New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Melichoir]

Snip

Got a bit to catch up on...

They go over Echo, Garleans and what not in ARR, rehashing a lot of it through story in the MSQ when necessary, and then going off on a new direction. I would assume youre not arguing of repackaging the MSQ into a newer MSQ? Cause again, the contention point isnt streamlining the MSQ (which this will be like the 10th time Ive said probably needs to be done), but that you should skip MSQ all together and just jump into anything any time regardless of your level, AND that this should be the encouraged route cause 'new players have it hard'.

Second, I do get that if people want to skip the MSQ, they wont care. That isnt the problem. The problem is handing out free jump potions or just gutting the MSQ cause of these players. If people dont care about MSQ, they can either rush the MSQ or buy the skip potion. You either spend the time going through it or buy your way past it. These are options available to you. Again, a lot of these arguments that keep popping up are zero sum arguments. You either give people the option to bypass everything, or force them to sit through every cutscene, dialogue box, etc. It purposefully ignores nuance to 'win' the point. It's why its a stupid argument to begin with. I would think forcing players to sit through every little nuance would be bad. I also think removing the gating aspect would also be bad. You shouldnt have access to content just cause you leveled up fast enough. The goal should be streamlining the process between the two, not forcing only one out come or another.

There's a broader Meta reason for it, and I think people are either ignorant or willfully blind to it. In anything that is narrative driven, having the audience investment creates better results and retention (aka this is your fan base). For a healthier player base (and less toxic one overall because people are more like-minded as a result) having investment is important. I would hazard that part of the reason WoW became a crap shoot was because of this - Player attention became more and more focused on chasing numbers and shiny gear, with little else. Every new xpac and boss as just another way to increase numbers. That is clear because WotlK content is irrelevant compared to BfA(Is BFA most recent?). If you want to know that story in WotLK (which is admittedly kinda good), you can go back and slog through it, but the game doesnt care if you did or not. And unsurprisingly, most players dont, and new players are told by veterans to not care about it. You can bypass it. It's not important. That's an attitude the game sets up by its design. Because the goal isnt the story, it's the end game bosses and bigger number armors/weapons. A strong central plot and story can and does helps ground a player base in something else. Something people can talk about, get hyped about, be a part of regardless if theyre wearing shiny epics or not. It helps breed commonality beyond just the number cruncher game. Take the ShB Trailer, people are hyped about it beyond its cool visuals because of whats going on. We're like "Wtf is happening. Were WoDs now? Why is the light evil? Holy shit is that Urangier and Yshtola? No its Matoya I think! Why is stuff on fire?" That hype has nothing to do with dungeons or bosses. It has a lot to do with the MSQ and it's characters. You can tell whos hyped for the xpac cause of the lore vs the dungeons (which we have very little info on save for Nier Automata, which has people hyped cause Nier Automata also has a killer story).

Change that system to where its all about the end game boss fights, and youll find elitism and stupidity follow closely behind it. Cause at that point the only hype thing is how big your numbers are. There are people who chase the lore in WoW, but my experience was that as time went on through the xpacs, that became less and less a focus. Likely due to being able to skip past old content and not care. Game doesnt care, why should the player?

Also, I dunno what circles you run in and Ill admit my bias, but A LOT of people I talk with play it for the MSQ and the centric nature of it. Are there complaints, again yes. Is it perfect? No. Could it use some streamlining? Sure. But I typically dont hear people say "I came to play it for the dungeons/classes' to often. Not that people dont do come for that, but I hear more complaints about the nature of the combat system and how sluggish it feels from new players, or how scripted boss fights are. Not that there isnt enjoyment, but FFXIV isnt cutting edge mechanically. In fact, Id hazard WoW is better about this comparatively. What sets this game apart from other games is that MSQ. Again, it's central to the game, unlike other games where you can pass through the world and things happen regardless of you.

I think many people are honestly and legitimately feeling much of the story is important (as it is to them) but miss that there is too much of "irrelevant" and boring "nuance" to the minds of others (who also happen to be pounding that skip button, all they know or care about is Ascian bad and they're using primals and Garleans to bring back Zodiark who is also probably bad).

Im not missing the nuance. Look at what some of us have been saying. Again, trimming the ARR storyline is worth discussing. The opposition isnt to pruning/streamlining. It's to complete de-gating, free jump potions, or other bypasses that completely make the MSQ irrelevant at no cost. Plenty of us here would discuss nuance, and dont see the zero sum game as being viable.