Perspective of a Newer Player

[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.

[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.

[Hexceed]

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.

Reaching Lv50 wasn't hard at all. Gaiting the new jobs behind a great wall of MSQ was frustrating. If I had to compare it with WoW, it would be like telling WoW players that they can't play a Death Knight unless they've done all the following.

- Full run through AQ 40, AQ Ruins 40, Blackwing Lair 40, Onyxia's Lair 40 while having your level capped at lv60 and making it so that these raids are only accessible if you meet a certain ilvl. As far as I understand Vanilla raiders had to be Attuned to enter these raids so I guess in a sense this is probably similar to MSQ in FFXIV
- Full run through Burning Crusade's Hard Mode Dungeons, and Raids while capped at lv70, Attunement Quest (aka MSQ)

Only requirement we had was reaching lv55, an achievement that's not very difficult to achieve (nor is it that time consuming considering most people can reach lv60 in a few hours of dungeoneering) even as a new player.

[Zabuza]

As much as I would endorse the gating of Ishgard and Heavensward behind the story, I cannot get behind gating the three new jobs behind all of that. I believe this was unnecessary. That being said, I could have swore they made it so you got i110 gear just from doing the MSQ now? This problem you said you had with the gear...it puzzles me.

While Heavensward may have been more made for veterans, I believe Realm Reborn does a more than adequate job of easing new players into the game, more than most MMOs you will find. In fact, I've heard from many MMO players that they have been bored the first five levels because of all the tutorial type non-combat quests in the starting city. On top of that, guildhests exist to teach new players combat basics. This on top of countless tutorial tooltips that appear throughout the leveling process.

[Hexceed]

As much as I would endorse the gating of Ishgard and Heavensward behind the story, I cannot get behind gating the three new jobs behind all of that. I believe this was unnecessary. That being said, I could have swore they made it so you got i110 gear just from doing the MSQ now? This problem you said you had with the gear...it puzzles me.

When were these ilv110 gears implemented? I've started playing since about 2~3 weeks ago and haven't seen any of these while grinding out my first lv50 as a Paladin. My average ilvl by the time I reached the first ilvl requirement was around 48~49 and that was as a Lv50 Paladin.

At current I'm a lv48 Dark Knight.

[SuddenStorm8]

When were these ilv110 gears implemented? I've started playing since about 2~3 weeks ago and haven't seen any of these while grinding out my first lv50 as a Paladin. My average ilvl by the time I reached the first ilvl requirement was around 48~49 and that was as a Lv50 Paladin.

At current I'm a lv48 Dark Knight.

I believe the higher lvl gear with the MSQ was implimented back on friday when the HW early access began

[T2teddy]

The changes to exp gain and the awarding of proper gear to level 50s began the day the expansion went live. Plus the Ishgard quests tend to hand out HQ 115 gears as well.
That being said FFXIV is not a game with some story. It is a story with the added perk of having a game to bring the story to life. The story is the game. Without it you have no idea why you're fighting or what you're fighting for. It may as well just be a generic series of back to back boring dungeons