Hmm not an easy solution here. Totally get the new joiner experience argument. Like in every forum, every reddit, we always promote them to play FF14 and to please keep up their efforts to HW and you will see amazing gameplay. Then after slogging through ARR and arriving at HW, and every trial is still a zergfest with every mechanics being skipped.

How soon until they start spreading feedback that FF14 is not an enjoyable experience, until the endgame? Currently the game is still riding high on good word of mouth reviews though.

Having said that, syncing everyone to minimum ilvl does not seem to be the right solution. All tenured players will not join anymore.

Maybe a separate temporary server like BDO where they are “season” character for 2 months in that server, have special perks and erc, then after 2 months, they will graduate and join the regular servers.