this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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I feel like this complaint only applies to other mmoheads coming from endgame in WoW or some other MMO, or already established gamers with little to no experience with MMOs that are trying it out for the first time.
Every MMO is a slow burn at the beginning because you have little to no skills and they're just trying to introduce you to the characters and the setting.
Meanwhile the literal thousands of newcomers fall in love with the game as soon as they start even when it's "nothing but fetch quests" or "boring as hell" according to the aforementioned vocal minority.
I came from WoW (after leveling every class through Shadowlands), and when I started FFxiv, I was thinking "it's not amazing, but it's better than WoW at this same level." It was still fun to play, and it wasn't a straight slog, the whole story ramped up over time.
And then I hit the first expansion, and it was better than most of WoW except maybe Legion (my favorite expansion). There was a moment, right before a trial, where you're on a bridge and the music ramps up (anyone who has played probably knows what I'm talking about), and I had to just sit and let it wash over me for awhile before queueing up. Just standing on a bridge, hearing a song telling the whole story I had learned over an entire expansion.
And then it just continued ramping up. So it starts out about equivalent to WoW and then gets better at a much faster rate. And then, when you finish the main story quest, instead of the choice of "mythics or raids, that's all you get, hope you like dungeons," You find there's more to do outside of the main story quest than in. There's so much to do.
Yep WoTLK on free servers for me is questing and a bit of farming to get some gold for necessities.
Back in the day I painstakingly (while having fun) managed to level up to 60 but hadn't paid for the expansions, and then I took a break to finish a project in school, when I finally came back to WoW Cataclysm happened and everything changed, then I lost interest.
One of the reasons I really liked SWTOR, despite the many things I dislike, is the class stories give you something to keep your interest really early on. I've never really been able to get in to other MMOs that are mechanically similar because I'm bored out of my fucking mind with only a promise of potentially interesting end game content.
Every few years someone talks me into trying WoW and I spend one miserable night leveling then wondering why on earth anyone does this.
If a game isn't interesting from the start, then the game is badly designed.
MMO's are made for people who can put multiple hours a day into it. To them having to grind is part of the course. For everyone else it is a waste of time.
Just imagine having to grind 8 hours for a specific item. To someone who can only play a single hour a day after the kids are asleep, that is an entire week of playtime. It just isn't worth it when they could have spend that same amount of time on a different game where they got to kill like 5 bosses.
It is interesting from the very start though. My point is that players from those two camps are biased in thinking that it's not because there either too accustomed to having everything or they're not aware of how the genre works.
Maybe some MMOs are made for people with all the time in the world, like no-lifers and teenagers, but the topic is about FFXIV. XIV has been designed with the working man in mind since at least ARR, it is very much expected to be played in short bursts (people with jobs generally play video games about 2-4 hours a day.) In that span of time you can easily progress a fair amount through the Main Scenario Quest or do dailies which would be the equivalent of "killing 5 bosses," if not more. Each expansion averages at around 40-50 hours of MSQ, so even assuming the least amount of gameplay time, it takes about a month to complete, barely any different than any other major video game release, for example, Tears of the Kingdom takes approx. 55-70 hours to beat.
Not sure what you're referring to with the grinding "8 hours for a specific item" thing, unless you're talking about savage raiding which is endgame, not the beginning/middle (the story) like we're all talking about and isn't required to do the story. Even then, there's plenty of people with jobs that will dedicate upwards of 6 hours to raiding.
Came here to say this, the complaint has no idea how MMOs work (not to mention how much better and more story XIV has, even in— and sometimes especially in— all the side content)