[Feedback] A New Player's Perspective (Will update if there's interest)

[VelKallor]

She even hates Minfilla just like everyone else.

Oh? Ive never heard anyone say they hate her. "Everyone else"? is...who exactly?

Im sorry but I have to call on this, no one I know has ever said they hate her at all. i know theres this "hate scions" meme but the fact is that the most common meme I have heard about Minfilia was that she should be wearing a badge that says

[kaynide]

Oh? Ive never heard anyone say they hate her. "Everyone else"? is...who exactly?

Im sorry but I have to call on this, no one I know has ever said they hate her at all. i know theres this "hate scions" meme but the fact is that the most common meme I have heard about Minfilia was that she should be wearing a badge that says

Well, to be fair, it is less her as a character and more the Pray Return BS.

I mean, somebody even went through the effort to make a music video on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvTQCCZd2VE

I think it's somewhat undersold that Trusts can help players learn mechanics, too.

I wish there was more to this. Like the Trust NPCs actually saying what's going on/advising the player on mechanics. At least for the 1-50 dungeons.

Something like a generic voice saying "Look out! We need to gather together!" or like "The beast is about to breath (as in a breath weapon)! Move away!"

Trusts will literally clear most dungeons with zero player input, besides you needing to be present and dodging AOEs that would kill you otherwise.

This seems to be unfortunately true (at least up to level 50); I'm not sure if it's a good selling point for the game though. Or if it's just the way games are trending now- I noticed a commercial for the new Mario game that had a line "And if you can't beat the level, that's fine! Just skip it and try a different one". Or the mobile "This game will grind for you while you're not playing it!" games.

[Iscah]

This seems to be unfortunately true (at least up to level 50); I'm not sure if it's a good selling point for the game though. Or if it's just the way games are trending now- I noticed a commercial for the new Mario game that had a line "And if you can't beat the level, that's fine! Just skip it and try a different one". Or the mobile "This game will grind for you while you're not playing it!" games.

Unless you're dealing with a pure gameplay, escalating difficulty game like Pac-Man or Tetris, I would definitely rather that the developers err on the side of letting players access everything, or at least a range of things – whether that means being able to get through the story or just have access to more than one puzzle (or platformer level) in a hub instead of having to do them all sequentially.

Obviously there's some kind of balance to be struck, and it depends on the exact nature of the game, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world to be able to skip over a difficult puzzle and move on with the story. Either your personal drive for completion will bring you back there, or you won't care and nobody has lost anything.

I have a feeling I've played at least one game that let you skip levels, but with a limit on how many you could have in skipped status at a time, so you eventually had to clear at least one of your previous skipped levels before you could skip a new one.

I don't see the point of "game plays itself" games unless you're getting some specific enjoyment out of seeing the numbers go up, or whatever it is that they actually do. I'd be happy if a game played the grindy parts itself – in FFXIV terms, if I could set my character to automatically rack up hours of EXP in Bozja so I could come in to play the story and do each FATE once instead of ten times each, but not for it to clear the whole thing from start to finish so I never do anything with it. (Although even then I wouldn't mind start-to-finish for alts... but it's a bit different for something like FFXIV where you have essentially a set of different games bundled up alongside the main game. I wouldn't independently choose to play a Bozja-type game and then not actually play it.)

[kaynide]

...

Agreed all around.

And regarding difficulty, I'm pretty sure it will ramp up for her in HW. I'm really just curious how far she can get before she -has- to take a minute and figure out her abilities.

Story of misadventure to be continued, I guess!

[Saidosha]

I don't see the point of "game plays itself" games unless you're getting some specific enjoyment out of seeing the numbers go up, or whatever it is that they actually do. I'd be happy if a game played the grindy parts itself – in FFXIV terms, if I could set my character to automatically rack up hours of EXP in Bozja so I could come in to play the story and do each FATE once instead of ten times each, but not for it to clear the whole thing from start to finish so I never do anything with it. (Although even then I wouldn't mind start-to-finish for alts... but it's a bit different for something like FFXIV where you have essentially a set of different games bundled up alongside the main game. I wouldn't independently choose to play a Bozja-type game and then not actually play it.)

If there's one thing I've seen some mobile games do right, it's passive resource generation to basically offset the need to grind. The closest XIV has to this is retainers, but short of a rather lucky find, I'd argue they're not really worth the effort to maintain and cycle even if you could technically argue they're "free" if you give 'em hand-me-down gear early on.

Part of my own desire for a more meaningful open world is the option to assign your character a task when you're offline. You'll basically get tagged as a temporary NPC, but still be out in the world doing things relative to what you chose. And when you come back, a little EXP and loot to show for it. Pragmatically, it's not much different than rested EXP, but it would help to give the world a bit more life knowing you won't be doing something like FATEs alone at off-peak hours if other assigned players showed up to assist.