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

[SturmChurro]

You have a lvl 63 RDM and a level 57 SCH and you haven't done Akh Afah Amphitheatre which is a lvl 50 MSQ quest?

My alt is level 64 paladin, and I have only done ARR. It's still on level 50 Story quests.

[LaylaTsarra]

My alt is level 64 paladin, and I have only done ARR. It's still on level 50 Story quests.

I leveled two alts on Mateus to level 50 in less than 10 days for the car including earning the MGP needed for the rewards. It's really not that hard to do and it doesn't take all that much time given the skip buttons work wonders. Granted there are additional update quests past Pratorium to get through prior to Heavensward for those who wish to continue past 50 but they can be sped through pretty quickly as well especially with only one character.

I have no plans to further level mine at the moment.

Endgame isn't some panacea that will make the game wonderful if you aren't really enjoying the journey to get there.

[Physic]

You have a lvl 63 RDM and a level 57 SCH and you haven't done Akh Afah Amphitheatre which is a lvl 50 MSQ quest?

you outlevel msq easily, especially if you play in smaller bursts, and do leveling dungeon roulettes. MSQ is a very poorly designed content gate. I say this in terms of how well it tracks normal player progress and playstyle. There gets to be a growing backlog of content locks. Msq is pretty good at having a plot, and providing context, but its execution is not that good.

[Barraind]

You have a lvl 63 RDM and a level 57 SCH and you haven't done Akh Afah Amphitheatre which is a lvl 50 MSQ quest?

But why? =( by not going the MSQ you are also limited to only the level 50 and below quested job abilities not to mention the lvl 60 tome gear in shire

With road to 60 and a few xp items, you can keep 3 classes 6-10 levels above msq level until stormblood doing only msq and sidequests that unlock things (had to do 4 quests in ruby sea and 8 in yanxia on my alt to get to msq dungeon level). Or as a friend of mine is doing, you can hit mid 60's by the end of ARR with a couple roulettes a day and ONLY the msq.

I think it's not that there are cutscenes, but the frequency of it.
Tried to get this across in another thread, but it's just stupid that it fades into letterbox with camera movements just for like 10 lines of text.

Its not just the msq either.

Do 6 weekly deliveries, get a cutscene that is 'Yay you're really cool". I've been max faction with you for a year now, you can stop.
Do 6 more weekly deliveries. Get a cutscene. "Yay, you're really cool". Ive been max faction with you since the first week it was possible, please STOP GIVING ME THIS CUTSCENE.

I blame the way they do their menuing system. The cutscene every time thing is just the natural progression to every npc shop menu taking full control of your ui.

XIV's thing is it has a very good story, with a lot of depth and some interesting characters and some...

14s thing is that its the most "My first videogame" of any MMO available. This might be good if its your first video game, but if youve played ANY other MMO, or any other RPG, really, the first 30 levels are awful. (Honestly, at this point you can ignore 1-60 and you'll be perfectly fine with knowing how things work by the time you're doing content thats relevant). My girlfriend has tried 2 or 3 times to get into it and just cant, because after playing 3 other MMO's, she feels like she HAS to story and level skip or shes going to be bored to death of starting the game again. Narrating the leveling of my alt "here's where i mash escape until I can do things again" may not have helped any.


The biggest lie current day MMO's want to sell you is that the journey matters, not the destination. It was true in older MMO's, when new content included massive zones you could explore and were designed for all level ranges (or at times, most level ranges). Then expansions started being current level cap and above ONLY experiences and the journey stopped being relevant after a week or two, because the ONLY thing that matters is level cap content. 14 is no different. The journey doesnt matter. You arent exploring gigantic zones full of wonder. You're running from hub to hub following 3 different kinds of quest markers with the goal being to get to where you can buy a house or do 8 man content with your friends, or do 24 man content with a lot of random people.

[Tharne]

because the ONLY thing that matters is level cap content. 14 is no different. The journey doesnt matter.

To you, only level cap content matters.
For some people the journey matters.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

To you, only level cap content matters.
For some people the journey matters.

This. If the journey didn't matter, rpgs would be a dead genre. They aren't.

[Barraind]

They do not matter in current era MMO's. There is no new content added for those levels in content updates or expansions. In fact, there is usually stuff taken AWAY form those levels after an expansion or two.

14 forces people into lower level content in roulettes specifically to make sure people doing old content actually have people to do them with. Most every other mmo takes the "just dont bother doing old content unless you have a friend carry you" approach.

[Kalise]

This might be good if its your first video game, but if youve played ANY other MMO, or any other RPG, really, the first 30 levels are awful. (Honestly, at this point you can ignore 1-60 and you'll be perfectly fine with knowing how things work by the time you're doing content thats relevant).

I've played MANY MMO's and RPG's and while XIV's early levels aren't great, they aren't the worst.

If anything, the MSQ helps detract from the fact that actual combat at those levels is utter garbage due to the ridiculously long GCD, the complete lack of skills and terribly spaced skills (DRG gets the start of their 2nd combo at level 6. The second part of it comes at level 38 and the 3rd part of it comes at level 50!)

Much of XIV's early gameplay, i.e. levels 1-50, would be much improved from an overhaul of skill distribution, if they could frontload more of a jobs overall skills into this level range to not only make the leveling experience better, but also mitigate the awfulness that is syncing down to having no skills available...

With some minor tweaks to the patch MSQ from after ARR and before HW to cut down on some of the waffle that goes on there...

The biggest lie current day MMO's want to sell you is that the journey matters, not the destination.

Actually, these days it's entirely the other way around. Current day MMO's are almost all unanimously focused on the "Get end game NOW!" style of play, with gratuitous experience gains, heavily streamlined quests and leveling progression, XP boosts upon XP boosts upon XP boosts etc.

It's one of the things that helps XIV stand out, the fact that it ISN'T just about getting to max level and that the Journey itself can actually be interesting and fun - Mostly if you care about the story.

Of course, much of this falls apart after you've leveled up your first job via MSQ and then you're left with 14 (Soon 16) other Jobs to level up and nothing but Duty/Deep Dungeon grinds to utilize... Since once you've done the MSQ, all that's left to do with other jobs is whatever end-game grinds are available (Such as Relics or farming out gear so that you can... Replace better gear when the next patch/expansion comes out)

Still, that initial leveling experience that comes with the MSQ can be a fantastic journey, one that many modern MMO's miss out on because they're overly reliant on ensuring that even newbies can get to "Relevant Content" by way of leveling up to max level as fast as possible and skipping much of the Gear Treadmill to get right into the newest content.

Which can be a fine way to make a game. There are many people whom might be burnt out on a particular game and want to quickly get back into their normal routine of end-game farming in a new game and thus, an MMO that focuses on enabling people to rush through is ideal for them.

However, there's something to be said about having MMO's where the Journey still retains that feeling everyone once had when they played their first MMO, where the goal was just to experience the game and have fun, before everything became about end-game farming, maximizing DPS, Raiding, Spamming mindless dungeons for currencies to purchase loot upgrades...

Since, end-game farm fests are a dime a dozen. There's a plethora of MMO's on the market with bunches of end-game Dungeons/Raids to farm out. Many of them flat out better than the meagre offering that XIV provides (Given it's so-so combat and clunky spaghetti codes)

[KarstenS]

has nothing to do with this game being "story-driven"

It has all to do with "story-driven".

Different game, different target audience.

Just because guys like him don't enjoy it doesn't mean everyone has the same opinion.

The biggest point of Final Fantasy as a series has always been the story. So it should be no real surprise that Final Fantasy XIV is also a game with a heavy load of story.

[Jeeqbit]

There are a lot of quests now. You can reduce it by skipping sidequests that aren't blue.

You can also skip a cut scene if you feel it's not going to be important enough. You can go back and watch said cut scene by clicking The Unending Journey at an Inn if you make a mistake.

When 5.0 is released in a month, you'll be able to use New Game+ to redo the quests later on if you regret having skipped their cut scenes.