New Player Flag... off?

Okay, this is getting annoying. I am NOT a complete newbie. Sure, I'm doing stuff for the first time, but I do understand how to play the game. Is there a way to permanently turn off the "new player" flag? Every time I turn it off, it turns back on when I sign out. And having to remove that flag every single time is getting annoying.

The only way to permanently remove the sprout icon is to play the story. I believe the first quest in Shadowbringers will knock it off. Good luck.

Well that's frustrating. Why was it implemented that way?!

/nastatus off

The flag helps because people immediately recognize you are new to the game and a lot of the content and it makes them more forgiving of mistakes.

You get combat xp bonus when in a party with a mentor in any content up to Lv20 as long as you have nastatus on, even if the mentor is not displaying a mentor flag, so maybe turn it back on when you get syncked down.
/nastatus on

You can also turn off the "New Adventurer" status through the following command:

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/nastatus [subcommand]
Toggle the New Adventurer status on/off.

>>Subcommands:
　on
　　Turns on New Adventurer status.
　off
　　Turns off New Adventurer status.

Toggle the New Adventurer status on/off if no subcommand is specified.

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So, if you open the chat window and enter "/nastatus off", the sprout symbol will dissappear.

Edit: the posts above beat me to it. (^_^; )

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

/nastatus off

The flag helps because people immediately recognize you are new to the game and a lot of the content and it makes them more forgiving of mistakes.

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This. It's a good indicator for the rest of us that you also don't know the mechanics since it might be your first (few?) time(s) in a specific encounter. Shield healers can prep you up etc. etc. And even though this is just good practice, it's also a reminder for us not to spoil mechanics/story in chat.

Maybe I'm old school but I enjoyed having the sprout on my alt even though I wasn't technically a sprout. There really isn't any advantage to turning the sprout icon off. You actually lose the possibility of earning extra xp in some situations. I don't know if this is a concern you have from other games or something else, but the community here doesn't discriminate against sprouts and newer players in general. It's quite the opposite actually, people tend to make sure sprouts are having a good time.

It go away after 7 days of playtime and clearing 2.55 MSQ.

You can turn it off with /nastatus, but others will still see it next to your name.

To make it permanently go away, you need 168 hours of playtime (time spent when logged out doesn't apply) and you need to have finished the final Stormblood quest (aka the quest that leads straight into Shadowbringers).

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Originally Posted by White_Wolf_X

It go away after 7 days of playtime and clearing 2.55 MSQ.

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Wrong. 7 days of playtime and completing Stormblood/starting the first Shadowbringers quest.

The "New Player" sprout doesn't really have to mean that the player is a total newbie whom doesn't know what to do.
It simply means that the person is new to the game.
I've seen more sprouts that clearly know what to do then I've seen sprouts whom doesn't.

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Originally Posted by Titania40

Okay, this is getting annoying. I am NOT a complete newbie. Sure, I'm doing stuff for the first time, but I do understand how to play the game. Is there a way to permanently turn off the "new player" flag? Every time I turn it off, it turns back on when I sign out. And having to remove that flag every single time is getting annoying.

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But you are new, you won't know mechanics to harder content later on even if you feel like you are a competent gamer, heck- even if you watch guides, you're still not going to really know until you actually experience it a number of times.

Don't be afraid of being new at something, we were all there at one point; instead embrace it and let others help you out.

If you get grouped up with a mentor, they might even give you advice! Or not. Considering that's how people do it regardless of that mentor mark, it seems redundant. Quite unlike the sprout mark which helps those who need it and doesn't get in the way of those who don't.

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

The "New Player" sprout doesn't really have to mean that the player is a total newbie whom doesn't know what to do.
It simply means that the person is new to the game.
I've seen more sprouts that clearly know what to do then I've seen sprouts whom doesn't.

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Or an alt. I have a character on EU with a sprout, but have all jobs at 80 on my main.

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Originally Posted by MilkieTea

Wrong. 7 days of playtime and completing Stormblood/starting the first Shadowbringers quest.

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Oh well, was half right.

My experience is that a "new player" flag that's visible to everyone all the time is actually detrimental. It doesn't encourage people to be helpful. Instead it merely makes it easier for them to discriminate against new players. DPS and healing aren't that complicated, usually. It doesn't take long for an experienced player to come to grips with a given game's systems in those regards. Tanking is more complicated and requires more skill to do well, usually. DPS is a matter of knowing what your attack rotations are for single target or aoe, positioning (in some games), and recognizing how to prioritize targets. Healing is all about triage and understanding how your heals/buffs work. Neither of these are going to require a serious investment of time and energy to do well at. The biggest issue would be not being familiar with a given dungeon or raid's unique mechanics. But even then it's often not that difficult to figure them out on the fly. And if it is a a tricky mechanic, explaining it to the party is generally a good thing to do before charging in.

This particular game even helpfully informs everyone in the group if it's the first time someone has ran the dungeon/raid. When you see that message, you immediately should realize at least one person will want to watch the cut-scenes and is unfamiliar with any special mechanics. You don't need a visible indicator next to someone's name to figure that out. I might not be level 80 yet (think my main class is 33 right now. *checks* Wait, level 34 monk now. Forgot about that since I'd just spent 8 hours mining iron ore and lightning shards. And I might not have ran every dungeon yet. But that doesn't make me a newbie. I'm well aware of how to play my class. And every time I get a new ability I examine it, work out how to fit it into my rotation, and figure out how to best make use of it.

Side note: I've always hated the term 'noob' and how it often gets applied to all new players. A noob, in my opinion (and experience) is someone who knows nothing about the game and refuses to learn. They could have played 12 hours a day every day for years, completed every quest/dungeon/raid countless times, and still be a noob. A newb is just that, a new player. They know nothing about the game yet, and know it. When they stop being a newb can vary. Sometimes it's days, weeks, months, or even years. But they are willing to learn, and so stop being a 'newb' at some point. My point is that no flag with an arbitrary 'you must complete this quest' criteria to remove can actually tell you if someone is a newbie, skilled player who just hasn't completed story for the base game and first expansion yet, or a bad player. All three are going to have that 'sprout' flag. And if you play casually (or have severe altitus/need to level every single class on every single race) then you might not get around to plowing through the main story up through a specific expansion even if you're a 10 year vet.

It may not always encourage people to be helpful but it definitely encourages them to be considerate of the fact you may not know mechanics. There are a lot of reasons that people are not usually rude in this game and that is one of them.

Okay, but according to the Lodestone, your highest level job is 35. That means you haven't even finished ARR yet and have not made it to the more difficult content yet. I understand that it apparently bothers you, but I still consider myself a newbie and I almost have a 2nd class to 80. It takes time. Don't rush it and just enjoy the content. When you lose that sprout you're expected to have a basic understanding of what to do in fights. Do you know what a tank should do for almost every boss? Should a WHM cast regen or medica? How do you know if Esuna will remove a status?

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Originally Posted by Titania40

Tanking is more complicated and requires more skill to do well, usually. DPS is a matter of knowing what your attack rotations are for single target or aoe, positioning (in some games), and recognizing how to prioritize targets.

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I'll just quickly chime in and say that tanking is by far the easiest role to do in most content and that sprouts usually do not get discriminated against

First and foremost, you are a newbie. If this Lv 35 monk job is your first then you are a newbie. There are many players out there in this game each with their own definition of what is and what is not. For the game to accommodate all definitions will be chaotic. So we just follow how the game defines it and not how you define it. So if for you believe a newbie or a noob is someone who knows nothing about the game and refuses to learn, that's on you. You can't force that to everybody else trying to play by the rules and the terms.

True that the party gets informed if there is a new player. Not all players though retain mechanics and might have to be aware if it it is the same dungeon popping up in duty roulette. You also don't need to lecture the rest of the population about what tanking, DPSing and healing is. We know.

Finally, not all servers are the same, there are servers where newbie players are taken care of instead of discriminating them. It's not the same scenario everywhere. If that is your experience, then I am sorry to hear but removing the sprout icon isn't the solution for that.

The rest of the players went through with it until they were able to get rid of it according to the game's terms. If we can do it so should you. You shouldn't be an exemption. At the end of the day, I only see someone who is just lazy to turn off an icon.

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Originally Posted by Moonfish

The only way to permanently remove the sprout icon is to play the story. I believe the first quest in Shadowbringers will knock it off. Good luck.

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Hahaha oh man it lasts that long now? I've been redoing story on my alt and wondering when it kicked in these days.

I love running with it on her because I can watch the cutscenes again and people think I'm an awesome sprout who picks up on things lightning fast. Kind of glad I get to keep it so long.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Hahaha oh man it lasts that long now? I've been redoing story on my alt and wondering when it kicked in these days.

I love running with it on her because I can watch the cutscenes again and people think I'm an awesome sprout who picks up on things lightning fast. Kind of glad I get to keep it so long.

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The duration of the sprout icon changes after each expansion. You lose it when you finish the previous expansion. So as of now, finishing Stormblood 4.5x. I agree it is long, the game should have keep it at ARR 2.5x ending.

As I said, one doesn't have to be at the level cap and running the hardest content to no longer be a newbie. If I haven't ran a given dungeon before, I mention so when I join a team running it. Often a 'regular' dungeon's specific mechanics are easy to figure out on the fly. Assuming of course that it has a specific mechanic other then "BBEG is a big sack of HP". Other times, might need someone to explain them. If it's got a reputation for being hard, I do research on what mechanics I might have to watch out for before running that dungeon as well. But that doesn't mean I'm a newbie still, just that I haven't ran that specific piece of content before. In FFXI I stopped being a 'newbie' in a couple months since I'd had a LOT of experience in various MMOs. By the time I was level 40 with my first class, I was familiar enough with the game to no longer be a newbie. I'd at least played every base class enough to know how it works and what to expect from them. Granted, by the time I'd gotten monk to 40, I'd also leveled Red Mage to 30, White Mage to 20, Black Mage to 20, Warrior (I think) to 20, and had started working on leveling Dancer. Did I know all the mechanics of every dungeon, or where to find every resource? No, but I knew the base mechanics, how to play my character, and how to look up info I need using the various resources.

Here in FFXIV I stopped really being a 'newbie' by the time I reached level 18 as a pugilist. Granted, by that point I'd actually put in well over a hundred hours in the game due to also leveling every crafting and gathering job alongside Monk. If I make a rookie mistake in a dungeon, it's not because I'm a new player. It's because I just haven't done that particular dungeon before, and thus might have missed an important mechanic or critical tell for where an enemy aoe is going to hit. Things which I can, and do, learn on the fly. First time I did the first Primal fight, I got hit by most of the aoe because I didn't recognize the tells of 2/3 of his attacks. 2nd time I did it, I recognized the tells and avoided most of the aoe. If I don't figure a mechanic out immediately, I ask.

Or are you going to claim that when the next expansion hits everyone should be classified as a "new player" just because there are dungeons they haven't ran yet? Hell, this past weekend i spent at least 20 hours alone crafting and gathering resources.

In FFXI it also has a 'new player' flag. But it can be disabled at any time, so once you have a handle on the game's systems and mechanics you no longer get branded with that stigma. It baffles me that FFXIV doesn't let you permanently disable it until you've completed the main storyline for all but the newest expansion. What, will they move that goal post again with Endwalker's release, so you have to complete Shadowbringers as well in order to remove the "new player" flag? If that's the case, why not just call it what it really is, a 'campaign completion' flag.

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Originally Posted by Titania40

My experience is that a "new player" flag that's visible to everyone all the time is actually detrimental. It doesn't encourage people to be helpful. Instead it merely makes it easier for them to discriminate against new players.

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This isn't WoW, most of the time the New Player status just encourages help here.

I'll give you some advice though, any player who blindly disregards help and assumes they know the game because of experience from other MMO's or because "it's easy", will not become a great player. You're making assumptions on almost everything. I'm sure you're in a hurry to be one of the big kids, but you're not. You're a new player. You have a lot to learn later on. Settle down, enjoy the journey and stop caring about the icon over your characters head, because no one else does.

Well, not trying to be mean, but jobs change quite a bit depending on level. You (OP) may know how monk plays at 34 but the job is very different at 60/70/80. So in a sense until you have the full kit of a job, you can't be said to fully understand it, at least in my opinion. I'd go so far as to say one needs a job of each role at 80 before they can attempt to say they understand how the game truly plays since then they'd have exposure to all variations of responsibility.

I'd rather the game tell me if someone is new so I can tell them not to wipe our group by chasing us down with AoE ( the markers don't always stay consistent some are unique to the fight ).

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Originally Posted by Plushy

This is a very odd thing to be upset about not gonna lie. Not gonna assume a thing about you but hope you're not one of those people that get mad just because someone gives you advice about your job when they see you doing something wrong.

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Getting advice, no that doesn't make me mad. I will ask for info if I need it. Getting booted from groups for the crime of 'being a noob' without the team even seeing if I know what I'm doing? That is something that's happened in MANY mmos, especially if they have a flag that tells everyone at a glance you're new. It's happened in FFXI, it happened last time I had subscribed to FFXIV (in 2019 I think). Hell, my first attempt at running Sastasha back then I got booted for the offense of actually watching a cut-scene. WoW is one of the few MMOs I haven't gotten booted from teams for being a 'noob'. Instead it was for daring to try running a dungeon in 1st expansion when the expansion had just released without being decked out in gear from the base game's raids. Please ignore the fact that random loot drops from trash mobs were superior to that raid gear. Also ignore the fact that I don't tend to raid specifically because I don't like the "only this one specific build and tactic is allowed, play like a robot or not at all" mentality of hardcore raiders.

Hell, yesterday I got vote kicked from a Copperbell Mine run after the first couple groups of enemies by a group with 3 people that didn't have that sprout icon above their head and next to their name. The stated reason was because I wasn't using any aoe attacks. Er, Pugilist/Monk doesn't get an aoe attack until the level 25 class quest. Copperbell Mine syncs you down to 20 if you're too high of level, thus greying out any ability gained after level 20. Going through the ability lists, Bard and Dancer are the only physical DPS classes that get an aoe before level 25/26. And some classes like dragoon. don't look to get any aoe at all. Or if they do, it's not until the 40's. BTW, one of the group was a lancer, not a dragoon. This implies he was leveling a class that was new to him, and hadn't reached level 30 as Lancer yet. Which leads me to believe not using AOE wasn't the real reason I got booted, but rather I was booted for being 'new'.

I am sorry...
But I have a VERY hard time believing that you got booted in a low level dungeon for being new...

Not the stated reason, no. The group last night claimed it was because I wasn't contributing DPS due to not using an aoe (which I didn't have access to). And the previous time, the reasoning was "wasting our time by watching a cut-scene".

I mean... people are going to be able to tell that you're new even if you turn the icon off - they can check your profile quite easly, see what your highste level class/job is and conclude from that that you cant have been playing that long. The sprout icon just makes a little easier/more convient/obvious.

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Originally Posted by Moonfish

The only way to permanently remove the sprout icon is to play the story. I believe the first quest in Shadowbringers will knock it off. Good luck.

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You are not well informed, potato.

As said above, it can be done the second you can access the chat with a command hidden in an indigestible list of commands /...

I think Moonfish means permanently remove- you can use the command to temporarily remove it, but you'll have to do that every login I believe.

I've done more than 5 rerols for different reasons, it doesn't come off at every login. It's permanent.

/novicestatus off

It's funny who talks without checking.

I was replying because it seemed Moonfish said permanently- however since the sprout icon didn't exist when I started I never had to worry about it. However I'd still believe having it on is more helpful than hurtful. People honestly seem to go out of their way to be more kind to sprouts.

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Originally Posted by Titania40

Not the stated reason, no. The group last night claimed it was because I wasn't contributing DPS due to not using an aoe (which I didn't have access to). And the previous time, the reasoning was "wasting our time by watching a cut-scene".

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You were better off not in the group that wasn't willing to listen to someone who was on the class that they didn't have an AoE skill at that level. Especially in Copperbell Mines. Hope their replacement was a Dragoon/Lancer so they could continue to not have someone who could AoE.

As for the kick for watching cut scenes. If someone claims that in chat in game, report them. That's not acceptable. Especially if you're doing that dungeon for the first time and even moreso if it's one of the ones with story in it and there are a handful of longer ones in game with story cut scenes before final boss or upon entering.

The sprout flag is important so the party knows who to vote kick if anything goes wrong.

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Originally Posted by Titania40

Not the stated reason, no. The group last night claimed it was because I wasn't contributing DPS due to not using an aoe (which I didn't have access to). And the previous time, the reasoning was "wasting our time by watching a cut-scene".

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You do realize that in this game, that kind of stuff is actionable, right? Both of these, if they are as you described, fall under misuse of the vote-to-kick system. So, next time people kick you out of a group for "watching a cutscene," or not using AoE that your character doesn't have access to, file a report.

I mean, IMVHO it's not worth filing a complaint. But it's certainly more productive than coming here to complain.

On topic: I've rarely seen a nicer, more reasonable group than the FFXIV community. For better or worse, I've spent the majority of my life behind a computer screen, communicating with people out there on the internet (since the days you had to dial in with a state-of-the-art 1200 baud modem), so I have many thousands of hours of experience with different online communities. The FFXIV community is like a glowing angel with a halo compared to the forums and community of "the other leading MMO".

- Discussion here is more civil, constructive, and on-topic than what is commonly seen. I'm comparing this to the last two MMOs I played; my post counts on their forums are some 8,000 total, so I have a fair idea of how folks tend to behave, how they react and what topics they like to discuss.

- Random groups in this game are far more friendly, considerate, helpful, and positive than elsewhere. My sample size on this, so far, is admittedly quite small. ~175 hours of gameplay, ~50 random groups including light and full party stuff, trials and raids, normal and hard modes. Out of those fifty groups, I've been greeted maybe 48 times, thanked about the same number, made a lot of mistakes, did a couple dumb things, and learned as I went instead of looking things up. I've not had a single complaint from another player yet. To the contrary - I've had other players try to help out when I'm having trouble nearly every time I'm doing something noobish and dumb. This leads me to believe my gaming experience won't change drastically as I spend more time here.

/shrug. YMMV I guess.

Unfortunately, no everybody plays the game by going through the expansions. You can skip right through the latest expansion. So the expansion argument you have doesn't really carry count.

Again, it's not how you define it. What matters is how the game defines it. if you no longer consider yourself a newbie after level 18 it doesn't mean everybody else has to be. You are repeating arguments that everybody else sees already as pointless. Stop being a troll.

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Originally Posted by Titania40

In FFXI it also has a 'new player' flag. But it can be disabled at any time, so once you have a handle on the game's systems and mechanics you no longer get branded with that stigma.

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This is where you get things wrong. It's not a stigma. We're very fond and protective of our sprouts in this game. We try to preserve their positive experience. We try to be helpful and understanding of mistakes. An occasional bad apple may try to be mean or hard on sprouts, but they will often get a whole lot of hate coming their way for it.

I'm also going to agree with Liam_Harper. I've been playing MMOs for over 20 years. But I was still a sprout and still had things to learn back when I started this particular game in 2014, just like in any of the various MMOs I've played over those years. If you go in thinking you know everything, you will soon discover that you really know nothing.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

This is where you get things wrong. It's not a stigma. We're very fond and protective of our sprouts in this game. We try to preserve their positive experience. We try to be helpful and understanding of mistakes. An occasional bad apple may try to be mean or hard on sprouts, but they will often get a whole lot of hate coming their way for it.

I'm also going to agree with Liam_Harper. I've been playing MMOs for over 20 years. But I was still a sprout and still had things to learn back when I started this particular game in 2014, just like in any of the various MMOs I've played over those years. If you go in thinking you know everything, you will soon discover that you really know nothing.

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I'm very upset that I don't have my sprout icon anymore. ;-;.

I've only been playing since november, and this character in december. i'm still very much new! But now there's a huge expectation that i'll know things that I don't ahah.