What most turns new players off from FFXIV?

[Shurrikhan]

What things do you think might most cause a new XIV player to give up on the game, especially before its completion?

If XIV were to ever revise earlier contents (be that right at the start or across leveling throughout), what would be the most effective areas of gameplay to address that could deal with these issues?

[Windi]

It's hard for me to say, being a new player that actually had some incentive to continue onward, but here are my guesses:

1) The introduction is very methodical. None of the exciting bits like combat start until you play as an errand boy/girl with quests and run around.

2) Speaking of which, quests could do with more variety in general. Aside from a few standout exceptions, they can all be boiled down to this: Kill some things, collect an item on the field, or deliver something to another NPC. They aren't necessarily bad on their own, but the fact that there isn't much more than that kind of makes the game get a little bit stale rather quickly.

[Voltyblast]

In my opinion, one of the biggest turn offs of the game is its story and how it constantly stops the player from progressing into the game.

NOW HOLD YOUR KEYBOARDS, let me explain: this is the internet and I know people are trigger happy about this, so give me a moment, read down below, take some tea for calming down and breathe. Okay? Good: you may continue.

The reason why I think is one of the major turn offs for some people, is that it locks several important contents behind it without actually trying to be "noob-friendly" and attempting to "make sense" to the story, while in reality it should've focused on making it accessible from the beginning: unless people are big fans of the game (and let's face, not all players are fan of the series. I'm definitely not) they will try to skip it or just rush through it without much care. And yes, some people also don't like stories in their games and seeing a big amount of script in front of them will annoy the player soon enough, even if they can still skip it. It's not their fault if they like their RPGs without stories (And as a fan of RPGs, I also played tons of them without following the plot. Star ocean comes to mind, but also many Tales of games and even several Final Fantasy too)

In my opinion though, the story feels more like an hindrance: it's there to stop you to get into the main content and to "make sense", while in reality they could've done many other things: i mean they wrote this stuff, they can change it! The bible this is not! On top of that a lot of silly and simple things (dyeing, glamour, mounts, etc) are all locked behind quests (making them little stories) for just no real reason but to pad you out. I don't like that way and I can see people getting tired because of it (my friends did for sure: they all quit even before reaching level 30!)

And before someone says that "this is final fantaaasyyy, it has to have a stoooory, or else it wouldn't make any seeeense buuhuuhuu", let me show you a good example of great story with great gameplay meshed together: Star Wars The Old Republic.
Yes it's a crappy f2p but that's not the main topic.

There's a story? Yes, 8 infact, one for each class and they last until level 50. After that all stories pretty much do the same thing, but with some differences in between depending on your main class. Not only that but your story is actually YOUR story, and not about others making you do tasks for them: your character speaks, your character can make decisions, you can kill your characters if you wanted (I didn't, but I could), you can be evil or good, you can mistreat your companions, you can fall for your companions, you can even follow their story and do their quests! Sure there are some parts where story is mandatory (mainly the airship but I don't remember anything particularly gated) but you can simply play the entire game without even following it AND actually access the expansions without completing the previous ones: they'll just warn you about spoilers. I'm glad the expansion will not require all HW story, but this should've been here from the getgo (or else why are they thinking of putting a level 50 potion?).

And another neat thing: the story (and stories from the quests) can be played in groups and even if your team can't interact, they can still enjoy your story as your progress. This is missing in FFXIV and could've probably made things more enjoyable for new players ("Hey I'm doing X scene, wanna see it? Sure I loved that scene!")

Oh and there's actual good voice acting. That would help a lot in this game too if you ask me. At least I would turn on the sound more often.

If you don't agree with me...well here's a shop that sells pitchforks and torches. While you're at it, I'm gonna flee. Toodles!

[Aillith]

When I first started playing I almost stopped. I started in Uldah and found it really confusing to navigate at first. It didn't feel like an mmo for some time until i joined an fc and had people to play with - most of it was solo for a while and i found blm only having 3 elements really dissapointing.

It really wasn't what I was expecting from an ff game and I didn't enjoy playing for the first few weeks - i just didnt want to not play since I spent the money on the game.

[Ksenia]

-snip-

This. I'm not new but as a returning player who started on a new server, new character the 2 things I most dread are A: desynth grind and B: the 50-50 2.0 to 2.9 forced questing. They are the never ending grinds from hell that put you through a ringer, by the time you are done you just want to be away from this game. As far away as possible.

[Shurrikhan]

Not only that but your story is actually YOUR story, and not about others making you do tasks for them.

Agreed to such an extent that I'm chuckling and facepalming at the same time.

I doubt the pitchforks & torches store would be getting many sales, unless I'm overestimating my own anecdotal findings.


...Any ideas how they could improve on all this, in XIV terms?


___________________________________________________

Didn't want to put this right on the top there for fear of bringing in a focus into what I wanted to be an open discussion, but of all the friends I've tried to bring to XIV, the chief complaints were:

• The GCD is too long; would have preferred single-weaves and a 1.5 second GCD or some sort of animation acceleration, flexible way to gain back GCD uptime, or a bit more and smoother animation clipping with double weaves in a 2 second GCD.
• Took too long to get a sense of a complete action bar.
• Too much time spent on MSQ, most notably teleporting to and fro.
• MSQ wasn't very fun until Mor Dhona (though they all got a small peak from when the Scions were wiped out... morbids).
• Quests and other crafted gameplay didn't bring you into the nuances of combat or other gameplay.
• Nothing set a medium for criteria in dungeon-running or standard for personal performance, e.g. nothing to set gameplay somewhere between 'want this exact comp, and will be doing exact like this' and 'I play my own way'. (A lot of these guys were former raiders and had powerleveled at least a couple alts in other MMOs, though.)
• "If what I've learned from one class doesn't carry over at all except these little cross-class skills, what was the point of having all in one character?"
• "If I can only tome-cap one job to keep it an acceptable raid main, what was the point of having all in one character?"

[Windi]

snip

This actually isn't that bad of a point. The story is kind of on-rails and somewhat barebones in general, but exploring how the main campaign could better tie-in with the game's content/mechanics is a good direction to look into. No pitchforks for me, here!

snip

Yeah, I think the social aspects are a good thing to look out for, and it can be a bit overwhelming to not have anyone to play with for a bit. Personally my main incentive to keep playing is that I know at least one person who does.

Also every city besides Gridania is a confusing mess to navigate through.

[Atoli]

Story is actually what kept me playing even with other things that were quite annoying, so I can't agree with Volty here.
The incredibly boring and slow combat during lower levels was the closest to driving me away. The slow and boring low-level combat is also what most people I tried to get into this game criticized to the point of not continuing it past the 20s.

[Lokier]

This forum.



Probably the forced story content. People are so used to being able to do what they like, and do quests via optionals instead of forced content to get anywhere.

[WinterLuna]

Thinking back to when I started playing, the biggest turn-off for me was the lack of direction and information regarding how to play the game.

The quests felt very clunky and I lost them a lot. I also had no idea how to play my class (Hall of the Novice exists now) but at the time this was a big issue for me. I felt like I had to figure out a lot of things by myself or Google it.

Sorry if this doesn't really help much - I started playing a long time ago so I can't comment on what would turn me off in the games current state. I guess the same thing can apply now but to a lesser extent.