Hooking a WoW veteran

[Arkazon]

I need a bit of help selling the game to a close friend of mine. His main critique is simply that it feels very slow-paced and he's bored playing it. Part of this is due to the longer global cooldown that slows combat a bit. Part of it is due to lower level jobs really not having much to make combat interesting. And part of it is the requirement of doing story missions solo which, as a healer class (he hopes to be a Scholar) can be quite frustrating.

It feels at least like there's a high barrier of entry for new players. I don't know the game well enough to know what we should be doing different to keep it feeling exciting. Hopefully some more experienced folks might be able to weigh in. I'd love to make this place a more permanent home, but it's always a losing argument to say, "It gets fun once you've invested several months into it." I have to be able to make the case to him that we can spend a couple hours a night and have a great time, even at level 20.

[Chiramu]

Classes do need to be redone to make the Class fantasy right imo. Perhaps wait and see how classes feel in Stormblood with the changes to abilities. It might feel more epic playing a class in Stormblood for newbies compared to how it is now.

[loreleidiangelo]

If he came from WoW, there's not much doing for him sadly. If he really likes that style of gameplay, XIV's is quite different, despite appearing similar on the surface. Way shorter globals, proc-based gameplay, and way more instant-cast abilities on healers/mages in WoW made FFXIV seem like molasses when I tried to boot it up again and start the 3.4 MSQ on my AST. As a SCH, at least if he does the job quest to unlock SMN he'll have a faster option for killing quest mobs in the open world, but SMN isn't THAT much faster lol.

Is it possible for you to level a new character with him? If you're already doing that, and he's still bored, then it might just be best to wait it out until either a.) Stormblood possibly makes lowbie leveling less garbage (as Chiramu suggested), or b.) wait until they introduce the level boost/story skip option and he can just completely bypass the "meh" parts (but that isn't without it's own drawbacks).

[Arkazon]

Aye, I've been leveling up with him, but he just notes it feels so slow-going. Especially discouraging was the Heavensward expansion requirement to complete all those story missions before even accessing the new jobs. Those would have started him out at level 30, and with a job he finds interesting. But the way they've done it, it is like telling people that buy Legion they can only play it once they finish all the story quests in Warlords of Draenor. Hrmm...

What should we be doing at level 20 though, to maybe make things exciting? Dungeons and Fates? Guildhests? Is there something else that would level us that I'm missing?

[Reinha]

Tell him the rotations are much more complex than in WoW and that he can try them in the Palace of the Dead (level 17 entry). Leveling dungeons are not as faceroll as WoW leveling dungeons, and end game offers a decent challenge. However, it isn't just raid or die. The crafting system is its own game play element and there are minigames that you can sink a lot of time into if you choose to. Moreover, there is REAL housing and he can buy his own apartment to try it out.

Those are some of the things that could hook a WoW player as they hooked me.

[Arkazon]

*nod* All those sound pretty great, and as a level 50 DRG last time I was about, I do recall I loved the complexity of the dungeons and the Primal fights. The trouble was getting there. I don't imagine housing is quite available until much later, and Crafting won't level up his main job either. This Palace of the Death though does sound interesting, so I'll Wiki that a bit. Does that dungeon do anything different than regular dungeons?

[Khalithar]

Snip

The GCD is a common complaint and one that I had at the beginning. It gets a little better at higher levels when your action bars fill out but until then it's pretty dull. As far as soloing story missions, it's not that bad as a healer honestly. However, what may kill it for him is starting a game that he doesn't really like the combat system of as an Arcanist. Right now, leveling arcanist from 1-30 is pretty boring, it's not really a fun class to play and doesn't really get interesting until you unlock Smn/Sch. All the classes "get better later" but I think that's especially true of sch/smn that don't really shine until significantly later.

In addition to that, so many of the important instances are solo only content. It's definitely not the sort of game where you two can just go out and quest together like in WoW, the main thing you can do with a friend in 14 for hours is run dungeons for some exp which isn't the most efficient way to level but depending on queue times dungeons can give decent exp and really help you understand your class/job role in a party situation.

FFXIV definitely does get better later once you've gotten through the adjustment phase but this may not honestly be the game for him in it's current incarnation.

[Arkazon]

Makes sense. I wonder, what may I tell him gets better specifically? The GCD has never reeeaaally bothered me, but as Dragoon I rather liked the chain-combo system and having to position myself properly. Keeps combat a little bit interesting. I also love the ebb and flow feel of Black Mages as well. I don't know how Scholar feels, but hopefully it's sufficiently interesting enough to not make it a two-button spam fest!

This Palace of the Dead though might be the ticket ... a procedurally generated dungeon, offers bonus experience to lower level jobs, and doable with any group composition. That might help catapult him up enough levels such that he gets more spells and the class becomes more interesting!

[Reinha]

*nod* All those sound pretty great, and as a level 50 DRG last time I was about, I do recall I loved the complexity of the dungeons and the Primal fights. The trouble was getting there. I don't imagine housing is quite available until much later, and Crafting won't level up his main job either. This Palace of the Death though does sound interesting, so I'll Wiki that a bit. Does that dungeon do anything different than regular dungeons?

Housing is available at level 50 and a good GC ranking, so it will take a bit of time. Palace of the Dead is a dungeon set consisting of randomly generated floors. Once you have unlocked it via a quest, you can enter with any job/class and at any level. Inside the dungeon you start from level one and level independently from your true level. You also get a special set of aetherpool gear, so every player is at equal footing inside the dungeon. The dungeon has its own storyline and notable rewards include experience points to the class/job you enter with, minions, a mount, expensive materia, end game weapons and randomly obtained glamour items. The one limitation is that people who haven't bought Heavensward are not able to go further than floor 40 but people tend to get very close to level 60 (inside the dungeon) by that time. I think all rewards except the end game weapons are available without Heavensward and I find it a very fun way to make gil (from the materia) and play with more experienced players on my alts.

[Arkazon]

As I read more about it, this Deep Dungeon may be just the ticket. It sounds like the jobs inside level at an expedited rate, so it will show my friend what his class will feel like at higher levels. A couple things I wonder about though ...

1. You level your "job" independently in there. But when you leave, does any of that experience translate to your out-of-dungeon job? Meaning if we enter as level 20 Arcanists, and go the whole 40 floors, will we gain levels to Archanist once we exit?
2. The guide I'm reading talks about chests and upgrading your Aetherpool gear and all that. But is it shared among the party? Meaning if there's a silver chest and the Paladin runs up to open it first, does just his gear upgrade, or is it everyone's? I worry that in a matched dungeon, it will be a mad dash for the chests at the expense of the other group members.