New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Shougun]

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.

Just to clear something up right away, I didn't say you missed ability to see nuance (or at least didnt intend that reading lol) but meant that some people don't care about those little details so the "movie" cut of something is just good enough (and I would vehemently argue if you would suggest people can't get invested in shorter cuts of things, because you get people crying at 15 minutes of pixar lol). Which is why I mentioned the Valar from Lord of the Rings who are quite important if you really cared about the world building but really don't need to be taught for the movie or games or even parts of the books themselves lol. I meant it more like people miss that just because they value something doesn't mean other people feel the same way, some people hate LotR books but love the movies and that's okay.

Also I know there is trimming but if you trim 25% of 100 hours you're still 75 hours (and if they're too aggressive cuts it could be seen as ruining "the book" for "the movie" experience). I don't want to ruin the book experience but I do want people who just don't care about that many little details to get in and on fire with the content they desire (for many reasons, not just one particular reason). As an aside I think the cuts will help a lot for people who did want a smooth in-depth book experience, assuming the cuts are not too aggressive and also turn things into side quest rather than just remove them from the game entirely. I'm happy there is trimming but I don't think "welp problem solved" just because there will be trimming since each expansion makes the mountain greater (if we were in HW expansion and people were complaining and SE said "we'll trim some of ARR" I would actually say seems good enough for now, but we're not in HW we're going to be in SB+ soon).

Also I agree it's not a zero sum game- which is why I've avoided any suggestion that changes story for people who love it (actually my suggestion potentially adds story lol) and have made sure, imo, the solution I want cooks the core info back into the player who wants to "skip" something (provides hooks for investment of the lore, such that they may care even if given the drastically accelerated run down). Although it really feels like you're making it a zero sum game when you suggest if you skip some content the whole story is irrelevant (I'm not suggesting to put people AT end game and it doesn't take much info to know who are the bad guys and why, of course nuance lost if you gloss too quickly but that is the life of a "movie"-like delivery). Yet once past the (accelerated start) intro they're still in the books with the rest of us, at least in my idea of what could help, to get people into what they feel is "the good stuff" (subjective, which is why I said "missed" before since just because others find the beginning good and important doesn't mean others will ever feel that way).

[Ronduwil]

I am new to FFXIV, and I have to say that I love the New Player Experience so far. To me, all content feels "relevant" right now. I started experiencing the content I paid for on day one, so I don't know why your friend's experience is any different. Are you sure that your friend is actually frustrated, or are you projecting your own frustrations onto him? Relax and let him enjoy the game. He'll get to your level someday. The reason I am playing this game now is because WoW wholeheartedly embraced what you're proposing and rendered their entire game irrelevant with the exception of the latest content drop. That does not make for a compelling gameplay experience. I like working my character up gradually and building a lasting legacy. I don't want FFXIV to go the way of WoW where every piece of gear and crafting material feels like a disposable piece of garbage that will be chucked into the scrap bin sometime in the next three months. For me, this entire game feels relevant right now. I hope they keep it that way.

[Roda]

As someone who is currently replaying the new player experience 7 times right now. It's not that bad. Honestly I don't see the big stink about the titan quests that have become a meme lately.
If your only interest is endgame raiding, sure I guess you might feel like you're wasting time, but that's not really the only part of the game worth playing. :T

[van_arn]

I am new to FFXIV, and I have to say that I love the New Player Experience so far. To me, all content feels "relevant" right now. I started experiencing the content I paid for on day one, so I don't know why your friend's experience is any different. Are you sure that your friend is actually frustrated, or are you projecting your own frustrations onto him? Relax and let him enjoy the game. He'll get to your level someday. The reason I am playing this game now is because WoW wholeheartedly embraced what you're proposing and rendered their entire game irrelevant with the exception of the latest content drop. That does not make for a compelling gameplay experience. I like working my character up gradually and building a lasting legacy. I don't want FFXIV to go the way of WoW where every piece of gear and crafting material feels like a disposable piece of garbage that will be chucked into the scrap bin sometime in the next three months. For me, this entire game feels relevant right now. I hope they keep it that way.

My sweet summer child. You don't have a single job, or a class above 21.

You haven't seen the winter.

[Miles064]

Actually nearly every player in WoW played through the story content at least once if not several times. All those quests in the open world are the story content. Yes those massive walls of text in the small window given to you mostly by very forgettable mannequin-like npcs that you were unlikely to ever see again after you left their location, that's the story content. But because it's presented in such a bland way, people don't often seem to consider that it is.

So even though it doesn't gate you like FFXIV's msq does, most players ended up playing it anyway. Often multiple times from trying new classes.

WoW has incredibly rich lore. But at least up until WoD (which is when I quit) it wasn't presented very well, so a huge amount of players just don't bother with it. They only care that they have to kill 10 wolves. Not why. WoW had (still has?) nothing resembling the msq and the central characters to the stories are all npcs. The story isn't about you at all. It's about how you aid these people by being one of many talented soldiers. You're not a major plot device because anything you didn't do, some other talented soldier (another player) did it. You're a face in the crowd.

In FFXIV you're the central character to the story. That alone means the story needs to be told very differently to something like WoW. You are even represented by a character in the expansion trailers.

While both games have very complex and wonderful lore, it is clear that the player's roles in them greatly differ, and that Blizzard and SE don't have the same ideas as to how a story should be told.

In short: they're different games by different studios.

Its been a while but was the player anymore then just a random adventurer till ifrit? That's when it was found out you were immune to being tempered right? I do agree the way Wow told the story in the past for a lot of things mad it seem like you were helping out important npcs rather then being the important one yourself. That changed after a while though. Even in Mists you were somewhat well known by faction npcs as being important. WoD and onward you were center stage too(commander in WoD, class leader in Legion, etc.)

As for the msq, Legion had a max lvl story that needed to be done to unlock things(broken isles,that one dungeon i cant remember the name of with the Naaru, the class quests.). BFA has something like msq as well now with the faction campaign. both of those you play a large part of the story. Both will be skip able in future expacs(legion's story already is skip able). Still, WoW quests and npcs mention how much you have done/how important you are but WoW has no cut-scenes with the player in it. Always thought that was one of those famous server limitations though.


Again. All I want is past expacs max lvl stories to be skip able. Keep the lvling stuff,keep the current expac lvling and max lvl stuff, don't get rid of anything. Right now in SB I think players should get the option to go to HW lvling quests without doing ARR max lvl quests. Then go to SB lvling quests without doing HW max lvl quests. Have the dungeons and stuff be unlocked when you hit 50 and 60 keep the quests i case you want to know what happened. That alone i feel would make it feel less overwhelming to new players and even veterans that just want an alt with a different look or something.

[Melichoir]

Depending on how carefully and deliberately the streamlining is done, you probably could cut 2.1-2.55 down by half, and wouldnt necessarily require removing it out right. Some events in 2.1-2.55 are a lot less consequential to the MSQ and could be turned into side story quests that help flesh out the broader MSQ but arent totally necessary to complete. This would keep content in the game for people, still require the MSQ, and cut down time.

But it should be noted that a 25 hour reduction (from the hypothetical 100 hours) is a lot of time. Thats about 2 weeks for a player who plays a modest 2 hours a day averagely. Most MMO players easily play double that I would hazard when all is averaged out. Furthermore, ARR is an MMORPG so its going to have a large pool of playtime. If we were talking about reducing the entirety of ARR to 25 hours play time, that is a huge cut to an MMO by any standards. Even by WoW standards, someone eeked out 1-100 in about 24 hours, thats with preplanning, skipping everything, having exp gear, having equipment ready to go, having Gold, etc. For a casual player to complete all of ARR in 25 hours would be insane. Even 50 hours might be punching it to fast.

Taking a casual player 75 Hours to complete all of ARR 2.0 seems reasonable, considering the size and scope of it. Consider that it supposedly took someone about 110 hours of playtime to go from lvl 1 sprout to Ilvl 340 (with beating deltascape savage). Thats with the planning and prep. Id hazard a casual player could do all of ARR in 135 hours playing at a fairly decent pace currently and reach HW. As a point, there are 285 MSQ from ARR 2.0-2.55. Assuming each one takes an average of 20 minutes to complete, thats 95 Hours of time. Now that number obviously would fluctuate depending queue times, if a player switches jobs, cutscenes, how much they read, how smoothly dungeons go, etc, so a 135 hour completion time seems within reason.

Now I said 2.0 above for a reason when mentioning that 75 hour mark. From what Ive observed, 2.0 isnt the issue. It's 2.1-2.55 that kills people. That specific slot of MSQ is what most people have a hard time with. If pruning and streamlining was to occur, it would be in this section. Here's where most of that 'slog' sits. This is what people tned to talk about taking to long. And I would hazard that this section is shorter quest wise, but because of it's set up (with some filler and convolusion here and there), it drags on. It is not great pacing in this section and should be addressed (possibly even redone). This isnt to say we should allow it to be skipped, but that it needs a face lift.

[Iscah]

Its been a while but was the player anymore then just a random adventurer till ifrit? That's when it was found out you were immune to being tempered right?

No, we were already working with the Scions at that point.

We'd been on their radar since the Lv5 quest where, variably for each city quest, we get attacked by something-or-other and the local Scion comes to our rescue, and we have our first vision of Hydaelyn. We describe it to them, and (while it isn't explained at this point) they realise we must have the Echo.

Then we get officially recruited to the Scions at Lv17 after clearing the first three dungeons and then coming to the rescue of a woman being bullied by some thugs, at which point the Scion we'd previously dealt with comes up to us and invites us to join their secret society. Investigating Ifrit is our first assignment with them.

[DPZ2]

Just to clear something up right away, I didn't say you missed ability to see nuance (or at least didnt intend that reading lol) but meant that some people don't care about those little details so the "movie" cut of something is just good enough

Story + job skip potions = watch as little or as much of the "movie cut" as you want.

Remember that there is a nice book full of cut-scenes in the Inn room, which is directly referenced when you use a story skip potion. [WARNING: NOT EVERYTHING ENDS UP IN THAT BOOK ... so be prepared to miss out on some things ...]

Get to level 60 on Day 1. Watch cut-scenes to your heart's content. Become the Source of "problem players" that are complained about in the Forums (eg. "I hate newbies who don't know their jobs in an instance because they skipped ...")

Problem [already] solved.

[DPZ2]

My sweet summer child. You don't have a single job, or a class above 21.

You haven't seen the winter.

You sound a bit, um, jaded after 8 years of this game.

You've had your fun, now it's time to spoil it for others ...

[Iscah]

Story + job skip potions = watch as little or as much of the "movie cut" as you want.

Remember that there is a nice book full of cut-scenes in the Inn room, which is directly referenced when you use a story skip potion. [WARNING: NOT EVERYTHING ENDS UP IN THAT BOOK ... so be prepared to miss out on some things ...]

Get to level 60 on Day 1. Watch cut-scenes to your heart's content. Become the Source of "problem players" that are complained about in the Forums (eg. "I hate newbies who don't know their jobs in an instance because they skipped ...")

Problem [already] solved.

The cutscene viewer is not "the movie cut". It's fragments of the story - key scenes, certainly, but with a lot of context missing, and not arranged entirely sequentially. (Scenes that take place in dungeons - the MSQ roulette dungeons, and also our first meeting with Lahabrea in Toto-Rak, are lost over in the Instances tab.)