New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Iscah]

I ground for days and days to get the main story done to get my first level 70. I was feeling good about myself until my friends let me know how much extra stuff there was to catch up on to be able to do the fun stuff with them. If anybody would to ask my humble opinion I would tell them that Final Fantasy XIV is only for extreme hardcore gamers. That casual gamers should avoid this title at all costs because the hours required to grind out to enjoy the fun contest are more than a casual player is willing to put in.

The mindset of "grinding to max level where the fun content begins" is not what's intended by the writers of the game - and not how all players see the experience.

I enjoyed the entire journey of the game - the story, the locations, the characters - because I wasn't seeing it as an obstacle to be ground through. As far as I'm concerned, the story is the game, and the endgame raids are bonus content at the end - the sort I rarely bother clearing in a single-player RPG.

Also, define "casual" and "hardcore", because people use those terms in two very different ways: the amount of time that people will put into the game, and the difficulty of the content they're willing to challenge.

I spend a lot of time playing, but I'd never call myself a "hardcore" player.

The FFXIV story is tremendously interconnected, I can think of dialog from back in The Praetorium that is being addressed in the upcoming expansion.

Indeed! There are all sorts of things that get set up ages in advance, and replaying the story (if you care about it) is incredibly worthwhile. You catch onto details that seemed unimportant at the time, but now you know what they're leading up to.