Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

[Konungarike]

Even at release, Ravana was easy. Dungeons have never been difficult, even if you happen to get someone with little to no idea where they've doing.

I want to make a response to this idea in general and not specifically to Bourne.

Basically, I don't really think these sentiments hold water. I don't believe it's possible for a player of the game from level 1 all up to Ravana to disengage all of their accumulated skill with the game before making this statement. It is impossible for us to gauge wether HW MSQ content is easy for newcomers, because we were not newcomers when we played it. We aren't viable test subjects to gauge the difficulty of the content, because we are not able to detach our ingrained knowledge of this game's systems from our judgement.

The only way to really test this would be to sit 8 players in front of the game, with level 50/60/whatever characters with relevant gear, give them a few hours to learn the rotations and then hand them a MSQ primal. I believe only such players would be able to accurately gauge wether the content is too difficult for level potion'd sprouts or not.

[loreleidiangelo]

Snip

For what it's worth, I base my knowledge off the fact that I boosted my first character in World of Warcraft and picked things up just fine, but admittedly they have a dungeon guide for all their content so mechanics aren't this guessing game of trying to puzzle together unintuitive symbols and synchronized swimming mechanics.

I still don't think the MSQ is the valuable teaching experience everyone thinks it is, though. Solo instances give you a healer with tons of HP and basically infinite mana, so even if your DPS is poo you still won't die. Mandatory trials and dungeons tend to pair you with vets when the content is no longer current, so you pretty much get carried by people unless they bother to explain the mechanics to you.

Realistically, we can look at the community NOW to guage how well the MSQ teaches people how to play. (My answer? Not particularly well.) It's mandatory now, so how are people performing now? Pepperidge Farms remembers Wiping City, don't you worry.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The idea is that, yes, once you're sure that you give them all the tools they need to go into raiding, they would. This is also why Alex Savage is gated by Alex Story (We're coming back to it), and why they decided to reuse Coil mechanics in story dungeons.

Wouldn't completing the current expansion suffice for that? Say a jump potion were available already and I used it to skip ahead to Heavensward. I wouldn't be going into Alex Normal anytime soon. I'd have Dusk Vigil, Ravana and etc to look forward to. Not to mention, if there is a Hall of Novice/Proven Grounds requirement, then people wouldn't be going in blind regardless of how they got there. Incidentally, raiders tend to absolutely loathe that requirement.

Guides are another topc entirely. For me, you shouldn't have to watch a guide to win a trial. The game should provide all the info you need to win, as long as you have the skill to perform the mechanics correctly. This is also why they streamlined the prompts, so that you wouldn't have to look for a guide to know that this new attack is a gaze type, a pack type or a split type.

Yes, but for someone willing to use a jump potion, are they going to care? Probably not. Their entire goal is time efficiency. These aren't people looking to have their hands held, but want to avoid what they deem a tedious grind. Looking up guides makes the game less of a hassle for them because its information readily available without potentially weeks of skipping cutscenes depending on how much time they can dedicate to the game. Basically, a person who buys a jump potion more than likely wants to use guides.

[SuperZay]

I don't get this idea of skipping, it's like watching a movie from last part. For new players 2.0 and 3.0 story is as 'new' as 4.0 story. Where exactly are they rushing? To just two expert dungeons for 4 months? They will unsub anyway because of boredom and 'no content' (95% of which they've skipped). Do we really need new players who don't respect all the efforts the understuffed developer team put into the game over the years?

[Alleo]

You know like I already posted, I have nothing against not gating new jobs behind the expansion and also let them start at 1 too. But I am against any kind of jump for the MSQ. Its not only about the dungeons, but also about some of the MSQ solo instanced fights..some of them were quit hard and I believe they are also a good way to teach people to get better. You will always have people that don't care at all and only spam one button..but taking away any solo fight or any of the MSQ dungeons will not make this better. And if someone says that they just should keep the dungeons: Aren't those the ones that take the most time out of the MSQ? You have to wait for it to start, go through it and so on, while you can just skip the story, so I would say that those instanced dungeons/trials probably take a lot if not the most time..but if they are not forced to go there, how should they learn about mechanics? You will have way more patient players in the lower level dungeons than in higher ones..And I am quite sure that barely anyone wants to teach a lvl50/60 tank how to hold aggro..


How will people even be able to take part in the endgame raids or endgame dungeons if they don't have the gear for it? Or do you want free equipment too? (They would need to run older dungeons anyway to get at least some equipment, since not everyone will have a patient fc behind them who will craft them those things for free)

Like I already said, I have more than enough people that started the game and rushed through it only to see that endgame is not that great..and a lot of them stopped playing..I just cant see how it will keep them interested long enough. They will see sooner or later that the fights they saw you stream will not be everything..they will have to learn their rotation, they will have to equip themselves (thus running dungeons again and again) and after that they will have to find a static and be good in playing their job...a lot of these things are not shown in a stream so some might be hit with the cold harsh truth that endgame might not be so great at all. There are people that will pull it through and will continue playing the game but I somehow doubt that those are the majority. And then some will quit after a short while, yet had to buy a sub and the game with both expansion..not quite nice too..

The big questions are: Is it worth enough to take time and money and cut/trim the story for those or wouldn't it be better to just make leveling a little easier? Will it be truly worth it for the whole community, or will there be even more bad players thus making the environment more toxic?

Why do we as veteran players speak for most of the newer ones? We do have some new players writing in this thread and some are for and some against your opinion but why do we say what its the best for them? And you can have everything on one character, nobody is forced to level alts..so its your own choice to go through this and have to do the MSQ again.

Yes not everyone plays the game for the story but it IS a story focused game. I would never go to the black desert forum and complain about the PVP part of the game since I knew from the start that this would be a main focus later on. But I liked the possibility of a large amount of quests and thus bought it. People can look this up and make their own decision about it. Might some more people start playing the game if they had the ability to skip the ARR/HW content? Probably yes..the question is, are they really that big of a number? Will they stay long enough to make it worth the time and money to change the story?

In the end we can all discuss this all days long, but its SE that makes this decision and if they believe that gating would be too bad for their playerbase they would try to change that. Maybe they will try to do so maybe not. We dont have true numbers on us and I am quite sure that our opinion on that matter wont change their mind since we can only tell about our experience in the game which is quite small and restricted. And even if they will look at this thread for information, more people are against your idea. If we take your post and the first answer you only have around 17% of the people that liked your idea while the rest liked the other answer and if you take even more posts down the line your numbers gets worse. So at least the people on the forum are mostly against it which does not mean much for the rest of the playerbase but it also does not make it better for you.

[Talraen]

At this point I'm confused about what people are even asking for regarding story skipping. Some have suggested you'd still have to do the dungeons (and that is, in my opinion, the key thing), but how would that work? What, exactly, do people want to skip?

My personal experience was that a WoW-playing friend quit FFXIV before even getting to the end of the story (mainly because combat was "too slow"). If he could skip the story, he might still be playing. On the other hand, I have nothing to talk about with someone who only raids and skips all the cutscenes, so I don't actually care that he quit anyway. So... yeah, I dunno.

[bswpayton]

This thread will be going all the way up until the new expansion hahah

[Pintsized]

How will people even be able to take part in the endgame raids or endgame dungeons if they don't have the gear for it?

Here's an idea that's probably novel to you: how about many don't have any desire to do 'end-game' with it's phat-lewt grinds and its often aggressive 'community'.

Yes not everyone plays the game for the end-game

FTFY.

[Reynhart]

Wouldn't completing the current expansion suffice for that?

If they reuse every mechanic in ARR in HW, then yes, doing HW would be enough to teach you. But people would still be pissed by having to do HW to access Stormblood, right ?

Not to mention, if there is a Hall of Novice/Proven Grounds requirement, then people wouldn't be going in blind regardless of how they got there. Incidentally, raiders tend to absolutely loathe that requirement.

I'm all for a Novice Hall requirement for entering Sastasha...and a Stone, Sky, Sea requirement for entering the corresponding content...

Yes, but for someone willing to use a jump potion, are they going to care? Probably not.

No, they won't. But, as a designer, what would you do ? Taking time to create "fair" content so that people can go blind and learn the mechanics, or just putting mechanics freely, since, apart from the first groups, everyone will look at guides.

It's basically the difference between FFXI and FFXIV quest. And the two are vastly different approaches.

Here's an idea that's probably novel to you: how about many don't have any desire to do 'end-game' with it's phat-lewt grinds and its often aggressive 'community'.

I'm confused...Alleo is against a skipping feature, and you "fixed" his post, while still being in support of doing the content...did I misunderstand something ?

[Alberel]

All I want is to be able to do dungeons, access zones, and unlock classes regardless of story quest completion. This character is level 55 and still can't touch any of the HW content. It's absurd. My main was 56 before she got to Ishgard, and because what I really wanted was to play as an AST, I was forced to waste all of that XP on WHM and now have to grind dungeons/fates from 30-50 and will have to deal with XP graveyards in HW content.

That is poor design.

Sorry but you were doing something VERY wrong if you reached level 56 before completing the 2.1 - 2.55 series of MSQs. Those quests give you about 2 or 3 levels at most. If you reached 56 then you were deliberately doing other things to inflate your level. If you wanted to get to Ishgard to unlock a job ASAP then just do the MSQ and do it.

Why are you complaining about it when you clearly CHOSE not to do it? Any wasted XP at that point was your own fault for choosing to prioritise other things. You can't come here and moan about something that's your own fault...