New player(s) thoughts

[IDontPetLalas]

Yeah you're not alone in a lot of that. I used to help manage a crossworld linkshell (like a chatroom in game) exclusively dedicated to bringing in new players and helping them feel welcomed. Of all the new people I met, only like... 5 or 6 of them? Actually made it to endgame. And they all tell me to this day that they would've quit if they'd had to do it alone. The vast majority got hard-filtered by the beginning quests in A Realm Reborn (ARR). And like you said, their feedback will never be heard, because trial players can't even register a forum account. Imagine joining an MMO and you can't talk, can't trade, can't even start up a party. What a great experience.

"It's to curb RMT" Ah yes, once again punishing legit players to "curb RMT." First that, now we can't even gift stuff to friends. At the end of the day, how's that curbed RMT going for you, Square? Oh right, the bots are stronger than ever. Almost like botters don't mind just buying a legit account and this doesn't phase them.

Anyway, ARR gets good but it takes a while. Post-ARR (the part after the base realm reborn story but before heavensward) is a notorious slog culminating in a pretty good final chapter that leads into heavensward, which is where the story really picks up. If you can get there, it's hella worth it. But you definitely wouldn't be the first one to give up before that point, and frankly idk what -- if anything -- can be done about it. I'm so tired of trying to get friends into this game and having them quit because of this exact same thing every time.

I wouldn't be so fast to say that SE doesn't get feedback from trial players. For one thing, SE already can tell how many trial players convert to paid subscriptions, it can go beyond that and tell how long it takes to convert, and I'm sure it has more metrics.

This wouldn't be the only game that doesn't allow trial or free players not to post on OF, and while it can be annoying, it's be the cause of abuse in a number of forums, so I can see the logic there.

Where I can see an enhancement for new players, and where SE has already identified a need, is likely a new entry point. I would make that an optional entry point because some people don't mind taking the time to go through the whole story, even if one day we end up at 8.0.

[Avoidy]

I wouldn't be so fast to say that SE doesn't get feedback from trial players. For one thing, SE already can tell how many trial players convert to paid subscriptions, it can go beyond that and tell how long it takes to convert, and I'm sure it has more metrics.

This wouldn't be the only game that doesn't allow trial or free players not to post on OF, and while it can be annoying, it's be the cause of abuse in a number of forums, so I can see the logic there.

Where I can see an enhancement for new players, and where SE has already identified a need, is likely a new entry point. I would make that an optional entry point because some people don't mind taking the time to go through the whole story, even if one day we end up at 8.0.

Hmm, that's fair I suppose. When I talked about feedback, I meant more like... specific, written feedback about things that can't be gleaned from basic metrics. "Here is something that could be done better," sort of feedback. I get that letting free trial accounts post here would open the floodgates for trolls, but at the same time like... look around, lol. We already have hella trolls anyway.
A new entry point would be interesting, although I'm sure it'd get pushback from people who adore the whole story and think others are missing out. But honestly, the whole Zodiark plot is over now, so I'd be interested to see if they made a fresh start at the beginning of 7.0. How they'd reconcile this with levels and such, I have no idea. Genuinely I don't envy whoever would be in charge of making something like this happen in a way that made people happy. I actually don't know how they could make this better. In my ideal world, they'd just edit the story better and cut out so much of the pointless fluff and filler fetch quests, but even then you're still left with this enormous block of walking-simulator questing that's gonna put people off.

I'm certain Square's considered this too, since they've watered the game down in other ways to appeal to a broader audience. They have to be considering a streamlined MSQ process since they've gotta know the ARR filter loses them a lot of potential players. But, who knows. Square is weirdly stubborn in certain areas even when it costs them income, while being super willing to sell out in other spots, so it's hard to gauge whether or not they'll "kill their darling" by cutting out unnecessary msq fluff to welcome loads of new people who would've otherwise quit.

[Striker44]

Imagine joining an MMO and you can't talk, can't trade, can't even start up a party. What a great experience.

If this happened to me when I was actually buying a paid product with a paid subscription, I'd be mad. But if it's while I'm playing a FREE TRIAL? Not in the least. I expect practically nothing out of a free trial except the chance to start getting a feel for something and decide if I might want to try dropping an opening deposit on it. That FFXIV lets you go all the way through 2 full cycles of content (ARR and HW) in a story-based game for free is frankly amazing.

[Carin-Eri]

ARR is a double-edged sword in my opinion. Its something you don't really take for what it is until you have the benefit of hindsight much later in the game.

I mean, slow as it may be, the World-building is necessary in my opinion. I, personally, think it'd be silly if our character was the Warrior of Light from the onset, striding into the starter city with a "here I am to save the day!" attitude, having NPCs marvel at the fact that this hero of heroes graced the city with their august presence. It makes sense that our character is, basically, a nobody at the start of the game and earns recognition as the events of the story unfold. It makes the payoff, as things fall into place, more rewarding.

[R041]

This is false. We do understand that it is a 400 hour minimum visual novel. This is a problem we all acknowledge, but it's not easy to solve because the expansion stories are intertwined and you can't just split them up suddenly.

Until that problem is solved somehow, all we can tell new players is that it's a story-driven game and that if they don't like that then the game might not be for them.

The people that do acknowledge the story being a large gatekeeper still may not have the empathy for the amount of actual effort it takes and how lonely the experience is.

Something that finally upset me was that my gf broke down and said she can never have fun with our FC, or play with us because she's been stuck in MSQ for roughly 2 years now. She's in Shadowbringers but the game has barely taught her how to even play, it's just conditioned her read a visual novel. This is not a good experience.

Yoshi messed up in trying to pull the over-arching story to the end of each MSQ and dragging it on, making this whole thing a massive mess and 2 whole expansions being almost completely filler. Other MMOs have done a decent job of branching their new areas into their own story without requiring everyone know everything about the previous.

I can't sit idly by telling people to just play a subscription MMO for 400 hours by themselves, it's completely unreasonable and it's asking people to sub for roughly 6 months just to stick with the story. And I'm sorry, but getting to know Alphinaud over 400 hours is not worth not getting to play with your actual friends.

We're going to start to lose players to WoW with the changes they've made.

You act like the game doesn't allow you to be more than just an observer. Or if they don't mind you doing other things while they're going through the MSQ then there are things you can do while out in the open world or doesn't take much time if it does need you to que into something. Like GATEs or chocobo racing are quick things to do but do ask you to que up for things either solo or to make sure your party is also there. Do you have all jobs to 90? Does your FC need easy to get materials for their buffs? Go play some Tripple Triad. Sight Seeing log. But to act as there is nothing to do or enjoy with someone who is going through the MSQ isn't 100% the game's fault.

This is the lack of empathy for the new player and coop experience. I don't really care about my own experience, I've played this game to death. I want other players to experience it and do MMO/Open World things, but that's a hard and nearly impossible task. For the new players that are only leveling 1 class, they have 0 reason to do anything else other than crafting/gathering in their spare time. Which only delays the inevitable and expands that MSQ time.

[Leifei]

So, me and some friends decided to start playing this game together after reading good reviews online. But quit after a day of quests, quests, quests, quests. There has got to be a way to streamline these quests to where you can get a good story, but at the same time not grinding endless quests that 99% of people skip the dialog anyway.

Also, the free trial is a joke. it's almost as if SE wants to punish people for playing the free trail and not paying. You can't even invite people to parties. I had to pay a sub just so we could group together. The entire new player experience in this aspect has to be relooked at. (heck if i didn't pay the sub i couldn't even communicate my new player thoughts to SE about this topic on the forums)

Maybe this game just isn't our style of gaming and I'm willing to accept that, just wanted to put in my 2 cents.

Imagine complaining about free content and saying that you're being punished.

[Buki_jo]

I wasn't going to post again in this thread but after reading so many responses I'd like to flush out my thoughts more.

I used to joke about this with my friends, but its true: "You don't play together, you just play at the same time".
If you think that's dumb... well it's because it is.

You can group up for dungeons and roulettes and for other activities once you unlock them. But going through the Main Scenario Quests alone is not optional.
I can totally get if that just doesn't work for your group tbh.

This says it BEST!!! For my group of friends, we spent more time playing at the same time than playing together. To be honest, it was quite grindy to be able to get to a point to where we can group up and do some group content. However, it was short-lived because after the dungeons we were back to grinding the storyline questing and not playing together in an MMORPG. Then we decided to get on the wiki and see how many quests we'd have to do until we could just enjoy the game together, and that list was just too daunting for a game we wanted to play together in our free time to drink beers and kill baddies.

I saw that @R041 said there is a log of the MMO aspect of this game at the end, and it gets better at the end. Sad to hear that having a multiplayer experience is more focused on the endgame and not throughout the game. Then I saw that someone said they actually SOLD story skips. I would think that if you have to sell story skips in your own game, you have a problem.

In my opinion, The story has its place and I can respect it's importance, though it should be completely separate from the main unlocking aspects of the game. Dungeons, most boss areas, even areas hidden behind the storyline unlocks. I think it would be cool to have my own adventure with friends. Walking into a cave we were absolutely not prepared for, getting the ever living crap kicked out of us, and having some laughs about it, instead of the story unlocking it when it thinks we're ready. Maybe the story could bring us back through later.

Reaching endgame on my own terms then figuring out the story of the game when I want to in my free time at my leisure.

But climbing that insurmountable list of quests and story isn't for everyone and like many said it will turn off a lot of people, i.e. me and my friends.

Nothing against who likes it, it's just not my cup of tea.


Final note about the free trial, I can see I ruffled some jimmies when I complained about it. Let me clarify the free trial is amazing for what's included, I just think that in an MMO making groups should be as essential as being able to talk in basic chat. The rest of the restrictions were fine.

Final final note: nice to see how caring the community is about this game, if things change I'll def come back around!

[Catwho]

While some people do skip through, there are just as many of us who replay through the story in its entirety, either on an alt or as a New Game +, because we realize that the writers foreshadowed stuff during the drip feed and we had no idea at the time we initially went through it.

[AnnRam]

If you don't like the story then sorry but that's all this game have to offer.

[caffe_macchiato]

I’d like to illustrate just how dire the situation is with this game’s story.

Refer to this spreadsheet. There are 110 hours of cutscenes in this game. That’s not all dialogue, just cutscenes. No gameplay. If this were a film series, it would be by far the longest film series in history.

And that doesn’t even include the dozens of hours it takes for the rest of the dialogue, or moving from one NPC or the next. The amount of multiplayer gameplay in the MSQ is extraordinarily small compared to text and story. It is, for all intents and purposes, a visual novel with small and isolated gameplay segments. The cutscene-to-gameplay ratio in FFXIV is by far the worst in any Final Fantasy game or RPG ever measured, far exceeding the ratios in games like FF13 and MGS4. And for an MMO!

Fortunately, there are other games out there that are more accommodating to new players. I hope that OP tries those out, and maybe SE will put all this down in book or anime form so we can binge it instead.