New player(s) thoughts

[Iscah]

I like how the counter to it being 400 hours, is that it is "only" 240 hours.

Ultimately, these are Final Fantasy JRPGs wrapped in an MMO format. A single-player JRPG will often boast about the length of the game in its advertising.

50-80 hours for each of the "five games in the FFXIV series" sounds pretty standard for JRPG length.

[Payadopa]

Because it's not enough - Don't you find it strange that you have to try and make your own fun out of the game between MSQ? I'm not being disingenuous with my points in any way, we often struggle to keep anyone interested because in the end, they still need to go through the 400 hours of MSQ. Regardless of how fun you make the in-between, the time proportion of fun/unfun is just too great.

My comparison here is that in WoW, you can do everything - Even MSQ together. It all syncs, and you both gain experience and rewards no matter what level you're at.

"Sorry, can't - I'm doing MSQ right now"

Seems like we have different definitions of 'making your own fun' then. Raiding and such is more like another 'attraction' to me. Holding a glam pageant (which we did) or RPing would fall under making my own fun, not using the PF for battle content. I see your point, and I partially agree. What I don't agree with is that the MSQ is this unbearable, suffocating thing. When I'm in the mood for story time, I do it. When I'm not I'm not. And I very much enjoy what's on offer. I agree with the 'Sorry, I'm doing MSQ', though. That does happen often.

[R041]

Seems like we have different definitions of 'making your own fun' then. Raiding and such is more like another 'attraction' to me. Holding a glam pageant (which we did) or RPing would fall under making my own fun, not using the PF for battle content. I see your point, and I partially agree. What I don't agree with is that the MSQ is this unbearable, suffocating thing. When I'm in the mood for story time, I do it. When I'm not I'm not. And I very much enjoy what's on offer. I agree with the 'Sorry, I'm doing MSQ', though. That does happen often.

I think we mostly agree - What sucks is that most players won't immediately get the full FC RP experience that you're getting. So the MSQ is mostly what they get, and at that point it definitely can feel suffocating when they can't do much of the other full MMO content until they unlock it way down the road. I just want the game itself to provide easier methods of coop that don't require FCs to pad for you.

The coop isn't as natural, and sometimes it can feel very isolating unless you join a really active FC.

[SannaR]

Dislike him or don't, but MrHappy did do a post quest trim run of ARR and got about a little over 47hrs for all of just ARR MSQ so yeah your 400 is a huge exaggeration. Also you seem to ignore or highly dislike that you have to use NG+ in order to gain more of that co-op you want.

I think you're playing the wrong FF MMO if you truly want what you say you want. In the way you want it. I normally wouldn't suggest XI but it allows you to choose whatever story you want and forces you to party up with people as most of the early trusts you can get have fairly dumb AI. Course I haven't touched it in years, but I'm still fairly certain that just because you can unlock the various expansions at lv 30 doesn't mean anything outside of Chains of Promothia won't have things that will eat you you for breakfast. As most of the other expansions will have monsters that are meant for lv 60 characters at least.

[R041]

Dislike him or don't, but MrHappy did do a post quest trim run of ARR and got about a little over 47hrs for all of just ARR MSQ so yeah your 400 is a huge exaggeration. Also you seem to ignore or highly dislike that you have to use NG+ in order to gain more of that co-op you want.

I've talked about this over and over, so please feel free to run through my post history. NG+ doesn't provide more than basically a mutually shared single-player experience. Not an actual coop experience. It's akin to watching a movie of text dialog together with brief intermissions of actual coop.

And like I said, we can say 300 hours, it doesn't make it any better, because by next expansion it's just going to increase our new player time separation anyway. So in 2 expansions it'll be a strict 400 and they'll continue to strip abilities away from lower levels? Does that make it good? Are we all going to start celebrating once we hit the 1,000 hour MSQ mark and we're still running around with Alphinaud?

Something's gotta give eventually. Level crunch, MSQ split, something. We can't keep growing linearly like this.

Also nah, I ain't leaving. Lost cost fallacy and all that, even have the 1.0 Collector's Edition and have stayed subbed since. So I'm 'fraid you're stuck with me. lol

[SannaR]

More like 188hrs so a little over half that 300hrs for all four if we're going to assume each expansion + .1-.5 are roughly the same amount of time. That 47hrs was also with long dps que times. Which a solo new player wouldn't have to suffer since I don't think ARR had duty support back during 5.3 which is when he went and did it. And yet you still ignore the times you and the other person (people) can spend time outside of the dungeons as there's plenty of times throughout the MSQ where you end up having to kill open world mobs.

Or the fact that you insist that said person (people) won't ever want to stop and smell the roses along the way as Coils, Alexander, Mach, Ivalice, Omega, Eden, Nier or the extreme trials won't be intriguing enough. Or that they somehow don't count as something to do on their journey to reach current end game. You are fully capable of going through the MSQ via NG+ on a different job. You'd have the armory bonus for it.

So yes the quests themselves wouldn't be giving you any xp, but it wouldn't stop you from getting any from the dungeons. And if you have side quests you could go and run those. Heck you don't even acknowledge PotD as something you could do along the way. There is plenty of things you can do with others while they're going through all of the expansions. Even HoH once they get high enough. But no let's just be so fixated on the MSQ only and discount anything and everything that's not current "endgame" as somehow not content you can do with a new person.

[R041]

More like 188hrs so a little over half that 300hrs for all four if we're going to assume each expansion + .1-.5 are roughly the same amount of time. That 47hrs was also with long dps que times. Which a solo new player wouldn't have to suffer since I don't think ARR had duty support back during 5.3 which is when he went and did it. And yet you still ignore the times you and the other person (people) can spend time outside of the dungeons as there's plenty of times throughout the MSQ where you end up having to kill open world mobs.

Or the fact that you insist that said person (people) won't ever want to stop and smell the roses along the way as Coils, Alexander, Mach, Ivalice, Omega, Eden, Nier or the extreme trials won't be intriguing enough. Or that they somehow don't count as something to do on their journey to reach current end game. You are fully capable of going through the MSQ via NG+ on a different job. You'd have the armory bonus for it.

So yes the quests themselves wouldn't be giving you any xp, but it wouldn't stop you from getting any from the dungeons. And if you have side quests you could go and run those. Heck you don't even acknowledge PotD as something you could do along the way. There is plenty of things you can do with others while they're going through all of the expansions. Even HoH once they get high enough. But no let's just be so fixated on the MSQ only and discount anything and everything that's not current "endgame" as somehow not content you can do with a new person.

We're 12 pages in, I've acknowledged everything you're talking about. I'm sorry I'm not repeating it for every single person asking the intricacies of each talking point. I even wrote a large Wishlist that you didn't acknowledge. lol

You're ultimately talking about a break between each major MSQ, which going by your estimate is roughly every 40 hours because coop content cycles are Post-MSQ.

So we're looking at the coop opportunities being.. Once every 3 hours for a 15 minute dungeon. Then after the batch of 3 hour coop content drips, you get to the Post-MSQ to do an outdated raid series with rough unfinished class kit, because they've gotten worse and classes only feel comfortable roughly after 70?

All lower level content have also been gutted due to the ability squish, so POTD (6 years old now) feels pretty bad these days.

My comparison with other MMOs, that people want to disagree with, is that we're not given good enough opportunities to coop immediately. It's just not a good experience, it lacks quality AND quantity, and we've slowly left the old content to rot.

It's fine that you disagree with me, but I don't think "Yeah but you can coop once every 3 hours. Oh and also you can do this one thing nobody does after 40." is a good excuse for the lack of coop opportunities. Most of these issues really sit within the first 100 hours though, but those hours are absolutely critical in retaining players. We're in a New Player thread after-all.

[SannaR]

I don't have anything more to say about your list that others who also have disagreed with you have already said. People got toxic in PvP chat so much that the devs just nipped it in the bud. Almost no ine ever does any guildheist after the lv15 ones. Many can't do the kill them all at the same time Voidsent one without it dragging on much longer than necessary due to not paying attention or caring about reading party chat. Then the level 40 ones tend to take awhile to pop and because of power creep are no where near the challenge they used to be. Yet you for some reason want more of them. Along with battle levels that the devs stated as one of the reasons why they stopped with them is that they weren't popular.

Do you really want more escort missions? Or the stand at X spot and see if something pops. I bring up the various things one can do during each expansion as a form of co-op because you behave as though you somehow can't do them or aren't allowed to do them until you reach the current patch. Which is ridiculous. That and since this is more of a free trial thread wouldn't you want those who are in it to do all that said free trial offers? Which would mean doing all of Coils synced or not, poney and bird mount farming. The Machi and Alexander raids. I'm not including Crystal Tower as that's mandatory.

Depending on the job I'd say 54 is the cut off for fun. Even though PotD isn't my cup of tea it still can prove a challenge especially if you're trying to reach floor 200. With a party or solo. It would be nice if disconnects didn't count as a death though. Heck I didn't even mention the Gold Saucer and the myriad of things you can do once you have there. Or treasure maps. Sure you don't get any of the exciting ones with portals until you reach Heavensward.

A different reason why people quit this game while trying to reach the current patch is because they feel like they have to rush to said current patch. So many burn out before reaching there. Not realizing all of the activities and other things they could have participated in if they had known or been felt to be able to go do such things on their way. Go look at videos of people who joined the game and are doing Dun Scaith and still can't believe that and everything else one can do within the free trial. I remember when you only could get to lv30/35 and had a month until you had to either quit or buy the game. Now you can go at your own pace and do so much more. Do some of the restrictions suck? Yes. Yet they're so dang minor compared to how it could be and you can get around a lot of them if you just ask someone to help you out. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs haven't been weighing the pros n cons of bumping up the free trial up to 4.58 at some point.

Reaching current patch shouldn't be the only thing a new player has to look forward to. It should be everything that they can do along the way if they ever need or want a break from the MSQ. The devs are constantly trying to make the early game a better experience for new players.

[R041]

Almost no ine ever does any guildheist after the lv15 ones. Many can't do the kill them all at the same time Voidsent one without it dragging on much longer than necessary due to not paying attention or caring about reading party chat. Then the level 40 ones tend to take awhile to pop and because of power creep are no where near the challenge they used to be. Yet you for some reason want more of them. Along with battle levels that the devs stated as one of the reasons why they stopped with them is that they weren't popular.

Do you really want more escort missions? Or the stand at X spot and see if something pops. I bring up the various things one can do during each expansion as a form of co-op because you behave as though you somehow can't do them or aren't allowed to do them until you reach the current patch. Which is ridiculous. That and since this is more of a free trial thread wouldn't you want those who are in it to do all that said free trial offers? Which would mean doing all of Coils synced or not, poney and bird mount farming. The Machi and Alexander raids. I'm not including Crystal Tower as that's mandatory.

These tell us, and new players that we're just not competent in these systems - The answer from SE has always been to neuter, or chop systems entirely instead of make them better or on par with the current state of the game and age. It's from our own complacency that we haven't realized that everything before us has been forgotten and we're left with a shell of an experience. You really don't have to think very hard to make this a better experience. Here's a small nugget that could help - Give everyone Lv1-90 access to Wondrous Tails, and move Khloe to the new player cities, that could break the monotony for new players. Add some FATEs to the Wondrous Tails list as well, or make a separate one for FATEs altogether.

Play some other games if you honestly think the best thing MMORPGs have to offer is a purple glowy monster spawn, or to travel back and forth and read dialog.

I never said end-game is required to do anything fun, but the bar is set pretty low and we can't even reach it for the things we can do with players within the 1-60 range. Which by everyone's estimate is a 100 hour dialog grind. People don't burn out before they get to Endwalker, they burn out before they even get to Heavensward WITH the quest crunch.

Your answers aren't discussion, or curiosity - They're excuses. Because it's always been excuses for what we have. At the pace we're going, FFXIV is going to be considered an antiquated MMO by next expac.

[EaMett]

My 2 cents is that I agree with OP. I think a lot more can be done. Even as a paying mentor, I find it excruciatingly hard to help free-trial players in a consistent way. You have to jump through a bunch of hoops with friendslists and potentially linkshells. Really is not a good experience for anyone involved. A few tweaks right and left would make this so much better without enabling RMTs. N