New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Iscah]

It was at one of the recent Fanfest Q and As

Tokyo fanfest, I believe is where it was said. If it wasn't there then it was at Paris fanfest

Thanks for the response - although I don't like to take "somewhere in a Fanfest talk" as a source. If there isn't either a transcript or a presentation slide stating that they're doing it, things are up for misinterpretation and getting relayed as fact when it was never actually said. (Especially if it's not being mentioned anywhere else - other interviews from the event, or reported in event summaries, or in live letters.)


That said, I recently picked up the ARR relic quest for an alt character, and wasn't required to travel to Coerthas to access the Chimaera battle. It just unlocked instantly when Gerolt said I had to go there. So along with the Crystal Tower simplifications, it's possible they're cutting down on at least minor runabout quest objectives where they can.

[VirusOnline]

Playing with a friend of mine, returner from ARR content, I can already feel how demoralized he is trying to catch up in time. To actually reach relevant content he has to go through a backlog of slog, and I have a feeling he never will actually reach the content that he has paid for, and I have a feeling a lot of new players have the same point of view, and will also never likely reach content in time (without paying for a skip) to actually play the new expansion. I do not think a skip is a good thing, not only for the intimidating price, but because these players cannot go back and do the story any longer, I would assume (I have never actually used one).

There's plenty of time to catch up between now and the expansion, coming from someone who worked and went to school full time I was able to clear all the of the MSQ just shy of two weeks.
The idea of the skip is under the understood condition that you cannot go back because one has 'experienced' the story via the skip potion for the purposes of not having to bother with it/getting to end game content quicker. You can however, skip or not, view the cutscenes of any story mission when you want. Anyone who skips or wants to be 'at the end game content right now' usually has very little desire to go back to do story missions.

They feel like they are just wasting time. I think there needs to be something in place, to alleviate this feeling. In WoW a new player has a boost, but can reach the relevant (expansion) content, and can go back and do older content at their own leisure. Granted, FF is very story based, and centered around your character (WoL). I think a way to go back and do the old story content (expansions) to catch up and do later, would be a good way to get players to relevant content, and keep them playing the game, while being able to go back and do the story content when they want to, so they don't miss out, and can get the full context of the latest story arch.

The more expansions and story content, added just make this worse, and worse.

WoW is nothing like FFXIV in terms of story. Its story is literally non-existant. Quests exist merely on the basis of level for the most part. It's what makes WoW disgustingly lacking and stale as a new player. A new player can easily become lost and disoriented and find themselves merely spamming dungeons all day long for the sake of leveling. The 'relevant story content in WoW is a joke, it's near nonexistant. Relevant story content in WoW is the equivalent of a transition scene between expansions. This lack of storytelling/general quest direction in WoW was even more prevalent back when I started playing it back in The Burning Crusade.

For a new player in FFXIV, they are given what WoW lacks - quest direction and storytelling. Never is a new player lost for there is a quest always waiting to guide them along the main timeline of events.

In all honesty, it sounds as if your friend simply should take a skip potion since they have no desire for the story (at the current moment) or paying for it. He wants to be at the end, now, with you rather than taking his character through its own journey because you are able to do things that he cannot and thus feels they're paying for nothing. And this sentiment is ok, there's nothing wrong with it. This is just how I view you and your friend's situation. A skip potion costs money for this reason, because if every new player could skip to the end it would be catastrophic for the game's experience. Rather, there would be no story experience at all and that is exactly what WoW is even without the skip potion.

[NanaWiloh]

my siggestion was never to let new players do endgame activities instantly, just remove msq lockouts, they will still have to level. Also gear is pretty easy to get, and endgame stuff has its own gear based progression. You can go from basic gear to endgame fairly easily.

Easy but time consuming tome gear starts with a 450 a week cap that boils down to 1 piece a week. Crafted end game gear is out of the price range for a new player who just hit cap. My concern is the impatient got to have it now new players who think hitting level cap means they get to instantly do end game.

[Anselmet]

I was refering to end game gear, leveling gear goes fast. New players are also not going to be close to crafting end game crafted gear after reaching cap. As a Omni crafter I can honestly say forget crafting HQ end game gear beyond a certain point if you only level one crafter as you will be relying heavily upon luck. If a new player joins the game hits 80 in shadowbringers 6 months after release their going to get a rude awakening that without crafted or mb bought gear their going to be running dungeons for a couple weeks easy to catch up. Tomes as always will start with a weekly cap of 450 until lifted they will need tome or end game crafted gear just to enter the first 8 and 24 man raids.

There is a reason wow started dropping high end gear on people the way they are doing now. Players got tired of running dungeon after dungeon after dungeon as a way to catch up.

Thanks for the clarification, but right now don't we have multiple of ways of getting gear? I mean it can be slow but unlocking omega and doing the dungeons that unlock in 4.1-4.5 usually net enough tomes for 360 gear that jumping up in ilvl isnt too cancerous. I'll admit that se could do better about dropping hints on how to gain gear after hitting the cap, but once the know how is there its not too difficult to get gear.

I've never played wow to the end of the game, but i thought some of the complaints these days is how easy it is to get high end gear? I'm not against it perse as long as it doesn't ruin the mb or devalue hard to obtain gear. But imo squares usual content schedule allows players to catch up in ilvl pretty quickly.

[Physic]

Easy but time consuming tome gear starts with a 450 a week cap that boils down to 1 piece a week. Crafted end game gear is out of the price range for a new player who just hit cap. My concern is the impatient got to have it now new players who think hitting level cap means they get to instantly do end game.

a newb would get most their gear in dungeons, the top level genesis gear is time gated for everyone. You could also do eureka if you want to grind it out.

Once again this is about msq though, yeah they d have to get gear, but getting gear is mostly done by doing content

[NanaWiloh]

a newb would get most their gear in dungeons, the top level genesis gear is time gated for everyone. You could also do eureka if you want to grind it out.

Once again this is about msq though, yeah they d have to get gear, but getting gear is mostly done by doing content

I've posted my thoughts on the msq problem..trim the fetch quests and remove requirements like running Sat and copperbell let the player choose if they want to go in there. Would not mind seeing a good 40 quests trimmed off ARR..

[van_arn]

I have little interest in getting new players caught up to top tier content, especially if Square is going to keep doing an abysmal job with gating that top tier content. I only want to be able to tell a new player it's not a fedexing visual novel for 100+ hours before they can play the actual game.

I still don't see the problem in just starting a new player at the gates of Heavensward. They're already skipped past 1.0, so why not just move the starting point to 3.0?

Heck, even the story wouldn't suffer. Just watching the trailer for Heavensward tells you you're on the run from your "home" and you've taken refuge somewhere. That's an easy hook for anyone to latch onto, and the story of Heavensward does a decent job filling in the gaps. This also solves the problems of new players being unable to play DRK or AST (both of which are common complaints) as well as a better example of the game in its current form. Even the MSQ is less scatterbrained past the gates of heavensward; this might actually be a better place to introduce players to the story than ARR.

New players that want even more context have the inn and NG+, much like players look to youtube for 1.0 story nowadays.

Skip potions on the mog station aren't really an excuse for a poor player experience, and I really don't see "they can pay extra to make it bearable" as a valid alternative. Perhaps at minimum just dump a level 50 job/story skip with recruit a friend. Or with an upgrade from the starter edition.

[Penthea]

In all honesty, it sounds as if your friend simply should take a skip potion since they have no desire for the story (at the current moment) or paying for it. He wants to be at the end, now, with you rather than taking his character through its own journey because you are able to do things that he cannot and thus feels they're paying for nothing.

OP is actually a WoW refugee and is also the supposed friend they're speaking of. They really should change their first post given they admitted this themselves and it makes their point quite misleading. That isn't to say their opinion isn't valid, but it's a bit disingenuous to try to appear to be concerned over a friend's gaming experience when it's actually just about yourself.

For a new player in FFXIV, they are given what WoW lacks - quest direction and storytelling. Never is a new player lost for there is a quest always waiting to guide them along the main timeline of events.

A criticism I had for WoW long before I started playing FFXIV and when I was still a Blizzard fangirl, is the sheer lack of lore presented in the game, and the little that was there was presented badly. Up until Legion there was almost no class lore even though players were asking for class quests (there were only a handful for several expansions) as far back as since Vanilla. I don't know about now, but up to WoD if you wanted to find out about lore...you had to go to external sources. You had to read wikis, comic-books and novels. I expect it's still mostly like this because I seriously doubt Blizzard changed how lore is presented in the old content.

This actually lead to an expansion's major character and final boss being misunderstood by 90% of the player population. The game presented Garrosh as little other than a boring two dimensional bad guy who was moody and power hungry. The novel presented him as a tragic hero who was desperate for power to protect the people who were counting on him to lead the Horde. That Blizzard chose to hide the motivations of such a major player of the expansion in a novel is absolutely ridiculous. The equivalent of that would be hiding the fact that Nidhogg is enraged over an unforgivable betrayal, and letting players continue to think he hates all non-dragonkin just because he likes being a bad dude.

You don't need to go to external sources to understand what's happening in FFXIV. Even the events before 2.0 are explained sufficiently enough for new players to understand the world they're presented with. On top of that it's not just the msq that has story. Literally every scrap of content has a story. I was blown away that even crafters and gatherers had their own class quests with very well written stories.

That this game is so rich in lore that you can experience for yourself is one of the major factors that lead to me quitting WoW. So much of what I wanted from WoW is in this game.

[Wynn_Storm]

OP is actually a WoW refugee and is also the supposed friend they're speaking of. They really should change their first post given they admitted this themselves and it makes their point quite misleading. That isn't to say their opinion isn't valid, but it's a bit disingenuous to try to appear to be concerned over a friend's gaming experience when it's actually just about yourself.

There is a few things i find wrong with your post. You make it sound like being a previous WoW player is a bad thing. The title of wow refugee just sounds bad, and especially in the context you used it. Also sure they lied about it being for a friend, but i don't think that really makes it disingenuous, the problem is still the same whether it be for the OP or if it really was for the friend. Don't you think that the reason the OP lied is so they wouldn't get ridiculed? That just shows the fear of players being afraid to speak their minds, because they know its an unpopular opinion and they will get trashed for it.

Regardless, the MSQ is a problem, even though a lot of people on here don't think it is. But the forums is a tiny minority of the playerbase, so i wouldn't take it too seriously honestly.

People are not thinking about the game in the long run of things. In two expansions from now, we are still going to be making new players go through 10 year old super dated content that obviously shows its age?

And when i sit in novice network and i see sprouts complain about MSQ or people that ask when can they play DRK or AST, i have to tell them in 500 quests or so.

The fact that people can unironically argue that its a good thing is just beyond me.

I'm personally done with this topic, as people are just going back and forth and its been going on for almost 4 days.

Tl;Dr trim all the BS quests from ARR.

[Lersayil]

I don't think anybody argues about trimming down useless fillers in ARR... but that isn't what is being suggested here, is it? From what I'm getting its more about outright skipping and unlinking content from the MSQ.

I have a personal theory (totally unproven, and based on my anectodal exp mind you) that the MSQ is actually working as an unintended filter, and has much to do with the overall type of people that make it to endgame and stay for the long haul. For better or worse, depending on your viewpoint.

Anyways as exlusionist it may sound, if SE wants to keep things this story focused, its their choice. It might exclude some people that get burnt out during the MSQ, but if they don't want to appeal to that crowd thats their business.

And as a disclaimer, yes I've also lost a number of friends due to MSQ burnout, but give the type of game FF14 is, I think thats fine, as I don't think they would've liked the game anyways if the MSQ was enough to scare them away.