Why is the game Accessable but not Accessable?

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah, they do. I'm mostly talking about where they are location-wise. For example, in 5.X you don't have much incentive to return to Kugane. And if you didn't know, you'd miss Hail to the Queen to unlock Bozja. And it's given to you by a different NPC in Kugane, unrelated to Return to Ivalice, so that can easily be overlooked even if the quest is reddened out to say "You need to finish SHB to unlock this".

I think my only issue with that is that I believe that quest wasnt given the blue icon despite it being special content? Another one comes to mind is the Moogle Tribe unlock relegated to a huge minor quest chain and then given another minor quest icon over near Fortemps Manor in Ishgard. Yeah those I feel are very confusing and misleading to content unlock, which is why I keep saying the word "MOST" in my argument.

[Midareyukki]

I think my only issue with that is that I believe that quest wasnt given the blue icon despite it being special content? Another one comes to mind is the Moogle Tribe unlock relegated to a huge minor quest chain and then given another minor quest icon over near Fortemps Manor in Ishgard. Yeah those I feel are very confusing and misleading to content unlock, which is why I keep saying the word "MOST" in my argument.

And that's fine I do know it's what you mean and I agree.

Square needs to make those a bit more visible.

Otherwise the game isn't completely unintuitive. I didn't combust spontaneously as a sprout and neither has most sprouts I've seen. Most are surprised by the sheer amount of content they need to unlock. But otherwise they deal with it just fine. That information just needs to be a bit more visible and\or compiled so people know where to go without needing to google.

[Deveryn]

And that's fine I do know it's what you mean and I agree.

Square needs to make those a bit more visible.

Otherwise the game isn't completely unintuitive. I didn't combust spontaneously as a sprout and neither has most sprouts I've seen. Most are surprised by the sheer amount of content they need to unlock. But otherwise they deal with it just fine. That information just needs to be a bit more visible and\or compiled so people know where to go without needing to google.

Any further compilation feels unnecessary and potentially cumbersome, when you actually have sites that do a good job cataloging everything, like gamerescape and consolegameswiki. It's not unusual and I don't understand the aversion towards looking elsewhere to find more info.

[Midareyukki]

Any further compilation feels unnecessary and potentially cumbersome, when you actually have sites that do a good job cataloging everything, like gamerescape and consolegameswiki. It's not unusual and I don't understand the aversion towards looking elsewhere to find more info.

Because... :I Last time I told people "Google exists", people got offended and went on a rant about how they shouldn't have to rely on outsider information and that it should count as a third party tool.

So right now I'm just like "I personally use Google because accessing information is really not that hard nor that deep, but I'm not crazy enough to think I'm always right, so for those of you who want the extra mile, here, have a menu."

If anything I just want information to at least be a liiiiiiittle bit more straightforward. Because of the whole Bozja example I gave and the Moogle Tribe quests Atelier gave. But ultimately... yeah, google's a thing, it's free, just... use it? ^^;

I kept googling everything in my experience as a sprout, and I still did as a mentor to validate what I was saying. But I don't want to hear people act like I'm gigabraining or expecting sprouts to behave a certain way or trash talking peoples' playstyles, so... yeah.

[ThaCa]

People forget that one of the biggest filters this game has for new players is registering an account.

Their system is so archaic and bad that I've had friends straightup throw their hands up and going back to other games.

[Deveryn]

Because... :I Last time I told people "Google exists", people got offended and went on a rant about how they shouldn't have to rely on outsider information and that it should count as a third party tool.

So right now I'm just like "I personally use Google because accessing information is really not that hard nor that deep, but I'm not crazy enough to think I'm always right, so for those of you who want the extra mile, here, have a menu."

If anything I just want information to at least be a liiiiiiittle bit more straightforward. Because of the whole Bozja example I gave and the Moogle Tribe quests Atelier gave. But ultimately... yeah, google's a thing, it's free, just... use it? ^^;

I kept googling everything in my experience as a sprout, and I still did as a mentor to validate what I was saying. But I don't want to hear people act like I'm gigabraining or expecting sprouts to behave a certain way or trash talking peoples' playstyles, so... yeah.

To those people, I would say "too bad" "Welcome to video games. You get basic instructions and go off to explore. Anything further, you find a guide."

[Lunaxia]

You forget the pacing...

Players don't have any awareness of patches or pacing during the MSQ once a particular expansion is done, and typically they'll either wait until the end of the MSQ in its entirety (the most common) to bother with side content due to wanting to be adequately geared and on par with other players, or at most until the end of that expansion's story (less common), which by then there can still literally be an ocean of the things to go through to find extra content regardless. Given the importance of the fights to gearing up and the whole pathway into higher end duties being a little obscured to the uninitiated overall, I'm really struggling to see what's so interfering or insulting about a little heads up at the end of a quest: "hey, you can challenge extra content relating to this quest in exchange for higher rewards!" etc. The only way I'd see it as possibly shoving it in your face is if it forced you into a questline to unlock it.

I mean.

I didn't fixate on anything; there's more than a little projection going on here. I made a comment, and answered both of your responses to what I said in my post equally, and from "there's a bias/ reluctance to include help for new players" you decided to spin it into some hyperbolic pearl-clutching to denigrate what I'm saying without offering much in the way of a valid argument. I've been dealing with the topic the entire time, I really don't know what your problem is.

Plainly I've hit some sort of nerve for you to get this defensive, so I'll leave the discussion here.

[Midareyukki]

I didn't fixate on anything; there's more than a little projection going on here. I made a comment, and answered both of your responses to what I said in my post equally, and from "there's a bias/ reluctance to include help for new players" you decided to spin it into some hyperbolic pearl-clutching to denigrate what I'm saying without offering much in the way of a valid argument. I've been dealing with the topic the entire time, I really don't know what your problem is.

Plainly I've hit some sort of nerve for you to get this defensive, so I'll leave the discussion here.

I told you what the problem was, you fixating on how I write.

I also told you what the problem is: You coming here and your only comment is blaming the forums.

Hyperbolic pearl-clutching to denigrate you? Do you honestly think I keep you in my thoughts or whatever? That you live rent-free in my head?

Girl, the one thing I told you was "No, we do care about things, it's just not clear-cut". You're the only one unwilling to accept that. Instead, you're the one resorting to calling stuff out instead of doing some self-reflection.

My problem with you? Gee, I wonder. Is it your attitude?

1 - Calling out the way the person writes.

I feel like you're offering up arguments and then just answering yourself, when we basically seem to agree on the main point.

Which I then responded to.

2 - Getting upset that the person is upset at you calling out the way the person writes instead of acknowledging the issue with what you said and what the person was explaining to you

I don't understand the need for the borderline hostile tone, either.

Which, fun fact, I wasn't even being hostile, I was just telling you things. You're the one who went nuts.

3 - Me telling you the problem and how you're basically dismissing it, and then you come and say neurotic things such as

hyperbolic pearl-clutching to denigrate what I'm saying

No. I didn't denigrate anything. You were the one who specifically said

I'm not really sure why the forums have such a bizarre bias against newer players receiving some help or guidance, really.

And I told you "We don't".

You were the one who went nuts because I apparently answered myself and said nothing of worth.

Especially since, as you said, "we agreed".

If we agreed, then why be so upset that I'm answering myself? I answer myself bc I've seen how this garbage place tends to treat me when I don't mention XYZ nuance. I do it to cover myself. But hey, if that doesn't work either, whatever, y'all can take it however you want.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Players don't have any awareness of patches or pacing during the MSQ once a particular expansion is done, and typically they'll either wait until the end of the MSQ in its entirety (the most common) to bother with side content due to wanting to be adequately geared and on par with other players, or at most until the end of that expansion's story (less common), which by then there can still literally be an ocean of the things to go through to find extra content regardless. Given the importance of the fights to gearing up and the whole pathway into higher end duties being a little obscured to the uninitiated overall, I'm really struggling to see what's so interfering or insulting about a little heads up at the end of a quest: "hey, you can challenge extra content relating to this quest in exchange for higher rewards!" etc. The only way I'd see it as possibly shoving it in your face is if it forced you into a questline to unlock it.

Again, I'm speaking from experience as a sprout going through the game on my own sweet time.

1. Dont necessarily need to follow the patch notes; the major raids and trials are easily findable after you completed the expansion's main story as blue quests are relegated within city hubs in that expansion. Obviously not everything but most players care about raiding content and the starter quests are usually placed within those hubs. And if we're talking about them potentially missing it, they wont as during the post expansion stories they'll be revisiting these old areas where they'll easily see those blue quests.

2. Gearing isnt hard, especially when players start doing roulettes daily as they can use the tomestones to buy that expansion's endgame gear if they dont want to spend gil on the marketboard. We're talking about sprouts progressing in their power through msq, they are easily capable of doing this as I have, as someone who never fully played an MMO before FFXIV.

3. You're really overselling this "ocean of content" that FFXIV has if we're talking about a sprout going through the game normally. Not everything is thrown at your face immediately. I'll admit the most this happens is really during ARR where you'll find many blue quests due to them introducing you the basics (mostly unlocking the usual features such as mounts,tribals,optional dungeons etc) but after you get into HW the blue quests eases up and most of the heavy stuff is available after you completed the expansion's main story, which is a nice setup for players to take a break from the main story and pursue those easy to find blue quests.

[RobynDaBank]

It definitely varies from sprout to sprout what content they spot and what they miss. I had my sprout experience not too long ago, and I gleaned more knowledge of the stuff in the game from FFXIV friend circles than Google (which I used for tracking MSQ progress at most). Blue quests were easiest to spot when they started appearing in central MSQ hubs - Stormblood did this best, while ARR/HW spread a bit into Mor Dhona, which was somewhat predictable because you see in ARR that the Wandering Minstrel gives you EX versions of Trials. I think the only trouble I had was unlocking Bozja. Something that came a distant second was finding all the cap-level dungeons I can unlock for Expert roulette, but that as well got streamlined in Stormblood/Shadowbringers.

It's fair to design informational parts of the game around the people slowest to notice, but it's better to create a predictable pattern instead of overwhelming them with menus, notices and such. They are sprouts yeah, but for every one saying it's difficult to find something, there's ten either Googling, using help channels in Discord servers, asking on forums or even just taking a second to teleport around.