Would anyone at all be interested in restarting from scratch* with a fixed party?

[ReynTime]

It is fun but it can also be a headache when you run into scheduling conflicts. A friend and I have run into this with just 2 of us to worry about. I'm sure it would be worse trying to coordinate 4 people. No matter someone's good intent when they agree to an initial schedule, things inevitably happen so they can't show up and that ends up delaying everyone's progress.

If you want reduce possible stress, make certain everyone is in agreement upfront and willing to be very flexible about how fast the group progresses. There should be no set goal of completing content within a certain time frame.

Only alts made specifically for the group should be used so everyone can progress separately on their other characters at their own pace.

Pick meeting days/times that can be adjusted if someone needs to be late or leave early (not a good idea to schedule a 6:30 start time if someone normally doesn't get home from work until 6 but occasionally has to work overtime or gets stuck in traffic).

Some members leveling up faster than others shouldn't be a big deal considering everyone would be blocked by the same MSQ progress. If you feel like level differences might create balance problems, you can always ask everyone to limit equipped gear to items intended for the MSQ level or lower.

Yeah the idea would be to not really abandon whatever main you have. The new characters would be made specifically to do this, and when everyone is available. I guess worrying too much about job level is not something to consider since there are so many factors that would get us above ARR range anyway. For duties and fates it's really the ilvl and gear that would be a problem and that can be controlled.

I was kinda doing that for a while with some friends. Only kinda, because I was playing a new class on my existing character, rather than an entirely new character. So I didn't get to participate in the quests and cutscenes. Still, that was enough to get the idea that FFXIV is not designed for that kind of play. Conversations and cutscenes don't acknowledge others in your party at all. World enemies are even more of a cakewalk than they are when playing solo. And there's semi-frequent solo battles which force you to break up the party.

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Thanks, but I already considered other MMORPGs before I got stuck with this in my head. But none of the existing ones I've looked into are as appealing as XIV in general for other reasons. For instance, I really can't stand Star Wars or Warcraft lore.

This wouldn't prevent the MSQ related targets from being unexciting pushovers but I also considered trying to clear FATEs within reach as they happen during the "journey". At the end of the day in the game's current state it's inevitable to outlevel ARR content before reaching Castrum anyway, might as well not worry about character/job level shooting up specifically and just focus on the gear.