New player(s) thoughts

[SassyAssassin]

It's not really an RPGMMO. It's just that it's an actual MMORPG instead of just an MMO.

Exactly, the rpg part is very important here, if ffxiv had no story Id probably not even bother playing, as I said different play-styles for different people, we don’t need to turn everything into pleasing the whole world nor is that possible. There are many options out there, if something doesn’t make us happy we move on towards what does.

[Espon]

To be fair Ive tried the trial before when I was waiting on my account recovery and its definitely heavy enough to turn away new players.
The idea is to play with friends and you cant even send tells or pt invites.
Kills RMT sure, but also bad experience with the trial

It's still quite generous though by allowing you to play through ARR and HW, especially since this game requires a subscription to play. Other MMORPGs with subscriptions are far more limited.

Majority of the MMORPGs out there are free but greatly inconvenience you so you'll to pay large sums of money to have a more enjoyable time.

[VictorTheed]

I like the story myself but I will agree with u that free trial players should be able to start parties, your reason is a pretty good example of why free trial players should be able to form parties.

[LianaThorne]

It's still quite generous though by allowing you to play through ARR and HW, especially since this game requires a subscription to play. Other MMORPGs with subscriptions are far more limited.

Majority of the MMORPGs out there are free but greatly inconvenience you so you'll to pay large sums of money to have a more enjoyable time.

The amount of content it gives you is fine. It is generous in that aspect.
The fact that it basically forces a single player experience until upgrading isn't fine though. The game is an MMO, you should be able to play with your friends and be in a party with them regardless of having a sub or not. I fail to see any logical reason why preventing that is necessary.

[DiaDeem]

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.

imho: Don't do side quests, unless you wanna know lore of the area, don't bother with them.

[Espon]

The amount of content it gives you is fine. It is generous in that aspect.
The fact that it basically forces a single player experience until upgrading isn't fine though. The game is an MMO, you should be able to play with your friends and be in a party with them regardless of having a sub or not. I fail to see any logical reason why preventing that is necessary.

I can agree with you on that.

[drtasteyummy]

The beginning of ff14 is just bad vibes for new players without friends. You're thrown into the existing of nowhere, where nobody really writes, you don't really understand anything, the quests are 90% reading and 10% doing some stupidly easy task while your rotation is 1,2 with 3 gcds that are all worthless while leveling. There is 20 npcs that have 20 different currencies for 20 different rewards, you open the map, the whole map blinks, try to navigate the map but you don't even know where you are anymore or where your main quest is. Finally get accustom to the first city, it's send you to two others so you get more lost. Try to find a guild it refers you like 1999 to a website.

[Jeeqbit]

The beginning of ff14 is just bad vibes for new players without friends. You're thrown into the existing of nowhere, where nobody really writes, you don't really understand anything, the quests are 90% reading and 10% doing some stupidly easy task while your rotation is 1,2 with 3 gcds that are all worthless while leveling. There is 20 npcs that have 20 different currencies for 20 different rewards, you open the map, the whole map blinks, try to navigate the map but you don't even know where you are anymore or where your main quest is. Finally get accustom to the first city, it's send you to two others so you get more lost. Try to find a guild it refers you like 1999 to a website.

The reading part is fine because a lot of people like myself love following the story in a game. It's unfortunate for the many people who don't enjoy story and find it boring, but it is a story-driven game.

It would be good for it all to be voiced and to not put ", you say?" always as if I mumbled something to them, because reading instead of listening can get exhausting, but it's hard to go back on that now when the voice actors changed.

The rotation may be easy but a lot of people actually struggle to press those 2 buttons while avoiding red circles, especially with the default controls (not legacy) and sub-optimal HUD layouts that place important components in different parts of the screen instead of all in one place. It allows them to ease into the game first. To those of us who have played for a long time or are used to similar games it may be easy but it's not for everyone and this is clear to me from watching youtube videos and streams.

The map system is confusing at first. For example, in Ul'dah quests often look like they are at the Pugilists guild but when you zoom in enough it's trying to tell you to go a different route to get to the other half of Ul'dah. But you get used to it and there are other things to draw you in such as the music and the areas.

The 20 different currencies don't really come into it until level 50 onwards and you can just focus on gil at first. The game is strangely reliant on websites for random things as if it's 1999 though, I agree.

[drtasteyummy]

The reading part is fine because a lot of people like myself love following the story in a game. It's unfortunate for the many people who don't enjoy story and find it boring, but it is a story-driven game.

Story driven doesn't mean you have to permanently read dialog all the time it's solely means it sets its focus on delivering it, how, is up to the person. The issue exists because the presentation is bad. You're never allowed to relax but you're also never allowed to really do something. (Exluding the dungeons and trials which I think are very good).

A lot of people forgot over the time HOW MUCH "go from A to" B particularly ARR is. Sure it gets better later - sometimes at least - but that's not where most starters are.


Think about Detroit or Heavy rain presentation and now think about how Final Fantasy does compared to that also if you ever stop skimming through the dialog you'll notice how much garbage the characters say just to extend the gameplay length.

It would be good for it all to be voiced and to not put ", you say?" always as if I mumbled something to them, because reading instead of listening can get exhausting, but it's hard to go back on that now when the voice actors changed.

Would be at least something. Writing some semi good text and call it a day is just so lazy.

The rotation may be easy but a lot of people actually struggle to press those 2 buttons while avoiding red circles, especially with the default controls (not legacy) and sub-optimal HUD layouts that place important components in different parts of the screen instead of all in one place. It allows them to ease into the game first. To those of us who have played for a long time or are used to similar games it may be easy but it's not for everyone and this is clear to me from watching youtube videos and streams.

You make it sound as like in the beginning any skill really kills you like later also we speak about the first 50 level here, that's way too much man people don't need 20 hours to figure out how 2 abilities and run out of the circle works.

The map system is confusing at first. For example, in Ul'dah quests often look like they are at the Pugilists guild but when you zoom in enough it's trying to tell you to go a different route to get to the other half of Ul'dah. But you get used to it and there are other things to draw you in such as the music and the areas.

Saying shit is garbage but you'll get used to it is really not a good design philosophy for any game.

[Jeeqbit]

Saying shit is garbage but you'll get used to it is really not a good design philosophy for any game.

Oh, it's not, but my point is that yes, the map system should be better. The reason they didn't change it though is because once you get used to it, it becomes a minor issue and developers focus on major issues. One thing I've always noticed is all of the biggest issues I have in this game are minor issues.