why i quit before reaching endgame (feedback from a new player)

[Physic]

You were playing the game the whole time though. I take it you came from WoW where endgame is the focus, that's not so much the case here. Sounds like this game just wasn't for you.

people keep on bringing up endgame, he never said he needs to be max level now, he said he feels all his gameplay time is spent running from point a to b and watching cutscenes. What about the part where he is supposed to explore, battle? for a new player its 85% going from marked npc to marked npc and cutscenes. A normal rpg is only like 15-40% this, with exploration, dungeons, and bosses being where you spend most your playtime.

50-60% Of msq was literally designed to be done for a few hours vs 40-hundreds of hours of dungeons/exploration/bosses. Its not a well designed for the way a new player experiences it.

[linay]

people keep on bringing up endgame, he never said he needs to be max level now, he said he feels all his gameplay time is spent running from point a to b and watching cutscenes. What about the part where he is supposed to explore, battle? for a new player its 85% going from marked npc to marked npc and cutscenes. A normal rpg is only like 15-40% this, with exploration, dungeons, and bosses being where you spend most your playtime.

50-60% Of msq was literally designed to be done for a few hours vs 40-hundreds of hours of dungeons/exploration/bosses. Its not a well designed for the way a new player experiences it.

There is exploring and battling both via the MSQ and outside of MSQ. You can literally explore and battle alongside doing MSQ or focus on MSQ, going from point A to point B while exploring and battling, then do the rest of the exploring and battling afterward.

[SerLuke]

There is exploring and battling both via the MSQ and outside of MSQ. You can literally explore and battle alongside doing MSQ or focus on MSQ, going from point A to point B while exploring and battling, then do the rest of the exploring and battling afterward.

Indeed, I remember doing lots of exploring as a new player, was lots of fun!

[Physic]

There is exploring and battling both via the MSQ and outside of MSQ. You can literally explore and battle alongside doing MSQ or focus on MSQ, going from point A to point B while exploring and battling, then do the rest of the exploring and battling afterward.

the game does not reward battling on your way to any place. Open world monsters are best avoided and give you very little actual progress, and have virtually no relevance. Yes, you can make the story less of a chore by ignoring it for a time and doing things the game mechanics discourage you from, but that doesnt help create a smooth user experience for people who dont want pure cutscenes.



Which leads to the other problem, the more content you do outside of story, the more MSQ holds you back from content, for example, FAtes have benefit, but the truth is, gaining levels is going to be inefficent, which new players dont realize directly, but they realize later when they seem to make very little progression because their level is signifigantly higher than the content they have access to. Thats when many people get burnt out. Basically post ARR where there is tons of content that gives very little progress, because its actually designed for the time period when there was no progress. But if you do all those dungeons, and dailies, you will be 5-10 levels over the content, which isnt keeping up with your power level/progress level.


Most post expansion/ARR content is designed that you do a few hours of story per month. The balance is totally off for new players coming into the game at this point. There is a reason story skip sells well. However, i dont think they make more money in the long term by having people who dont like story delivery/gates choosing between annoyance, pay, or quit.

[linay]

the game does not reward battling on your way to any place. Open world monsters are best avoided and give you very little actual progress, and have virtually no relevance. Yes, you can make the story less of a chore by ignoring it for a time and doing things the game mechanics discourage you from, but that doesnt help create a smooth user experience for people who dont want pure cutscenes.

You want exploration? Many times exploration leads to nothing except just knowing what's out there. If you're scared of going out of the laid out path and only want progress then that's the MSQ.

Which leads to the other problem, the more content you do outside of story, the more MSQ holds you back from content, for example, FAtes have benefit, but the truth is, gaining levels is going to be inefficent, which new players dont realize directly, but they realize later when they seem to make very little progression because their level is signifigantly higher than the content they have access to. Thats when many people get burnt out. Basically post ARR where there is tons of content that gives very little progress, because its actually designed for the time period when there was no progress. But if you do all those dungeons, and dailies, you will be 5-10 levels over the content, which isnt keeping up with your power level/progress level.

They're there for variety. If you just want progress, then you do the MSQ. If you just want something to do, then it doesn't matter. You decide how much progress you want to do in a video game with your free time.

Most post expansion/ARR content is designed that you do a few hours of story per month. The balance is totally off for new players coming into the game at this point. There is a reason story skip sells well. However, i dont think they make more money in the long term by having people who dont like story delivery/gates choosing between annoyance, pay, or quit.

And you don't have to rush through the quests. You can literally pace it as if it's current content and you'll be doing the exact same thing long time players have done in the past. In the end, it's up to you how fast you want to progress through the game and what detours you take along the way.

[Penthea]

Most post expansion/ARR content is designed that you do a few hours of story per month. The balance is totally off for new players coming into the game at this point. There is a reason story skip sells well. However, i dont think they make more money in the long term by having people who dont like story delivery/gates choosing between annoyance, pay, or quit.

Does it really sell well? I only know of two people who have used it. And unsurprisingly they both quit the game...because they didn't have much investment in a game they paid to not experience. They couldn't understand why HW was praised so much because they didn't understand why anything was pivotal.

when you start skipping cutscenes and text, it becomes literally just busy work for no purpose. Which is how a lot people handle it, but thats not an optimal game design/user design. What you are saying is, hey man, why cant you just spend 40-80 hours literally doing nothing but running from npc to npc clicking buttons just to get past them?

No of course it's not optimal design because the game isn't designed with players not caring about the story in mind. There are options for those who don't care, but the optimal experience is designed for those who follow the story.

Just like how WoW isn't designed for in-depth story-telling so someone who loves lore won't have an optimal experience due to reasons such as a lot of the story taking place in older games, novels, comics and the majority that is presented in the game is in giant walls of text without any animations or cutscenes accompanying them. But someone who doesn't care would just breeze through.

It's almost as if different games can cater to the different needs of different players! Crazy isn't it? You could...omg, play a different game if you don't like one of the primary elements of FFXIV :O

[RareItems]

Try Black Desert Online, absolutely no story, just kill stuff lol. You will never get bored in that game. The only bad thing about that game is since you never get bored in that game, you also never stop playing it. Not to mention say goodbye to thousands of dollars going into their cashshop xD.

[ErryK]

Try Black Desert Online [..] You will never get bored in that game.

That game is literally 99% grinding. The only thing it has going for it is combat because the only other thing is cash shop and we know how that song and dance goes.

[guardin]

hello

i tested this game for 2 weeks now, reached level 60 and quit the game during the dragonsong quests. most annoying game of all time. this is my experience:

go to npc -----> cutscene -----> accept quest -----> cutscene -----> make quest -----> go to npc -----> cutscene ------> accept new quest -----> cutscene -----> go to next npc -----> cutscene
-----> do quest -----> cutscene -----> go to npc -----> cutscene -----> accept dungeon-quest -----> cutscene -----> enter dungeon -----> cutscene -----> arrive first boss -------> cutscene
-----> arive next boss -----> cutscene -----> arrive last boss -----> cutscene -----> defeat last bos -----> cutscene ------> go out of dungeon ------> cutscene-...................


WTF. from 2 weeks of playing i watched at least 1,5 weeks cutscenes without doing anything than watching. i quit this collection of cutscenes yesterday. i don't want to watch cutscenes for weeks just to be able to play the game i paid for! i love good lore and dont have a problem with some cutscenes, but this is absoluteley ridiculous.

well, its an rpg. unless you are new to the genre you should have known what you are getting into. Thats like playing a FPS and crying that there is no story and nothing but guns. Or playing a sports title and mad that you can't go on an adventure. Yes playing with friends can be fun if you like RPGs. If you do not, find something else to play with them. One thing that erks me is when people force themselves to play with friends because they are afraid of playing alone. Watching cutscenes = playing the game. It is part of the rpg experience. That's like saying i didn't pay for a racing game just to drive a car.

Sorry friend, you did not management your expectations accordingly.

[rachcouture]

This has always been one of the bigger issues with FFXIV for me. It's not that there's cutscenes, it's that the frequency of them combined with the ludicrous amount of pointless back and forth (particularly in ARR and in some parts, Heavensward) ends up extremely exhausting. It's a big part of why I've been hoping for a rework of older MSQ segments to make them less tedious for new and returning players.

You can tell a narrative in a video game without constantly yanking control from the player.