This game is inexcusably bad for new or returning players

[Lusarae]

Came back to the game after taking most of endwalker off (because, you know, after 6.0 it was awful) and holy crap I can't believe how bad it is to level one of the new jobs.

It's taken them a decade to utterly perfect the art of driving away new and returning players who would otherwise be excited to hop in and try the new jobs. Your options for leveling a Viper/Picto apparently are:

- Fail every single critical engagement in bozja because everyone is new or forgot how to do them
- Get silver or bronze in most fates in bozja because the zerg moves impossibly fast
- Do endless fates in EW zones or side quests (if you have any left) that don't move your xp bar at all
- Wait 45m to 1h in queue for DPS
- Find an FC you can use and abuse to mooch green or blue queues
- Quit the game (this is me btw)

I've spent about 10 hours of gametime struggling to level my viper to 84 and I just can't do it anymore and I don't know how anyone puts up with this literal abuse from the devs at this point. I actually kept my sub going to keep my FC and player house and I guess I should thank the devs for giving me the nudge I needed to take their fangs off and get mad enough to give up my houses after years of paying to not even play the game to keep them.

FFXIV players love to talk about how awful WoW and other MMOs are but holy shit the returning and onboarding experience in WoW looks like pure joy in comparison to this. Absolute dogwater.

I hope a Square employee reads this and feels literal shame, because this experience is shameful when there are so many other great games out there doing this so much better.

That sucks. The queue issue was solved by just having a friend queue as a healer with me.

[Chyro]

Every single shill reply here of "why didn't you do [insert thing I didn't know existed/forgot exists here] 4head" is exactly the problem. This game assumes you have encyclopedic knowledge of the systems in the game and half the shit mentioned here I had no idea about and I've played this game off and on for years. If you are or returning after a long break and doing everything you know to do doesn't work, something is fundamentally broken with the experience.

If you like the game, good. If you are so immersed this all seems trivial to you, good. But it is a bad bad bad experience if you are new or returning. Objectively.

Returning players get the returner status and get to join the novice network, where they can freely ask questions and get helped by other players with stuff they forgot or haven't picked up yet. You posted a forum topic and got plenty of replies that pointed out options you could do that you didn't think of. Yet still you insist on blaming the game when the community and novice chat in particular are systems in place to help and support new and returning players. So idk what you actually want. Do you want to be helped, or do you just want to complain about the game for doing the things you say it isn't doing?

[Darkrai4014]

To conclude my rant (now that I've slept and am in fact still mad), why is leveling a non-stop chain of doing repetitive tasks? For example, if i could NG+ old expansions for experience, that would be a FAR better and more immersive experience than just spamming fates/roulettes/bozja-style content/etc. Every single thing the people in this thread have mentioned is brain dead repetitive content. Why can't i just play through MSQ storylines or quests for a more engaging and varied leveling experience? Square's approach of "just do this same shit over and over again" is lazy and it feels bad when you want to hop into the new stuff and feel good.

I find it interesting you praised WoW's levelling and you call this repetitive content when my WoW levelling experience (BFA) was much more repetitive lol. Do quests over and over and skip dialogue till you see ding.

[EXOMAGE]

Completely disagree with like everything you said. It’s so easy to level. You don’t want to do Bozja do dungeons with NPC’s as a DPS then. Problem I see with every mmo nobody wants to level anymore they think they should just be at end game instantly sorry that’s not how it works. Also my queue times as a DPS haven’t been bad at all.

[AddictedToWitches]

Came back to the game after taking most of endwalker off (because, you know, after 6.0 it was awful) and holy crap I can't believe how bad it is to level one of the new jobs.

It's taken them a decade to utterly perfect the art of driving away new and returning players who would otherwise be excited to hop in and try the new jobs. Your options for leveling a Viper/Picto apparently are:

- Fail every single critical engagement in bozja because everyone is new or forgot how to do them
- Get silver or bronze in most fates in bozja because the zerg moves impossibly fast
- Do endless fates in EW zones or side quests (if you have any left) that don't move your xp bar at all
- Wait 45m to 1h in queue for DPS
- Find an FC you can use and abuse to mooch green or blue queues
- Quit the game (this is me btw)

I've spent about 10 hours of gametime struggling to level my viper to 84 and I just can't do it anymore and I don't know how anyone puts up with this literal abuse from the devs at this point. I actually kept my sub going to keep my FC and player house and I guess I should thank the devs for giving me the nudge I needed to take their fangs off and get mad enough to give up my houses after years of paying to not even play the game to keep them.

FFXIV players love to talk about how awful WoW and other MMOs are but holy shit the returning and onboarding experience in WoW looks like pure joy in comparison to this. Absolute dogwater.

I hope a Square employee reads this and feels literal shame, because this experience is shameful when there are so many other great games out there doing this so much better.

skill issue
roulettes and dungeons got my viper from 80-90 so fast.
Word of advice, while waiting in queue have you tried doing other things?
Oh wait, you're one of those who thinks after 6.0 the story went to shit
bait thread, move along everyone, here's your honorary reply

[Vahlnir]

Completely disagree with like everything you said. It’s so easy to level. You don’t want to do Bozja do dungeons with NPC’s as a DPS then. Problem I see with every mmo nobody wants to level anymore they think they should just be at end game instantly sorry that’s not how it works. Also my queue times as a DPS haven’t been bad at all.

The downside to NPC dungeons is that they take longer to run, but it's faster than waiting for a queue at the moment. Trial, Alliance and Normal Raid roulette wait times aren't bad for dps though.

[Striker44]

Completely disagree with like everything you said. It’s so easy to level. You don’t want to do Bozja do dungeons with NPC’s as a DPS then. Problem I see with every mmo nobody wants to level anymore they think they should just be at end game instantly sorry that’s not how it works. Also my queue times as a DPS haven’t been bad at all.

I call this the "WoW effect"...MMO's used to be about the journey (even WoW itself), and many still are. But ever since WoW went all-in on the e-sports thing and M+, they turned the "journey" into just an excuse to get you to max level. We're seeing that bleed into people's minds in other games now, too, where there's no desire to appreciate the journey and the only intention is getting to max level. No surprise it doesn't mesh well with a game like FFXIV that is in fact still very much about the journey and intends for you to take your time getting to end-game.