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

[Absurdity]

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.

If I wanted to be uncharitable I could also call the "Live your story" tagline misleading.
You're not playing "your" story, you're playing the Warrior of Light's story. A pre-defined character whose personality, reactions and decisions you have no control or even influence over.

Now obviously I didn't go into the game expecting that, but the tagline might give someone the wrong idea, when "Live your story" really only pertains to everything you do outside of the actual game story.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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)

[Underscore]

A casual player will take months to get through it before reaching the current content of the game, also unlocking all trials and dungeons takes a really long time.

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Catching up through the backlog of MSQ and content is the best part of this game.

[Mawlzy]

Is this supposed to be a bad thing? Catching up through the backlog of MSQ and content is the best part of this game.

Correct, as others have noted, the game fails to deliver once you catch up, largely due to the lack of content and variety.