New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Shougun]

Been fun to see a lot of people talk way past each other lol.

This in some ways reminds me of the accessibility arguments with Dark Souls. With some people refusing to and actively attempting to prevent accessibility additions and others trying to make the game have a super easy mode.

Of course I said reminds me of, not saying it's a perfect parallel. Although evaluating it like that I'd lean towards FFXIV is not a hardcore game and so it should be more mindful of accessibility than a "dark souls" mmorpg. Not that it means giving away relics whenever you heck the bed though.

So how do you propose they help new players?

Free skip potions will be like throwing someone into the deep end who doesn't know how to swim, leveling dungeons are far harsher than any end game dungeons and the potion will still force players to level at least 10 levels going into these.

Streamline msq ok they did that with HW and it had atrocious level jumps at launch(I think there was like 4 lv56 msq quest before the Vault a lv57 dungeon) a bit of padding is good it can help flesh out things for people like me and SE can pace things out more appropriately SB is the best paced .0 for story/level pacing and it still has a few bumps (58-60 range is so fast)

I really can't think what the devs could do here they use so much story yes even from the fetch quests into other parts of the game where they expect you to know about it already that it would probably require a whole redesign of the msq for ARR that i doubt they would do anything about it. The devs are currently in the damned if they do damned if they don't scenario here and it seems the dev's vision is with the damned if they do it crowd so they probably won't bother until it truly starts to affect things later down the line.

I suggested we have a new start option, that OP said might work for them (might as in it was an accepted attempt to solve it, not that it was perfect or flawless or they knew exactly how I'd make the new start).

But I sincerely think its not a bad thing to check more into. We are getting new game+ this means we can experience the starts of the game again already, which is awesome for this idea because it means not only are you making a new option for people who just don't want to deal with the 100+ hours to get to the content they wanted to get to (not everyone feels that way clearly, and its great some people are able to start from the beginning) but also because you're adding a quest chain that everyone can experience.

Thinking of it like a new quest line that means a lot to some new players and is also just a new quest chain for everyone else (neat Ishgard related reward at the end, also maybe a permanent "favored" Aethernet at ishgard).

So at the start of the game you'd get ARR starts at each of the standard GC (the pick your city menu), and then there would be advanced options based on if you own expansions like perhaps with HW/Stormblood you may start at Ishgard that also boosts one of your jobs to X level, story to Y point, and gives you Z gear / gil. This new start covering some of the basic storyline that you need to know not to be confused when let out, some basic mechanic coverings (enemy and self included), and a much greater sense of purpose than just tossing people into the world with a bunch of stuff (skip potion does that). On top of that it can also be a way to add more lore (more ishgard content) and options to the world (like a new GC option, will be freelance in PvP). An aside on GC I'd like if SE can also improve the GC system for players and FC (such that FC find value in increasing their relationships and perhaps players consider swapping more often and ranking up).

A quick not very detailed sketch of what that might be like:

You're wandering the area of Ishgard when an avalanche strikes, you turn towards it in high tier gear appropriate for the job you selected and prepare to strike it down because no avalanche can take you down. Suddenly you're distracted (like the otherworld calling we've been experiencing recently, or something to do with Nidhog's eye) which causes the avalanche to sweep you right down the mountain side and clear off it into an area unexplored to us. After some groggy dragging cutscene to a small little Ishgard hamlet (new to area to us), you are given control to experience this area. To note you're still out of it (amnesia), as you have just fallen off a freaking mountain.

You'll be given some quests and story as you flash back some of your memory (helping the player learn what has happened, some flash backs could be fights for epic teaching too like Nidhog modified a bit), these quests teaching you mechanics of the game at an accelerated rate. At first you might remember your level 30-40 self, but will increase quickly till you reach whatever was the end goal of this start option.

After helping out and learning a bit about the world and your job you get a quest to go to Ishgard, perhaps to join their knights because the village thinks you're so great, after some decent traveling and reaching there you shock the guards as of course these guys recognize you. There they take you to see Aymeric and you end the "hard lock" part of the intro, finishing with some nice tea with him. Aymeric will restore your mount and linkshell/pearls as he found your chocobo and some gear on the mountain side (cutscene of your Hachiko chocobo diligently searching for you, who you remember how to whistle to when seeing again). After the tea you move into the "soft intro".

The soft intro pretty much is open world now but will direct you to do some tasks like experience the Golden Saucer, meet your job teacher, Aymeric would love for you to join their GC and gives you a letter of recommendation (starting rank in Ishgard will be higher when with a letter of recommendation), and do the next MSQ content. The hard lock part of the intro will probably be an hour or two but will teach you much of the basics of yourself, the world, and present it in a way I think could be a fun new take (going from a small village, quickly past some of the more boring 1 1 1 1 combat, and quickly building into visiting the holy epic city Ishgard!), while the soft intro is sort of optional but will ensure a bit of direction to the player who just got released into a huge world. Obviously a big part of the intro is it will "skip" a lot of the story someone might not want to do/do again (while recapping the parts you NEED to know to move forward), to note this doesn't mean it would/have to be skipping everything but would be moving you for example right past all of ARR at minimum.

As the game gets deeper and older there might be multiple intro options, like awaking in some fairy land after being caught baked by light in the other world (shadowbringer universe). At least when the time to catch up gets too large for people who are not interested in the /old/ expansion(s) content (I don't think SE should be trying to get people to skip everything, but there is something to be said when I want to play warcraft 3 but don't want to be told I need to try 1 or 2 first - an argument sort of like that lol).