Rate of Leveling and the New Player Experience

[Castanica]

The storys for the jobs and AF lines are pretty good for some of them... Even FFXIV has quests for theirs, you are asking them to dumb it down too much.

Most "new players" are going to be returnees, they have seen them all before.

I've unlocked every job and taken them all (almost to 99) years ago, as a returnee with a new char I really don't wanna do all that again, or if they do at least streamline it to the minimum. run to point a, click b, click through 2 lines of text, goto point c, etc.

I like many things in FFXI but the immense time wasting is not one of them. Unlocking dancer for instance isn't just the fun story it's the immense amount of trekking around and reading guides to do it. Die on the way? back you go!

When you get home from work to put a few hours into the game you don't want to spend hours unlocking a job and have no "fun" time.

I remember reading about some changes to atma a while ago, can anyone tell me if you still unlock the atmas as you used to or has it been changed now? If you still have to unlock them all I guess I won't be getting into aby at 75.

[Castanica]

I wish the new devs would ask for feedback from actual new players and returnees, I post here knowing full well they will never read it.

I hated playing XIV but at least the devs took notice to the responses of their players, amazingly so.

[Olor]

Changes to old content definitely need to be made, and accessibility is the key word.

Yeah. I've gotten far enough in COP now to reforge my artifact and relic gear - but I stand by my original call to remove gates like this. I have no problem needing to finish COP to get the COP trusts and the COP rewards but it really put me behind (and discouraged me from playing) to find that I could not upgrade my gear because I hadn't finished an unrelated quest line. These kind of things need to be eliminated. There are enough rewards for doing the content without locking unrelated content behind it. (Current rewards for COP = being able to do hardmode fights, several trusts including 2 of the best ones, and the rings).

These are the things that make being a new player suck, not exp gain (although 75-99 is very crummy, especially when you're melee and no one really wants you till 80+ in abyssea). New players want to be able to play with others - and all they can do is pretty much solo for months... that sucks.

I personally think things like AF quests are fine and important, I just don't like having to ALSO do all of COP to upgrade the AF I quested for.

I remember reading about some changes to atma a while ago, can anyone tell me if you still unlock the atmas as you used to or has it been changed now? If you still have to unlock them all I guess I won't be getting into aby at 75.

They had abyssea campaigns where they gave you Atmas, I don't think that it was permanent.

I personally don't think they should just give all the atmas out, but I would like them to make the atma drop 50% without red light. Cause I'd be happy to go out pop monsters and slaughter them to help newbies get their atma, but I don't have any jobs that can proc red reliably. A player shouldn't have to level a very specific job (essentially NIN or WAR only) to get access to Atma. Just making atma a 50% drop without proc would help a lot, since then anyone could help a new player get atma, not just someone who already leveled a red proc job.

And then, once a new player had a couple atma, they could get other atma themselves if they needed to... but right now if you're not NIN or WAR your ability to get atma is pretty much nil.

[Mitruya]

I started a mule to help with gil, inventory, sparks, etc. and I have to agree, the thought of all the grinds and gates all over again is not appealing at all so he will probably stay a low-level undergeared mule.
The reduction of time between quests, the door key items, and the increased travel options have been a good start; but there is a gracious plenty of things they could streamline so you can actually play instead of going through menu hell or whatever.

Also I agree with Draylo somewhat, as scaled content for less players has killed grouping. It just leads to more job exclusivity and more casuals that don't get the clears and drops they need. People are so obsessed with greed and success that there's no incentive to carry lesser players along.

[AppropriateName5786]

Also I agree with Draylo somewhat, as scaled content for less players has killed grouping. It just leads to more job exclusivity and more casuals that don't get the clears and drops they need. People are so obsessed with greed and success that there's no incentive to carry lesser players along.

This is kind of off-topic, but he actually advocates alliance content for the sake of it being alliance content because, when you have the right circle of friends, that's the only way you get to feel special. That kind of content serves no purpose other than to pander to an inconsequential minority.

I think you agree with how job exclusivity sucks, as any sensible person would, but that stems solely from lack of job balance and has zilch to do with scaled content. If job balance were as close to perfect as theoretically possible, who would care if you did 6-man Delve with a RDM healer, GEO solo buffer, and DRG/DNC/BST/PUP as DD? What a perfect FFXI that would be, where you could always play your favorite job, and as long as a healer (WHM SCH RDM), a buffer (COR GEO BRD SMN RDM), and enough DDs were willing to go, you would have a party ready.

Right now, it's always WHM, BRD, PLD, MNK, RNG, SAM or gtfo because job balance is utterly non-existent, and every other job simply doesn't cut it for their respective roles. Hope I understood your line of thought correctly.

[Mitruya]

Yes, I agree, I may be confusing job balance and scaled content as contributing to the same problem. I was just thinking that smaller groups = less jobs that can go and still get the job done, less incentive to bring along someone for the clear or whatever, less and less shouts or events organized.
I understood part of Draylo's point to say that rewards are the same whether you take 6 or 18, so if 3 people and their mules can get the same drops why try to squeeze in 18 to fight over the same lots.

[Olor]

Mules are only usable in place of real players in serious content because of 3rd party programs. Frankly, it's part of the "not taking" people problem. The problem boils down to people being selfish though. SE shouldn't let people blatantly brag about cheating with zero consequences, it's certainly doing nothing to help the game. Yeah if the only way to get content done is to use 3rd party programs and have 2 accounts it does nothing to attract and keep new players playing. It's toxic.

No one is forcing Draylo to take mules instead of players. Frankly, I'm disgusted he can come on the official website and constantly brag about using third party tools with zero consequences. (Or "complaining" that he takes mules instead of inviting real players to parties)

I recognize that banning everyone who uses 3rd party tools at this point would annihilate the playerbase - and I know my viewpoints on them are not popular, but there needs to be some action taken so that it doesn't devolve further into "no 3rd party tools? No invite" than it already has.

I don't even blame most people who use them, when it takes 3 macros for me to cast a spell and they can cast with one button press or a specialized keystroke that does all their gear changes for them, it certainly enhances their performance so it can meet the standards that players set for each other... but I do blame SE for not sending a clearer message that once they have implemented gearsets etc they will no longer be tolerating tools that automate gearchanges outside the game.

Or they need to just link to windower from the official website and make it clear that in order to play competitively you'll need to use it. The status quo, where spellcast and other 3rd party tools that automate gear changes are officially against the rules but people feel comfortable enough breaking the rules to all but brag they are using it on the official forum... it's not sustainable. Those tools are a big part of what's dividing the playerbase.

Not everyone wants to have to write xml scripts to play this game seriously. No one should have to, since, officially, they are against the rules.

I think this is part of the balancing problem too. SE is busy scaling the game against what the "best" players can do, but I think you'd see if you looked that all those players are using 3rd party tools. So the game gets scaled against people who are running a program that automatically switches your gear for you when you reach certain HP levels or MP levels or w/e ... The rest of us have to make judgement calls and press several buttons.

While the gearsets will help even this out - it won't eliminate it completely. Even having to swap palettes and stuff is a great way to lose valuable time. People using these tools can just type a couple letters and bam! they are reacting.

[Mitruya]

Oh I agree totally.
In the Abyssea era I was frequently told, "Oh you have BST? Go solo it" or "Buy a cheap PC so you can dual-box what you need." (I play on console.) Even then no one wanted to share anything.
I could never get into NNI parties because I didn't have a speedhack.
Nowadays it's the same thing. "Oh you can go solo that content now" because no one wants to waste their time or tags, or split drops.
The forums are filled with "so-and-so endgame content is piss-easy, you suck because you can't clear it, noob"-type comments, since the players that are speeding through it have stun bots, mules, and all those fancy gear programs.
SE had to give us Trusts for leveling and quests 'cause no one wants to team up anymore.
I have no earthly idea what they were thinking to let people solo AA's and Salvage, causing enough congestion to prevent a server merge.

[Draylo]

Your signature is entirely accurate, keep gimping it up since "2011" and stop replying to my posts. The majority of your posts on these forums ask for nothing but nerfs to everything so you can complete it with your limited intelligence. You don't need third party programs to do ANYTHING in this game, its all easy. The only thing they do is make it a huge convenience and less of a chore to play, just like how you can play pressing 5 buttons to do one action but SE is now letting you just press one with the new macro system.

[Tohihroyu]

Ahh just look at the river of elitist tears flow!


Maybe just maybe if you played the game without your little cheats you'd learn how to properly play instead of relying on a program to swap your gear every nano second. Oh I forgot without windower and/or bots you elitists would not know how to hit a bee in north gustaberg-- I mean for gods sake every update you all scramble like flies on shit to find out what updates "broke" so it can quickly be fixed.

Bring on the "casual" friendly updates, maybe it'll drive more elitists to Q_Quit. They did a great thing by nerfing the haks to at least got rid of fishbotters (till they find some other alternative that'll take years to get nerfed)

As for some who might get pissy cause I use .dat mods

They unless you delete files (Nyzul isle lamps to cheat climbs or flies to bot claim the kings faster than the other elitists bot before the ???'s where added) do no harm, only the player see's the change and make some things in game look nicer or less plain. At worst .dat modding can cause the game to crash if too many "HQ" mods are used. I talked to a GM in the past about it, as long as it gives no advantage to you against other players (I.E. deleting the nyzul lamps and mobs surrounding HNM kings before the ???'s ) its allowed cause again only you see the changes and you alone.

And those saying 14 sucks cause "ERRMERGERD ITS LIKE WOW AND ITS CASUAL FRIENDLY!!1!!! STOP HANDING THINGS TO GIMP CASUALS IN 11 BTW!!1!!!!11!!" grow up. Or go back to fapping over the "gimps" you "pwn"

Edit: Oh look elitists already replying. You see unlike you I don't need Windower or bots to play "properly" you might as well say you play non MMO games with Action Replay & Gameshark always on so you can cheat to the top....oh wait you already do that pretty much! to get the high scores against "lol console players" and lag the shit out of them so your team wins.