Hall of the Novice should be mandatory

The game should force you to complete the trials before you continue on to Sastasha. People think Hall of the Novice is insufficient but there are new players right now that literally don't even know how to build aggro (because they don't know about tank stance) or to dodge out of gigantic and slow-casting AoEs in a Lv 20-30 dungeon.

I'm sorry to say but if they fail to even attempt to dodge literally every AoE through an entire dungeon they have no business continuing on with the game. At the very least Hall of the Novice won't let you complete the trial if you fail to dodge AoEs. I do not know how some of these players reached a Lv30 or 40 dungeon.

Keeping aggro, dodging AoEs, and knowing how to click on a tank and heal them. These should be mandatory skills before they even enter Sastasha. I've already had multiple encounters where such skills are missing and we literally cannot even progress in something like Haukke Manor without a kick.

Personally I did it for the free lvl 15 gear.
But I knew doing it would give me that after watching a streamer.

I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise because I knew what my skills did. And to be honest the whole thing is quite bare bones but it’s for newbies or people without MMORPG experience.

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Originally Posted by True-to-Caesar

Personally I did it for the free lvl 15 gear.
But I knew doing it would give me that after watching a streamer.

I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise because I knew what my skills did. And to be honest the whole thing is quite bare bones but it’s for newbies or people without MMORPG experience.

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Right. It is bare bones. But some people literally cannot even do the bare bones and they're let out in the wild plaguing low level dungeons. I'm not talking about tryhard level optimization. I'm talking about stuff like killing the healer because they couldn't maintain aggro on a single trash pack. Or just sitting in every single AoE and dying repeatedly. Or not being able to heal the tank at all on a single trash pack. I literally have no idea how these people got to Haukke Manor and beyond.

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

I did it because I thought i had to do everything when I first started.

Okay, so I have leveled one other toon, and I done it because I thought you had to in order to unlock duties. I'm still a sprout. Personally it was good the first time, especially for the gears but I've sorta played a bit of another MMO and had an idea what to do.

You’re not wrong, but rather it should just be part of the main story and should really only be like…4-5 solo-missions long total with NPCs explaining what’s going on/how party play works for everyone, then offer role specific stuff.

Or alternatively, part of the specific job’s quest line, with levels capped until the job quest is done.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

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The MSQ points you to it, but that portion of the quest completes after talking to the NPC, such that you're only strongly encouraged to go do the Hall of the Novice.

Kind of funny, on my main who's had Mentor status since mentorship came out, the game recently started putting Hall of the Novice in my login recommendations, as my main had never done it, as it did not exist back in the day.

My guess is that they can't make it mandatory, because they'd have to retroactively make it mandatory, and suddenly a lot of people who've never done it would have to stop and go do it. Plenty of people don't need it at all, lol, others... definitely do.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

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I think it brings you to the hall but doesn't (perhaps can't) force you to undertake the training courses. They're not handled as quests so maybe can't be gated.

But in any case this thread was started by troll persona #37 in "people are terrible and deserve to be kicked from early dungeons" mode. So yes it should happen but we don't need to spend a great deal of time discussing it.

It is part of the main story. You don't have to complete it but you are taken to the hall of the novice before entering Sastasha and one of the people you can talk to explains common phrases people say in dungeons that they are expected to understand.

I would love to see if they add more features into the Hall of Novice.

For example:

- Identify and dodging AoEs (stack marks, look away, donut, cleave, etc)
- Healing priority and when to shield/mitigate
- AoE vs Singletarget

etc.

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Originally Posted by Caitlyn

I would love to see if they add more features into the Hall of Novice.

For example:

- Identify and dodging AoEs (stack marks, look away, donut, cleave, etc)
- Healing priority and when to shield/mitigate
- AoE vs Singletarget

etc.

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Aye they should give some explanation about which AoE VFX does what, I recently learned that the dark eye meant I had to look away (around level 65-70+), same for other effects. Because there’s literally nothing in-game to introduce and explain these effects you can avoid.

You can learn on the spot of course but it’s horrible when you can be a burden to your team because you don’t understand every core mechanic.

I’m almost lvl 80 as tank and there are AoE VFX I have no precise idea what they mean, so I’ll have to look for external guides to get an actual grip of what they are.

Honestly I think that some people are just ignoring the AoE because it doesn't actually even hurt ( most of it ).
The problem isn't the novice hall imo, it's that mechanics aren't punishing enough.

If mechanics punished you harder you'd be forced to learn, when they're not punishing it incentivizes bad habbits and people might not even notice or realize that they're doing something wrong.

For example with a lot of stacking and spreading mechanics you don't get even close to dying if you mess them up, so a lot of people might run away when they're supposed to stack then take a small amount of damage and not understand that they're doing it wrong.
In their mind they might think they're doing it right because they didn't die.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Honestly I think that some people are just ignoring the AoE because it doesn't actually even hurt ( most of it ).
The problem isn't the novice hall imo, it's that mechanics aren't punishing enough.

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that's mostly just an issue with level cap dungeons, though, as leveling dungeon AOE's and enemies seem to hit way harder than those, bar the odd exception

I would honestly love to see a later game version for those who purchase a job boost. I sometimes see people with zero idea what they're doing.

It barely teaches a new player anything worth remembering. They should update it first.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

It barely teaches a new player anything worth remembering. They should update it first.

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And even after that, the game doesnt teaches anything or even gives feedback. When running a dungeon or primal, its just either "wipe" or "clear". But no indication of how you performed. Thats why many people are using ACT for that.

Only in PvP, you have some kind of feedback on how many kills you got, how many deaths, damage, healing, etc. It would be nice to have something like that in a dungeon. And only for yourself, so you dont see the numbers of other people. Or if you dont want numbers, add a rating from D to S.

Hall of the Novice is pretty bad at teaching so I'd rather not.

Wouldn't requiring this defeat the purpose of having skip potions? I mean there are people who just jumped in this game from another game who used them? You can't have both. The OP is always complaining about others game play. This thread is kinda redundant.

Hall of the Novice needs to be expanded to Hall of the Intermediate and Hall of the Expert.

Intermediate could include:

Tank: Lots of enemies you have to rotate mitigation through to survive
DPS: Lots of enemies you have properly AoE down or the tank dies after a set time (basically a DPS check)
Heal: Lots of enemies bashing the tank that you have to mitigate and heal through or the tank dies.

Also: Various aoe damage markers that are new to 50-60 content that can be learned.

I'm thinking a final fantasy mystic quest crossover.

A set of quests that become mandatory if you use a skip potion, or to reach mentorship.

It would fall into "hall of the intermedium" as the poster said above me.

Use as much of the old music as possible, take themes from the easiest of final fantasy games, and have the spin on it all being that YOU, as the warrior of light, are teaching this class to students.... in unskippable cutscenes. Followed by a demonstration of the technique. Fail the demonstration, RESTART the quest, and thus REWATCH THE CUTSCENE.

Have this go through the entire mystic quest game, chain, but not to the final final boss.

It just ENDS there, and you congradualte your class on finishing the intermediate.

Lets say, you go to report to the "king" that required the lessons to be taught, and it transforms into "dark king" and boom, expert trial. Completely optional fight...

You go into the throne room and around it are shelves of books with glimers, and if you interact it explains ALL of the mechanics. Then you interact with the throne and it unlocks the actual fight on duty finder.

For ingame lore, the books are the dark king planning for ages about this fight, and maybe going to take over your body, that's WHY there was the teaching of the students, had to be a strong enough body for him to want to take over your place in the world.

Lets include one attack that even the book won't give you a solution for, this would be the enrage.... but it seems to come way too early... nope, tank LB3 requirement, fight cycles again at this point.... eventually power creep will mean no need to lb3 with a tank.

*shrug* I've been tossing this idea at folks, hoping it takes root in somebody.

IIRC this idea was floated around before when Hall of the Novice was first introduced. As you could expect such an idea was warmly welcomed here /s. But I think with the sharp increase in new players, revisiting this discussion is relevant.
Personally I have always thought that some kind of basic tutorial was necessary and should be mandatory for players to progress. While Hall of the Novice might be bare bones, it is something that can help teach. Its clear that the introductory dungeons do not help, with the plethora of sprout players who still have no clue what they are doing at higher levels. I also think that adding more steps to Hall of the Novice would help. At the very least have a couple mandatory halls that go up to level 50 or 60.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

The game should force you to complete the trials before you continue on to Sastasha. People think Hall of the Novice is insufficient but there are new players right now that literally don't even know how to build aggro (because they don't know about tank stance) or to dodge out of gigantic and slow-casting AoEs in a Lv 20-30 dungeon.

I'm sorry to say but if they fail to even attempt to dodge literally every AoE through an entire dungeon they have no business continuing on with the game. At the very least Hall of the Novice won't let you complete the trial if you fail to dodge AoEs. I do not know how some of these players reached a Lv30 or 40 dungeon.

Keeping aggro, dodging AoEs, and knowing how to click on a tank and heal them. These should be mandatory skills before they even enter Sastasha. I've already had multiple encounters where such skills are missing and we literally cannot even progress in something like Haukke Manor without a kick.

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Once upon a time, Blizzard decided that all players would need to get Silver in Proving Grounds before they would be allowed to queue for Heroic dungeons. If they could get Silver, then they would do well in Jeroic dungeons and there would be fewer complaints about bad players.

Except many still didn't do well in Heroic dungeons despite clearly having made it through Silver on Proving Grounds.

Making Hall of Novice a mandatory requirement won't accomplish anything other than annoy players who already understand the basics. People who don't care will do the minimum necessary to get past whatever is gatekeeping then go back to not caring.

how about help new players out instead of forcing unwanted content down their throats.

try having some understanding that new players will be bad at first instead of complaining about the precious time you are already wasting on a video game.

As several other posters have pointed out, the Hall of the Novice will need to be updated in order to teach players the basic dungeon skills needed by their roles. Currently, it's more an opportunity to get great low level gear than anything else.

Personally, I'd love for there to be tiers of difficulty (Normal, Hard, Extreme, and Nightmare) with appropriate rewards to prepare individuals for the challenges ahead. I wouldn't make any of the Halls of Novice mandatory. Instead, I'd let the rewards be the motivation.

People hate gates but will readily jump through hoops of fire for goodies. :D

This again?

This is possibly the 4th time we've had this thread I can think of. Couldn't be bothered to go find an old one to raise from the dead? No wait... what's a different forum troll.