new players screwed?

[Aleksandr]

I'm dps I've never waited over 40ish minutes for a duty. I could go to that dungeon right now and get in in an hour at the very max.

o.O Isn't a hour more than 40 minutes as is 50...

[Shuon]

didn't read the previous replies but:

1. dungeons exp is pretty decent with rested bonus all the way up to stone vigil (temple may prove otherwise because ppl die a lot)
2. there are a few dungeons ppl tend to run a even after its lvl range to farm (and collect) gear - namely: sastasha, tamtara and copperbell (foestriker, acolyte and plundered) and brayflox (cavalry, infantry and battle mage)

so not really... I was on thm just yesterday and got into dungeons within 15 to 20 min.

[FabledMage]

That may not be accurate. They mentioned in the last live letter that they were planning on doing monthly Live Letters before 2.1. Monthly. Plural.

And they have been doing monthly letters for some time now, what yoshi was saying is the LAST letter will be in November.

[Felis]

So my friend wants to play ffxiv, great. he gets the game and is now level 20 and is trying to do probably pirates. So he is in Q for 4 hours and cant get a group. Then it hits me, i cant run him though by my self and there is no reason for anyone pass this quest to ever run it again since fate spamming is so much better. No one is making more chars other then there 1 because there is almost no need.

So what now, my friend is ok because i can hook him up with 2 more people to help but how does a brand new player with no friends on a server do anything with this game at this point?

I did it last week with Arcanist. The queue time was around 25 minutes.

[Arriverderci]

They should have NPC solo type dungeons.
Easier runs with like the Scions or even your Retainer can have a class.
It was bound to happen.
Once you started late in game, the newbie content is going to die.

[NaruWhitehelm]

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

[Felis]

I can see this happening. Luckily I realized this when I first started and blew through the story...I was taking my sweet time, and started thinking...what if everyone finishes the story missions? Who will que for the story missions then?

Everyone who click on "Random dungeon" in the DF to get the special reward for it. The option come with 2.1
And everyone who want a gear from them for the vanity system, that is also coming in near future.

[Alhanelem]

Be nice, unequip your soul crystal for half an hour and play with your mate
I've been wonderin around Thanalan and helping low level Thurm's do FATEs with my tank, granted I dont have my soul crystal yet but it helps level my Alt class

Why would you unequip your soul crystal? You can use jobs below level 30, you just won't have access to any job specific actions (you will still have bonus stats however, and SMN/SCH pets will still be used instead of Arcanist pets)

Anyway, while I would agree wait times for story content are increasing, its still not hard to form a group within your server, and they're adding a party recruitment function to make that easier.

[Sunarie]

I'm just thinking why would someone start playing an MMO with no friends and NOT try to make some or join a guild right away? If you start playing a new MMO by yourself and make NO effort to join in-game groups guilds or make friends, you are not gonna have a good time very long. Thats true with most if not all MMO games still stands for "Massively Multi-player Online" right?

This game, or rather the community of this game, does make that a little hard. I tend to see hatred spewed a lot of the time whenever someone mentions they're new to a dungeon while pugging. Add to this that duty finder doesn't often pair you with people on your server, and that for the lower end stuff (if you play during non-peak hours especially) often doesn't net groups via shout remotely quickly... and that people in FATE groups rarely talk (I've tried talking to them a few times).. it can be pretty hard to make friends. Finding an FC sometimes isn't hard if you look in the right places, forums being one.. but not everyone comes to the forums, I would wager a large amount of the population skips them entirely.

Point being, it can be difficult to do. As another in this thread, and myself, mentioned.. we were late to FFXI and the community was god awful, elitist, and not helpful in the slightest. Judging from the forums, I'd say a lot of new players will run into the same things here. Yes, there are good people here and there that don't mind helping out (I certainly don't when I see someone asking for help), but those people are generally hidden under a lot of awful experiences unless you're lucky when you're late to a game.

[AunaYuuki]

My sister and bf started the game and had no problem getting into the lowbie instances like Satasha/Haukke Manor ( no I didn't go with them nor did they shout/have friends pre-existing besides myself.) A good bit of times depending on the time zone of your friends/servers you should try clicking "all languages." I find a lot of newer players don't do this and it cuts out a huge portion of the duty finder population. I have done Haukke Manor a few times on my lowbie class (paladin) and got instantly in during (5-11pm est). I like leveling with FATEs and dungeons it helps learning a whole different class.

Sadly, they did run into some rude elitist and it gave them a bit of a sour view of the game. =/