How to make the game better for new players?

[Dzian]

We already have that, it's called sidequests. You can choose to do them, not not.
This 'optional fetch quest' feature would simply relegate a portion of the MSQ to being sidequests, and in turn, they'd likely make the mandatory MSQ just as long to make up for it, and there would still be portions that people find boring.

Thats not really a problem. one of the biggest complaints about the MSQ is that much of it shouldnt be in the MSQ and should be side quests already. this has been true with every expansion and you can guarantee it'll be the same in 6.0 as well

You wouldnt have to make the MSQ longer becaue of it at all.. The only reason the msq is as big as it is in an expansion is because it aims to grant enough exp to get you to the level cap..

making sections of it optional. would allow players that want the EXP to go and do the optional parts.. but players who don't or have already levelled ahead of the story could just say No thanks Alphinaud catch ya later.. and cut the filler out. and resume the story where it goes back to the main plot..

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Stop encouraging new players to rush through ARR when it will be a more enjoyable experience if they take their time and see what the game has to offer.

[Colt47]

We have a few points of view here.

1) Players who find old content extremely easy, to the point that some dungeons/raid like Crystal Tower bosses die before reaching phase 2 even with everyone synced.
2) Players who wants to experience old content like old days , were you actually need to think before pulling the entire dungeon and killing mobs with big AOE's (which you don't even need the highest item level)

But then when relics weapons appears we have to grind old content as fast we can because let's be honest here, nobody misses the old days in ARR when you had to farm fates for about 3 hours and don't get a single atma drop. Some players stuck in one phase for a month or straight wait a few patches for huge nerfs.

The process of doing MSQ its one in the entire life of your character, once you finish Stormblood for example you don't need to comeback anymore in terms of MSQ. SE gave new players the tools to catch up current content as soon they can.

The issue with every long running game is that eventually the established player base exceeds that of the new player base, and it causes a lot of issues in prioritization of features when building the game going into the future. I've seen the issues doing leveling roulette late in the expansion like now, where you have your job mastered and some new people are leveling up blm, not knowing how to properly do rotation. Literally they have no way to do it properly because the game doesn't present them with the tools: they have to go online to a third party site to learn the rotation, then practice on a target dummy for potentially 30+ minutes to get the initial hang of the job. The devs should know the optimal intended rotation of the job and provide tools to inform people how to perform that rotation.

[Seraphor]

Thats not really a problem. one of the biggest complaints about the MSQ is that much of it shouldnt be in the MSQ and should be side quests already. this has been true with every expansion and you can guarantee it'll be the same in 6.0 as well

You wouldnt have to make the MSQ longer becaue of it at all.. The only reason the msq is as big as it is in an expansion is because it aims to grant enough exp to get you to the level cap..

making sections of it optional. would allow players that want the EXP to go and do the optional parts.. but players who don't or have already levelled ahead of the story could just say No thanks Alphinaud catch ya later.. and cut the filler out. and resume the story where it goes back to the main plot..

Those quests are there for a reason. So that you don't complete the MSQ for an entire expansion in just a couple of hours.
They will add in enough fetch quests to pad out the MSQ to the length they want it to be, and to maintain pacing. They don't want you rushing through each new open world zone in 30 minutes, they want you to fight enough things in there, and talk to enough NPCs, to make it feel like you've used what they've given you.
Again any 'optional' questing in any capacity is literally just side quests.

[Jirah]

how about stop making new jobs start so dam late. Lv 70 for Sage? Are you joking?

[MoofiaBossVal]

Turn Praetorium into a trust dungeon or solo duty. It's supposed to be a climatic, last ditch raid on the villain's fortress... only for veteran players to ROFLstomp all of the supposedly "elite" soldiers and "menacing" robots. And then the newbie player gets left behind while everyone else rides up an elevator, and then a cutscene begins and suddenly the newbie player is being asked to teleport to the boss, and by the time they load in the boss is 50% dead, and then immediately another cutscene begins... etc.

[Colt47]

Turn Praetorium into a trust dungeon or solo duty. It's supposed to be a climatic, last ditch raid on the villain's fortress... only for veteran players to ROFLstomp all of the supposedly "elite" soldiers and "menacing" robots. And then the newbie player gets left behind while everyone else rides up an elevator, and then a cutscene begins and suddenly the newbie player is being asked to teleport to the boss, and by the time they load in the boss is 50% dead, and then immediately another cutscene begins... etc.

Look... we just don't talk about Praetorium. It's like you walk into a store, get assaulted by a flying scarf that rushes out the door and then some little guy runs up and says "Shinobi is back!", then runs off and all you wanted to do was buy a freaking candy bar.

[TheMightyMollusk]

how about stop making new jobs start so dam late. Lv 70 for Sage? Are you joking?

But then the existing players complain that they have to level up the new jobs from such low levels. There's no winning either way.

[Esmoire]

Get a small, cross-disciplinary team of like... 5 developers or something. Nothing to have a noticeable impact on the rate new content is done at.

Then give them like... I don't know, two or three months to combo over old, old content. Fix bugs, make stuff interactive (like any of the three bosses in Copperbell), apply new markers for old mechanics that work in an identical way, get rid of 90% of the unnecessary prompts.

You'll get a whole lot more players not checking out, have minimal impact on the tail end of new content, and before long you have a lot more people to play with at max level if they are not dropping out during ARR as often. It seems they know this, when they made improved to the ARR MSQ and zones.

[linayar]

This might be a good time to post part of a PC Gamer article:

https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantas...om-other-mmos/

Of course, that focus on story makes getting into FF14 a daunting prospect. There are hundreds of hours of narrative twists and turns spread across four (soon to be five) distinct arcs, and it'd be easy to see a post-Endwalker reset as a way to create a fresh jumping-on point for newcomers.

But Yoshida isn't concerned, saying that the decision to start anew wasn't driven by a desire to cater to new players. The feedback overwhelmingly seems to be that while new players are brought in by the latest expansion, they don't much mind starting afresh from A Realm Reborn.

"Fundamentally, Final Fantasy 14's story can be thought of a TV series that has different seasons. We are not forcing people to play all of the previous expansions—however, we do want to offer the opportunity for players to enjoy the story from the beginning, just like one would with a new show they want to watch. That’s really all there is to it."

Yoshida ended on a somewhat refreshing note for seasoned MMO players. We've all burned out on the endless content churn, and the director seems surprisingly accepting of folks who've taken an extended break. The team simply hope they can tell a story worthy of luring lapsed players back to Eorzea.

"I would love to tell those currently on a break from the game that there are even greater adventures and stories waiting and invite them to return to the game. I think the best way to accomplish this would be for us to make a game that is worthy of our players voicing their love for the game to let others know 'it was the best!'"

So, as much as I would like a reset in the new player experience for personal reasons, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Then again, it makes sense since they've opted instead to make a huge part of the beginning as part of the free trial, which doesn't actually help players like me when creating a new character, but oh well.

DNC doesn’t even take up two full crossbars. None of the physical ranged do, honestly. The only jobs that I’ve had to really finagle my layouts with are PLD and GNB.

I have Sprint macro’d to Macro #99 and have that bound to R3. So whenever I press my right analog stick, I start sprinting. I don’t experience too many issues with it clipping, so it works for me.

Yeah, it's great that it doesn't take up the whole bars so you can fit in things like teleport and mount. I don't really like using macro/hitting the stick buttons, but yes, if those work for you, it definitely saves more space. As it is, as my picture shows, Dancer fits what I would call basic necessities in those two bars, more or less.

And yeah, I was leveling Machinist for a bit and I think it may even have less buttons then Dancer, though I think Bard has a bit more.

Thats not really a problem. one of the biggest complaints about the MSQ is that much of it shouldnt be in the MSQ and should be side quests already. this has been true with every expansion and you can guarantee it'll be the same in 6.0 as well

You wouldnt have to make the MSQ longer becaue of it at all.. The only reason the msq is as big as it is in an expansion is because it aims to grant enough exp to get you to the level cap..

making sections of it optional. would allow players that want the EXP to go and do the optional parts.. but players who don't or have already levelled ahead of the story could just say No thanks Alphinaud catch ya later.. and cut the filler out. and resume the story where it goes back to the main plot..

I think that they write out the quests based on the story they want to tell and then allocate exp rewards for those quests to roughly hit the leveling dungeons and trials and role quests and eventually get to cap based on how long the MSQ turns out to be and how much side/repeat content they want players to do outside of the MSQ.