My main gripes with this game

[Kandraxx]

So, I‘m another new player who came over from THAT game, so far I‘m really enjoying it, but here are some of my main gripes with the game so far:

1.Mob leashing range is atrociously narrow, if I pull from max range with a spell or ranged attack then a simple sidestep to avoid an attack can be enough to make it leash back with immunity, this is especially painful with FATE bosses or huge HP sponges, which directly brings me to the next point:

2.Most of outdoor and solo-duty content feels to dull, and don’t get me wrong here, there’s a difference between easy (which story content has too be for obvious reasons) and outright dull. In General the whole questing framework in this game seems way too repetitive and predictable. Go to purple circle, kill 3 sponges, go to next purple circle, enter/leave hideout 20 times, next quest.

3.Getting skills taken away CONSTANTLY. Now this is what really annoys me to no end. Being level-synced to something every 10 seconds and getting anywhere from one or two to ALL but baseline skills taken away in the case you’re shoved into a 15 dungeon through LFD tool.
Naturally you could say that this will get better when you near endgame, but the sheer amount of time you will spend in leveling, or better said low to mid-tier content in this game, due to more than a dozen available classes, should have brought a better solution than outright de-learning of skills.

4.No one talks ever. Now I get that it’s a Japanese MMO (I know first-hand that no one talks ever in japan-centered MMOs) but still I’m playing on EU servers and it’s basically the same eerie silence everywhere. I don’t expect the 24/7 spam and meme talk of W*W, but this is kind of creeping me out.

Thanks for reading

[Jeeqbit]

1.If the range was long, you would have the opposite problem of having to run for ages to lose aggro. The range is extremely long in Eureka and Bozja and sometimes it is convenient, but sometimes it's extremely annoying because you didn't intend to aggro it.

the whole questing framework in this game seems way too repetitive and predictable. Go to purple circle, kill 3 sponges, go to next purple circle

2.If you think of it like that then of course it will be boring. Don't focus on that, focus on the story the way you would focus on the story of a film.

3.Think of it as syncing down to the rotation of the previous expansion. A common problem in an MMO is that you "want to go back to a previous expansion to do the rotation how it used to be". The previous rotations do get adjustments sometimes but they are usually understandable changes because of things being redundant, unused, things that turned out to be bad ideas or had always needed changes.

If you didn't sync, you would be more powerful than the people doing it for the first time with less skills and may find a big difference in how much each of you can contribute. You would have a greater advantage in the content because it wasn't designed for the skills that you have at that level, take gap closers for example, some fights are designed around the fact most people do not have a gap closer and having your level 80 abilities would make them a lot easier.

4.Go to a busy place like Limsa Lominsa. Ask a mentor (crown icons) if they will invite you to the novice network. Join a free company or CWLS https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...munity_finder/ or the hundreds of discord servers that exist. Join parties in Party Finder because they are more talkative.

[Shurrikhan]

1.If the range was long, you would have the opposite problem of having to run for ages to lose aggro. The range is extremely long in Eureka and Bozja and sometimes it is convenient, but sometimes it's extremely annoying because you didn't intend to aggro it.

It's not really an either-or situation. The anchor, the extent of mob patrolling around said anchor, the visibility of its domain's boundary, and the procedure for disengaging can each be adjusted or even made conditional.

For instance, perhaps we could set the anchor only upon combat's start and at location of the first unit to engage that enemy, or add that distance from the anchor to its maximum effective range, so that it doesn't seem so damn short when engaging from the full 25 yalms.

As for the procedure, it may already be quite a QoL change to have combat end upon the player's leaving the domain, rather than the mob's, or to slowly shift the anchor towards the mob's then-present location. (That'd especially be worthwhile if the game happens to store measures of the pre-enmity-modified damage dealt to the mob and could therefore revert that progress over, say, 5 seconds from the player having crossed the boundary; such would allow players to bail out without resetting everyone's progress while still preventing exploitation.) Or, there could be a brief period of lenience and the boundary might become increasingly visible as the mob nears it and then far more so after you've crossed it, so you know to where you'd have to kite it back. Etc., etc.

2.If you think of it like that then of course it will be boring. Don't focus on that, focus on the story the way you would focus on the story of a film.

If a horror film had big, generic purple circles from which the antagonist would appear, I think it'd be difficult to just "focus on the story" there, too... It's an issue; yes, we can avert our attention from it, as with any other, to perceive the overall work more positively, but it's nothing for which to leave the onus of enjoyment on any given player.

3.Think of it as syncing down to the rotation of the previous expansion. A common problem in an MMO is that you "want to go back to a previous expansion to do the rotation how it used to be".

...The experience of someone synced down to level 30 in Shadowbringers has very little in common with the experience available to that class at level 30 back in ARR or HW. I'll agree with the rest, though, of course.

4. No one talks ever. Now I get that it’s a Japanese MMO (I know first-hand that no one talks ever in japan-centered MMOs) but still I’m playing on EU servers and it’s basically the same eerie silence everywhere. I don’t expect the 24/7 spam and meme talk of W*W, but this is kind of creeping me out.

Yeah, it's a little strange. On WoW Classic, one can walk right into simultaneous conversations on lit theory, Legend of Korra, and language-learning in Stormwind, end up in the middle of an oddly civil politics debate in Ironforge, and then fly over to Loch Modan to run into a group attempting collaborative story-telling over general chat and another group RP nostalgizing in /say in the Thelsamar inn. Here, the last time I saw active conversation was probably... in Rhalgr's Reach this one time, a couple years back? Before that, Eureka: Anemos and The Fringes around Raubahn Ex era? Public conversation's pretty sparse in XIV following each expansion's release (with each getting progressively quieter, fed into FC and LS chat instead).

But, as others have mentioned here, FC and LS chat can be decently active, so long as the players haven't left for until Endwalker.

[Jeeqbit]

...The experience of someone synced down to level 30 in Shadowbringers has very little in common with the experience available to that class at level 30 back in ARR or HW. I'll agree with the rest, though, of course.

It does. Paladin's rotation is the same except for a few removed off globals and adjustments like reprisal and recast times for mitigation. Paladin's level 70 rotation is still intact and many others, but I noted the ones that have changed because of things becoming redundant or being poor design in practice.

Actually you are wrong with what DF is, really really wrong, it is not designed for new players in mind at all, purpose is designed to reduce queue times but the downside is its random what you get and you get rewards for doing it.

Duty Finder has roulettes which try to match you with people who queue directly for content. Who queues directly for content except when it's their first time? Almost nobody, so you almost always have a new player in the party.

[raelgun]

It does. Paladin's rotation is the same except for a few removed off globals and adjustments like reprisal and recast times for mitigation. Paladin's level 70 rotation is still intact and many others, but I noted the ones that have changed because of things becoming redundant or being poor design in practice.

Duty Finder has roulettes which try to match you with people who queue directly for content. Who queues directly for content except when it's their first time? Almost nobody, so you almost always have a new player in the party.

New players are among them but no, its not designed for new players as much as people think, thats just their excuse to fire shots at vets when the truth is, the DF is just there to shorten queues, as people just want to do content cos they are bored or want something to do, before the surge in new players to the game, the only players you had in DF was other experienced players to the game. The reason why you are seeing more new players per DF is just because thats how many new players are coming into the game.

[Jeeqbit]

before the surge in new players to the game, the only players you had in DF was other experienced players to the game. The reason why you are seeing more new players per DF is just because thats how many new players are coming into the game.

That's completely untrue. There have always been sprouts everywhere on most servers and the game has been flooded with new players for many, many years.

[Shurrikhan]

It does. Paladin's rotation is the same except for a few removed off globals and adjustments like reprisal and recast times for mitigation.

That's just flagrantly incorrect. Yes, there were more oGCDs back then, but that was the smallest of the differences. There literally was no Reprisal available to anyone but DRK (nor Role Actions of any sort), for instance; you had no AoE damage, you used Flash for mitigation and initial AoE enmity, and Fracture was a slight dps gain. You didn't yet have an enmity stance at that level, only Sword Oath (with Shield Oath being given at 40), and your group tended to play around its bonus potency by focus targeting enemies in sequence, often with CC (after DoTs, if any of them had initial damage, as those without direct/initial damage wouldn't break CC) in order to free up healer globals for damage.

Compare that to a Brayflox NM run now. They're quite distinct.

You don't need to fear saying WoW. Many of us are former WoW players, whether we quit playing in Wrath, Legion or this summer.

Depends on the luck of one's draw / the thread, unfortunately. Plenty here are quick to shut down any idea that might have even 10% commonality with "M+" or "borrowed powers", for instance. Granted, the same is true for anything vaguely resembling "Merit Points", "Limit Break Quests", "sub-jobs" or even "Dynamis", in the XI vein. Our community is, sadly, one of the quickest to insist that anyone with ideas that smell even remotely of another MMO should "go back where [they] came from."

[Jeeqbit]

That's just flagrantly incorrect. Yes, there were more oGCDs back then, but that was the smallest of the differences. There literally was no Reprisal available to anyone but DRK (nor Role Actions of any sort), for instance; you had no AoE damage, you used Flash for mitigation and initial AoE enmity, and Fracture was a slight dps gain. You didn't yet have an enmity stance at that level, only Sword Oath (with Shield Oath being given at 40), and your group tended to play around its bonus potency by focus targeting enemies in sequence, often with CC (after DoTs, if any of them had initial damage, as those without direct/initial damage wouldn't break CC) in order to free up healer globals for damage.

Reprisal's effect used to be on Rage of Halone (as a physical down) and of course it wasn't aoe, Flash is effectively just replaced with Total Eclipse now except it actually does damage. I remember how guides said to target enemies in order but in my experience BLM aoe made that not a good strategy for the tank.

[Krotoan]

So, I‘m another new player who came over from THAT game, so far I‘m really enjoying it, but here are some of my main gripes with the game so far:

1.Mob leashing range is atrociously narrow, if I pull from max range with a spell or ranged attack then a simple sidestep to avoid an attack can be enough to make it leash back with immunity, this is especially painful with FATE bosses or huge HP sponges, which directly brings me to the next point:

as was mentioned Eureka and Bozja content has the opposite problem. Aggro range being short in a shared overworld isn't huge and honestly I haven't bumped up against it. If you're needing to kite things you're probably fighting something you aren't "supposed" to solo and if you're having problems with FATE mobs leashing you need to center yourself more in the FATE area.

2.Most of outdoor and solo-duty content feels to dull, and don’t get me wrong here, there’s a difference between easy (which story content has too be for obvious reasons) and outright dull. In General the whole questing framework in this game seems way too repetitive and predictable. Go to purple circle, kill 3 sponges, go to next purple circle, enter/leave hideout 20 times, next quest.

It really really does get better and more varied later on. It sounds like you're still on ARR stuff... it was pretty monotonous yeah.. which is why the majority of the player population will suggest you just keep going. It gets better. The dev team listened and tried their hardest to make different ways to have quests but you don't see the fruit of that till I'd say later in HW and it really starts happening in Stormblood.

3.Getting skills taken away CONSTANTLY. Now this is what really annoys me to no end. Being level-synced to something every 10 seconds and getting anywhere from one or two to ALL but baseline skills taken away in the case you’re shoved into a 15 dungeon through LFD tool.
Naturally you could say that this will get better when you near endgame, but the sheer amount of time you will spend in leveling, or better said low to mid-tier content in this game, due to more than a dozen available classes, should have brought a better solution than outright de-learning of skills.

As long as we have an XP heavy MSQ line this will happen a lot. You're going to be doing required quests while horrendously overleveled quite a bit just because of the adjustments they've made. It's a casualty of simplifying "early" game progression. If someone does the old content the way it was done before , IE doing roulettes and other side quests you will overlevel the absolute hell out of the content and will have to constantly be capped to do stuff. Once you have passed the main story you can mitigate the amount of time you spend capped by only doing similar leveled roulettes and content that doesn't cap you such as deep dungeons.

It does suck.. but I've yet to hear a solution to it that doesn't end up with OP vets partying with baffled newbies.

4.No one talks ever. Now I get that it’s a Japanese MMO (I know first-hand that no one talks ever in japan-centered MMOs) but still I’m playing on EU servers and it’s basically the same eerie silence everywhere. I don’t expect the 24/7 spam and meme talk of W*W, but this is kind of creeping me out.

Thanks for reading

Join novice network, find a "social" FC or linkshell group, play Eureka or Bozja content. .. or really just try and talk to people (find a discord for relevant interests!) . Generally there isn't a lot of "say" chat going on but underneath there's a whole lot of communication and socialization going on in more private channels. There's some fear of people reporting others for "innocent" comments so most people try to only talk in safeish environments such as likeminded groups and communities.

[MoofiaBossVal]

1.Mob leashing range is atrociously narrow, if I pull from max range with a spell or ranged attack then a simple sidestep to avoid an attack can be enough to make it leash back with immunity, this is especially painful with FATE bosses or huge HP sponges, which directly brings me to the next point:

2.Most of outdoor and solo-duty content feels to dull, and don’t get me wrong here, there’s a difference between easy (which story content has too be for obvious reasons) and outright dull. In General the whole questing framework in this game seems way too repetitive and predictable. Go to purple circle, kill 3 sponges, go to next purple circle, enter/leave hideout 20 times, next quest.

Outdoor content never stops being braindead dull, sadly. You're never going to have interesting battles like on Timeless Isle. I guess maybe the hunts have more stuff going on (particularly the world bosses) but often times there are so many people and so many effects going off it's hard to see the AoE markers, and the mechanics are often one shot, so you often die before you had a chance to do anything about it (unless you're playing a ranged job and standing away from the boss). So you join a group and get rezzed over and over through the fight until you win.

Bozja is an endgame grind zone that has overall "harder" enemies, but they don't have challenging movesets like a timeless isle mob. They're just amped up numbers so you need other people to DPS down those damage sponges in a timely manner or a healer to help you survive. The Fates are definitely fun, though.

4.No one talks ever. Now I get that it’s a Japanese MMO (I know first-hand that no one talks ever in japan-centered MMOs) but still I’m playing on EU servers and it’s basically the same eerie silence everywhere. I don’t expect the 24/7 spam and meme talk of W*W, but this is kind of creeping me out.

Yeah. FFXIV is less social than WoW. People just greet at the start of an instance, maybe throw out some tips if it is a trial, then everyone says "GG" or "ty" at the end and that's it. You can join an FC, but you spend most of the game reading dialogue, travelling to the next NPC to read dialogue, watching cutscenes, or doing solo instances. Once you make it to endgame and unlock Bozja, then you will have content you need other people for. Talking to other people while doing Bozja is quite fun.