Final Fantasy XIV has been out for a long time, and as the game gets bigger it gets harder for a new person to catch up without feeling overwhelmed. How do you solve that?
Toss your ideas in the comments below and be sure to sub to stay tuned for more random discussions!
source
Sounds like treason from someone who loves the story so so much. But with New Game+ being available, I think a skip to the latest expansion should be available for free. If they love the game enough and want to experience the story we all love, NG+ is fully available.
replaying FFXIV for the 4th time now and just got to the 2.3 content and honestly I think they need to raise the exp rate even more and they need to shave off a number of MSQs in the 2.0 content. I think they've already cut a number of MSQs in the past but they really need to do something about the slog after Ifrit up to Garuda. Its kind of funny playing the game now and seeing what they've prioritized or what they thought needed to be fixed for the newer players. Like never in a million years would I have ever considered: changing the copperbell mine boss fights, getting rid of the leaden hallway at the end of Toto-Rak, or changing the Brayfox dragon boss poison goo mechanic as major priorities. I dont think any of those things get new players to dip from the game but 100% doing the MSQ's around the Titan to Garuda is absolute torture.
Very relatable. I've gone through the entirety of ARR about 3 or 4 times now trying to get into this game. Each time making it just a little bit into Heavensward and then losing my appetite, having spent most of it slogging through the base game.
Currently waiting on the Dawntrail graphics update to start my 4th or 5th attempt. đ
To the ppl who are against this video u are delusional if u think its ok to force every new player go through 10 years worth of content. Some ppl just wanna do the end game and play with their friends etc not everyone wanna go through the story.
Embrace how the game can allow all types of play for every person and yet somehow u guys cant get over skipping the story why??
Have u guys ever tried to get a friend to play it just to leave before they got to level 30 ???
its alot of time that needs to be wasted just so u can play with ur friend.
Please let ppl do what ever they want a skip for this game will not hurt the game at all since this problem will only get worse when u get 7.0 8.0 9.0 and at the end of the day this game is an mmo believe it or not.
Look i have been playing this game for 4 years now and im enjoying it and bear in mind i skipped the story yes i have commited a sin ik but hey look if i can skip and only do savages and ultimates and still enjoy the game then im sure there are alot of other ppl that feel the same and have done the same. So please stop gatekeeping content bc u want ppl to waste half their life catching up not everyone likes the story.
Buy a boost?
There's a lot of things they could do to make the game better for newcomers. Shoving 80% of it (including its narrative) under a rug and saying "just ignore it but maybe you can try to replay it later… if you want?? maybe please? :3 uwu" is not the answer, and I think that if people keep pushing for that "solution" and YoshiP and CBU3 buy into it and actually go with it, it'll be one of the biggest blunders in the game's history. A box that cannot be closed again.
I've seen what happens to people who "just want to jump ahead so they can play with their friends". Most of them don't play past week 3.
I started before Endwalker came out and I only beat the 6.0 story about a week ago. I've put in over 1000 hours.
I don't really have much to say about the point of this video because I DID enjoy that beginning feeling and I'm still here. I took my time. But I do have a thought.
I think we should have a new starting area. Maybe a version that expedites the story a bit. I'm not sure how Square would do it and still let people enjoy the story. Let's say if the player suddenly decides the narrative is interesting to them. Or didn't care about the Zodiark/hydaelyn arc but really want to experience the full story of Dawntrail. How do you catch the player up, give them a barebones narrative, but still teach the player the expectations of the gameplay?
Like what if someone started in Foundation. They don't have access to the HW areas but that's their city state. There's airships to the three starting towns. Maybe a story that has you as a GC member and you're in like a post HW time period but you're still running all the dungeons. I dunno. That doesn't seem like it would work or make sense. But I think having another starting area that has it's own special story would be how I implement a "skip" into current day Final Fantasy XIV.
Thing is the idea doesnt sound bad on paper but then you have so many problems hitting you at the same time that are story related like for example how will you tell the story that happened before for example dawntrail and what will you do if the player doesnt want to play the story from the previous expansions? You have no idea who all those characters are and lack a massive amount of information if you are interested in it. Besides players will also struggle if they start at lvl 90 with all those skills unlocked which will overload the new players brain capacity (I know that since I already struggled at lvl 18 to keep up with optimal casting as a new player). I really like the idea of a new starting point but I dont think anyone from the devs would approve of it without changing the entire experience as a whole
Must be honest, think this is an awful take.
You are addressing a problem that isn't really there and for those who persist there is, there is a solution that you mention yourself.
I think some sort of ANOTHER early game rework is in order. Looking back on ARR and post ARR, there were A LOT of moments that were grindy for the sake of being grindy and nothing else. Do you remember the whole questline where you were getting wine in ARR? Do you remember anything about post ARR aside from Crystal Tower and epilogue? While people say this length is needed to "flesh-out the world", that it "grounds you, allowing you to feel the world and stories of everyday people", I think this can be done much better without taking hundreds of hours before reaching the good bit.
If you do the story mode you easily gain 20 lvls in 4 or 5hours. New players also get an ear ring with 30% extra exp so ut should be to hard to catch up
The issue I have with FFXIV having this kind of thing is how the way things are setup means you'll need to change how the story is presented to allow for a lot of expositions in "the good expansions".
Like, ARR is pretty much a big setup in the story for all the expansions to come with concepts introduced even in places you don't expect, so you can't remove that at all, despite the questing being really bad(which is the same garbage across the entire game, but just better paced so it doesn't bore you quickly). I think instead if there is a skip, you should be able to skip everything up to Endwalker, and start from Dawntrail. Since it's a new story taking place, DT will be like ARR in that it will be a giant setup(albeit a bit smaller) for a lot of stuff to come, so having to onboard new players to it will be much better. Of course, you'll be able to choose to have introductory quests and some kind of tutorial for gameplay in both open world and instanced content with a job you've chosen taking a few hours before actually starting. This tutorial also slowly introduces elements and concepts that are already prevalent within the game so that the people starting there aren't completely in the dark when it comes to it(and it makes for smoother/shorter moments of expositions within the MSQ for players who already know this having gone through the rest of it).
That way, people who just want their MMORPG endgame content can just go there relatively fast, and may even get curious enough to have an alt go through the MSQ while they do the endgame content they're interested in in their main(I remember a WoW raider doing DSR had that experience for example).
Its a trucky thing to address, some pounts i agree others I do not. On one hand yes getting through the slog that is the original content of the game can be a bit annoying and tedious, especially for those that aren't used to that style of game that it was made back then. But on the other hand this is such a story driven game that you would lose all sense of directional attachment to characters that were set up in the content that would happen before the start of it like one big difference, is if you started in storm blood compared to shadowbringers, you would not know who the heck that one particular blonde character is, and how important he is to the rest of the story thereafter. You would wonder what do these characters for, what do they do, what is this weird crystal thingy. Things of that nature, that's where I'm concerned. Along with if they start added level 70 how are they going to know their jobs they haven't gone through it to learn what does what combos positionals things that nature, it's all stuff you can't pick up as the game teaches you. Yes final fantasy has a very long start to it, but it also is very good at teaching.
Also, my man I have more than 10,000 hours in the game and I still donât have a house. It doesnât matter how much skipping youâre gonna do youâre not gonna get a house that easily.
People wouldnt understand the story at all. I agree that ARR could be shortened, theres plenty of useless story content there that could be shortened.
But theres no way to cluster all of HW and Stormblood lore under a 30 minutes tutorial.
The way it is i think its fine. Also while dungeons/duties are not really hard in this game, Shadowbringers did a huge leap in difficulty from Stormblood imho, ofc the game has been nerfed at all stages at this point and duties were changed, made easier, etc but dropping new players right into Shadowbringers dungeons, idk if its a good idea.
No, GOD no. The game doesnât even teach the sprouts how to play their jobs by the time they reach satasha, starting at 70 will be a bloody nightmare. Just run around with your sprout and help them, pick up a new job and level with them or, I dunno, make an alt and replay the amazing story with them? Why toss them into a point where they have no idea what is going on in the story, no idea who everyone is, and no one looks at the book thing nor has the time to watch 20 hours of cut scenes to understand. Dude, no. Just NO.
The thing about that is every game that had cut the original content in the beginning lost it's coherence/original essence and charm. LineageII, Tera, WoW, and a few others. It completely ruined LineageII and Tera IMHO.
As someone who started about half a year ago (roughly early August) and has caught up i feel like a new start point (or atleast a even more streamlined process for arr is needed) since i had like 3 different people stop around there and out of those there only one of them made it to heavensward. Admittedly I just did it for the stort content so i didn't really care as long as it lived up to the hype which it did though I kind of wish im able to play with my friend group more. But then again i cant really see them playing mmos.
Im now at the patches of ARR and im Already at well Over a 100 Hoursđ
arr is too damn long!!!
So you want there to be no goals to push towards and make the expansions basically pointless like WoW?
I really don't think this would work at all. Just going from my experience to play other mmos i feel overwhelmed with information and find it hard to play games like wow, eso, new world. the reason for that is because they are so big and they don't tell you what to do. Now if I started close to max level id be even more lost. I think things being locked being MSQ is actually a good thing because it at least gives you that path that you know is going somewhere and it wont make you feel lost.
I to this day do not get why this community is SO against people having the option to not have to slog through hundreds of hours of story to play with their friends. Literally just make it an option. Hundreds of hours of old content that's boring as hell from a gameplay standpoint (story is entirely subjective so no comment there) is a MASSIVE barrier for a lot of people to overcome. The only reason I made it through ARR was having literally nothing better to do. I'm glad I did, cause all the content from ShB onwards is incredible, but I do not envy anyone trying to get there now.
If the story matters that much to you, simply don't take the option to start at whatever the new starting point is. Simple.
three oof my friends have just joined the game and all i am doing is ether runing the stuff with them or just carrying them if they want it and that is all they need and are loving the game
Gotta hard disagree here. This game is 95% about the journey. Endgame is quite shallow. If you rush players to endgame WoW style they will quickly get bored and quit as they have no idea what is happening in the story, no developed connection to their character and no idea how to play the game and will get dumped into lv70 mechs, scream WHERES THE HEELS?! and rage quit.
i rushed through arr in just 3 days. Now about to start endwalker and realising that my journey through msq is ending im taking my sweet time etc. as i dont want it to end
As nice as this sounds (I've had 2 friends bounce off the game cause of ARR) I think FFXIV is less like a traditional MMO or Co-Op game and more like a JRPG. The game is DESIGNED around starting at level1 in ARR, the tutorial is baked into that portion of the game and each expansion increases complexity. Starting at 70, coming from experience, as someone who initially skipped DUE to thinking ARR was boring as shit, is overwhelming and confusing. Even though I could understand the story, so much of the game's mechanics were lost on me and I played my jobs WILDLY incorrectly until I saw guides for them. To start at a higher level I think there would need to be a portion of the game SPECIFICALLY designed for that due to how the game is designed, though I have suspicions that Dawntrial may at least try being something like that.
I don't think people need to start at 70.
What makes more sense is to make lvs 50-60 to feel more complete/better.
Jobs need to be fundamentally more fun to play then having to "wait" till 70.
And I'm sure The Dev team knows this, considering that we're hitting the lv 100 mark.
Honestly? You know what would be a neat little recap? An Abridge version of what happened through out the expansions like that one bit in SHB that had you fight stuff through the story. Just make it more of a series of narrated trials while making it a little harder. Then during it teach players how to play with each fight.
No it doesnt.
I have to disagree with the general premise but there are some good ideas sprinkled in
I completed 2.0 late at night and went to bed with a smile on my face, having genuinely enjoyed the story so far and looking forward to trying Astrologian the next day
I awoke to find out that there was not a "little" lead up to Heavensward and that I would continuously be teased with access to Ishgard for the next week, making me resent the entirety of ARR postpatch.
Crystal Tower as my first taste of raiding didn't inspire confidence either. I could understand a new player going through it for the first time and forming the assumption that that was what FFXIV raiding was really like
DRK/AST/MCH need to be accessible way sooner. If not immediately from level 30 then at the very least from the end of 2.0. It feels so wrong having access to the SB jobs and potentially even the ShB and EW jobs before you can even hold a greatsword.
Unreal needs to have its unlock disconnected from the MSQ entirely, besides perhaps getting access to Idyllshire and the relevant normal difficulty trial. Requiring 5.0 complete might have made sense in Shadowbringers but we're level 90 now and the unlock requirement is STILL 5.0, why?
I know too many people who would be eager to participate in regular clears of the Unreal, are level 90, have crafted gear, but can't. Simply because they haven't done a piece of story content completely unrelated to the Faux Commander (unless I missed that part)
I'd argue for a raid series like Alex or Omega being unlockable sooner but having that still make story sense would be a lot more difficult
From my experience I must say that it would be terrible decision for any new player to start at advance level, even with many years of experience on different MMOs I had to learn the game mechanics and its story.
Take WoW as an example; nowadays they start in BFA not knowing about the original conflict and the main characters, who the hell is Jaina Proudmore?! who the hell is Anduin?! who the hell is Sylvanas?! and asking yourself why bother with anything related to the story, and nothing to teach you about your selected class aside from 10 levels of an island zone and then you are off to the vast world.
Itâs a long journey to get through the whole MSQ, and I see that point clearly, but the payoff in the end is so good itâll make the new player invested in the game and its story way more than a doing it through a skip, which is also an option available in FF store which I wouldnât recommend for any new player.
they MUST NEVER do what you are saying, the story is one of the best in any genre and it should never be missed.
I had a lot of trouble getting into the game because of ARR a few years back, but after 3 restarts, 2 years and encouragement from friends. I got pass ARR and actually enjoyed it
nah the world building in ARR is essential and a good filter if they can't make it past ARR then they won't enjoy the game
It doesn't. Don't buy skips and enjoy the game.
I have an opinion on this, for FF14 the MMORPG mindset is wrong for it. Its an RPG first like all entire series of its game then it has the benefits of an MMO, I don't see why there's a need to catch up to friends or rush to a specific content. I'm currently on my 4th fresh character and that character alone is sat at over 40days playtime and I'm only up to the end of Heavensward.
For the skip idea to say the start of stormblood or other expansions I don't see it being that beneficial as its just the paid skip that's in the game already just free and everyone I know and heard of using those skips end up quitting FF14 a few months later without much progression into any of the games content.
Anyone not interested in RPGs or story rich games I would never try to get them into FF14.
I think this is a funny idea. imagine all the shenanigans that could happen if new players started in dawntrail.
People running away with stack markers might make its come back.