Eorzea Prospect: Final Fantasty XIV Is The Best MMO For New Players | MMORPG.com

System · July 3

Eorzea Prospect: Final Fantasty XIV Is The Best MMO For New Players | MMORPG.com

Of the myriad MMOs out there, the debate of which is the best for new players wages on. Kate weighs in with why Final Fantasy XIV is the best

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Kothoses · July 3

Ooof tough to sell some one who doesnt know the Genre on FF, even with the Early game improvements its a slog to get going.

Honestly, I think FFXIV is the perfect Second MMO to try, after you have got used to the quirks and foibles of the genre.

But it has way too many dips in pacing to be something to sell to some one not familiar with the delayed gratification gameplay of a grindy MMO

Raskbuck · July 3

I wonder how much SquareEnix is paying these days for these ads. People seem to repeat the same talking points ad nauseam.

Elidien_ga · July 3

Its a solid game and the community is very nice. I am not a big Final Fantasy fan so I am indifferent with the setting and such but its a solid game. Combat is slow for me and there is something I just do not enjoy about the combat.

Xiaoki · July 3

Another advertisement disguised as an article from MMORPG.com

I would not recommend FF14 to any MMO player at this point.

The 500 or so hours of the most repetitive, dated and boring quest design that is the Main Story Questline, which is required to do anything in the game, is an unbearable hurdle to entry.

Angrakhan · July 3

Last I played, which admittedly was a while ago, I didn't find the community particularly friendly. I mean it was pretty much the same kind of group from WoW. Barrens level chat with political crap in general. I was playing a tank, forgive me I forget the name of the 'job' or whatever it is in this game, and one of the DPSers literally shit talked me through a whole dungeon. Yeah it was my first time in the dungeon, but you know what? We got through it without a single wipe. That didn't stop this guy from going on and on at every opportunity about how much of a newb I was and how surely I was going to fail and get the group wiped. So when I see people talk about how great the community is I take it with a grain of salt. There's rotten apples in every MMO barrel out there.

Dattelis · July 3

I'm usually on top of this site when it comes to obvious shilling but for people that played the game for a few years, its honestly not wrong. I only say that because the free trial gives you more than enough time and content to determine if you'll like the game or not. If it was stuck at like level 20 or some crap like Blizzard has been doing for wow since like almost 20 years, then I'd think different, but in terms of being someone who's new to the mmorpg genre as a whole and may not want to invest much money just try it out and not like it, it fits the bill. GW2 is very similar but I feel like GW2's future is far more uncertain than FF14's so by that standard 14 has an edge. No one is saying 14 is the BEST OVERALL mmorpg, but its definitely the best mmorpg for a new player to the genre imo.

Machkeznho · July 4

Honestly the long story you get stuck doing is a massive barrier for entry I never could get through it to be honest its just an awful slow, boring, tedious experience. Not sure the writer has ever actually endured the MSQ before.

Scot · July 4

I don't think its a best first MMO myself, but most MMOs don't have a mentor system, so there is that.

WingcommanderIV · July 4

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Kothoses · July 5

I wanted to add as well "It's simple: Final Fantasy XIV is the most newcomer-friendly MMORPG—and I say this as someone who has tried to jump into her fair share of games that have been around even longer. The ease with which people can jump into FF14 isn’t by accident. It’s by design. ", this entire paragraph sets off alarm bells for me.

If this is not a paid advert, then you are seriously suffering from perception bias here, and I speak as some one who has loved FF (apart from ironically the current expansion Dawntrail) for most of its run.

The UI, is bad, really really bad, everything is obfuscated behind menus, often with similar names for entirely different functions, or worse in sub, or even sub sub menus behind these. Anyone trying to get into FF without a veteran friend to guide them on discord is going to have a torrid time figuring out which of its systems are relevant to them.

The New player experience, while improved is awful, dull stories with very little interactivity in the combat are two of the biggest low level problems, its why even to this day you will hear the other Mantra of FF players "Dont worry, it gets better, just keep going"

I am not sure if you actually believe what you wrote, or were directed to write it, but this "article" simply does not do anyone any favours.

Theres a lot to love about FF once you let it grow on you, the crafting systems, the job systems, the way it allows you to approach progress as you see fit once you are past the MSQ etc.

But its new player experience is not one of them, and trying to convince people to play it for that reason is only setting them up for disappointment. You need to help them get through the tedium that is the early MSQ by highlighting the group experience, the dungeons the side content etc that they will unlock.

Not promising them an easy to get into smooth experience, when it clearly obvious that is not what they are getting.

If this is an advert, 1, please highlight that, 2 please tell the marketing person who paid you to play their own game, cos outright lieing about it, wont win them fans.

Raskbuck · July 5

Kothoses said:

I wanted to add as well "It's simple: Final Fantasy XIV is the most newcomer-friendly MMORPG—and I say this as someone who has tried to jump into her fair share of games that have been around even longer. The ease with which people can jump into FF14 isn’t by accident. It’s by design. ", this entire paragraph sets off alarm bells for me.

If this is not a paid advert, then you are seriously suffering from perception bias here, and I speak as some one who has loved FF (apart from ironically the current expansion Dawntrail) for most of its run.

The UI, is bad, really really bad, everything is obfuscated behind menus, often with similar names for entirely different functions, or worse in sub, or even sub sub menus behind these. Anyone trying to get into FF without a veteran friend to guide them on discord is going to have a torrid time figuring out which of its systems are relevant to them.

The New player experience, while improved is awful, dull stories with very little interactivity in the combat are two of the biggest low level problems, its why even to this day you will hear the other Mantra of FF players "Dont worry, it gets better, just keep going"

I am not sure if you actually believe what you wrote, or were directed to write it, but this "article" simply does not do anyone any favours.

Theres a lot to love about FF once you let it grow on you, the crafting systems, the job systems, the way it allows you to approach progress as you see fit once you are past the MSQ etc.

But its new player experience is not one of them, and trying to convince people to play it for that reason is only setting them up for disappointment. You need to help them get through the tedium that is the early MSQ by highlighting the group experience, the dungeons the side content etc that they will unlock.

Not promising them an easy to get into smooth experience, when it clearly obvious that is not what they are getting.

If this is an advert, 1, please highlight that, 2 please tell the marketing person who paid you to play their own game, cos outright lieing about it, wont win them fans.

I agree with everything you said.

I'm in the process of introducing a friend to the game for the first time, and there have been several times I've had to explain several convoluted systems that are genuinely very obtuse (glamours and glamour plates, anyone?).

The thing that sting the most, is that there's really no way to "play together" outside of running the MSQ dungeons. Gotta disband the party every so often so he can do his solo instances, and even then, most of our play time together revolves around me following him around while he talks to NPCs.

Boomingechoes · July 5

I don't agree. I love the game, and they've made huge strides to make the game accessible for people who don't love interacting with others, but having come back to the game after 10yrs and having to start completely fresh, because my old character must have been wiped, the game is overwhelming in an anxiety inducing way for a long time. It still is about 2 months in because of how they structured the main story past a certain point that forces you to do all of it without allowing you to simply go forward with the next expansion. Which is crazy for a game where you can out level everything and never see all the feature adding quests, even those have their own special icon, simply because you can level faster by doing dungeons solo. I was making levels hand over fist before I hit the "end" of the 1st story and am now slogging through the aftermath just to start the 1st expansion. Other games don't bar you from the future because you didn't do 17 forced hard modes after fully avoiding people for 50+ levels.

They did make several aspects easier, but they don't really hold your hand as much as people like to say they do and don't really explain much of anything at times, and there's so much going on, that it's easy to get completely lost and lose interest. It's too easy in FFXIV to miss import aspects of the game.

WoW feels much better at easing new players into the experience. But that's just me

GrimDogGaming · July 6

Kothoses said:

I wanted to add as well "It's simple: Final Fantasy XIV is the most newcomer-friendly MMORPG—and I say this as someone who has tried to jump into her fair share of games that have been around even longer. The ease with which people can jump into FF14 isn’t by accident. It’s by design. ", this entire paragraph sets off alarm bells for me.

If this is not a paid advert, then you are seriously suffering from perception bias here, and I speak as some one who has loved FF (apart from ironically the current expansion Dawntrail) for most of its run.

The UI, is bad, really really bad, everything is obfuscated behind menus, often with similar names for entirely different functions, or worse in sub, or even sub sub menus behind these. Anyone trying to get into FF without a veteran friend to guide them on discord is going to have a torrid time figuring out which of its systems are relevant to them.

The New player experience, while improved is awful, dull stories with very little interactivity in the combat are two of the biggest low level problems, its why even to this day you will hear the other Mantra of FF players "Dont worry, it gets better, just keep going"

I am not sure if you actually believe what you wrote, or were directed to write it, but this "article" simply does not do anyone any favours.

Theres a lot to love about FF once you let it grow on you, the crafting systems, the job systems, the way it allows you to approach progress as you see fit once you are past the MSQ etc.

But its new player experience is not one of them, and trying to convince people to play it for that reason is only setting them up for disappointment. You need to help them get through the tedium that is the early MSQ by highlighting the group experience, the dungeons the side content etc that they will unlock.

Not promising them an easy to get into smooth experience, when it clearly obvious that is not what they are getting.

If this is an advert, 1, please highlight that, 2 please tell the marketing person who paid you to play their own game, cos outright lieing about it, wont win them fans.

As a long time FFXIV player, I agree with this post.

And Dawntrail is absolute dogshit story wise, and they're already removing abilities from the new class Viper because it's "too busy" to play. God forbid you need more than 3 keys to play a class these days. Yoshida has continually decided everyone is an infant and needs the absolute simplest gameplay.

KnightFalz · July 14

I think there are better choices for players entirely new.

GW2 would be one of those in my opinion. It provides a wealth of time to try out the game before any monetary commitment need be made and that so accessible is quite decent.

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