line; and the ability to double-weave allows for dynamics of explosive pace in opening burst and certain procs, that can to some be more satisfying even than a massively reduced GCD. The biggest issue is probably just how long it takes to reach that variation in pace (or, also, any semblance of a complete rotational toolkit) throughout the leveling process and how above-average latency due to below average server location quantity can end up removing either of those bonuses and end-cap. (I get around 98-132 ms latency here with WTFast, 18-23 on WoW, 27-42 on B&S, 25-38 on GW2, and so forth; as a Californian, the Quebec NA server is only 16% lower ping than the JP server.)

Ultimately, the GCD itself only causes the first of the issues, and that issue can be mitigated by changes to leveling or leveling speed instead, but if its slowness is being used to counter issues of latency, or if latency and the animation lengths are the excuse for the system then it's already assuming that a fair number of people won't be fully able to take advantage of double-weaves, the one unique thing it offers. At that point, why not just:

• Use a shorter GCD – e.g. 2 seconds, with weaponskill potencies and buff/debuff durations reduced by 20%; most spells, especially offensive ones, are accelerated by .5 seconds and their potencies scaled to match.
  
  
• Improve oGCD "stacking" – Rather than completing the animation, including the return to resting position, queued "physical" (those causing damage) oGCDs will launch from any of certain extended states within the previous animation as to look more appropriately quick, efficient, and natural, while "non-physical" oGCD, e.g. buffs may have their animations absorbed into the previous or queued following oGCD wherein they merely accent the other's movement and apply particle effects. This hastening is already true of many animations, but looks janky on others and would otherwise create further loss of animation quality or uptime on double-weaves. Only a few oGCDs such as Internal Release may need their animations simplified (e.g. into a less ridiculous Spear Twirl, bow ready, or preparative fist turn similar to True Strike's) to be more naturally clipped or absorbed.
  
  
• Scale animation durations to the GCD, starting from the adjusted base GCD – thereby also removing the point at which non-clipping double or single weaves become impossible with increased Skill Speed.
  
  
• Adjust and accelerate certain oGCD animation locks, with priority on filler oGCDs like Bloodletter or weaponskills used to make room for those oGCDs like Feint; the activation times and animation locks of stances like Fists of Fire, Wind, and Earth; rotational or augmenting oGCDs like Transpose, Sharpcast, Surecast, and Swiftcast; movement abilities like Plunge, Shukuchi, and Aetherial Manipulation; and especially the notoriously long-anilocked Potions.
  
  
• Allow adjustive movement during movement oGCDs – Allow Jump to adjust its return course, Spineshatter and Dragonfire Dive to adjust where you land around the target after striking the center of its hitbox; Aetherial Manipulation to allow you to continue moving through the target ally to any edge of choosing of his or her hitbox; Shoulder Tackle to allow you to adjust or slide left or right along the target's hitbox during the charge; and any of these to grant a very short hidden movement speed increase.
  
  
• Decrease mob turning speed and/or point at which a mob begins turning – Mobs can now turn their heads, allowing them to keep attacking a target who has moved over 5 degrees without reorienting their entire bodies; most will not bother until a certain angular variation and will turn at a speed based on that variation.
  
  
• *Have positionals take a "best of" periodic/action poll – The locator from every periodic poll is saved until the next [or next, next] periodic poll, and if your position at your next action poll was of incorrect position, it reattempt the positional through the last polled location[s], slightly reducing the chance of missing a positional based on tank waggling.*

This way, you don't turn off so many players during leveling, you can still mostly open into burst just as you used to, positionals have been eased in line with the increased pace, most oGCDs have been been smoothed out a bit as not to newly clip, movement abilities are now more effective as not to worsen well-positioned uptime, and stagger stepping actually remains the same except being 20% less, 25% more often.

At this point, I obviously already got through to endgame and any time I'd be level-synced (e.g. PotD) has as much to do with running around as attacking such that I don't really notice the low GCD at early levels or am just too well adjusted to it by now, so changes like that aren't a priority to me. But leveling an alt, early on, felt really sluggish, and I do think even a 20% reduction (25% acceleration) to the GCD could help retain a lot more of those new players, especially if alongside anything that makes it look like they're not standing idle as long.

Not sure. But my friend's complaints were that the battles feel heavily turn based and slow. They came from Guild Wars 2 though, which I never played.

GW2 combat, as I've experience it, feels pretty well time- or animation-locked / -paced (no GCD, just the animation locks from your skills, be they channeled, charged, casted, or instant), and the mere fact that your AAs don't go off during your other weaponskills and can be accidentally clipped before completion (e.g. they too have animation locks or cast times of a sort), etc., lends them a lot more weight, imo. You pretty well rotate through your 5 weaponskills skills, possibly saving the movement-inclusive one for a dodge (some can deal serious damage if you can stop the movement at hit the full path's worth of damage onto a single enemy), so I can't say complexity is that different (play an endgame Engi if you want rotational complexity). Beyond that I can't really inform. To me it felt pretty solid, and was the first time I've really started liking primarily ani-lock or non-GCD systems for MMOs that weren't hack&slash.

[DPZ2]

Please tell me that those of you who hate the 'useless quests' between level 50 ARR and HW are NOT the same people who reminisce about the requirements for running around and/or finding a group to do mid-game content as the "good old days" from that other FF MMO.

[Jatoi]

-snip-

It's exactly that! I wonder how many players actually stop playing when they reach that quest line versus those who stopped before 50. The thought of seeing those results would be pretty interesting...

There has to be a way to condense it, just remove the unnecessary fetch quests that give no padding to the story being told. And er, there's plenty.

[DPZ2]

There has to be a way to condense it, just remove the unnecessary fetch quests that give no padding to the story being told. And er, there's plenty.

I'm all for shortening the 100+ quest chain to something a bit more manageable. Funny thing, though, I don't remember any particularly unnecessary 'fetch' quests. I do remember the lead-up to Shiva, the Moogle troubles leading up to King Mog, the Sylph investigations of Ramuh, the bits and pieces leading to Leviathan, etc. There was that thing with Alphinaud and his Team Blue before we have to shift to Ishgard. Nope. Can't remember any specific 'unnecessary' quests.

Might be better though to run folks through about 3 hours of cut-scenes to explain WHY they move on to Ishgard, and what happened after the Garleans are put in their place. Just so things make sense. Oh, and explain "how did I get to the entrance to unlock all the post-50 ARR instances I might suddenly find myself in?".

[Sandpark]

Another point and even some personal experience on the matter:

Yes, that grind which starts at level 50 that people keep mentioning. THAT there is a huge problem, regardless of EXP.

Someone close to me took their tank to 50 and they were a damned good tank. They enjoyed things until the 2.5 story and actually quit because of it. The grind, regardless of how much EXP it'd bring completely made him lose interest because it was so long.

One of the key things in proper storytelling is to condense it so the reader/player doesn't lose interest and they're motivated in progressing to the next chapter. Wouldn't it be preferable to make it so a person goes "This is great, I can't wait to see what happens next!" instead of "This is taking too long, I don't like this anymore."?

Yeah this is sort of what I implied by level to 20 where game starts getting good is slow and 50-60 super slow. Feels padded and extending the ugly between the goodies.

[bass9020]

Might be better though to run folks through about 3 hours of cut-scenes to explain WHY they move on to Ishgard, and what happened after the Garleans are put in their place. Just so things make sense. Oh, and explain "how did I get to the entrance to unlock all the post-50 ARR instances I might suddenly find myself in?".

If they can't take the time to do all the things that every other player has done since the very beginning then why do they deserve a special cut scene show? They don't honestly.

[Nestama]

snip

There's a lot of unnecessary moments within the level 20-44 area. Little Ala Mhigo was mostly "have you seen an Ascian? No? Kay bye." The quests leading to unlocking Titan were also completely unnecessary, Brayflox Longstop included. The Coerthas quests I'm fine with, since that was building trust (which paid off). The corrupted elemental crystal quests leading to unlocking Garuda were completely pointless, though. "You need to fetch this element. Wait, that won't help you. Go here." "You need to fetch this element. Wait, that won't help you. Go here." "You need to fetch this element, withstand the siren calls. I think you're ready now." (I can't remember if we had to fetch the wrong element three times or two times).

There's also a few unnecessary moments within the 2.1-2.5 quests (thankfully 3.1-3.3 fixed this). Getting tea leafs. Playing hide and seek, as well as meeting the fake adventurer (Tidus, Leviabeetus). Finding the Scions who were easily fooled by the Sylphs and of course, everything that involves Tataru.

[Lokier]

They could just slice out all the stuff we really didn't need, like... every cutscene with Minfillia in it. In fact, cut Minfilla out all together, you'll definitely see a subscrip' increase! And the cutscene you see after completing The Vault, that doesn't need to be there, we can totally pretend that didn't happen. That'll make every fangirl and fanguy very happy. (I can't say why though, because spoilers...)

[Ryaz]

I think for most players it would be the grind. Despite easing things up, FFXIV is still an extremely grind heavy game and it can be daunting for new players.

[Shurrikhan]

They could just slice out all the stuff we really didn't need, like... every cutscene with Minfillia in it. In fact, cut Minfilla out all together, you'll definitely see a subscrip' increase! And the cutscene you see after completing The Vault, that doesn't need to be there, we can totally pretend that didn't happen. That'll make every fangirl and fanguy very happy. (I can't say why though, because spoilers...)

I actually liked Minfilia in 1.x. Granted, if you started in Ulduh, you were practically her other (time-displaced) guardian when she was a kid, and that in turn opened up a mindful of Echo theory as to how she remembers someone who unwittingly stole into her resonant memories. (Don't quote me on the mechanics behind it; it's been a long time.)

Sad that she becomes the face of the abusive adventurer courier system. Or a woman who just can't use her phone pearl.