Rate of Leveling and the New Player Experience

[BlueNarciss]

XP gain is not an issue right now. The biggest issue for new players that I've found (as a new player myself) is gated content. Leveling is gated (I'm so glad I can't take part in the double xp event because they want me to unlock more levels via Limit Break quests), classes are gated (I don't want to get off work and spend all my free time doing an irrelevant quest that adds nothing to the games story just so I can see if I like it or not), even the Trust system is severely gated (it took me hours to run to different cities just to get 3 base trusts..) Make things more ACCESSIBLE, this is the biggest issue with this game. You add all of these great systems like the trust initiative and so forth, but it all takes an absurd amount of time just to get started. I want to get out and explore the world the way I want to, not be forced to run from area to area to collect some item for 3 lines of text that have nothing to do with anything. I don't mind quests, I enjoy them, but making them required for core mechanics in the game is just ridiculous. Why not change them to item rewards or something, seeing as getting armor while leveling as a new player is nigh impossible due to high auction house costs or hoping that a chest you spend 2 minutes unlocking gives you something better than an ether or potion.

If you want to make the game more new players accessible you guys really need to do more than just look at XP gains, I mean honestly..

[AppropriateName5786]

There was a very similar thread that reached 40+ pages a few months ago calling for things to be made more accessible and modern. Basically, Castanica and Bluenarciss have great ideas to make the game better and more welcoming to new players (regardless of how few there are) and old players alike. Unfortunately, there are lots of confused people on these forums who will accuse you of wanting everything handed to you and tell you that you are going to hell for dumbing down their precious game. There's also the bitter ones who will type entire essays amounting to nothing more than "we had to put up with this X or Y years ago so you have to as well!"

As an old player myself, I've been wanting to level another character for ages (since race changes aren't available), but just the thought of the mountains of gated/mundane content I'd have to redo in order to get caught up to my main is vomit-inducing. We're talking everything from the Chocobo quest, subjob quest, limit breaks, Aby Atma obtainment, VW warps, CoP, RoZ, WotG, ToAU, fame building, advanced job unlocking, Dynamis boss wins, coffer hunting for AF, etc, to getting all the WKR wins again.

Even without the need to farm for gil like an actual new player, or the need to meet new people and establish myself on my server, or the need to learn how all the arcane systems like FoV and RoE work in the game, I would never level another character because of the way old content has been handled, or not handled as it were. Changes to old content definitely need to be made, and accessibility is the key word.

[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.

[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.