In this video, we dive deep into the early game experience of Final Fantasy XIV and why it desperately needs a revamp in the upcoming Dawntrail expansion. From outdated mechanics to overwhelming content, new players face numerous challenges that can hinder their enjoyment and progression. Join us as we explore potential changes and improvements that could make the early game more accessible and engaging for everyone.
We’ll discuss:
The current state of FFXIV’s early game
Common pitfalls and frustrations for new players
Suggestions for streamlining the early game content
Community feedback and developer insights
What we hope to see in Dawntrail to make FFXIV better than ever
If you’re passionate about FFXIV or are a new player struggling with the early game, this video is for you! Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more FFXIV content and updates.
#FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV #Dawntrail #FFXIVEarlyGame #Gaming #MMORPG #FFXIVCommunity #SquareEnix #FFXIVUpdate #DawntrailExpansion #Gamer #VideoGames #GamingNews
Immerse yourself in a realm of exclusive perks by joining our channel! 🚀 Visit http://youtube.com/@MythSamael/join now to unlock your access! 🌟
🎮 Let’s Connect! 🎮
Discord: https://discord.gg/smUMTxqBkB
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MythSamael
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mythsamael
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/mythsamaelFFXIV
FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
source
HHHEEEEEEYYY!!… That clip at the start… looks suspiciously familiar!
I don't think new players need 1000 % in depth look into the hyd – zodiarch saga anymore and I think an optional bridge is healthy not hindering . Telling me to kill myself for this take is …. Yeah
I have a different perspective for the MSQ. I've learned to appreciate it as more of a visual novel rpg-lite experience, so when I sit down to play, I plan on reading a dialogue and shit with maybe 1 fight or something.
would love for them to not only streamline the early game and levelling process, but to also do a better job of putting sprouts through basic training regiments. Seen way too many lvl90 healers who don't know about Esuna, or lvl90 tanks who don't know about Interject… and I can't really blame them because at no point is that stuff required to beat the msq, and the descriptions are vague at best.
Oh Zoei… You beautiful degen.
Uhm 🤔Here's my opinion.
I believe the dissatisfaction some may feel from being scaled down is outweighed by making a game that is Evergreen in its content.
While it can feel limiting being on the rails so to speak through your leveling experience it is better for a Game with multiple expansions and multiple areas to explore with multiple stories attached to feel expansive. Many other non-narrative driven MMOs end up becoming an elevator from level 1, dungeon finder to max level and sitting in the newest hub city. (Like other brand)
It can be hard sell to have a friend who just wants to play end game with his friends, I'd rather they work their way through the content and experience it for themselves. We'd be depriving so many people of their defining moments in their journey by undercutting it. As a narrative focused MMO – the story is just as big a feature as the raids are.
We actually have one of the best Free Player experiences on the market I think and there's no real rush to get to the end of FF14.
I do believe that our expanded jobs perhaps could all be unlocked at level 50 as a compromise to your viper point.
I've been in favor of a stat squish for the level syncing for a long time. I'd be fine with it making us weaker than the current level syncing does so that dungeon bosses aren't just mild annoyances. As for the long story, I'm the type that wants the FULL experience. However, an option like you describe to have a condensed summarized version could be good. But I don't want that to be the default. And most importantly, I 5000% support you on your opinion of crocs and the people that wear them.
About PTSD. A lot of people, myself included, may consider PTSD an issue soldiers face, because that's where we hear about it the most. I just wanted to say (and Myth said this in his last video I believe) That it can affect people of any age. I worked as a teacher for the Special Education dept in my school district for many years, and it was very common. No matter how I and others (and the reader) may care about and for the children suffering from PTSD we may not realize that they're going through it and ascribe problems to some other factor, even when those factors are legit, we have to remember even a child may suffer this.
honestly i think they should add an option for players to skip the story whent hey are leveling and just let those people who enable the setting to do dungeons and content based on their level/item level and give them access to expansion areas without needing to do story
no it hasnt. its the story who leads to dawntrail. its the point of ff14. everything else is just wow.
heh this one is such a strangely controversial topic discussed it with my FC it got heated lol
I dont know if it was deliberate or not but making a candid point about ptsd awareness right after mentioning the great filter was a masterstroke of comedic timing
1. They need to "archive" the Hydaelyn/Zodiark Saga using the New Game+ system. That is, you start the game in 7.0, being told that you are the hero who saved the world. And can go back to experience those quests whenever you want.
2. Level crunch everybody down to like… 30. Everything that jobs currently have up to level 90? Thats baseline from level 1! Anything new added afterwards is gained with the new levels.
3. Obviously. This means redesigning all content currently up to level 90 such that it is level 30 content in the new system.
I will leave if levelingbput me in tam tara and im not sorry
Y-you c-can't be critical about FFXIV!! Do you know what their community will do to y-you!?
I think they could splite the game into the saga we have now and the one to come, give players a choice on where to start. If they start in the new saga they can still go back and do old stuff and unlock that stuff like before, but now they arent forced into it. (also a level squish down to like 60 isnt the worst idea)
I play PSO2 New Genesis as well and honestly it has an even worse level-sync system…as it doesn't even have one and basically 90%+ of existing content mean nothing because people are well above those levels 😅 So I think the level sync in FF14 is ok in the sense that people won't just be doing the newest content and leaving sprouts all by themselves. But I fully agree that taking away our skills makes things almost intolerable sometimes when doing daily content like roulettes. Basically we get all these cool flashy skills and can only use them in ~10% of the content. Just syncing stats is totally enough for most situations.
Nah, leave the 400+ experience as is. It'll kill the game sooner than later but everyone who survived the slog will get a cookie. In all honesty I see them making severe changes with whatever comes after Dawntrail. WoW has faced the same issue and it happens when you make content for a decade +, eventually you have to make a new on-ramp to the great highway that is FF14. The same thing goes with leveling, I see a future where we get level squished like WoW did because leveling beyond 100 is silly.
While I'm not sure what the change would or should be because there is a major skill gap that is usually learned through going through the expansions ( and easy to tell when someone skips ahead and another commenter pointed out many end game players don't know about esuna and whatnot b/c the game just…. doesn't teach you ) I agree with everything stated. Very good editing as well!
I don't know about skipping the MSQ in ARR that seems like a mistake. The story is really good, just because you want to play the cool two weapon fighter isn't a reason to skip the whole story. What they should do is level those jobs down, and make them available at low levels. I do think there is merit however behind the idea behind allowing an option to skip the ARR MSQ, and have a summary of the story, like you said maybe some key fights, and then letting players move on.
However I always thought the way they synced stuff was pretty good…..until the other day. I did a roulette with my level 84 astro and was dumped into Halatali. Which ok fine, I popped a aspected benific onto the tank and then ran along dps-ing while the tank "safely' pulled the first three packs of mobs into that room near the start with the bombs. It was then I noticed that the tank was at like 1/3 of her health. So I rolled my eyes and thought, "wow way to mit there tank", and pressed the button to cast benefic II, sure I was about to put us back on track. Instead the tank died. I was flabbergasted. So I popped a regen on the monk….who was now tanking, and then swift cast rezzed the tank thinking the regen would keep the monk up until I could cast Benific II to heal him. He died. As the horde of mobs descended on the summoner and I, I frantically began pushing Benific 2 again and again before finally, in horror, realizing what was going on. I was healing by muscle memory. I hadn't actually cast a single healing spell the entire dungeon. I wasn't high enough level to cast Benific II OR regen. I was just pointlessly pushing greyed out buttons. LOL We wiped. In Halatali. When I respawned at the start the tank just put, "???" in chat. lol I explained what happened and every one was a good sport about it, we had a good laugh and then went on to finish the dungeon. But it really brought home how bad the syncing system is. I really like your idea of stats smushing instead of taking our buttons away from us. Or to make a long story short. Let me cast regen in Halatali damn it!
Only ARR needs to change. Everything until the first battle with Garuda is completely skippable. There are so many useless NPCs that talk unnecessarily long and are very forgettable.
Heavensward is award-winning, ARR isn't. HW and ShB are widely considered to be the best expansions so they shouldn't change.
As an old school Runescape player since 2006, trust me when i say FFXIV'a plot has an appropriate length (apart from ARR). If this was Runescape, every beast tribe quest, every alliance raid, and every normal raid questline would have been required to even START Endwalker. A part of me wishes that were the case so that nobody misses any supplementary plot and characters from those other questlines would show up at the end. But im willing to compromise to what we have now.
hounestly first playthrough msq is fine as is. however leveling alt jobs is the real pain. and as some one who has played some older mmos such as tera this may not be the best example but meh funneling newer players through a abridged msq to get them to endgame can take alot of fun out of the game and is not something i would recomend. i would say the leveling experiance for alt jobs needs to be improved and improved in such a way that newer players going through msq can take advantage of said reworked leveling experiance for alt jobs. i like my bozja grind and rouleltes as much as the next guy but jeeze it can feel like a slog at times
This might work, but only if you make it optional
I'll agree that level sync should transition to a pure stat squish, as the simplicity of the potency system makes this a lot easier to balance than a lot of other MMOs. But I think you're way off base with the streamlined story argument. FFXIV is special because it goes the whole way with its story, in a way no other MMO does. To rip out 7/8ths of that is analogous to thinking the Song of Ice and Fire saga or Lord of the Rings would have the same impact as a single book with just the "important" bits. You lose all the tiny, special moments that actually let people identify and empathize with such immense casts. It wouldn't be all that much better than just buying a story skip and reading the journey book in the inn rooms.
I don't necessarily disagree with the level syncing idea, however it introduces a lot of complications when you take into account newer players not having access to the same toolkit as you. I realize DPS isn't a visible metric in-game however I also feel as though new players having to Wade through leveling constantly surrounded by players with their full kit? It just sounds kinda like a recipe for disappointment, and frustration.
I do disagree with the story retelling. I agree that some work needs to be done to at least make it a bit more rewarding getting through some of the early story (really I just think jobs in earlier levels need some tweakin) but condensing every single area and story beat into a 50 hour campaign, while cool on paper, would
A. be a fairly large-sized undertaking
B. Would almost definitely not endear you to the characters the same way the MSQ does
C. Obscure the early MSQ out of players' minds.
The grind of reaching 90 – while you're right, it ultimately never really matters, is a fundamental part of the learning experience. Much as I love the community of this game, I do not trust it to not go nuts the second we would get a whole onslaught of players who do not know what they're doing because they played through a 50 hour retelling and not the actual player experience the game has been continuously designed around.
I've been playing this game for 10 years, I think the new player experience has its issues, sure, but I think the issue is less the length or amount of the grind but more that the content has gotten so much better over the years. I guarantee you even if you had your full kit you would not be excited to see Sastasha.
It would still be fundamentally the same dungeon, you just get to press more buttons, that makes no meaningful mechanical difference.
I think it's also worth looking at it this way: Yes, 400 hours can be daunting, but that 400 hours is not just spent on the story, it's spent playing the game. And what do players do by playing the game? They learn. While I understand your point about "meaningfully playing together" in endgame, I personally find plenty of enjoyment out of simply helping newer players. I don't need a shiny new mount or reward to motivate me, my friends and newer players having a good and fun time is so much more important to me than anything I could get out of endgame content.
But I think maybe one point you should consider is a simple question: "Has your journey been good? Was it worthwhile?" Consider that line direct from the game, and think about the story as-presented. You may disagree, and that's fine, but personally? I feel like that line would not have nearly as much weight for me had I played through a retelling. I realize not everyone has that same 10 year timespan on this game – but the truth is every single person I have seen get to the end has absolutely been destroyed when they get there. It's a journey, not a race. Encourage people to enjoy the journey – ARR is better than people give it credit for, and is a necessary piece of storytelling.
I mean I get it, the MSQ is a task that rivals that to reading One Piece for the first time. It is very long, and has a slow start with ARR, but we also gotta consider that the alternative is what WoW does. In WoW you have a starting zone dedicated to teach you the game and have an small exciting storyline to follow, but once that is done the game just throws you into the open world with no direction whatsoever and your only choice is to level. The MSQ is a monkey's paw that while it is extremely difficult to get through, you will be guided almost every step of the way, and you will have a much better understanding on the ingame world, you will know where everything is and when you can start all the optional content, in WoW new players will never understand fully what they can do in the game other than current content.
People need to see FFXIV more as a long running show/anime, rather than an MMO where you need to reach the endgame as fast as possible. Condensing the journey to just a 50 hour retelling will have a far FAR lesser impact in new players, and it would make the entire MSQ pointless, it's like telling people to read a 10 page summary of the Lord of the Rings books instead of reading the books themselves, it's a bad idea in my opinion.
Hydaelyn's question in Endwalker will never have the same impact on someone who watched a retelling compared to those who experienced the whole thing, enjoy the journey friends, sorry to say but if you have to rush it then the game isn't for you.
I do agree about lvl sync, SE most likely lock skills in order to not make the jobs absolute monsters in early levels, however not having said skills makes the gameplay far worse as you are stuck in some jobs without your AoE skills in some dungeons, that is just bullshit.
Idk about anyone else but having started ffxiv just over a year ago I think this is an awful take. Having the characters exposit the story at me rather than going through it sounds genuinely fucking awful. As for leveling a job to 90, I have no idea of if this holds true but having leveled nearly every job availiable on the free trial to at least 60 so far, just doing the msq and your job quests is more than enough to keep one mian job leveled, and leveling alts isn't that bad lol.
That being said i do kinda agree with letting us use more abilities in lower content. Synching below 35 on BLM while leveling it makes me want to pull my eyeballs out, but i can also see why squenix doesn't want to do this.
I mean, listen… I hate the new player experience as much as the next guy. I think most veterans agree that it is really bad. But your solution is only a band-aid that will quickly fall off, and doesn't deal or address any of the problems that it brings with it. While yes, a condensed 50 hour story would do a lot for certain players, it would remove a lot from others. Specially those who want their friends to experience what they went through, moment by moment. The story is so good specifically because they write in moments of lull and "Go fetch cheese and wine" quests to pad it out. Because then, when we do get a good moment, it counts. If we only saw 50 hours of good moment and banger after banger, it would quickly get nauseous and fade from importance.
Same for your solution to level roulettes. Sastasha is already very fast. It would take 3-4 minutes to clear with AoEs and whatnot. "But who cares, it's old content," well… the new players care. When are they going to feel a sense of agency, challenge and adventure if things get blitzed through and they, unbeknownst to this, don't even know what is happening? It's the problem the ARR alliance raids suffer: Everyone blitzes through everything and sprouts don't know anything that is happening. And that is a point where many complain about the game, saying that they don't get what to do, what other people are doing, and just feel lost.
In my mind, the solution would be as follows: The free trial exists, and covers everything up to Shadowbringers. I feel as if new players *who have bought the game* could have the choice to skip to Shadowbringers as soon as they start, with that option remaning open should they wish to do so, but being entirely optional if they want to experience everything. A story-skip to ShB, if you will. Then, they would have the option to watch/play a compiled version of the story, not dissimilar to your suggestion, where they could play through solo duties, all the main points of the story up until then. But this would be entirely optional. A bare-bones recap that strips each expac to a handful of hours each. That way, catching up to a respectable point wouldn't take as long. It would bring with it new problems, but those can be tackled as well.
Secondly, I feel as they need to go back to old content and modernize it, specially trials, aliance raids and whatnot. They did that for a variety of dungeons and I personally like the results. Some systems like Hunting Log, GC Squadrons, Guildhests, Levequests and a couple others could also do with a new coat of paint to bring those neglected and forgetten things back onto the table. I feel like Guildhests in particular, meant to teach game mechanics to sprouts, would be particularly interesting to see: Teaching Tank Busters, Stack Markers, Defamations, etc… The dullness of old content for the most part is the biggest issue with it.
Thirdly, I think they need to just unlock AoEs, for every single job, no exceptions, at level 15, and tweak early dungeons HP pools accordingly. It feels horrible playing some of the jobs early, like Dragoon for instance. Meanwhile Dancer gets a massive nuke AoE at level 15. Some may say that the current dungeon design is stale, but I feel like it works and should be applied more thoroughly to old dungeons.
I feel like there needs to be a clear separation of what Veterans find annoying (like running Sastasha and not having your entire kit) and what's good for new players. These are not the same and should not cross each other. The new player experience sucks mainly because it takes a hot second for the game to get going, and a lot of the early systems and content is very obsolete design-wise, even when compared to HW. The three city states (maybe save for Gridania) have confusing layouts, and for some reason are still split into two maps. There's a plethora of things they could add and/or change from early content to be kinder to new players and simultaneously appease some of the criticism Veterans have. The content isn't bad, just old and boring. A coat of paint would do wonders for newcomers and veterans alike.
it's baffling that they didn't use dawntrail as a new (OPTIONAL) starting point for new players. games like the legend of heroes jrpg series carry over characters (like the scions in ff14) to new games, but still use the new games as a good starting point for new players
it's gonna be cool to see if you can grow the channel and get invited to a future media tour. the devs may be looking for this kind of criticism as they examine job identity
The more hours you play, the more subs you pay.
Look whit all due respect. I think that compressing the game into 50 hours is silly the game's problem is not that the story is long but the fact that the game is a single player rpg first and mmorpg second. I will say make it so you can do everything in the game whit out being forced into doing msq. We need more Raider/ crafters fisher's and ERPERSS!!! I'm sure we will have more players enjoying those activities if they weren't forced to quit the game because of msq gating…. I quited the game during arr twice btw….
No if you didnt want to the previos release. Dont. Find another game. This is not wow. Its story driven game. Every dungeon has a story behind it.
Nah. I mean this sincerely and not aggressively, but if you aren't willing to put in the investment, this isn't the game for you. Go play any of the others and you'll be happier.
This is why I wish other games would learn from Guild Wars 2. We never should've received levels above 50. All these additional levels do is stretch progression thinner and thinner over time. Guild Wars 2 was very smart to make its cap level its cap level and never increase it, choosing to instead provide other things to grind for that are equally meaningful. It it insane to get to content which was originally endgame and still not have a complete job. Moreover, for this multiplayer game to have no way to meaningfully play together with your max level friends is utterly wild.
Here's my opinion as a player that has started playing a little more than a week ago. Mind that i can play this game for hours each day right now and deliberately chose such a time to start playing. I have about 60 Hours at this point, and while the dump really was exhausting to start with, i have been exploring the game at my own pace and only progressed the MSQ until level 25. In Contrast i have a decent triple triad deck, most of the hand jobs at 25ish and land jobs at 30ish. My Combat Jobs are Marauder at 28 and Pugilist at 31. I forced myself to follow the MSQ for a few hours yesterday, and with my current point of progression i have left the point where i just whimsically travel between the three cities and actually stay in an area for a while. And despite the Story probably being horrible in comparison to the expansions, i have been having my fun crafting, completing logs, doing whatever i feel like. I enjoyed the Branched Story of Limsa Lominsa until it Congregated and i had to spend some hours jumping between the city states to get introduced to their leaders, great companies and dungeons. I am now at a point where i can say i enjoy the Story. I am slowly getting introduced to all the Scions and the Story of the Primals and having fun along the way. I think one of the main reasons i am having fun is because i intentionally don't watch anything about the end game content. I feel no Rush to push through the Story, but enjoy what gets thrown at me knowing what it is. At the times it does get stale, i remember that everything i heard about the story is that it gets amazing after a realm reborn, so i'll continue pushing or instead explore another of the miriad facets of the game before returning when the tank is full again. All in all, as a genuine new Player my first 60 Hours of this game have been fun, there's content you can do with varying amounts of attention, which i personally find good. There's something i can do in every situation, be it playing the Story while fully focused or grinding some crafting levels while watching a lecture. I think the most important part is to not rush. It's a few more weeks until the new expansion drops and yet… If i have fun doing what i do without getting to a point where i can play the expansion day one… i think i am playing the game right!
tl;dr: As a new player, i found a pace i enjoy the story at and if i take a while to get up to date that is a-okay!
1. Level sync is fine. I've come from games where there was no such thing, or where it was handled very poorly, and it is not better.
2. Imagine being of the opinion that endgame is the only part of the game that matters?
3. Again, as I've said below, we can fix 90% of the problems by bringing back early jobs more like they were in ARR/HW/SB. Give them back more varied abilities. Worried about button bloat? Just have some abilities evolve into others as you level, such as Paladin with Royal Authority replacing Rage of Halone (thhough imho even that wasn't done perfectly). They can also reverse the stupid changes they made to early dungeons which made them just as boring as new dungeons.
4. Story condensation: Hell no. They can probably streamline questing a little more but shaving 88% of the story is ludicrous.
‘Who cares its old content’ new players, level sync works because new and old players are equal, if legitimately new players are at a disadvantage because they are the only one in sastasha without their aoe, toxic players WILL kick them or be annoyed. Not the first impression that id want for others. New player experience is most important as you know, but people who want to go through the entire game as it is which i will remind you is a massive amount of people, deserve the ability to do that, a concise story recap option should not hamstring people who want the full experience. PS, i feel like new players aren’t as worried about these issues as old players, if someone wants to play the game (not being forced by their friends (guilty)) they will, and they’ll get there eventually 😊
Gotta say, you changed my mind on the level sync thing. And given how potency works, it wouldn't really change anything. I'd just be able to keep all my buttons.