Quality of Life Improvements and MSQ Gating for New Players

[TwistedTea]

Here's my argument.
It's pointless and if you don't want to play the game, you probably weren't going to play the game that long anyway. If you really don't want to do the quests than you can drop the cash to bypass it all. You have your options, but don't waste my chance at getting what little content we started receiving to fix an issue that has other options to bypass it.

As Hestzhyen articulated better than I have:

So I can see where OP is coming from and I'm not sure why people are willing to defend a less than stellar newbie experience in the game. "It gets better I promise, just slog through 30 hours of story and bs quests until you get to where I am if you don't wanna pay more money to skip all that crap you just paid for" is not the world's greatest sales pitch.

[Krotoan]

As Hestzhyen articulated better than I have:

An important point here though is someone will have to work on these changes. It's not a small investment either, someone has to change/test/implement the streamlining and if you think we get sparse updates now imagine if half the team gets swiped to work on summarizing the MSQ experience. People already complain about recycled content, imagine actually losing current content to old content development.

I will concede that the "filler" we got between major plot points is very lackluster and I did feel like I was a glorified messenger for quite a bit. I could have done without that and summarizing that would be welcome to me since it was a whole lot of travel for no reason. That would take dev time too though.. I don't feel it's worth the price.

[TwistedTea]

Eh, I think trying to lump this as a problem for casual players is missing the mark. I am hyper casual and have zero interest in raiding or end game content because I find it boring...

Yup, my definition of 'casual player' includes time/skill/types of content attempted based on googling around.

I've also stated that I get one of the draws of this game is that it is "story-based". However,all I'm stating is that MSQ should be made 'optional/semi-optional' and not gate important/'endgame' content.

MSQ should be trimmed down and made optional/semi-optional. The leveling/gear/rewards/etc associated with it can remain. So it's just another path to leveling/gear/etc like POTD.

People are going to be bored and complain they have no content to do no matter how much content is there once they get caught up to current MSQ. All MSQ gating does is place 'artificial' progression blocks. Improving upon and interesting existing content is the way to go.

[SonKevin]

As Hestzhyen articulated better than I have:

And the only way I can respond to that is that I and other players who have been here since that slog was brand new content simply matter more. Sure, you want to attract new players, but you also want to retain old players. If you release a patch a bare bones patch to fix a problem that already has other solutions then you risk making long term players irate. The type of players who have spent a crap ton of money on this game already. If they can figure out a way to fix it without diminishing the already diminished content then go ahead, but frankly they should just deal with it like everyone else did.

[TwistedTea]

It's not a small investment either, someone has to change/test/implement the streamlining and if you think we get sparse updates now imagine if half the team gets swiped to work on summarizing the MSQ experience. That would take dev time too though.. I don't feel it's worth the price.

...but you also want to retain old players. If you release a patch a bare bones patch to fix a problem that already has other solutions then you risk making long term players irate. The type of players who have spent a crap ton of money on this game already.

So unless we get concrete numbers on things like how much revenue new players generate, how many bother to get caught up to current MSQ before quitting, it seems that from a cost analysis point of view, it's not worth it for SE.

However, in the long run, I cannot see how such an MMORPG can remain profitable without focusing more on non-subscription based streams of revenue.

At the very least, I hope they trim down ARR's MSQ.

[RokkuEkkusu]

The question is how far SE will be willing to go for trimming down the end-game MSQ quests. They've already took out the guildhests requirement as far as I know.

[bass9020]

People are going to be bored and complain they have no content to do no matter how much content is there once they get caught up to current MSQ. All MSQ gating does is place 'artificial' progression blocks. Improving upon and interesting existing content is the way to go.

If I remember correctly when Alexander raid was introduced people felt very disconnected from it because it did not relate to the main story in any way. It required finishing 3.0 base main story but that was it. At least with 4.0 the raid(going to exclude names)was in some way linked to the main story. So having the "artificial" blocks isnt horrible, people need to learn this isnt (insert generic non story mmo here).

Also again trimming would require MAJOR time to process. If they did it it would need to be done in such a way that it still preserved the story. I play another game that literally butchered what little main story it had in order to trim down the quests, it didnt help whatsoever.

Everything has a purpose within the game, why cant people learn to adapt to it and accept it?

[Krotoan]

So unless we get concrete numbers on things like how much revenue new players generate, how many bother to get caught up to current MSQ before quitting, it seems that from a cost analysis point of view, it's not worth it for SE.

However, in the long run, I cannot see how such an MMORPG can remain profitable without focusing more on non-subscription based streams of revenue.
At the very least, I hope they at least trim down the MSQ, especially ARR's MSQ.

Not us though, we aren't the ones who are gonna decide it. Unless the devs see some hard evidence for trimming or allowing skipping the MSQ it's never gonna get greenlit. We can saw how much we want it all we like but if subs keep happening and people keep buying the skip pots there's no reason for them to change and especially no reason a beancounter would suggest it.

There is some trimming I'd like to see as I said, but I'm not holding my breath. I also don't think the entirety should be skippable since that experience is part of what makes the community the community, for better or worse.

[Hasrat]

This may come as a surprise to some, but the game isn't required to appeal to every player. Players that don't enjoy the game as the devs think it should be are free to find other games that suit their needs better.

Personally, I'm not sure that those players that just want to rust to "endgame" realize just how monotonous the latest content can be when that's your only goal in the game.

[DreadRabbit]

snip

I get that. But you really didn't offer any alternatives whatsoever. You just said "it should be optional" and then "the leveling/gear/rewards/etc associated with it can remain."

How do those things remain? Is this just another set of side quests? Because if so that doesn't really solve the quest bloat problem, these just don't have cutscenes to skip. Do you literally just unlock dungeons by dinging a certain level, or would you have to complete certain quests? Because quests serve two purposes: help you level, and show you where things are at. So if someone dings 15, does the game flash a map with a message saying "you now can access Sastasha!"? If we go with just the level-unlock route, how are players expected to gain those levels if you don't add anything to replace the now optional quests?

Levels themselves are artificial progression blocks. Regardless if you do the MSQ or not you are going to be grinding something to get to end game unless you use a jump potion.