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

[Raraka]

I had a 7000+ characters response typed but I cant send it (or edit) from phone

The short version is, dont force people to play the story if they dont want to, WoW does this well

Proposed solution: If you are in a party with a friend, the person further in the game can bring their buddy to the duties they dont have unlocked, and add a <Mercenary> tag next to their name. Also, let them teleport with you to areas that are further ahead as well (assuming they have the Expac bought) with some exceptions like the first or out-of Etheris areas. Warframe does this and it works wonders for friends that just want to hang around and play together

The sad reality is that they probably would say that it costs too much to implement, but yeah, letting new players PLAY the game would work wonders for new player retention

[Absurdity]

With how streamlined the levelling process is, there's just absolutely no reason to explore the world outside of doing the story, and obviously that can be done anyway, but it's like... When it's that streamlined, where you actually need to make an effort to not out-level the story, then just gets meaningless and hollow.

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

It's a really common problem in storytelling. The next chapter has to be bigger and better than the last and eventually everything scales to the absurd. There is a similar problem with character traits that become more and more exaggerated over time until they dominate a character's personality and leave them as nothing more than a caricature of an actual person.

True, but the massive jump in stakes is what makes it so jarring in this case.

[Kaurhz]

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

I believe they have made vague references to the fact they didn't like how it broke up engaging with the story.. But don't quote me on that one...

I also remember it very fondly... For the most part ARR was mostly smooth, but between 42-50 you had quite a few level stops... That was sooo nice, because it was around the time of Coerthas and Northern Thanalan, so you'd catch those fate trains, seeing people get trounced by Gorgimera.

It was actually the same in HW and Stormblood but it wasn't as noticeable, since it was mainly between x8-x0 where you'd hit walls with experience.... As for when they changed it, I am pretty sure it was around the time when they did the reallocation of dungeon exp from being trash/boss allocated, to just specifically boss allocated.

[Jeeqbit]

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

Because a lot of people skipped sidequests I'd assume, especially with there being too many for most new players to bother with on top of 5 expansions+ARR+patches.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

Endwalker was the first expansion to do it, although they slightly undercalculated it - easy to solve with a sidequest.

[Ankhira]

Honestly, I think a lot of people jump into FFXIV expecting it to be an MMO first, but it’s really a JRPG with MMO elements, not the other way around. I think the devs have also said that. So yeah, the story is long… but that’s because it’s literally the main attraction.
It’s not designed to rush you into raids or min-maxing builds right out the gate, it’s meant to slowly pull you into a whole world, like any big Final Fantasy title would. The payoff is amazing if you’re in it for the journey, not just the endgame.

That doesn’t mean the game’s perfect for everyone. Some people bounce off the length or pacing and that’s okay. But saying it’s not “new player friendly” because there’s too much story is kind of like saying a novel isn’t beginner friendly because it has too many chapters I think..

[Raikai]

They mentioned it during Endwalker but quickly went back on it saying that they wish the players to experience the entire story.

I personally know somebody who literally gave up on the game (early as DT launch) midway through SB because it was taking way too long to reach endgame as she want to get into raiding with our FC.

She wanted to experience the story of the game instead of just skipping cutscenes when I suggested that, but ultimately felt that it was not for her. I keep wondering how the wish for new players to experience the entire story is not workable in the long run, especially after one or two new expansions post Dawntrail.

[Mawlzy]

I personally know somebody who literally gave up on the game (early as DT launch) midway through SB because it was taking way too long to reach endgame as she want to get into raiding with our FC.

She wanted to experience the story of the game instead of just skipping cutscenes when I suggested that, but ultimately felt that it was not for her. I keep wondering how the wish for new players to experience the entire story is not workable in the long run, especially after one or two new expansions post Dawntrail.

SE may be relying on new player churn to pad the player count. It's a counterbalance to the problem of quitting by those do reach endgame, and find little to do if they don't raid.

[YovelaLindswood]

I had a 7000+ characters response typed but I cant send it (or edit) from phone

The short version is, dont force people to play the story if they dont want to, WoW does this well

Proposed solution: If you are in a party with a friend, the person further in the game can bring their buddy to the duties they dont have unlocked, and add a <Mercenary> tag next to their name. Also, let them teleport with you to areas that are further ahead as well (assuming they have the Expac bought) with some exceptions like the first or out-of Etheris areas. Warframe does this and it works wonders for friends that just want to hang around and play together

The sad reality is that they probably would say that it costs too much to implement, but yeah, letting new players PLAY the game would work wonders for new player retention

Nah the solution is even easier. They have NG+ in the game already. Just let people select the story they want to start at.

[Valence]

Job kit depth and combat content design.


It is subjective, yes, but for the life of me, I can't think of a boss with above-average difficult outside of the first boss of "Luigi's Mansion", and even that can be easily cheesed.

• Reduce boss health by x% from start of mechanic, or mechanic continues applying another vuln stack every few seconds, eventually one-shotting, or to end pursuit phase which would otherwise kill someone.
• Kill adds or they explode, wiping the party.
• Kill add in time to create safety zone/launch pad, or wipe.
• Break barrier in time to stun mob and thereby survive heavy damage.
• Kill thing before it seeks down and kills a random target.
• Kill thing before it apply enough stacks, which explode upon reaching 3 for half your life's worth of damage... as an AoE.
• Can stunlock thing and burst it down to prevent tank receiving 40% more damage taken.
• Mob triples its damage after a cast X seconds into the fight and has untelegraphed cleaves that hit tanks for about 30% of their HP before said buff.
• Or, hell, even just actually threatening full pulls +/- environmental mechanics.

...Have these been purged from memory as well as implementation?


Cumulatively, from original, pre-power-creep XIV across to Shadowbringers? CC. Add gathers. Triggering ICDed environmentals. TTK management around DoTs and TP. Baiting out AoEs and other specials to reduce tank damage intake.


I said the opposite. I don't think job kits were unique in being simplified, I don't think encounters now are more complex than seen earlier, and I certainly don't think the simplifications were done just to support the shifts (simplifications towards DDR alone) in general combat design.

The simplifications to job design and content design are simply iterations of the same desire to smooth things down, not end and means to one another. DDR-fixation didn't cost us job kits. DDR-fixation cost us the bulk of what all we used to have in content design beyond DDR, while present smoothed-down job kits cost us what idiosyncrasies --the fun, the meh, and the fugly-- we had available in prior kit iterations. They didn't need each other to have narrowed down as they did. Interdependence between them only so far as caster mobility and the frequency & duration of discrete 'Move!' mechanics, which have been used as much as they have only because... we've apparently forgot how to design in anything else that could be of interest.

I see where you're coming from and we have indeed lost the examples you gave which in my opinion are characteristic of ARR design for the most part. There was still a couple here and there in HW though, but nothing as harsh as Tam Tara Hard, Sirius, etc. I think they noticed because you can still find some of those mechanics in HW dungeons but they're so watered down in power that they don't really matter and people just bruteforced through them (see for instance the 2nd boss of the Aery and how nobody knew its actual mechanics, and they're super interesting actually... or were, since they changed everything with duty support anyway).

But that's the thing. All of what you listed, I find interesting and never considered it remotely hard. I've never seen people struggling with it like I've seen people struggling with what you say is not above average difficulty. The expansion where I've started to see people struggle and hit walls in dungeons was in ShB. It's been of course ten times worse when DT hit. And the main problem is that the majority of the players do those perfectly fine, leaving the people walled by it completely behind because the gap is night and day. I do remember older dungeons with their battle design, and more people had troubles being optimal or playing well, but I don't remember a lot of actual walls. The difficulty was more organic and a lot less binary and that's why they were infinitely superior to my eyes. You could wipe as a party because a mechanic wasn't done properly (see the most egregious cases like Sirius, etc), which doesn't happen much those days, but i'd argue this was healthier than having that one singular player that keeps face hugging the floor because they're the only one that can't deal with the DDR, and will feel extra bad because of it.

The current model doesn't promote teamplay and interplayer support. The current model that seems to pride itself into thinking it is more welcoming to players by looking mechanically easier, actually pushes people away.

I'll however disagree on that last part, as it is absolutely obvious with a lot of job changes notably the latest BLM patch that they do this specifically to accommodate for increased pacing and DDR.

[Valence]

But now that you mentioned it, the escalation of stakes became a complete mess in XIV. Up until the end of Stormblood the threat was comparatively small scale, maybe a nation in danger, at most a continent.
Then comes Shadowbringers and we suddenly need to save an entire world, even if that world is basically reduced to a few regions.
And in Endwalker we jump from that to saving the entire universe and all of existence.

That's been an actual staple of FF stories so I can't really blame them for that (or many RPGs in general). Does it cause issues in a MMO setting without a clear terminal point to the story? Yes, but that's why I really coped before DT that the next expansion would move to a new planet or world to start something over (while still offering us other quest series back on Etheirys ofc). Obviously too daring, it was not gonna happen, but I liked to entertain the thought nonetheless.

Did they ever actually give an explanation for that?
Because we both know it didn't use to be like that. I still remember needing to do quite a bit of Fate/Leve grinding to get to the next MSQ which actually got me out into the world.

I honestly can't remember when they changed it so that the MSQ gives you more than enough exp on your first job that you never actually need to engage with other content to level.

As someone that meticulously plays through MSQ by doing all the sidequests at the same time for immersion (and I like the world building more than the story writing), I still used to hit some xp walls during progression when expansions released, notably in ShB for example at level 77 -> 78 in Ahm Araeng, but that's not the only spot it happened. I had to level up a little to catch up. They used to dramatically buff msq xp for older expansions, or during the current one near the latest patches because we often had returners or new players reaching the top by just beelining the msq.

They generalized this reward buff for Endwalker, where doing as I do literally brought me to lvl90 on my main job when I was still doing lvl85 quests so I could actually level two jobs instead of one, and not hit a single xp wall, so now they just buff msq xp directly at release essentially.