Perspective of a Newer Player

[Hexceed]

TLDR; Would love it if the game was new player friendly, less grindy quests and nerf ilvl requirements.

I just wanted to voice my opinion on the game so far as someone who was invited to join FFXIV 2 weeks prior to Heavensward.

I've originally played WoW for years and only recently decided to take my gaming career from the no content Blizzard Entertainment has chosen to provide the player base aka WoD. Much like the other 3 million subscribers who found mindless grinding of Apexis Crystal grind life disgusting, I've chosen to heed some of my old friends both from WoW and off it to try out FFXIV.

Despite all these invitation what really sold it to me was the trailers of Heavensward and the fact that Dark Knights will be introduced as a playable class. As someone who played a Death Knight tank since WotLK I was pretty hyped to get into the game and start my exploration of Eorzea as a Dark Knight.

Little did I know that there would be a ginormous quest grind I would need to tackle before I'm even allowed to set foot in the only city with the job trainer that will let you take on the mantle of a Dark Knight.

As a new player who knew more or less nothing about the game I naturally thought if I bought the expansion I would get to play as one of the three new classes. Further I levelled I slowly began to realize that one of the requirements to enter Ishgard would be that I would need to reach Lv50 so I've grinded out my levels in any way I can find. Main story quests, dungeon grinding, fates, etc. When I finally got to Lv50 I then realized the content would be hidden away behind the many gates of further questing and by this stage I was almost convinced that maybe just maybe those Apexis Crystals might not be so bad afterall.

Most of the main scenario cinematics? I've skipped more or less the whole lot of them. The story seemed too linear and forced you to become a hero of the light aka Minfillia's personal man slave who travels from A to B to C to A and then back to C then to D and then finally back to A to click on Minfilia your master. The whole time I felt like I was the Scion's instrumental bitch who took orders from first Minfilia and then from a elezen teenager who could easily pass off as a girl if you put him in a dress.

That wasn't too bad though. What really frustrated me was when there were quests popping up every now and then, demanding you meet a greater ilvl than what you can find in dungeon grinding and questing.

As a new player this can mean one of the two things, I can either go purchase gil from a gil farmer to afford some of the upgrades on auction for ridiculous prices just so I can finally queue up for the dungeons, or make gil in any way I can be it from crafting (take note I have not leveled any since grinding lv50 was my sole goal at this point) or hoping a rare drops from a dungeon grinding.

I was frustrated that nowhere in that god damn main scenario quests did they offer you gear that will boosts up your ilvl necessary to set foot in these dungeons. It might be easier to understand all this if I'd been playing for months and amassed a small fortune to meet the gear requirements. Is FFXIV new player friendly? At this point I'm going to say no.

The new expansion was clearly aimed at the older veteran players and as a new player starting out I found this game to be one of the grindiest game ever so far.

If it wasn't for enormous helping hands from my friends who crafted me gear to meet the ilvl and their contributions towards helping me through some of the harder contents, I think I probably never would have made it to Ishgard.

Heavensward was not designed with newer players interests in mind at all. If I didn't receive all the help I've gotten from my FC then I most likely would not have made it to Ishgard to start my Dark Knight. More than likely I would probably have gone back on the shit hole of a game WoW has become... hoping the next expansion they might implement "Fun" into their gameplay experience.

EDIT:
Regarding the ilvl requirement, so they have been implemented earlier. I personally didn't see this in effect because I was already Lv50 and grinded through halfway through Main Scenario Quest/Before The Fall by the time it was supposedly implemented. Kudos to SuddenStorm8 for informing the ignorant noob.

[Konata_Izumi]

unfortunatly, the dark knight you are thinking of, is a death knight, its undead.... Dark knights in Final fantasy are dark wielders, they wield the power of darkness, and command the Aether, much like the Ascians, only they are big tanks, and such.. Think of FF4, Cecil, was a dark knight. he was human, alive, healthy, but he was able to command aether, or Magicks, that revolve around darkness.

TL;DR: dont get excited, they dont play like a Death Knight from Wow. but the gameplay, the style, and etc is pretty cool. have fun, and what not, Im from famfrit.

[Hexceed]

But what about other new players who haven't received help from their FC like I have? Would they really sit it out and hope they can reach Heavensward to play with their friends?

On that note, I've still yet to reach lv50 so haven't really made any progress exploring the new expansion. While my friends are already lv55 and exploring I'm still playing with random players I find on Duty Finder, something I was hoping to get away from when I've quit WoW and the atrocious LFR gatherings.

[AskaRay]

Actually from what I understand, they added a bunch of high ilvl gear to the main story quests with the expansion, making it much easier to bypass the ilvl now.

[Zfz]

You can just EDIT the first post and paste everything into one single post. Saves on your daily posting limit, too.

[Luvbunny]

Yes I understand new players who want to try all three new jobs will be in for a rude awakening since they have a huge wall in about 100-150 hours worth of contents to go through. For most normal casual player, it will take a good two weeks before they can reach Ishgard, or longer for others. In any case, think of it this way, you get your money's worth. Take your time, enjoy the beautiful game. Try to mix up your daily activities between dungeons, main story quests, side quests, crafting, gathering, levequest, leveling other classes, etc...

In a way it is good to have one tank job already leveled when you unlock Dark Knight, you will have all your gears at the ready - and you know what to do with the dungeons encounter and bosses. No need to rush, just have fun and make new friends in the game.

[Musashidon]

But what about other new players who haven't received help from their FC like I have? Would they really sit it out and hope they can reach Heavensward to play with their friends?

they would do fine? new players to content get priority meaning they get in before everyone else.

main quest gives high lvl gear (i hear i100-i110)

not sure what grind you had to do but MQ has been given double exp (from when the expansion started) so it's even easier to lvl (you can lvl to 50 with doing main story and just a tiny bit of extra stuff this also doesn't include if you do side quests)

[nuyu11]

You follow the main quest straight to lvl 50 while queue for instance.
I believe it will bring you to lvl 50 in no time.

[aerialrave]

There is a lot going in your thread, but I'll address a few points.

-New jobs being gated behind non-expansion completion was known about at least a month in advance. If you really checked out the game more closely or asked around you could have found that out beforehand.

-Skipping cutscenes is your choice. Final Fantasy itself as a series has its roots deeply based in storyline/lore. If you choose not to immerse yourself in it that is your choice. As someone who watches them all and reads every line, I can tell you that some of it is boring as you say, but some of it is quite awesome too.

-Not liking Minfilia & Alphinaud is a fair point. Most people don't like them. All I can tell you without spoiling anything is that if you finally make it to expansion content, Alphinaud improves a lot.

-I think you are mistaken on the ilvl requirements?? Do you mean character level, or item level? For most of the starting game (levels 1-49) item level requirements is quite lax. It's not until character Level 50 that the item level requirement ramps up... Trust me when I tell you at this point that you'll really need it. Minimum ilvl requirements are FAR below what is recommended. People can overgear some content and still struggle on it. There is a large number of places to find gear (even NPCs have decent usable gear in the 40s pre-expansion). Maybe you just didn't know about them?

-Do you know about trading in Tomes for items in Mor Dhona? They just stopped using Soldiery Tomes already and the smallest currency Poetic Tomes can be traded in for some pretty high ilvl gear (i120 to be exact, which is a huge jump from any pre-character-level-50 gear). You can start buying these right away for free* (*no gil involved) once you hit Level 50. Just one or two pieces makes your ilvl jump leaps and bounds.

-Heavensward being designed for veteran players and not new players is a fair point. I always wondered why they didn't add any new content for lower level people. Pretty much all new content that has come out since the game was released 2 years ago has always focused on endgame/maxlevel players.

-Finally, you can edit your post to bypass the character limit, eliminating the need for multi-posting.

[Shuon]

First, this game pans out like an RPG where you have to follow the storyline. Gonna use blizzard examples since u are a wow player - think diablo II: no horadric cube until you have completed act II; think wacraft III campaign: you couldnt use death knight until arthas was corrupted. Back to some final fantasy examples: you couldnt use certain characters and typically airship until you have progressed through the storyline. This is something many MMORPG players today cannot accept for some reason but it is how this game will be like.

Secondly, the ilevel requirement is not an issue for new players because quest rewards starting from 45 are now items of much higher ilevel. For example, the AF quests now give BOTh the original AF and the ilvl90 AF i.e. at level 50 upon completing the AF quests new players will be decked out in ilevel90 gear. As they progress through the 2.1 to 2.55 MSQ they will be awarded with the corresponding gear to complete the story so that's not an issue either.

Thirdly, new player progression is hardly affected because the duty roulette system can pair up higher level players with lower level players when they are doing certain trials/dungeons for the fist time; also, new players get priority in the queue.

Ultimately, I think your main concern is that you wish to dive right into the new jobs and fly around the new expansion areas; another observation is that you do not care about the story. I do feel that gating the jobs behind the MSQ is not the wisest choice but just like in WoW where you cant have a DK until you hit lvl55 iirc, this shouldnt bother you as much as you claim. As for the point about you not caring about the storyline, there is nothing anyone can do. I do, however, emphathise with how some of the 2.1-2.55 quests are too convoluted and an abridged version would be great.