How to make the game better for new players?

[Colt47]

Unnerf everything and make ilvl sync less generous, I've so seen many new players just quit because the game was boring easy trash until max level.

They can't "unnerf" old content. The fights are designed around completely different skills than we have now. Like, I remember when we used to have stone skin and cross-class skills in this game like Cure on the paladin.

[HyoMinPark]

I disagree. It is gear that makes old content imbalanced. Look at the Crystal Tower raids. Or Void Ark. Or even old dungeons synced down, with players still having an edge just because of their gear. That being said, they should have tweaked the boss HP levels or something to reflect that growth, but they did not. If anything, our characters are way too strong in some instances and could use some nerfing in the form of a lower synced item level. The Ivalice and Nier raids are much more balanced in this regard, though that doesn't completely stop players from steamrolling through Rabanastre. I'm guessing all of this is at least a small factor in their reasoning to perform their future stat squish.

I think it’s both gear and rotations that lead to older content being trivialized (outside of general nerfs). Just look at some jobs in synced content versus others. A good example is level 70 NIN versus level 70 SAM. So much of SAM’s core rotation is now post-70 that it is actually one of the weakest jobs in UCoB. NIN, on the other hand, is laughably overpowered in there. You can also throw DNC or RDM in level 50 content and they are stupidly overpowered compared to other level 50 jobs. Especially those that had a lot pruned throughout the years.

So there is the gear aspect, but there’s also the design of each job at each capstone.

I think it's intentional. They want the older raids to become easier so that people do them in roulettes. Even orbonne is MUCH, MUCH EASIER today than it was when it first came out due to gear. If it wasn't they could just lower the syncing cap to keep people closer to gear levels from when they were relevant, but they don't.

The nier raids too will succumb to this in 6.0 when people are level 90 and ilvl 600 or w/e.

It’s more that Orbonne is the only 24-man they put automatic Echo in (lol) and they also nerfed Thundergod Cid. So it’s less so gear and more that, in my opinion. Orbonne was never hard. It just required more than autopilot from a player.

That's been the problem with the system from the start. They actually have a button bloat issue at end-game that really pushes the limit on what people can rote memorize with some jobs, so it turns into how do you get enough to make the job interesting without breaking it. Melee DPS is absolutely the worst due to also having to manage positionals and it really shows in savage with all the deaths they keep accumulating to boss mechanics.

Being in discord it feels like back seat driving with the melee to make sure they get call outs and don't die to things.

If you are a melee DPS and have to rely on mechanical callouts to not die, that is entirely a you problem and not at all an issue with a particular job or its buttons. Plenty of melee DPS hit positionals just fine and do mechanics without dying. If you can’t do both, then you need to practice more.

As for the button bloat, there’s arguably only a couple jobs that suffer from “button bloat”. Most jobs can fit all their skills comfortably on two cross hotbars (if you’re a controller user). Other jobs like the physical ranged have empty space due to the sheer lack of skills they have. Just look at DNC.

[Vahlnir]

I think it’s both gear and rotations that lead to older content being trivialized (outside of general nerfs). Just look at some jobs in synced content versus others. A good example is level 70 NIN versus level 70 SAM. So much of SAM’s core rotation is now post-70 that it is actually one of the weakest jobs in UCoB. NIN, on the other hand, is laughably overpowered in there. You can also throw DNC or RDM in level 50 content and they are stupidly overpowered compared to other level 50 jobs. Especially those that had a lot pruned throughout the years.

So there is the gear aspect, but there’s also the design of each job at each capstone.

Yeah, I see both sides of that now. That's a fair assessment of the situation you've got here.

[Shibi]

I made an alt this last time through. Some improvements are simple, some a little less simple.

* Allow us to join the other person in instances.... it's a pain to tell them "now run out of the Solar and through a door on the right... look for Yda sitting on a box and take her blue quest" or "Alpi is hiding to the left as you run out of the Solar, he is easy to miss, but unless you take his MSQ quest we will waste 45 minutes trying to work out what's wrong"

(This was how it was in 2013, we could all stand in the solar together, beats me why they took that out and put us in solo instances)

* Allow us the ability to look in the other person's quest log (like Rift) even to the point of being able to join a quest they have without needing to say "Please don't take this teleport, I am just going to roar into mor dhona and pick up the quest then do a few steps to be where you are, I will be right back".

* For light parties only, give us the ability to grab one or two of our own squadron and use them in a dungeon instead of real people; To be a full party, at our own speed, without bothering two level 80s who just want to get through it fast as possible. But keep the full parties and alliances as they are.

(Is this really so hard, or bad? Duoing dungeons with my new to MMO friend has helped so much. Without the time pressure there is an ability to actually take it slow and teach)

[Ralph2449]

I think the main issue as a new player is how classes feel really really really boring at the early levels which can put off people, only once you reach 50, 60 for some do things start getting interesting and more fun and engaging.

Of course that would mean making the easy early level group content even easier since they werent designed with classes with full toolkits but honestly I dont see that as a good excuse because there's little difference between faceroll with limited abilities and faceroll with full abilities.

I honestly dont mind the story being longer, it is the introduction to this world.

And also possibly buff the rewards from older synced content like extreme trials, from what I understand many of the low chance drops can also drop from unsynced runs which you can easily spam with a party, synced runs in that case should have a rly high chance of dropping said mats/currency/items etc since the fights are a lot more fun that way.

[ForteNightshade]

They can't "unnerf" old content. The fights are designed around completely different skills than we have now. Like, I remember when we used to have stone skin and cross-class skills in this game like Cure on the paladin.

Actually, they can. Jobs should be rebalanced so they learn most of their core kits earlier and traits are added to reduce the damage per the level cap. For example, Raiton reduced to having a potency of 400 (down from 800) and a new trait like Raiton Mastery added at say, 73 to bring it up to 800. This would be one such fix to balance jobs at lower level content so you aren't getting absurd scenarios like HyoMin above eluded to. Speaking of, other jobs like Samurai need their kits earlier so there isn't such a massive gap between jobs.

[linayar]

As for the button bloat, there’s arguably only a couple jobs that suffer from “button bloat”. Most jobs can fit all their skills comfortably on two cross hotbars (if you’re a controller user). Other jobs like the physical ranged have empty space due to the sheer lack of skills they have. Just look at DNC.

I think Dancer is one job that can fit all its skills comfortably on two cross hotbars. In fact, I wouldn't mind having one less skill so I can fit in Sprint, though I know that I can replace Duty Action II with Sprint for most contents, and I do have Peloton and En Avant. It really is almost perfect for me.

[gumas]

seems fine as it is to be honest, at least for me

you start with cutscene then you drop off on the whichever town you choose and from there just follow the main quest, basically standard mmo 101

iam the type who prefer it that way though, i hate autopathing, i hate if the game give you some kind of big arrow pointing "this way" to next npc nope, let me look around and explore myself

[SugarPuff]

Ever since squadrons and then trusts were introduced, I've been a fan of your second proposal. Expanding on trusts would make dungeons and trials less intimidating and more fun. New players could experience them first with just their friends and go in blind if they chose, without any worry about holding up the group. Then they could jump in the duty finder later with some practice under their belt, or never. There are plenty of other levelling options for those who only want to get through the msq.

[RocciaSolida]

Aside from the glaring issue of all the jobs being incredibly boring at levels below 60/70 (some of them are boring even at 80 but we don't talk about that) I truly believe that the MSQ needs to be skimmed
What do we have now? 700+ main quests? And with Endwalker we're gonna get around 100 more just for 6.0
In my opinion Square Enix has to cut many of the less important quests because, let's be clear, in the main scenario there are loads of fetch quests and even though XIV relies heavily on its story, hundreds and hundreds of hours just to get to the end of it are just unbearable



(but I guess selling those story skip potions profits quite a lot, right?)