How is the game for returning players?

[Lunakey]

So I started on day one, had a blast for a while mostly with crafting and gathering, and only got a conjurer to 28, then I quit because I was frustrated with the fate grind and how easy it was to level and do everything.

I've wanted to come back for a while, but I've had a friend tell me that basically once you've fallen behind the curve, you're done and there is no catching up, since there are no catchup mechanisms in the game and almost everyone is level 50 in everything, so the lowbie areas are a wasteland. I figured I'd ask here, since he recently quit and I don't know if he's just frustrated with the game or if that's really the way things are.

He basically told me, "You can't make gil because there is all supply and no demand, there are no groups at lower levels anymore, and the game is all about endgame and raiding but if you aren't already there, you can't catch up because the grind is bad."

So is any of this true?

[Avenol]

Not at all, there are new players each any every day that I see. We get applicants all the time for those that want to start into progression raiding when they do get up there. There's a healthy party finder system and a nice duty finder system too for dungeons. While there may not be a *ton* of players that are low, compared to when the game first started, there will be here in a few days when the PS4 ffxiv launches.

It's pretty much the only RPG/mmo for PS4, so I'm sure we'll see quite an influx.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

I think there's a lot of people (myself included) that run low-level roulettes. That was implemented to populate low level dungeons and help new players to get people for them. Maps are pull of parties chasing Atmas for their weapons, and joining a FC will help you to catch up, especially since there're no more lockouts for CT aaaand Coil 1-5.

[Laifon]

I came back to check the 2.1 and 2.2 patches out.

There has been a shift in how people lvl nowadays -> less people fate grind, but more people dungeon grind.. + challenge log
I think the game is totally worth it for returning players and even more for new players.

[Avenol]

Good point on the lockouts! It's way easier now to catch up then it has ever been. No lockouts on the coil 1-5 and CT...and no weekly myth cap.

[Jinko]

Enjoying it a lot, minus the fate/atma grind, but everything else seems really good.

You can catch up easily, especially with CT and coil 1 being farm-able now.

[SummonerSenah]

I'm a little amused that your reason for leaving was that it was too easy to level, and now you're worried that you won't catch up. The answer is that it's still easy to level. Maybe even more so than before, since dungeons give more XP now; you can do low level and guildhest roulette once a day for a ton of XP; they added a challenge log that gives you XP; and the Fates now because of ATMA are pretty populated and therefore a decent way to get XP. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant but if not, getting to 50 would be fairly quick for a healer.

[NefarioCall]

I haven't even bothered playing the 2.1 or 2.2 patch content yet.

It's not really tough to 'catch up'.
iLvL 110 is that stuff that's only relevantly harder to get until there's a higher iLvL.
iLvL 70 is now basically an easy wash to equip once you hit 50 and that'll get you into most level 50 content.
For the first coil turn you'll need some LvL 90 stuff but that's not overly complicated.

And then really, if you've got an iLvL70 player you're not exactly 'behind' so much as you're just not doing a couple of the highest level things.
No biggie.

[Lunakey]

I gave it a try and decided to come back. Although I see quite a lot of people running around, and the two duties I did had a pretty low wait time, which means the game is far from dead, I went the entire day and saw only TWO messages in chat. I have never seen such a populated MMO chat so dead. Chat was so dead that I actually had to check and make sure I didn't accidentally mute shouts, say and zone text at some point and then forgot about it. I don't know what happened, but it's kind of depressing. Not even a single FC recruitment spam or a gold spammer.

[TurnBased]

Must be a server thing then. I still see FC recruitment shouts when crafting in towns, and people talking about ATMAs while farming.

Most people do their chats in their LS/FC so it might be a good idea to join one.