I need a bit of help selling the game to a close friend of mine. His main critique is simply that it feels very slow-paced and he's bored playing it. Part of this is due to the longer global cooldown that slows combat a bit. Part of it is due to lower level jobs really not having much to make combat interesting. And part of it is the requirement of doing story missions solo which, as a healer class (he hopes to be a Scholar) can be quite frustrating.

It feels at least like there's a high barrier of entry for new players. I don't know the game well enough to know what we should be doing different to keep it feeling exciting. Hopefully some more experienced folks might be able to weigh in. I'd love to make this place a more permanent home, but it's always a losing argument to say, "It gets fun once you've invested several months into it." I have to be able to make the case to him that we can spend a couple hours a night and have a great time, even at level 20.