New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[MistakeNot]

There's simply too much for a player to unlock now, with all features, expansions, and patches taken together. It prevents players from playing, and randomly teleporting hither and yon is not playing beyond a technicality.

In what way is it too much? Most current players have already gone through and done all that, and it is not more work for a new player.
I really do not understand all the whining about ARR. The game does not suddenly change and gets noticeably better or even different after ARR. Yes, the MSQ gets more focused on a single story in HW, but that is the only difference, and the latter half of the 2.x patches is part of that story anyway.

[Penthea]

all they need is an npc newbs can choose to ask, who basically does

story unlock =jump potiom
then new game+ set at start.

BAM story unlocked, with optional main story, when they feel like

Considering all the story planning, dialogue scripts, character designs, voice actors, music, zone designs, cutscenes and quests the msq has, it is clear that SE spend a great deal of money and time on it. It is the driving force behind everything we do in the game, so it can easily be argued that it's the most expensive content the game has. You're kidding yourself if you think SE are ever going to make it completely optional.

[Physic]

Considering all the story planning, dialogue scripts, character designs, voice actors, music, zone designs, cutscenes and quests the msq has, it is clear that SE spend a great deal of money and time on it. It is the driving force behind everything we do in the game, so it can easily be argued that it's the most expensive content the game has. You're kidding yourself if you think SE are ever going to make it completely optional.

its definitely not, also, you are thinking somethings designed for the base game are done for msq.
char design, zone design, music are designed for the base game, dungeons, raids, fates, world maps, cities, network, servers, duty finder, etc.


msq is by far a lower cost, and mostly uses assets from the rest of the game.

and it doesnt matter.

if i make a comic book, and some wants to pay me because they only enjoy my art, you think i would refuse them. If they like to read the last page first, you think i will deny their money?

this is an mmo, it has many facets, and msq is just one part of it.

[Physic]

In what way is it too much? Most current players have already gone through and done all that, and it is not more work for a new player.
I really do not understand all the whining about ARR. The game does not suddenly change and gets noticeably better or even different after ARR. Yes, the MSQ gets more focused on a single story in HW, but that is the only difference, and the latter half of the 2.x patches is part of that story anyway.

you did it slowly over the course of 4 years. its different when its lined up back to back with no breaks. It literally locks you out of level appropriate content if you play with friends and get extra exp.

its the difference between telling your friend they have to do 150 quests to catch up, and telling them they have to do 850. Even if its good people start to get frustrated with it.

120 quests a year is fine. 700 quests before you are free to do what you want is a bit much.

[Penthea]

its definitely not, also, you are thinking somethings designed for the base game are done for msq.
char design, zone design, music are designed for the base game, dungeons, raids, fates, world maps, cities, network, servers, duty finder, etc..

...you seriously do not realise that cities, zones and dungeons look the way they do because of the story the msq has? You don't think that the music is composed to specifically compliment these areas? You think the races we play are disconnected from the story?

You think that people make all this content and then warp the msq to fit all around it?

What? xD

Just so you know Yoshida himself said that he knows how the story is going to go several expansions from now. Now unless you're going to start arguing that the dev and art teams are making content several expansions in advance, especially when we know they're not even finished making ShB (considering viera and hrothgar will have invisible headgear at launch due to adjusting gear for them being unfinished)...I think it's safe to say the story comes first most of the time.

Wow.

[xLucia]

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).

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.

What is it with new & returning players wanting to rush through content they haven't seen yet, just so they can play the expansion as it comes out? It really doesn't take THAT long to catch up. So you might be a week or 2 behind when xpac launches. So what? I don't see a problem. I have a friend who was forced to create a new account and start ALL over due to personal issues (she wasn't banned, though). She's already lvl 53 on 2 classes, after only 2 weeks of playing (almost) every evening. The level 70 earring that comes with preordering Shadowbringers make things a hell of a lot easier already. Just play the content like everyone else when they first started playing :3

[Physic]

...you seriously do not realise that cities, zones and dungeons look the way they do because of the story the msq has? You don't think that the music is composed to specifically compliment these areas? You think the races we play are disconnected from the story?

You think that people make all this content and then warp the msq to fit all around it?

What? xD

Just so you know Yoshida himself said that he knows how the story is going to go several expansions from now. Now unless you're going to start arguing that the dev and art teams are making content several expansions in advance, especially when we know they're not even finished making ShB (considering viera and hrothgar will have invisible headgear at launch due to adjusting gear for them being unfinished)...I think it's safe to say the story comes first most of the time.

Wow.

the zones and cities and charachter designs were created in this game before the msq. in fact the story totally changed directions between 1.0 and 2.0. I'm not even sure Yoshida was on the development team for the game initially.

so many of these visuals, music, much of the lore, many of the charachters were all created before the main narrative.

The game's story, primarily written by Sato, was based around a central narrative complemented by side-stories. The setting and gameplay were decided upon before Sato was brought on board,

At the beginning of development, the team created a detailed profile of Hydaelyn, including its relation with other planets, ecosystems, climate, and geography. This was done to promote a sense of realism. Alongside creating a seamless travel experience for players, careful work was put into the topography and varied lighting of environments so they would not seem repetitive. After the environment was created, the architectural, cultural and religious elements of the world were incorporated into the environment. City and machine designs mixed metallic and natural materials to create a combined sense of wonder and familiarity for players.[17] The game's five playable races were directly based on the five initial races from Final Fantasy XI, with design adjustments to reflect the new setting. The developers also created two different tribes, as opposed to the single tribe set-up present in XI. Characters' movements were primarily developed using motion capture, though the recorded movements were then adjusted so they would be sharp and distinctive. Much work was invested in creating emotes, character movements chosen by the player to represent a specific mood or emotion previously used in XI. To create realistic expressions, a character artist manually adjusted the faces for each expression.[12] For the monsters, advances in hardware enabled the team to create more realistic and detailed character models, including detailed skin textures and carefully placed hair follicles.[18]

[Physic]

What is it with new & returning players wanting to rush through content they haven't seen yet, just so they can play the expansion as it comes out? It really doesn't take THAT long to catch up. So you might be a week or 2 behind when xpac launches. So what? I don't see a problem. I have a friend who was forced to create a new account and start ALL over due to personal issues (she wasn't banned, though). She's already lvl 53 on 2 characters, after only 2 weeks of playing (almost) every evening. The level 70 earring that comes with preordering Shadowbringers make things a hell of a lot easier already. Just play the content like everyone else when they first started playing :3

do you think she is actually reading that story again? on two charachters? i doubt it.

[Penthea]

the zones and cities and charachter designs were created in this game before the msq. in fact the story totally changed directions between 1.0 and 2.0. I'm not even sure Yoshida was on the development team for the game initially.

Yoshida asked if he could use a story element to kill 1.0. He asked for permission to use Dalamud as the plot device to break Eorzea so that 2.0 could be made. It didn't even stop there.

The events from Dalamud falling where turned into a raid instance, and we see some of the events from its fall replay at the end of HW, and those events gave us a trial and another raid instance, and brought us to Gyr Abania which then leads to going to Doma.

If that isn't story greatly affecting the direction of a game over long periods of time, then what is?

so many of these visuals, music, much of the lore, many of the charachters were all created before the main narrative.

But so many were not. And likely at this point the vast majority is not, considering Yoshida knows how the story is going to go before the dev and art teams even have a chance to work on the expansions those parts of the story take place. They're not finished ShB but Yoshida knows how the story is going to go far beyond that. So obviously the story back in the offices at SE has pulled ahead in terms of how much is decided.

At this point you're jumping through mental hoops to try to discredit the impact the msq has. Even going as far as to say the creative process is done backwards.

do you think she is actually reading that story again? on two charachters? i doubt it.

I actually do reread the msq on my alts at the parts I don't quite remember or parts I remember enjoying a lot. People do buy blurays of movies they have already seen so it's not outside the realms of possibility for someone to pay attention to the msq a second time.

At the beginning of development, the team created a detailed profile of Hydaelyn, including its relation with other planets, ecosystems, climate, and geography.

Believe it or not this counts as story. Every story needs a setting. Setting is the beginning of a story. The story needs to take place in a world. They made the world before the other content in the world was created.

Unless you're going to start arguing how Hydaelyn's relationship with planets isn't central to the story ;D

[Lersayil]

But does the mandatory story bring in any players or make people stay who would have otherwise quit? We know for a fact that it makes people quit, it would be very interesting to have some data about possible positive effects on player retention.

Some numerical data would be nice, yeah. I can attest that the MSQ is in a very large part of the reason I am staying, and while I believe that being forced to do it has some added value / effect it also might be subjective. Without numbers its hard to objectively argue for either side.

And while we know that it burns out some new people, its more of a question if it burns out a sufficiently high number that its worth a the work put in to unhook from progression (and how many - if any - pro MSQ lock people it would lose the game).