Perspective of a Newer Player

[Rufalus]

Shame about the length and filler causing you to skip story scenes. The important parts of the story are actually amazing, and by the time you reach Heavensward there is more amazing story than there is filler padding quests. Really a high amount of epic battles, revelations and character development. It would be sad to see new players deterred by the grind to reach Heavensward... maybe in a future expansion when the amount of content has become extremely long, they can allow players to skip ahead to newer content while receiving a summary video of the story so far.

[Pence]

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. .

You played Death Knight in WoW. To become a Death Knight there is a pre-req of having WoTLK registered, AND having a L55+ character. Sorry to say but you should have seen this coming to an extent.

[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.

[Takfloyd]

You sir or madam are playing this game for the wrong reasons.

If you don't care about the story, just go back to WoW already. This is a story-based game. You are not supposed to just rush through it to get to the expansion. All you will be doing in the expansion is continuing the same story after all, and if you've been skipping it until now, you won't care about it then either.

The leveling and ilvl thing was also nerfed massively when the expansion came out, so you don't have to do any grinding whatsoever. You gain a ton more exp and get all the gear you need just from playing the story now. I have no idea how you've managed to not be high enough ilvl to do a dungeon, since I never had that problem and I did it BEFORE you started getting free gear. You NEVER have to craft or buy gear in this game. Trust me, because I never have.

You've probably not been paying attention and missed out on the gear you should have gotten. Like not doing your Job quests, or not using your Tomestones of Poetics to get easy ilvl 120 gear.

[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.

[Chek]

You lost me at ilvl requirements.

[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

[AskaRay]

I'm still baffled at people who play this game and not read the story..I know a few, but they're here for friends, and even they have started reading the story/catching up.

[Hexceed]

You sir or madam are playing this game for the wrong reasons.

If you don't care about the story, just go back to WoW already. This is a story-based game. You are not supposed to just rush through it to get to the expansion. All you will be doing in the expansion is continuing the same story after all, and if you've been skipping it until now, you won't care about it then either.

To a certain extent yes I do care about the story, sadly I can't seem to get into it with this game but telling me to gtfo seems a little rude? As for my intentions of rushing through the MSQ, I bought the game so I can play with my friends who are already lv50 and last I remember MMO was a game you play with friends, it's not designed to be a single player RPG so if you're telling me my reasons for wanting to play with my friends faster is misguided then perhaps you're playing the wrong game and should be playing a single player RPG.

You've probably not been paying attention and missed out on the gear you should have gotten. Like not doing your Job quests, or not using your Tomestones of Poetics to get easy ilvl 120 gear.

I'm afraid I've done all of my job quests and they did give me a fancy looking plate set which were ilvl45. Tomestones and Poetics on the other hand, no I didn't use them and in that regard you have a good point. I most likely skipped any helpful tips on where and how to use them while mindlessly grinding out MSQ acting as Minfilia's errand bitch.