What most turns new players off from FFXIV?

[Jatoi]

( Quote isn't working for some odd reason even though I did snip it. Strange )

I used the wrong term in my tired stupor, what I meant mainly is what I recall quite clearly: Teleporting from point A to point B to speak, and a lot of it well... was actually just dialogue. The constant teleporting and going from place-to-place was what was time-consuming, especially given when we have to travel after teleporting to those points and without flight to make it go by more quickly.

It's something that clearly turns people off to the game. Maybe not to you, but that type of monotony is mind-numbing to most people. There is a proper way to condense cutscenes, the only issue is that they'd have to edit them to do so. Hell, this is the first MMO I've actually gotten seriously into and in my first playthrough felt "Wow this is a little abnormal..." ( Yeah it says I started in 2013 but I had other issues to take care of and came back when HW came out. I didn't go above level 26 all those years ago. ) As another poster noted, by level 20 things start to heat up but at level 50 it really starts to wind down ( although after 2.5's stuff I began to feel the progression begin pick up again ). The sudden shift in pacing seems jarring for those not expecting it?

Don't say in a one-thousand words what could have been said in one-hundred.

Although people will use the "I had to slog through it!" argument, why keep something that isn't efficient because you had to go through with it? I dealt with it myself ( obviously ) but how strangely inefficient this is... is bothersome.

Also, for a few examples of silly fetch quests: Find the Doman Kids, Rub Perfume on Chocobos, feed Domans too stupid to feed themselves. Just a few, and someone else I think brought up some examples too.

[Aylis]

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.

I never played XI personally, but I have been there and done that in other MMO's and no, no I don't miss those "good old days" at all lol.

[NekoNova]

I recently returned to Final Fantasy XIV, and these are the things that annoy me the most:

- The amount of teleporting to zones and what it costs me gil wise.
- Length of certain custscenes
- Non-skippeable cutscene
- Unbalanced classes if FATE events
- attitude of people towards new people

[Bourne_Endeavor]

An example of boring fetch quests? Next to every quest from the whole Company of Heroes storyline. You literally go on a series of them-- teleporting all over the place because some chump wants to set up a banquet, you eventually discover was for you (but not really). This lasts twenty six quests and outside of unlocking Brayflox, maybe three quests have anything remotely to do with Titan himself. Of all the quest catches in the game, this was the one I seriously considered skipping dialogue for. It's boring to the point of grating.

[Underdog2204]

An example of boring fetch quests? Next to every quest from the whole Company of Heroes storyline. You literally go on a series of them-- teleporting all over the place because some chump wants to set up a banquet, you eventually discover was for you (but not really). This lasts twenty six quests and outside of unlocking Brayflox, maybe three quests have anything remotely to do with Titan himself. Of all the quest catches in the game, this was the one I seriously considered skipping dialogue for. It's boring to the point of grating.

Lets not forget Garuda's series of quests for a corrupted crystal...

[Aylis]

An example of boring fetch quests?

Another one that comes to mind was that hunter storyline from Dravian Highlands, the one with the Miqo'te girl. Some of the moments that stuck out in my mind as questionable. The first being where she wanted flowers, so we'd run to talk to her, after doing so the flowers would spawn right at her feet. Um, did you really need me to run all the way over here when they were right on your feet? The other was a point where you had to again talk to her, she would walk away and vanish, then we'd talk to her a spot maybe 10 feet away, this was repeated four times. Call it a lack of dynamics thing but quests like that would be far more interesting with the npc walking the whole way while giving live speech while we follow them.

[DPZ2]

@Aylis

The quests with the hunter you mention were to provide you with many, many opportunities to defeat monsters in the Forelands. It also gives you something to do while you are exploring the whole area looking for those aetheryte crystals to enable flight. The terrain required for those quests required all sorts of puzzle solving abilities [How do I get up there?, followed by a lot of salty language under the breath].

When it comes down to it, every quest line could be resolved by simply giving us cut-scenes and XP. How long would you play that particular game?

[Riardon]

I for myself never quit the game and I loved it from first time.
However from people who did't like it and quit before further progressing I heard the following reasons:
-Too much teleporting due to fragmented areas. The game is optimised for weak consoles so we got really smalls zones. This led to frequent teleporting even if loading times are quite fast it's still immersion breaking for some people.
-The story takes a lot of time to become interesting. It progresses kinda slow for some people.
-The battle is slow paced. Battle pace and animations feel too slow. In other games the battle system has a way faster pace and this is more appealing for many people.
-Too much crap quests at the starting cities. It kinda confuses you to see all those exclamation marks. Most of them are crap Qs with crap rewards too. Some Qs are made just to torture the players. For example those dreaded Qs at La Noscea which require too much walking back and forth for no serious reason. The distances you need to cover at that area are also long.
-In continuation with the previous you get your first mount way later. This was unnecessary. Players could have a basic mount right from the start.
-Weak to non-existent PvP content.
-No engaging Open World content. Maps feel small (maybe because of their partition layout)
-Graphics feel old for their age. Some people I know who quited over this reason said the game felt a bit dull and old in the graphics department.
-The game just wasn't what they expected. This is natural and we can't do anything about this.

[Aylis]

When it comes down to it, every quest line could be resolved by simply giving us cut-scenes and XP. How long would you play that particular game?

In the example you gave here, not very long, but it falls sole on weither or not the quests are interesting, or if its at the point of padding. In the case of the hunter quests it all goes around the same exact area as other quests in the area have gone around. By that time all the puzzles have been solved, all the flight currants have been found and fighting the local monsters have worn thin. I'm sorry but solving the same puzzle for the 14th time only to be told to "pick the flowers at my feet" is needless padding that could have been done differently to make things less monotonous or better streamlined.

*Edit*

It goes without saying you can't keep a player interested by keeping them walking up and down the same city block over and over again. Once is totally okay and expected, twice is fine too, three times is starting to push it. By the tenth plus time. The player more then wants to cross the street and see whats on the next block.

[synesthetic]

What things do you think might most cause a new XIV player to give up on the game, especially before its completion?

If XIV were to ever revise earlier contents (be that right at the start or across leveling throughout), what would be the most effective areas of gameplay to address that could deal with these issues?

For specifically new players...

RMT spam and bots.
Unengaging story segments that are obviously there to make you waste time, or that are extremely cheap attempts to involve you.
Unfriendly or intolerant player behavior.

I'm guessing the spam issue is largely better than it was a few months back, but given some recent new and returning friends complained of it within their first couple of days, it's still an issue.

The story issue has already been talked about a lot in here.

Negative player behavior encompasses a few issues.
You have the vitriolic crowd that people have come to associate with games like League of Legends, and you have the grumpy geezers who are tired of having to "carry" people all of the time. The former group could really use at least a few permanent bans. The latter is partially due to disrespect by both old and new players (and I don't think that can be helped), but I believe it's largely exacerbated by the combat system itself.

I haven't tried out the training hall, but even with basic mechanics down, the difference between a "good" player and a "bad" player can be ridiculously huge. Like...
- Tanks who waste Provoke, don't use cooldowns (or don't use them well), aren't positionally aware and/or don't know how to position monsters well, etc.
- DPS who don't know decent rotations. At this point, it's common enough to see someone whose rotation is legitimately worse than just spamming like.. the first attack they get and nothing else..
- Healers who only use essentially Cure1 and Cure2, regardless of situation. Or who think that they don't have to do anything at all because another healer (or Eos) is there.

Having 3-4 hotbars packed with skills and macros is probably overwhelming for a lot of people too. But all those other buttons aren't there for alternative playstyles like in other games. They're there because you're somehow largely expected to know how/when to use everything. But since you can realistically be carried all the way to endgame, maybe there's not enough time or incentive to really learn combat. Alternatively, combat is maybe too complex or poorly taught.