New Player - Complete Edition Spoiler fix

This is something that i myself found frustrating when I started out and something I wish new players had complete control over.

The starting menu.
If you purchase the complete edition of the game, you are forced into a situation as a new player where you are given the endwalker intro and start screen, which are both extremely spoilery in terms of where your character is going. And about the characters still present in the game.

This was also a problem for me during Shadowbringers when I started and saw that "ah this character is here" despite being in the point of the story where the character is not present.

It would be great if the game, during booting up asked the players;

Are you a new player?

YES / NO

(Choosing yes will make it so that players experience Intro and Start screen changing as their current data centers character's story progresses. Choosing no, will let players to choose which intro & start screen the game starts with)

So if you say yes, nothing else happens and you boot to your start screen and the game choose it for you. But if you choose "No" the following happens;

"Which intro and start screen would you want the game to start with?"
(Choosing Expansion intro & start screens might contain mild to heavy story spoilers)
Default:
A Realm Reborn

Expansion:
Heavensward
Stromblood
Shadowbringers
Endwalker

I really like the idea of the title screen changing based on your progress in the MSQ. You are unable to see an expansion title unless you have at least one character on the account that has made it that far. Please make it happen dev team. :)

Great idea.
I can imagine that this is a problem for newer player.

It really is. I've watched new players join the game and watch the EW intro and get spoiled on so many things.
From locations to characters who are or are not present and just general character development as well (We all know the one moody man who started out hating certain things)

This also would have to be so that the game remembers on each boot which options you have chosen and not reset on every boot.

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Originally Posted by Adeacia

I really like the idea of the title screen changing based on your progress in the MSQ. You are unable to see an expansion title unless you have at least one character on the account that has made it that far. Please make it happen dev team. :)

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Yea, this approach is very much needed, even if it requires a bit of extra coding from the devteam to track the progress of the character.
but a simple check; has player character reached quest X? Y/N? And set title and intro accordingly.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

Yea, this approach is very much needed, even if it requires a bit of extra coding from the devteam to track the progress of the character.
but a simple check; has player character reached quest X? Y/N? And set title and intro accordingly.

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That's not possible though because you can have multiple characters on the account at differing points in the story, and character selection/creation occurs after the title, so there would be too much complexity trying to flag story progression to determine what 'title/opening' to show.

Irony is, contrary to how it seems much of what the EW opening shows... actually... isn't all that accurate to what actually happens during the expansion so the context just isn't there (really, EW's trailer doesn't spoil all that much - just saying that you go to the moon and there's monsters there, Garlemald goes to hell and other things happen, Sharlayan has a special aetheryte, and oh and Mr Grumpy comes back.), so unless you have context it's just a lot of spectacle happening.

Maybe something like how FFXI's title screen just had the one default opening movie and then showed random views of places in the world, with expansions shown as a list of titles beside the game's logo.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

That's not possible though because you can have multiple characters on the account at differing points in the story, and character selection/creation occurs after the title, so there would be too much complexity trying to flag story progression to determine what 'title/opening' to show.

Irony is, contrary to how it seems much of what the EW opening shows... actually... isn't all that accurate to what actually happens during the expansion so the context just isn't there (really, EW's trailer doesn't spoil all that much - just saying that you go to the moon and there's monsters there, Garlemald goes to hell and other things happen, Sharlayan has a special aetheryte, and oh and Mr Grumpy comes back.), so unless you have context it's just a lot of spectacle happening.

Maybe something like how FFXI's title screen just had the one default opening movie and then showed random views of places in the world, with expansions shown as a list of titles beside the game's logo.

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Nah, for one all you need to look for is which character is furthest in the MSQ's. Just cause coding is a bit complex should not be an excuse ever.
We've seen the devs blame spaghetti code multiple times now and suddenly come with solutions the next update as if it's magic. Which it isn't. And it's far from impossible.
That said, yes it might be a bit too complicated of a solution as opposed to just letting players choose their intro and starting screen, but it would be much appreciated if they went the extra mile to prevent new players from seeing things they don't want to see.

And this isn't even that much about what is inside the trailers and intro sequences. While yes the things they show are nothing but noise to a new players. It is when those key moments happen, like "character X seemingly dies". Your immediate reaction will be "oh but they're alive in the EW trailer" NOT "Oh I hope that's not true".
Even if your reaction is "Oh they're coming back for sure!" it should not be based on what you saw from a trailer, but instead your gut feeling.
And yes "going to the moon" is a MAJOR spoiler for someone who's just starting out.

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Originally Posted by Kirutsuki

Nah, for one all you need to look for is which character is furthest in the MSQ's. Just cause coding is a bit complex should not be an excuse ever

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Coding actually wouldn't be too complex to be honest, as much is already in the game.

First Run of Client: ARR Title and Movie is Default
Subsequently: If # of Chars < 1, ARR Title and Movie
Throughout play, if a char is loaded that is on 3.0 or later quests, unlock Heavensward Title and Movie as an option. If a char is loaded that is on 4.0 or later quests, unlock Stormblood Title and Movie as an option. Same for 5.0 and 6.0.. Unlock them in config based on the char loaded. This is a small background flag that gets checked once per PC, and once flagged, it skips the check.

Reinstall the client? ARR Title.. Flags will check off when you log in to an endgame char and unlock them all again. Up to the player to set the one they want as default, but upon unlock, the highest tier is the default unless changed.

Have Stormblood Title and 7.0 gets released? Soon as you hit the first 7.0 quest, flag is set, title is changed to 7.0 Title. Want to stay on Stormblood? Change it back after flag set, and it stays--but with the 7.0 Title still an option.

They set all kinds of data flags when you clear a quest, it's a simple new flag/variable "MaxTitleScreenLogo=2" as default, and set to 3, 4, 5.. whatever. Something like:
Upon Quest Completion, If MaxTitleScreenLogo < :currentpatchnumber: Then Set MaxTitleScreenLogo = :currentpatchnumber: AND Set CurrentTitleScreenLogo = :currentpatchnumber:

Finish a Heavensward quest? If MaxTitleScreenLogo < 3 Then Set MaxTitleScreenLogo = 3 AND Set CurrentTitleScreenLogo = 3
Boom, Heavensward Title unlocked.
Finish an Endwalker quest? If MaxTitleScreenLogo < 6 Then Set MaxTitleScreenLogo = 6 AND Set CurrentTitleScreenLogo = 6
Boom, Endwalker Title unlocked.
Start a new alt after this? Well, even from the very beginning, MaxTitleScreenLogo is still set to 6.. so nothing new happens --they're all still unlocked.

If doing it this way, would have to add a second flag trigger... say, upon talking to an NPC like the Calamity Salvager and having an "Unlock Title Screens" option in case you have no more MSQ available and you had to reinstall the client.

Then it's simple. Load client and view your movies? Can see 2.0 only if that variable=2, can see ARR and Heavensward if variable=3..so on... Easy code change.

Would be a pretty good change, in my opinion, just to avoid potential spoilers for those worried about it, and no hindrance if you have cleared everything.

Yup. I mean there is the off chance that the boot menu is so wonkily coded originally that it's impossible for it to look into gamedata or something.
But it doesn't take a geneous to add something to it that will.
Plus, alot of gamedata info is already pulled into loadstone entirely outside of the game, so it should be easy to pinpoint flags into character data directly and just have the bootmenu check those flags.