New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Shougun]

Problem [already] solved.

We need a movie cut of this thread lol. I've strongly disagreed quite a few times. I've never made Iscah's points so add that to why I think "no it's not solved". At this point beyond making my own thread detailing a new start not sure I can do much on the subject anymore, it's all circles. Glad at least I've seen a few people go "I don't think its fun that way, and I don't want you to change my story, but if you find it could be good and it doesn't ruin my enjoyment.. well maybe then.. maybe... not crazy for it but your game is not damaging my game I guess" (like Serluke, who should post some more Otters lol).

So I've already said it isn't solved that way (imo, of course lol). For many reasons, including the fact I actively don't like skip potions because they don't give enough points of attachment. I don't think 0 is helpful and I don't think 100 hours is required, which is why I started to use movie cut* since I was imagining a new start option to the game that is about 2 hours long (that gets you the basics of the game and some back story of who you are and what you're doing).

Edit: *The wording movie cut is used here metaphorically, not to be taken as a 2 hour sit and watch + skip.

[Miles064]

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.

Ah, thank you for the refresher.

[Melichoir]

We need a movie cut of this thread lol. I've strongly disagreed quite a few times. I've never made Iscah's points so add that to why I think "no it's not solved". At this point beyond making my own thread detailing a new start not sure I can do much on the subject anymore, it's all circles.

I've already said it isn't. For many reasons, including the fact I actively don't like skip potions because they don't give enough points of attachment. I don't think 0 is helpful and I don't think 100 hours is required, which is why I started to use movie cut since I was imagining a new start option to the game that is about 2 hours long (that gets you the basics of the game and some back story of who you are and what you're doing).

You and your 'movies'. Gawd!

Joking aside though, More cutscenes may help alleviate the issue. But you have to be careful with that as well. People are playing a game, and if theyre watching pre-rendered cut scenes to often rather than playing the game, thatll also cause issues. You can easily see people saying "I bought this game to play, not watch cutscenes!"

Its been a while but was the player anymore then just a random adventurer till ifrit?

We were kind of a nobody when the game starts out. That's the point though. You have humble beginnings, but an extraordinary gift. You over time grow into the WoL role, being central to the events in the story. Youre seen on average being on the same footing as many faction leaders (youre there during negotiations, the faction leaders listen to you and your opinions, rely on your expertise, and treat you as an equal). The game doesnt treat you as a foot soldier.

This isnt like WoW where you forever remain the faceless soldier. Again, in wow youre a hero, where in FFXIV youre the hero

[Shougun]

You and your 'movies'. Gawd!

Joking aside though, More cutscenes may help alleviate the issue. But you have to be careful with that as well. People are playing a game, and if theyre watching pre-rendered cut scenes to often rather than playing the game, thatll also cause issues. You can easily see people saying "I bought this game to play, not watch cutscenes!"

NO U!

. Sorry if the movie part got confusing, most of it would be played (I made a short sketch idea of it like 400 pages back lol). I was using movie in that movies have to cut out a lot of legitimately important details to tell the story in "gotta go fast" mode lol. So there would be some cutscenes, and prerenders, but a lot of it would be playing the game.

Like for example a thought I was writing down for a thread later is when you first time approach a monster after being sent out, like a classic beginning to a game.. just some low level monster because of some quest to help the village get wolve fur or something cheeky, right before you get close enough and the wolve aggros then the screen cracks (like classic FF battle transition visuals) and Ultima's claw reaches out out of the shattering glass and fires it's line beam attack at you. In the sketch idea mentioned some pages back I started off the beginning of the game by tossing the player off a mountain and beginning them with a killer headache and some memory damage*, so Ultima coming out like that is more of a figurative restructuring of your memories than him actually doing that and also obviously helps SE tell some of the stories and set some of the events up for the player doing the new start option.

Where in you start the fight with your surroundings have been changed, during the fight you'll get some exposition from Lahabrea while you get some combat tips and hopefully shriek as the game just tossed a curve ball and an airship at you. I'd want to avoid long sitting and no doing periods of time if I was going about it. The fast start is to cater not so much to people who want the slow burn start which even I've enjoyed most of it myself (some of the food quests drive me nuts though lol).

*I feel some fun could be had with our single player standalone games in some of these starts. Like much much later when SB+ is like two expansions old we start at SB+ after falling into pure white aether (Cloud falling into mako) and perhaps an Ascian actually helps us get out (the visual contrast of the black robes against the white burned background could be fun). This would leave so many questions and spin on Ascian (of course SE shouldn't just do stuff willynilly). Also I would like to, and hopefully others, see these new starts be fun for us veterans so that we can do them as quest chains because we can do new game+ now .

[Miles064]

You and your 'movies'. Gawd!

Joking aside though, More cutscenes may help alleviate the issue. But you have to be careful with that as well. People are playing a game, and if theyre watching pre-rendered cut scenes to often rather than playing the game, thatll also cause issues. You can easily see people saying "I bought this game to play, not watch cutscenes!"



We were kind of a nobody when the game starts out. That's the point though. You have humble beginnings, but an extraordinary gift. You over time grow into the WoL role, being central to the events in the story. Youre seen on average being on the same footing as many faction leaders (youre there during negotiations, the faction leaders listen to you and your opinions, rely on your expertise, and treat you as an equal). The game doesnt treat you as a foot soldier.

This isnt like WoW where you forever remain the faceless soldier. Again, in wow youre a hero, where in FFXIV youre the hero

Again, you have not been a faceless hero for some time now in WoW. The last 3 expacs at the very least. Hell in legion you were the leader of your class with a one of a kind weapon(Ashbringer for Ret pally). Npcs call you by title(commander,champion of the horde/alliance,archmage) rather then name likely due to server limitations. That doesn't seem much different then what FF has.

[DPZ2]

... which is why I started to use movie cut since I was imagining a new start option to the game that is about 2 hours long (that gets you the basics of the game and some back story of who you are and what you're doing).

After which, you are ... where?

It takes 50 levels for you to become recognized as [the] Warrior of Light. Are you going to dump all that in 2 hours and move to Heavensward?

It takes another 10 levels to resolve the DragonSong Wars, are you going to dump that into the same 2 hours and start out in StormBlood?

It takes another 10 levels to work through the Garlemald situation, are you going to dump that into the same 2 hours and start out with ShadowBringers?

Do you want to run through levels 1-50 and then, at the credits to 2.0, incorporate "highlights" of the next parts of 2.x you're intent on skipping in interests of time?

Better to run a skip/jump potion and be done with it, since you're going to miss all of that potential story anyway.

[Melichoir]

Again, you have not been a faceless hero for some time now in WoW. The last 3 expacs at the very least. Hell in legion you were the leader of your class with a one of a kind weapon(Ashbringer for Ret pally). Npcs call you by title(commander,champion of the horde/alliance,archmage) rather then name likely due to server limitations. That doesn't seem much different then what FF has.

Then that's a design change theyre moving into, not one they were starting with. And this still doesnt change certain aspects because most of the game treats you as a faceless hero. If theyre trying to reverse direction by adopting some of FFXIVs set up, Im not opposed to it. But I dunno if thta would make the difference. Particularly with Gating turned off. Meaning, if Legion I dont care about the events and continue to just lvl, I can skip the back half of it and hit the newest xpac without resolving anything. That makes your actions less important. The world spins on and on regardless of whether you do anything. That isnt the case in FFXIV with the MSQ.


As for the movie, cutscene, it boils down to some of that. But it might be simpler (in some aspects) is start combining quests. For example, Meridianum and Praetorium could be combined, particularly since Merdianum is literally you just breaking into the facility and killing Whats-er-face. You could move her boss fight a lot earlier, remove the whole bit about having to take down the Shield towers, prop it up as it's just a heavily fortified base, and you just cut down a lot of time right there.

[Shougun]

After which, you are ... where?

I hope you're arguing in good faith, just that I'm not sure as it doesn't feel like it. Obviously you're wherever the intro leaves you lol, whatever info that may be.

I know you find much of the story important but as I used the movie example for on purpose much of a story can be boiled down into core essence and a person can get the gist of what's going on from that. From leaving the intro you then enter the book narrative (from the movie start), so if you skipped ARR you're heading into the dragonsong and so what is taught in the ARR skip would be what you need to get HW without going "I AM THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT!? LOL I THOUGHT I WAS A CARPENTER".

Much of the info you need is reiterated as you play the game and so the accelerated start would just need to cover very core bits of info to get you into the book, and let the reiteration introduce new bits like in a book new info is usually told in the way that "it's always been this way", many characters are done that way too (when introduced not everyone gets a trumpet intro in books).

Obviously the more you know the smoother everything is but there are many reasons why someone may prefer the "movie" (not sit and watch, using it metaphorically) intro over the much longer in-depth description of the world (and clearly many love the in-depth style as well, I /do not/ want to take that away or modify it away from them in the future). I have never argued that ARR has no importance in the lore, just that for many people getting the core info to "good enough" and getting them to where they wanted to go could mean a lot more people sticking around (some people don't like early mmo combat, perhaps especially now that action mmos are more popular and so getting them deeper is a huge benefit, some people started exclusively to play fresh content because they saw a trailer, others have played old content and would love to start up in the expansion but don't want to spend $30 + $15 a month + $50 to come back in, there are many reasons why I've come to this particular solution).

Not suggesting people will have every detail of the game underlock but I'm just suggesting with a few core pieces of info you could go from "entirely lost" to "oh I think I got it, and this guy here is my friend right? I should go help them because the start said Garlean is bad! (and then a later quest might change those values but they have a start at least)" and hopefully from there like one may play Witcher 3 because it's new shiny and fancy they'll go back and try witcher 1 because they're invested now (Try HW, loved it- goes back and plays ARR with new game+).

[Anselmet]

After which, you are ... where?

It takes 50 levels for you to become recognized as [the] Warrior of Light. Are you going to dump all that in 2 hours and move to Heavensward?

It takes another 10 levels to resolve the DragonSong Wars, are you going to dump that into the same 2 hours and start out in StormBlood?

It takes another 10 levels to work through the Garlemald situation, are you going to dump that into the same 2 hours and start out with ShadowBringers?

Do you want to run through levels 1-50 and then, at the credits to 2.0, incorporate "highlights" of the next parts of 2.x you're intent on skipping in interests of time?

Better to run a skip/jump potion and be done with it, since you're going to miss all of that potential story anyway.

I agree with this. Square Enix has made condensed stories before with the Kingdom Hearts series. 358 days was okay and recoded was painful to watch through, but both were almost 3 hrs long fro two ds games that honestly did not have that big of stories when compared to ffxiv. There is no way SE could condense our expansion stories into just two hour movies without leaving a lot of context out. Also, se is a video game company and their attempts at movies have been horrific to meh. Not to mention how much effort and money it would take to make condensed movies. It wouldn't be just mishmash of current cut scenes. A better more cost effective way to handle the msq is making it easy to get through it and allowing players to level quickly by just running it so there is no extra grinding necessary.

[Shougun]

As for the movie, cutscene, it boils down to some of that. But it might be simpler (in some aspects) is start combining quests. For example, Meridianum and Praetorium could be combined, particularly since Merdianum is literally you just breaking into the facility and killing Whats-er-face. You could move her boss fight a lot earlier, remove the whole bit about having to take down the Shield towers, prop it up as it's just a heavily fortified base, and you just cut down a lot of time right there.

Of course I stll think the whole accerlated start is a good idea lol so we may have to be like "naw you" back and forth which is fine at least you're not calling me names (and I hope you feel the same lol).

But I think combining these two could be quite the journey feeling.. may have to adjust a few things (I don't think as many people would want to MSQ roullette it if it's like a 2 hour dungeon unless the reward is really bumped up.. but of course we'll get threads on it anyways lol). Yet just picturing say myself going through it, as if I could do it solo (maybe with some other important NPCs), it would be pretty neat to be able to go from the outside to the inside in one session.

I know you said to remove the boss fight/shield towers but I think you might be able to start on the outside :3 (and still cut a lot, I only use 2 hours as an estimate of the original times not what the new time would be lol).

I agree with this. Square Enix has made condensed stories before with the Kingdom Hearts series. 358 days was okay and recoded was painful to watch through, but both were almost 3 hrs long fro two ds games that honestly did not have that big of stories when compared to ffxiv. There is no way SE could condense our expansion stories into just two hour movies without leaving a lot of context out. Also, se is a video game company and their attempts at movies have been horrific to meh. Not to mention how much effort and money it would take to make condensed movies. It wouldn't be just mishmash of current cut scenes. A better more cost effective way to handle the msq is making it easy to get through it and allowing players to level quickly by just running it so there is no extra grinding necessary.

I was using movies metaphorically not literally 2 hours of watching. I know, or hope, it's my fault for making that not clear but it's a false representation of what I was suggesting to say it's a pure movie.

I also don't think the story is that complex that you can't get people understanding the core of the story in two hours. You will miss a lot of nuance but the point of it was to be better than a skip potion and to work towards people who don't care as much (at least yet) about those little details, the people not in LotR for the Silmarillion (Valar concept being a "little" detail, even though it's technically quite important).