New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Barraind]

Is it really that important for your friend to be caught up on Shadowbringers launch, or could he just chip away at the content until he's reached it? Eventually, you could play together.

I have recruited a few friends in RL and from Everquest to come play with me. One really enjoyed watching everything story related, the others just wanted to level and do endgame dungeons and raids.

This game isnt fun in the slightest to catch up in if you want to do mmo endgame things or dont care as much about the story.

Going full tilt nonstop on an alt with road to 60, it still took a couple weeks of rl time to go 1-end of msq without paying $50 for skips (and without unlocking or running any optional content that isnt tied to GC promotions). Only watching the forced MSQ cutscenes (which meant those two took almost as long combined as 40-50 on 3 classes did).

I feel for people who want to experience the MMO part of the game and havent been playing for a while.

The MSQ being tied to EVERYTHING in this game is one of its biggest positives and its largest negative. Sometimes people just want to raid and do dungeons and get to those things as fast as possible.

Man I wonder if that FF7 remake will let you just skip all the story and go fight Emerald and Ruby Weapon

If I start a new character in Everquest, or WoW or most every other active MMO around, I dont have to go through every major quest line in every zone on that character to get to level cap so I can raid. Some, you do, but even Guild Wars lets you jump through its dungeons as fast as you can do them (and theyre the best way to get XP, so you'd do it like that anyway).

If you want to stay at level with the MSQ in 14 at this point, you'll level 3-4 different classes, because theres THAT MUCH filler until you hit Stormblood (where you actually have to do sidequests every other zone to keep pace with the XP requirements)

"without learning" you dont need to go through the early game to learn how to play.

The way abilities work, you dont get much until nearing level cap anyway. I would like nothing more than for Shadowbringers to give every class a majority of their abilities SIGNIFICANTLY earlier, so the early game combat systems dont feel as awful as they do.

The vast majority of msq based combat either can be done with a group or must be done with a group.

This post (specifically: quoting things 4 times and typing a sentence or two) has more actual interaction than you'll get in a full msq of dungeons and trials (excepting the 2 zones where you spend 50 minutes typing over Eorzea's worst strategists and 10 minutes fighting anime robots). You spend 90% of the msq solo, 5% in a group not saying anything, and 5% in dungeons with unskippable cutscenes. Thats as interactive as a trough urinal and about as friendly.

[Penthea]

Singleplayer? You have to run a boatload of multi-player dungeons in this game to progress the storyline, and these will usually be done with other random players. So whatever else it may be, I would not characterize FFXIV as a single-player game.

Anyone who says the msq is a single-player experience hasn't been paying attention. The vast majority of msq based combat either can be done with a group or must be done with a group. Solo duties are the only things that can be argued as single player.

I find this funny because there are people on the other end of the spectrum who hate that you have to do so much group content to get through the msq.

[Dyvid]

Skip Potion
New Game Plus+
/thread

P.S. I will concede that SE could include a skip potion in the FFXIV: Complete Edition for ARR & HW and Shadowbringer could include a skip potion for SB.

[Penthea]

There is an absurd amount of forced MSQ that people must do before they can get into current content, and that's going to turn off a lot of people.

But even if the msq didn't exist you couldn't jump straight in to current content anyway. You still have to lvl up. You still have to gear up. The only times it blocks you is at 50 and 60, but you benefit greatly from the gear those quests give you so it's not as if it's actually a waste of time. Sure you could use vendor gear but it's not very good and you can feel it when a tank or healer is using it.

The only thing "absurd" about the msq is some of the utterly needless back and forth quests in the lvl 50 section. With that streamlined it would be fine. The 60 section is fine.

[Physic]

But even if the msq didn't exist you couldn't jump straight in to current content anyway. You still have to lvl up. You still have to gear up. The only times it blocks you is at 50 and 60, but you benefit greatly from the gear those quests give you so it's not as if it's actually a waste of time. Sure you could use vendor gear but it's not very good and you can feel it when a tank or healer is using it.

The only thing "absurd" about the msq is some of the utterly needless back and forth quests in the lvl 50 section. With that streamlined it would be fine. The 60 section is fine.

they can streamline leveling and gearing pretty easily, in fact they already have. Getting from 1-50 us faster than it used to be, and you can play with friends while doing it if you want. Playing MSQ with a friend is like, oh, ill wait 40 minutes until you get to the next dungeon. Meanwhile the person knowing their friend is waiting feels pressure to finish faster. The gates just dont work well for dealing with friends. It would work a lot better if you could do relevant content with friends and do story when you are alone.

If you and your friends got two hours to play together, that might only be 2 dungeons due to MSQ and lockouts.

[Paladinleeds]

If I may ask how does having the MSQ be optional impact you negatively?

So if the quests are optional and don't unlock the dungeons (if this isn't what the OP etc are advocating for feel free to correct me), then I feel like "Why am I here?" - I had this problem with WoW. I would unlock a new dungeon... ok, so why am I here? Certain trials and dungeons however absolutely are mandatory to the main scenario such as:

Tsukuyomi: She is a major plot point through the Stormblood MSQ. Making her optional would stop the flow of the duty IMO, you need all the build up for that duty to make sense, else it's just another "Ok, so why am I fighting her?"

The thing is, the story giving definition to each dungeon, trial, and raid (sloppy writing aside, looking at you Omega... but even then, I still enjoyed the duties and felt they had a reason to exist even if they did feel a bit shoehorned in), is exactly why I love this game. Even though I do the grind, I still feel like I've got a reason for every duty I enter. It doesn't just feel like "oh, another dungeon". So yeah, for me, it's the depth I feel gets added from having a story behind each duty.

[Wynn_Storm]

The amount of ridiculous excuses defending the MSQ is just absurd.

This game is not new player friendly in the slightest when it comes to actually jumping into new content.

The barrier is only going to get bigger and bigger as time goes on.

And i know a lot of people use the stupid "Its about the journey, not the destination" line. Its not that way for everyone, and its an mmorpg. The game can't survive with just veteran players, the goal is to bring in new players as well. And on paper the MSQ/beginner experience is terrible.

Hundreds of hours of fetch quest, go talk to this person, go kill this, etc.. Content gated because of MSQ progression, expansions gated because of MSQ.

I know people are going to disagree, but that's because they are just jaded and they think because they had to do it, others have to do it as well.

[Reap00]

The amount of ridiculous excuses defending the MSQ is just absurd.

This game is not new player friendly in the slightest when it comes to actually jumping into new content.

The barrier is only going to get bigger and bigger as time goes on.

And i know a lot of people use the stupid "Its about the journey, not the destination" line. Its not that way for everyone, and its an mmorpg. The game can't survive with just veteran players, the goal is to bring in new players as well. And on paper the MSQ/beginner experience is terrible.

Hundreds of hours of fetch quest, go talk to this person, go kill this, etc.. Content gated because of MSQ progression, expansions gated because of MSQ.

I know people are going to disagree, but that's because they are just jaded and they think because they had to do it, others have to do it as well.

You post is completely invalidated by the fact that the player base continues to increase. There are periods where it drops off a bit to content lull but overall the player base is growing. If you don't like story don't play a final fantasy game. Many mmos cater to exactly what you want.

[LyraKuroneko]

The amount of ridiculous excuses defending the MSQ is just absurd.

This game is not new player friendly in the slightest when it comes to actually jumping into new content.

The barrier is only going to get bigger and bigger as time goes on.

And i know a lot of people use the stupid "Its about the journey, not the destination" line. Its not that way for everyone, and its an mmorpg. The game can't survive with just veteran players, the goal is to bring in new players as well. And on paper the MSQ/beginner experience is terrible.

Hundreds of hours of fetch quest, go talk to this person, go kill this, etc.. Content gated because of MSQ progression, expansions gated because of MSQ.

I know people are going to disagree, but that's because they are just jaded and they think because they had to do it, others have to do it as well.

I'll answer with this :

150H HOW ? With 100h afk ?

try Mapple story 1

If you don't like quests

[LaurieB]

I'm not "jaded" at all. I like story based games and it was for that reason I am playing this game. Other games are not as story based and I didn't care for them (started with Ultima online, went to WoW and GW1 and 2 in 2004-5 stayed till 2017, nothing would return me to WoW at this point, but they were story based at one time and I loved them until recently) But I love the story, so do many of my friends that have just started this game. You'll have to compromise somehow between those who love the story and the whole experience start to finish with those who just want to pew pew with their friends at quick end game. Both types are NOT wrong, play styles are NOT wrong, but I and many others love this game as is, so we should not be ridiculed based on our opinion just as you shouldn't with your opinion. So what's your compromise?