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

[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.

[Kirutsuki]

I do want to say here that I think the approach to the game is wrong. Just cause you reach the end of the game doesn't man the game suddenly opens up this big multiplayer aspect to it.

No, FF14 is built on the idea that if you want those experiences you have to specifically deviate away from MSQ and unlock the blue quests.
So unlocking things like the Deep Dungeons should already open a bit more of a multiplayer aspect to the game, or later on in Stormblood unlocking field operations and go do those, they're still somewhat active.

I think it's a big mistake to just focus on MSQ.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The story is very long, and it can be tedious at times, but for the most part it is a great story... At least until you reach DT... And the MSQ is very much designed as a single player experience, the only time you're expected to interact with other players is Dungeons and Trials, and all the Dungeons and some trials can now be done with the Duty Support but using it is slower and more tedious than doing them with actual players.

[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.

[MayuAmakura]

While the story offers issue to some as it requires doing msq to reach your friends and it can be tedious. The bigger problem is the endgame of each expansion and realization that every one of them follow the same strict formula and the player soon finds themselves exhausted and quite bored so in most cases they just quit and never return. We aren't even mentioning that older expansions have problems finding people for last trials and those that require 3rd lb to finish so unsync help won't help unless its full party.

Some are gatekeeped for hours until they find one group that will most likely disband after 1-2 wipes.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

I haven't been able to recommend this game in good faith to friends since the Stormblood era. These days, it's simply too much story to expect the average casual player to go through to be able to play the content their friends are playing. And aside from that, although the narrative quality itself is generally quite strong, the presentation is horribly stilted and dated; much of the writing uses gratingly flowery language; the amount of filler is nearly unbearable at times; and because skill acquisition is SO heavily back-loaded, the first couple hundred hours of combat are uninteresting to anyone who's played a faster-paced, tab-target MMO before. The open world is lifeless, reducing the new player experience almost entirely to just walking around alone, watching cutscenes, and clicking through dialog boxes.

They should've made the [edit: non-current] MSQ optional three expansions ago. Meanwhile, in GW2, if you want, you can often get the first two expansions and a max-level boost for $12 total during a sale. Both I and my guildmates have had several friends hop in and come raiding with us on day one, have a blast, and end up getting really into the game. I'm sure people get their friends hooked on FFXIV all the time, to be fair, but it really has to be the right kind of person, at this point.

[Alahard]

I do want to say here that I think the approach to the game is wrong. Just cause you reach the end of the game doesn't man the game suddenly opens up this big multiplayer aspect to it.

No, FF14 is built on the idea that if you want those experiences you have to specifically deviate away from MSQ and unlock the blue quests.
So unlocking things like the Deep Dungeons should already open a bit more of a multiplayer aspect to the game, or later on in Stormblood unlocking field operations and go do those, they're still somewhat active.

I think it's a big mistake to just focus on MSQ.

I think this in part is the biggest problem of the free trial. The fact you can't join FC's easily, which provide a big part of the multiplayer experience. This makes it hard as new trial players kinda get forced into rushing the MSQ if they want to save actual money, giving a skewed perception of the game

[Asari5]

the endgame doesnt have suddenly more multiplayer aspects. sure there are more random people around who want to do the new stuff rather than the old. but the multiplayer content is there.

dungeons, normal raids and extremes are everywhere
multiplayer maps since HW
there is eureka and bozja
potd and hoh


what i've seen often enough is how new people feel they have to reach endgame to do stuff. sure there is a certain hype when it comes to the bew stuff but the old content is still there.

rather than the game the fault lies more often with the so called 'friends' who are like 'play this game and come quickly to the endgame so we can play together its gonna be awesome' but at the same time they are like 'old stuff? nah i already got everything there' (which basically means they like rewards more than playing together)