The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

[Volgia]

I know people who started this game last year and they're not even into Shadowbringers. One of the strongest parts of this game is that it's kept most of it's old content relevant, so I don't know if I can agree with this take, the game kind of fails you once you're caught up with everything.

EDIT: My top five

Once you're caught up with the MSQ, the leveling experience is pretty terrible.
Gearing your characters for end-game content doesn't feel very good.
The game won't teach you how to play properly, making getting into extreme and savages feel hostile.
If you were looking to get into end-game hard content be prepared to ask yourself why you're starting on M9S and not on M1S, their hardcore content goes to the bucket too fast.
You end up wondering why is there nothing 'new' to do for months at a time.

There are tons of things new players can do because they're also kind of hidden from view. None of my friends who are currently progressing through the MSQ know what Eureka or Bozja even is.

[DPZ2]

The game won't teach you how to play properly, making getting into extreme and savages feel hostile.

I've read this sentiment for many years. I am puzzled, however, when it is applied to MMORPG genre games.

Which MMORPG genre games actually "teach you how to play properly"? It wasn't ESO. It wasn't WoW. It wasn't Rift. It wasn't Wildstar. It wasn't Everquest. It wasn't Runescape, or Albion, or ...

Please, someone, provide the names of MMORPG genre games that teach "how to raid" with any level of detail.

Thanks.

[Kohashi]

I've read this sentiment for many years. I am puzzled, however, when it is applied to MMORPG genre games.

Which MMORPG genre games actually "teach you how to play properly"? It wasn't ESO. It wasn't WoW. It wasn't Rift. It wasn't Wildstar. It wasn't Everquest. It wasn't Runescape, or Albion, or ...

Please, someone, provide the names of MMORPG genre games that teach "how to raid" with any level of detail.

Thanks.

TERA and Blade and Soul provided instances where you could practice not only your rotation but also practice specific mechanics of a particular boss.

Blade and Soul: Hongmoon Training room where you had training for your class (beginner, intermediate, advanced) + all Heroic + raid fights
TERA: Training Grounds

However, both Tera and BnS were extremely fast-paced and unforgiving in terms of mistakes, especially BnS, which, to make matters even worse, did not have the Holy Trinity either. If you failed to position yourself and failed to iframe.. GG no RE.

[Volgia]

I've read this sentiment for many years. I am puzzled, however, when it is applied to MMORPG genre games.

Which MMORPG genre games actually "teach you how to play properly"? It wasn't ESO. It wasn't WoW. It wasn't Rift. It wasn't Wildstar. It wasn't Everquest. It wasn't Runescape, or Albion, or ...

Please, someone, provide the names of MMORPG genre games that teach "how to raid" with any level of detail.

Thanks.

I played WoW and GW2. The difficulty curve between dungeons > Heroic dungeons > raids wasn't as steep as FFXIV. In FFXIV I didn't know I was doing sub-par damage, it was not until a raider friend put me through a DPS meter (which is again against ToS) that I realized I wasn't playing right. I had no idea about Sky, Stone and Sea either, this is when I was brand new mind you.

The divide between when I played the game normally to when I was raiding felt like I was playing a whole different game. Rotations? Buff alignment? Potions? OGCD management? Healer DPS? (and back then there was Cleric stance).

If you go to Sky, Stone and Sea without knowing your rotation you will not kill the dummy. But nothing exactly tells you what you are doing wrong, and there are no in-game tools you can use to improve your gameplay.

[Mawlzy]

I played WoW and GW2. The difficulty curve between dungeons > Heroic dungeons > raids wasn't as steep as FFXIV. In FFXIV I didn't know I was doing sub-par damage, it was not until a raider friend put me through a DPS meter (which is again against ToS) that I realized I wasn't playing right. I had no idea about Sky, Stone and Sea either, this is when I was brand new mind you.

The divide between when I played the game normally to when I was raiding felt like I was playing a whole different game. Rotations? Buff alignment? Potions? OGCD management? Healer DPS? (and back then there was Cleric stance).

If you go to Sky, Stone and Sea without knowing your rotation you will not kill the dummy. But nothing exactly tells you what you are doing wrong, and there are no in-game tools you can use to improve your gameplay.

This is a very perceptive comment. I'd even suggest that when those who play the game normally stumble into discussions about buff alignment and oGCD management, they don't recognize the game being described as the one they are playing.

Part of the interplayer friction we see is that those who have discovered this aspect of the game feel those that continue to play the game normally should learn these concepts and habits.

But why? What is so terrible about playing the game normally? It sounds very... normal. At the very least, what this suggests is that there are two legitimate ways of playing the game. The normal one and the raid-centric one.

[Altina_Orion]

I'll admit, I'm confused.

I mean, what exactly drew some people to the game? It blatantly advertises itself as a story-driven experience - hell, this is what anyone curious about the game sees if/when they visit the FFXIV promotional website:


"Live your story". And that story is supposed to be a marathon, not a 100m sprint to endgame!

Its not what drove me or many other ShB players to the game. For me, it was looking for an MMO experience and for many others it was looking for a WoW replacement. The game found success in ShB in part to the story but also in part looking for brighter shores.

You have to realize, the story may bring people into the game, but its very unlikely to keep people subscribed. Once you catch up, its a few hours of content every few months and sometimes its a major miss. What they expect you to do in-between the MSQ matters.

[Kohashi]

Today i was talking to my sister again, and asked her when she might continue to play the game.

fazit: The game fails new players as an MMO, but also kinda fails as a good single player experience because of its excessive lenght and boring gameplay elements during the MSQ part.

While the story itself has some merits, the way MSQ is structured is absolutely stupidly boring and mind-numbing. I do agree that you should be able to play with your friends a greater portion of the MSQ, but it also makes sense why those instances are solo, since it's your story.

I remember when I started playing this game, I was so sick and tired of running around and talking to X NPC, at the edge of the map to come back to Y at the other side of the map, to then talk to Z at the completely opposite side to return then where you started. So damn boring and so annoying, made to waste as much time as possible for almost 0 value.

Every single expansion was the same :
1. Chores for NPCs you didn't care about 70%
2. More chores, but the plot was picking up a bit, 20%
3. Things got serious, and the actual plot was relevant 10%

15-20% actual story and 80-85% filler BS. Also, everything was so damn predictable. Probably the only plot twists I saw were the Crystal Braves and the lolorrito thing in ARR, the rest was boring, predictable, and linear stuff.

[Valence]

While the story itself has some merits, the way MSQ is structured is absolutely stupidly boring and mind-numbing. I do agree that you should be able to play with your friends a greater portion of the MSQ, but it also makes sense why those instances are solo, since it's your story.

I remember when I started playing this game, I was so sick and tired of running around and talking to X NPC, at the edge of the map to come back to Y at the other side of the map, to then talk to Z at the completely opposite side to return then where you started. So damn boring and so annoying, made to waste as much time as possible for almost 0 value.

Every single expansion was the same :
1. Chores for NPCs you didn't care about 70%
2. More chores, but the plot was picking up a bit, 20%
3. Things got serious, and the actual plot was relevant 10%

15-20% actual story and 80-85% filler BS. Also, everything was so damn predictable. Probably the only plot twists I saw were the Crystal Braves and the lolorrito thing in ARR, the rest was boring, predictable, and linear stuff.

As someone that has got into the game initially for its world building and who now enjoys the story quite a bit (with all its faults), I do agree with this. The story is insanely verbose and beats around the bush for half the time either through chores or just endless talks with the scions to finally get the point in the last stretch of each section.
Comparing it to any of the games of the same franchise in its classic era, you'll quickly see what's the difference in terms of pacing, and actual substantive and colourful dialogue. The writing in XIV is very good grammatically, but is also extremely dry, speaks like an old book, and cannot actually focus on substance except during story climaxes or the rare good scene exposing strong themes.

[Daralii]

As someone that has got into the game initially for its world building and who now enjoys the story quite a bit (with all its faults), I do agree with this. The story is insanely verbose and beats around the bush for half the time either through chores or just endless talks with the scions to finally get the point in the last stretch of each section.
Comparing it to any of the games of the same franchise in its classic era, you'll quickly see what's the difference in terms of pacing, and actual substantive and colourful dialogue. The writing in XIV is very good grammatically, but is also extremely dry, speaks like an old book, and cannot actually focus on substance except during story climaxes or the rare good scene exposing strong themes.

It's deliberate to a degree, which is why the English dub's casting for HW through ShB focused on English actors with theater backgrounds, but there are always chunks(usually near the beginning and between the X3 trial and X5 dungeon) where you can tell that it's just padded to fill out a dead spot that the formula says must exist, very little happens, and very little is learned. There are sometimes good character moments or bits of foreshadowing and tension in that period, but they've gotten more rare.

[PyurBlue]

I'll admit, I'm confused.

I mean, what exactly drew some people to the game? It blatantly advertises itself as a story-driven experience - hell, this is what anyone curious about the game sees if/when they visit the FFXIV promotional website

That is only one part of the page underneath "Adventure awaits you under the horizon" and above "Adventure is what you make of it", both of which seem to imply more free form gameplay.

Even taken in isolation I wouldn't say that the Live Your Story section implies a story focus above all else, nor does it imply that the story gates all other content.

While the story itself has some merits, the way MSQ is structured is absolutely stupidly boring and mind-numbing. I do agree that you should be able to play with your friends a greater portion of the MSQ, but it also makes sense why those instances are solo, since it's your story.

Even in your solo story and instances, you interact with many other people. The story is also very tightly controlled so I don't see a good reason why other players couldn't be a part of it while being kept out of the spotlight. This is essentially what happens in dungeons.