How to make the game better for new players?

[Jeeqbit]

1. Playing with friends from the get-go is difficult/inconvenient because of the solo nature of the Main Scenario

While I agree with this, as a new player I found others to play with by queueing for dungeons.

2. Old group content is laughably easy, making it disappointing and pointless

That depends on the person. Some people want a game they play to be easy and others want it to be extremely hard. I believe games should have a difficulty setting.

There could be a setting to get matched for things minilvl or alternatively a setting to adjust the display of telegraphs to make it harder only for yourself.

The length of the story is not completely a problem, because you don't need to be max level to enjoy all the content in the game. You can do all sorts of things at lower levels, but you do need to get far enough to do the content you're interested in. I see a lot of new players find contentment in lower level content such as the Gold Saucer.

The best example of how well watching cut scenes together could work is in Praetorium, where what you described does actually happen. I wish it were a feature, but it may be too much work with this much story now.

They intend to expand the trust system to older content. They may or may not manage to find the time but I think they want to when they can. It's a lot of work to manually adjust the trusts for each of the older dungeons, so I think they are looking at a more automated way to do it.