New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Penthea]

uhh i feel like you havent done msq in a long time.

I invite you to look up my fc in the lodestone. You will see a rank called "officer alt". I have three alts in that rank. The alts that do not belong to me have the first name of one of the officers in the character names. I would be happy to even log in and speak with you on those alts if you don't believe me. I also have alts on other servers.

Even when you are the same level, most of the time is spent teleporting around talking to npcs and watching cutscenes, you cannot do that with your friend, you have to progress it yourself.

There are a handful of times you get some spawned enemies. Heres how it goes when you are both same level:

ok, lets do our quest stuff (one finishes) ok let me know when you finish your cutscene..... kill 2 guys, ok lets do our quests again, teleport talk to 8 dudes, ok let me drop story to do solo instances, do teleport drop off cutscene, he remake party, lets kill two monsters.

You just said that's only a handful of times. So what about the rest of the time then? I suppose the implication is that it's fine?

I have done the msq with friends before. I didn't find it as cumbersome as you make it out to be. I admit that leaving and remaking parties is a mild annoyance at times but it didn't bother me too much as it literally takes two seconds.

its not something that works out to feel like playing together. You can not believe me, but other people said the same thing, and i ve actually done it.

I believe that you feel that way. What I don't believe is that everyone does or that enough people do that SE need to do a huge amount of work to change the msq.

They can ignore it, but they will continue to lose a % of referals, that they might not lose otherwise.

The only part of the msq that needs a serious look at is the lvl 50 patch content, it's notorious for causing the feeling of being dragged down to some new players. I enjoyed it but even I feel that there is too much travelling back and forth going on. Some cutscenes in the game teleport you to the next area. Introducing this to those quests would help streamline the experience a lot. So much of the running around is quite literally irrelevant to the story.

and they dont have to do a ton of work, the story skip potions can apparently unlock everything up to whatever story point they choose, new game + will allow players to go back. The tech is alreafy there, they might have to make a new menu, or npc, thats about it.

The story skip potions don't work the way you think. They basically do the quests for you given you cannot go do them yourself after using the potion. Leaving the quests intact but removing triggers they have, such as unlocking content or unlocking quests, is what would need to be done to achieve what you want. Having a bunch of redundant quest triggers could actually cause some bugs. For example a trigger might have a fit if you have already done the quest it's supposed to open up, or it might have a fit it triggers nothing and it keeps trying to retrigger to fulfil its function. Leaving behind old code that used to have a function is -never- a good idea.

I am not saying they need to let people skip levels for free just choose to how to tackle story.

Doing it the way you want it done would change the game a lot. What you're asking for isn't a mere convenience but would actually change the most central element of the game. The msq is the road everyone must walk to interact with the game. Even those who use jump potions have to at some point (unless they plan on unsubbing until the next jump potion is released). Removing the msq from its mechanical connections to content would be removing that road and replacing it with another. You're basically asking for a different game. Not necessarily a bad game, but it's certainly not the same game.

[Physic]

I invite you to look up my fc in the lodestone. You will see a rank called "officer alt". I have three alts in that rank. The alts that do not belong to me have the first name of one of the officers in the character names. I would be happy to even log in and speak with you on those alts if you don't believe me. I also have alts on other servers.



You just said that's only a handful of times. So what about the rest of the time then? I suppose the implication is that it's fine?

I have done the msq with friends before. I didn't find it as cumbersome as you make it out to be. I admit that leaving and remaking parties is a mild annoyance at times but it didn't bother me too much as it literally takes two seconds.



I believe that you feel that way. What I don't believe is that everyone does or that enough people do that SE need to do a huge amount of work to change the msq.



The only part of the msq that needs a serious look at is the lvl 50 patch content, it's notorious for causing the feeling of being dragged down to some new players. I enjoyed it but even I feel that there is too much travelling back and forth going on. Some cutscenes in the game teleport you to the next area. Introducing this to those quests would help streamline the experience a lot. So much of the running around is quite literally irrelevant to the story.



The story skip potions don't work the way you think. They basically do the quests for you given you cannot go do them yourself after using the potion. Leaving the quests intact but removing triggers they have, such as unlocking content or unlocking quests, is what would need to be done to achieve what you want. Having a bunch of redundant quest triggers could actually cause some bugs. For example a trigger might have a fit if you have already done the quest it's supposed to open up. Leaving behind old code that used to have a function is -never- a good idea.



Doing it the way you want it done would change the game a lot. What you're asking for isn't a mere convenience but would actually change the most central element of the game. The msq is the road everyone must walk to interact with the game. Even those who use jump potions have to at some point (unless they plan on unsubbing until thenext jump potion is released). Removing the msq from its mechanical connections to content would be removing that road and replacing it with another. You're basically asking for a different game. Not necessarily a bad game, but it's certainly not the same game.

i never said every player hates/has problems with msq, just that a decent % do. Allowing those people to opt out wont hurt those that opt in, and will get more people to the parts they like.

as to the story skip, it shows they can by pressing button, move a player from one story step to another. New game+ shows they can allow people who have already unlocked content to experience it without losing unlocks. This means both parts needed for what i am talking about already exist.

A complete rework of msq might be expensive(might be worth it) but thats not what i am saying they should do.

Allow people to unlock content, if they wish, and go back and do story later, if they wish. both parts are already going to be available in july, just allow new players to access it.


and you misunderstood my comment about once in awhile. I am saying the msq is mostly teleporting around talking to npcs, the once in awhile, is fighting spawned enemies.

the only time two players can play msq together is spawned enemies, and dungeons/trials. Both of those are a comparitively small part of msq.

i believe you enjoy msq, and feel it is the most integral part of ffxiv, what i am telling you is many others dont feel that way, and the longer/more of that they have to do to experience content they want to play, the less likely they are to keep playing. This i think, is most likely with referals, because people being refered expect to play mostly with their friends.

[Penthea]

i believe you enjoy msq, and feel it is the most integral part of ffxiv

That's not an opinion, it is a fact. You said yourself. It's a requirement to engage in nearly everything in the game. It's also the reason given for almost everywhere we can go and everything we can do. If that isn't integral or central, then what is?

what i am telling you is many others dont feel that way, and the longer/more of that they have to do to experience content they want to play, the less likely they are to keep playing.

What you're saying is some players don't feel the msq is central to their enjoyment. That's not the same as the msq not being central to the game.

This i think, is most likely with referals, because people being refered expect to play mostly with their friends.

This really depends on the person. For some people being in the same ls or fc as their buddies and doing content together only every so often is enough. Others at the opposite end of the spectrum want to always be doing content with their friends. There are many varying degrees in between the two as well. And of course for some people this changes day to day with their mood. I know quite a few referral players, some I referred myself, and their social habits differ from one another.