I know people say questing is not the main part of the game... I get it.
Most people that don't have much time to play just log in for 30-40 mins, do their leves and poof away, which takes the actual "work" of the game itself, but won't rant about this, I actually like it because it is limited by time.
But this game, is VERY hard for a new player like me ._. I will write down my first week's experiences...
1. When I loged in for the first time after a lot of headaches with the no user-friendly website and game client (had a lot of trouble registering activating and selecting the "options" - why are they even called options anyway? more like account details or something more... related to what that page contains... no?) anyway, I loged in, as everyone the first time I just said, what the hell is this and bang tutorial started all of the sudden, moving controls etc. then, after 3 minutes, the tutorial gets stuck, I relog, then try again and again, and again until it finally worked.
2. On the first fight you have against the uhm... in my case fishies since i started in LL, the controls were very unconfortable, I have seen a lot of reviews with complains of this, should probably check them... there's plenty of feedback in youtube about this game.
Which, to be honest I expected to be completly released and not find it in beta... still... after 1 year of being released :/
3. Anyway once I started questing, it was cutscene and more cutscenes and more cutscenes... like every 5 seconds, was cool at the begining but it got very anoying after watching all those cinematics, I'm not saying to remove them, just to reduce them or atleast keep them in line, as in, don't let me control my toon to walk 2 steps then another cutscene appears...
4. Once I started killing things outside, I didn't find ANYONE, I thought i was in a instance or something. But then realized that LL is completly empty. I only saw like 2-3 people the first day I played, which is... not what I expected.
5. I was wondering what the little "shields" were and how you trade things, squad/party together, making a guild, etc. but seems FF XIV took it to the next level, renaming EVERY single thing MMO players are used to, lol, okay, raids = dungeons, linkshell = guild?..., and blah blah blah all those fancy terms no one explains to you when you start up, and with no one to ask, it is nearly mission impossible to hang out, WHICH may lead people away. People don't like it confusing, they most likely will want everything clear and explained.
6. After a day or two I saw people running around with chocobos, I didn't know how to call them out without renting one, I saw a piece of information but until I finally was able to ask someone everything made sense, I was wondering (literally until lvl 20+) what linkshell stands for, or what companies were, or stuff like that, you know?, it's hard.
7. After getting into a company, suddenly I was asked to go into a dungeon with atleast another person level 25, how am I supposed to party if I don't know how?, and once I finally party with someone after 2 days of waiting because not a single soul touched that freaking dungeon or raid or whatever the h. you wanna call it. Why is the party system so complicated as well as the UI?, very rude.
When I search of a party it always returns no results, when I open up one, no one joins it? am I doing something wrong? It should be clear by now, I mean, seriously by now in other games, everything is explained and at level 27 (my current level) I should be able to play around with no doubts of what to do or where to go...
I know Final Fantasy is known for its challenge, and I really like that I actually GRINDED all the way to 27... because it was impossible for me to party with anyone... I have only partied like twise and thats it, in a week? really?
I seriously would say this game is dead, however I'm still "new", I still don't know a lot of things (which I'm angry at... as said, i should be able to know how to travel lets say from Ul'dah to Grindania without having my linkshell mates to tele me from Ul'dah to grindania and then save there to unlock the teleport...) Like, why the hell is it so difficult to even go to a location?
I seriously found this game more of a job than an enjoyment at the moment, guess I need to hang more with people? - but whom? lol.
Now, the one that gives me more headaches...
8. Anima... today, doing the company quests to get my chocobo... I spent over 50 anima teleporting from city to city because I simply do not have the patience to run back and forward like a .... you know what... and taking half an hour to just get to a city then oh! surprize the quest is done, now go back!, another half an hour.
Anima, what's the whole point of it? why not simply pay guil for teleporting like normal games do? I would be okay with Anima if it filled up more quickly but according to what I have seen in these forums, it recovers 4 anima a day?, that means more than 25 days without teleporting to get back to 100 Anima? ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
Anyway these are my experiences, if you have something to say do so, yes I do come from F2P games, this is my first P2P game, but I seriously think this game is really trying to kick me out in the first week...
Like today I was 1000 points away from my chocobo, and then found out that I need to do the whole stories of the other two cities in order to get a mount... I RATHER GRIND TO 30 AND GET THE NEW ONE, unless... more nonsense traveling because a NPC wants me to "SPY" the other companies...
Anyway, this might be some good feedback from a new player and what I was expecting of FFXIV, yep I expected way more than this.