Game difficulty, syncing, minimum ilvl and new players

[TaleraRistain]

The game is an FF MMO, so it's possible for it to fail as a FF or as an MMO.

The game has the FF bit in spades right now, but the MMO gameplay is lacking until you sink hundred(s) of hours into unlocking content. Not everyone is willing to suffer through bad gameplay to get to good gameplay. In fact, the hundred hour ask is an unreasonable ask. This is a difficult game to recommend to someone wanting to just jump in due to the amount of time it takes to just unlock the game.

This really is an issue that needs to be addressed, and simply skipping to the current expansion isn't enough to fix things. Combat needs to be engaging no matter what level a player is at, and the low-level experience of FFXIV is abysmal. Worse, due to sync and roulettes that abysmal low-level experience never truly leaves a player for good -- you're one unlucky roulette from sastasha or copperbell or praetorium no matter what.

Skip potions are only a partial solution; I'd rather have someone that enjoys the current expansion playing the current expansion than quitting halfway through Stormblood because they got sick of fedexing. They're still going to suffer through the awful that is Sastasha, though.

The story is nice, but it's only half of the game. Don't overstate its importance.

Tightening up the quest lines is a valid point, but that newbie is probably going to suffer through Sastasha because of other people pulling them along like a kite.

However, if you do what OP suggested, now we'll see people kicking the newbies because they want to go fast. If they can't kick the newbie, they'll abandon. Now the newbie can never get through this required group content.

SE has kind of shot themselves in the foot here with forced group content. They can't make it such a chore that no one ever does roulettes. That's there to keep things going so new people *can* get through their MSQ. But that means the challenge may not be able to be there for the newbie. There's really not a good solution.

[van_arn]

Tightening up the quest lines is a valid point, but that newbie is probably going to suffer through Sastasha because of other people pulling them along like a kite.

However, if you do what OP suggested, now we'll see people kicking the newbies because they want to go fast. If they can't kick the newbie, they'll abandon. Now the newbie can never get through this required group content.

SE has kind of shot themselves in the foot here with forced group content. They can't make it such a chore that no one ever does roulettes. That's there to keep things going so new people *can* get through their MSQ. But that means the challenge may not be able to be there for the newbie. There's really not a good solution.

I don't agree with raising difficulty because a sprout is there. You're right in that would only add drama. There's a glimmer of truth to what they're posting, though, in that the content is too weak to match the story.

If Square can't make a run through Sastasha engaging, then retire Sastasha. Remove it from roulette and skip the requirement in the MSQ. Requiring content to be engaging really shouldn't be negotiable; content that isn't engaging has lost its raison d'etre.

I'd rather them simply rebalance ilvl for the dungeon for all synced parties so it requires some attention, but not so much attention as min ilvl. Redoing the skill sync system (so a player can bring their entire rotation scaled down) is also an option, but a much more difficult one to implement successfully.

It's easy to misunderstand this as a request to make sastasha "hardcore" or "difficult" but what we have just doesn't qualify as a dungeon. If people leave roulettes because they can no longer just Netflix their way through free levels, I can't say I'd miss them. They'd already decided they'd rather watch Netflix than play XIV.

[TaleraRistain]

If Square can't make a run through Sastasha engaging, then retire Sastasha. Remove it from roulette and skip the requirement in the MSQ. Requiring content to be engaging really shouldn't be negotiable; content that isn't engaging has lost its raison d'etre.

People rush and speedrun every dungeon, though. I PuG exclusively and even Day 1 the tank is taking off and the DPS are just zerg rushing everything. We'd be getting rid of pretty much every dungeon.