New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Physic]

No it's not designed for a group but by your other posts you made it sound like it was impossible for a group. It's not. If you want to accompany someone doing the msq, you can. If you want to help them do their quests, you can.

But you know, you could just make an alt character or use an alt class to play with your friend. What's wrong with doing that? Or are you one of those people who MUST play their main?



Because you need a specific number of friends to do it unless you plan on doing it unsynced. You need three more for dungeons and seven for trials. So if you have only two friends and don't want to unsync, you gotta queue.



I agree but you kept harping on about how the msq quests are some massive wall literally preventing you and your buddies from playing together, and I was telling you it's not. You can accompany them if you want to.



You mean playing with people who have reached high lvl and those who have not. WoW does not have a msq but it didn't mean you could do everything together regardless of lvl. You cannot for the simple fact that low lvl players don't have much content unlocked. Unless you count spamming the same few dungeons over and over again as a wealth of content.



If there was no msq it wouldn't change the fact that low lvl players don't have much content unlocked so I don't see the point of this at all.

And many players do not feel the incentive to skip any of that even if they're a new player among friends who have been playing for years. A lot of players love that the game has both legitimate single player and multi-player aspects to it. Don't make sweeping statements like that. Not everyone feels the same.



Well, newsflash; this is a different game. The story is central to the whole game. It makes sense to have to work through it given how it is written. If it was optional then it wouldn't be central, so then the game would no longer be the same.

they dont have content unlocked because the main story gates most of the content. Your logic is circular.

assuming msq wasnt gating content, you could level up together the whole time. start at level 1, get on your clas you havent played, do fates, kill monsters, explore until 15 do some dungeons, get 18 mix in some potd. Then when you log off, or they are alone they do all the story stuff they are interested in.

leveling is a group activity mostly, story is not, so story gating leveling makes it pretty rough.

[Avidria]

You forgot the parts where, if you're "playing with a friend" you get to constantly drop from the party while they do yet another solo fight that requires you two to disband and not play together.

This is the single worst part about catching a friend up on msq. Not only are you not needed, but you get in the way.

They really need to remove that silliness. It's almost as ridiculous as the fact that we used to be unable to queue for things with our chocobos out...

[linay]

Although evaluating it like that I'd lean towards FFXIV is not a hardcore game and so it should be more mindful of accessibility than a "dark souls" mmorpg.

The MSQ is very accessible. Some people just don't want to do it.

You forgot the parts where, if you're "playing with a friend" you get to constantly drop from the party while they do yet another solo fight that requires you two to disband and not play together.

This is the single worst part about catching a friend up on msq. Not only are you not needed, but you get in the way.

So just drop out of group and rejoin. There are plenty of times where you can be in a group while doing MSQ and there are times where you can play together without being in a group. Only with solo instances are you truly separated from other people aside from chat.

[LaylaTsarra]

New 70 level skips coming you can be sure. I would also suspect the 60 level skips will be reduced significantly in price. Look forward to it.

[sf23]

new player here Ihave to say after playing Wow (and many other MMOs over the years) and coming from wow/bfa. I found FFXIV refreshing. the more I learn about the game the more I love it (like my chocobo can have different colors by feeding it). However after playing through the main story line and completing it for ARR. hitting 54, and finding after much research and confusion(couldn't find npcs as example) that I can't yet get to ishgard(even though NPC gate keeper to ishgard zone says "get heavensword expansion and do the before dawn quest and you are golden") to do the Heavensword expansion because I have 100 quests I have to do first, was demoralizing. As mentioned I can't get my new class spells (I'm already 54 now) because I Can't see the NPC that gives em. AND I have about 70 quests still to run before I can access "Before the dawn" quest is available to me. Its a bummer really. it wont stop me playing but IMO this should be fixed (or made more clear) for new players.

[Paladinleeds]

Having had chance to gather my thoughts a bit more, perhaps some of the main duties could be made into side quests, so they still have a purpose (which would satisfy myself having a "reason behind each duty", but not sure how others feel about it)? Of course, there are some that are crucial to the development of the main story arc, and those would have to remain in the mandatory MSQ unfortunately, such as:

Ifrit/Titan/Garuda - these are important plot points which build up our character as an "Eikon Slayer", and thus are a major part of our character development
The Praetorium - this is the coup de grace of A Realm Reborn, and is the climax of a major plot point built up throughout the levelling experience
Keeper of the Lake - this is a crucial plot point that is expanded upon further in Heavensward
Chrysalis - one of your main Scions is captured and you're having to free her
Steps of Faith - this is what allows you to be considered to be entrusted to enter Ishgard
The Aery - this is where you first defeat Nidhogg who is a major plot point throughout Heavensward
The Final Steps of Faith - defeating Nidhogg again after a major NPC became him
Ala Mhigo - important dungeon where you take down an important NPC throughout Stormblood
Castrum Fluminis - the primal associated here is a very import

There may be more, but these were the first examples I could think of off the top of my head. Those that are removed from the main story would still remain as side quests, for the dungeons/trials that have a lesser impact on our story development. That way, there's still a reason to go through the duties if you still wish to explore them, but would also allow for a reduction in the amount of mandatory story quests you would have to go through. I'm trying to come up with ways to please as many parties as possible, which I'm sure you can understand is a LOT easier said than done!

[Shougun]

The MSQ is very accessible. Some people just don't want to do it.

Was an evaluation of time required, in that aspect then not really. The time is not accessible, its many games worth of time to catch up (for some people that's a good thing, for others that a horrible thing though). Having to invest multiple games worth of time on content you didn't want to do, I don't think is accessible. Obviously some people do in which case thats good for them.

[Lynesse]

Was an evaluation of time required, in that aspect then not really. The time is not accessible, its many games worth of time to catch up (for some people that's a good thing, for others that a horrible thing though). Having to invest multiple games worth of time on content you didn't want to do, I don't think is accessible. Obviously some people do in which case thats good for them.

You are so right. And wording it this way is super spot on. I think this is how most of us feel, and when put this way, it's hard for that little voice in my head to argue.

[Shougun]

You are so right. And wording it this way is super spot on. I think this is how most of us feel, and when put this way, it's hard for that little voice in my head to argue.

I think many are having trouble imagining that some dont want to do some part of the MSQ or that they value other content way more. To be honest a lot of this thread has turned into people refusing to imagine different goals out of this game (some people play just for the story as it is amazing while others hated the story from day one and did it because quest exp yay). But like I was trying to say before a lot of new players get in because of the hype of new content, not because they dredged up some ancient trailer of ARR. The content many (not all) people want to do is therefore stuck behind a mountain (of potentially enjoyable or potentially way too long quest chain). Like I was trying to say about witcher 1 2 3. Many entered at 3 with interest exclusively in 3, maybe even having heard of or not cared to try 1 or 2 already. After they loved 3 they might have went back, although some didn't and they still clearly enjoyed 3.

I don't think deep end placing people with zero context is optimal which is why I suggested an accelerated start, which I think would be enough of a core bit of info to let people go off into the world. Like with some story recap and some combat guidance, Ascian bad, mother crystal good.. probably, for example- people are very adaptable and with the right seed of info they could build back parts of the story as they went and understand it like that (it might feel a bit like lore in dark souls game for a little while then, but players given a decoder ring as a headstart will improve acclimation).

[Lumadurin]

I think future expansions should come with a free story skip and level boost.
The level boost can be to the current cap -10, but the story skip could be up to the player. They could skip just ARR, or skip all the way up to the start of the previous expansion, and everything in between.
WoW eventually started bundling boosts with their expansions because the prospect of working through multiple years of content and levels was extremely daunting to newer players.