FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Shistar]

With how much the amount of overworld gameplay quests having been minimized over the years, there is no real "playing together", doing the story with someone else means waiting for them to finish their cutscene so you can mount up and walk to the next cutscene dispensing NPC together, until a dungeon comes in sight.

Quoting only one of you because I can't be bothered, but it goes for everyone who said it. Honestly, that's a fair opinion if you do nothing except read the MSQ and expect a new experience somehow.
I had a great time going through MSQ multiple times with friends and I think it's lowkey the experienced player's fault for not doing anything besides being a glorified taxi?


Off the top of my head, these are some things my friends and I did, either when I was the sprout or when it was my turn to introduce someone else to the game:

• Theorycraft about things coming up in the MSQ. Sometimes, if they accidentally get spoiled or they get exposed to something that could potentially ruin a plot point later, I would straight up lie to the sprout to throw them off or take their attention somewhere else. Once they experienced that plot point, we would go back and laugh about me scrambling to not ruin the plot twist for them, them being absolutely oblivious to it all or eating my lies up and just discussing our reactions to it.
  Sometimes I would deliberately implant a silly idea/theory on them to see if they bite the bait, and it's incredibly funny when they do. Sometimes they're the ones throwing you a curve ball so insane you have to do your best not to give anything away and see how far their unhinged theories can go.
• If you are even remotely interested in the RP side of things, this can be really fun for both of you.
• Great time to have sprouts be as chaotic as possible. Let them pull everything. Let them get in trouble. You have their back and it'll be a great memory for them to keep or possibly enable more sprouts in the future. It's character development but also teach them good habits and manners because they will eventually have to go out without you and you don't want them to be a menace to society lol
• If it's their first MMO, it's great to have someone to teach you the ropes. XIV was not my first MMO but I still needed lots of help to figure things out. This game is so convoluted and it doesn't tell you many things.
• It's a good time for the experienced player to try out a new job since MSQ is pretty low stakes overall.
• Not everyone had someone to guide them when they first started the game. I think it's up to the mentor to make it as good as possible and how they go about it will absolutely shape the sprout's outlook on the game. If you have a bad attitude towards the game it'll inevitably rub off on the other player and make their experience worse. This is not about your own fun only, as the experienced player you should be especially considerate about your friend's experience.
• Feel free to traumatize/entertain them with old PF/game mech horror stories. We all have at least one and as a sprout I loved hearing them. It gives them something to look forward to and may teach them what to do (or NOT to do) if they find themselves in a similar situation in the future.

In short: In my humble opinion, skill issue lol be a cooler friend.
As their mentor/experienced companion/pocket cryptid you won't have as much fun as them because nothing is new for you anymore and you know exactly what will happen next, but I think making it fun for them is part of our own fun, and their joy is infectious. It's also very up to you, in the end. If you wanna stand there, taxi them around and and be bored to tears until a dungeon or trial pops up, more power to you.

Just because the MSQ doesn't have an explicit multiplayer mode doesn't mean you can't make your own fun.
I'm afraid people have become too dependent on the game holding their hand for everything. I treat this game like a sandbox to find my fun in and I've never been bored so far.