[Proposal] New Player Help User Interface

[Laela]

Disclaimer: I'd like to first apologize if I don't put down everything that would be important for a new user in MMOs, this was an idea I had in the middle of the night and decided to follow through with it, so I'm sorry if I don't cover everything I want to, I'll edit and add as I go along with this post. Oh and also, this post is rather long, so there's a tl;dr for the lazier readers at the bottom. If you want to go straight to the proposal, skip the foreword.


FOREWORD

Hello all. Before I start talking about my thoughts on a new user walkthrough, I want
to first talk about who I am and my background regarding MMOs in general.

Before playing FFXIV, I was an avid fan of Final Fantasy XI for a long time, 7 years
to be exact. If you're familiar with FFXI, I've done everything that the game had to
offer before they increased the level cap to 80, meaning I've done Dynamis, Einherjar,
Limbus, Sky, Sea, Salvage, and HNMs, all of which on a regular basis while I played.
Other than that, I've played other MMOs including but not limited to Lineage II, Aion,
Rift, and World of Warcraft, so I would say I am not inexperienced in MMOs in the least.I feel there several issues that affect new players in current generation MMOs that decidewhether or not they decide to stay with the game for the long-term:

1. Community

The main reason I started most games in the first place is either due to starting with
friends (which was 90% of times the case) or just following with a brand that had a
successful predecessor that left a lasting impression (i.e. Final Fantasy XI). For Final
Fantasy XI, although a majority of my friends quit after about 2 months time
(from release), it was to say I didn't have a hard time making new friends through the use of the LFG system and search function that I used often when I played, whether it was for making parties or finding people for quests and missions. Although my post isn't about looking into the friend's list and looking for group user interface of FFXIV, it would be nice to see something similar to that of FFXI's user interface for that aspect because having the ability to find people that want to do the same things as you do allowed me to enjoy more of what the game had to offer.

2. Content

I'll keep this one short, as I'm sure there's no issue here for FFXIV. I feel that
although FFXIV in its current state does not offer much endgame content, it is slowly
adding more content to appeal to higher levels over time (most recently the Darkhold
and Toto-rak instances, and the upcoming Ifrit fight) to which people can set goals for. This also determines to what extent how often people will play this content and replay it.

3. User Interface

Personally, this is a big one for me. When FFXIV came with its initial release, the UI was horribly underdeveloped. Thankfully, this is slowly coming together through the last few patches the game has received, making things such as crafting and overall gameplay more enjoyable and less frustrating to utilize. Gameplay mechanics should not be the deciding factor in how difficult a game should be, but rather its content.

These are mostly what I can think of at the moment, I'll add more if I remember other
things I would like to add. Anyway, onto the main point of my post.

PROPOSAL
Learning a new game can be both intimidating and scary. The reason I make this post about having a new player UI isn't for my own sake, as I've played MMOs long enough to get the basic foundations right away, but I know this isn't the case for most players, especially those playing a complex and large game such as Final Fantasy XIV.

As part of my proposal, I want to see an extensive and deep look at the new player user interface ready and implemented by the time of Playstation 3 release to accommodate new players that will prospectively play at launch.

Since I'd rather not bore the readers with a long tedious list of suggestions, I'll keep it to a few key things I feel are important to a new user, whether they are new to MMOs or have had previous experience. I'll include a source for every part which I feel is important so people can get a basis of comparison

I apologize if you feel that my comparisons are unfair, but after playing MMOs for so many years, I feel that there are certain fundamentals that every game should have, regardless of where it was made.

1. Clickable Visual Walkthrough: (Source: Rift) For me, visual learning is the way to go when learning a new game, and I think the best way to learn either the gameplay or the user interface is through a visual step-by-step guide of how to approach certain aspects of gameplay. Example: A video step-by-step guide for the crafting process and what is involved in starting on, how to use its interface, and how to go about the actual crafting process up to the completion of an item. Another example would be how to form a party, how to accept an invitation into a party, and how to utilize the features of the party user interface. The list goes on to things such as how to equip items, how to gather, how to allocate points (since we'll be getting this feature back in 1.20), etc. Although there doesn't need to be a video for every single thing (how to set skills or how to make a macro doesn't need a video but maybe a textual list of how to do so) but having these tips open to you as you progress through the game will make learning the game much more easy and enjoyable.

2. Surveys and Rewards: (Source: Aion) Yoshida's method of getting player feedback was a wonderful idea to get in touch with the community and get an idea as to what direction the game should take, and I would love to see more surveys in the future to see how the game can be further improved. I believe player feedback is important in determining what to prioritize and how to go about improving the system. My proposal in this aspect is to provide an in-game reward for those who take future surveys. Sure, people might say "they should be self-inclined to answer the surveys since it directly affects them" but let's be honest, people will be more willing to take time to do the survey if there's something in it for them. A potential reward could be one of those manuals purchased through Grand Companies or maybe several [item=3020001]Potion[/item]/[item=3020101]Ether[/item]. It doesn't need to be anything big, just something that can entice participation in the survey for a bigger pool of player feedback because I don't think we'll be able to get as big of a pool of feedback as we did several months when Yoshida initially started doing these surveys.

3. Instanced Beginner Area (Source: Rift) I don't think this is as important as the first few, but it would be something nice to have. I think separating new players from the open world will allow new players to learn the game at their own pace without the interface of the open world (this feature is actually used for the beginning of the Gridania storyline, where the character is placed in an instanced area at the beginning of the game, but nothing was really utilized besides fighting a few monsters at the start and having a cutscene). Doing this allows players to only fight alongside other new characters and prevent potential interference. In here they can learn the basics of gameplay, such as battling, crafting, gathering, starting and completing a guildleve, starting and completing a sidequest, starting and completing a local leve, etc. This will help provide the groundwork for new players so they understand how the system works and how to utilize it. After completing the quests and new player area, then they'll gain access to the open world and interact with the rest of the players. Another plus of doing this is that it can deter RMTs from making characters and just using them to shout in towns selling gil. ^^ To supplement this idea...

4. Removal of Discipline of the Land/Hand as a Starter Class (Source: none) As much as I liked the choice of being able to choose this class upon character creation, I doubt many players choose to start the game as a crafter or a gatherer. I don't have any firm reason as to why to do this, but doing so will help players at least start the game as a DoW/DoM (I mean, you have to fight monsters eventually right?) and learn the basic foundations along the way along with other classes. This could be circumvented by possibly giving players the tool they need in the instanced player area mentioned earlier and learn how to play other classes. This way, people can learn how to play other classes and see if they like it (the tools from NPCs aren't that expensive anyway, and it'll promote character variety from the get-go). I'm not trying to take away emphasis of these classes, as I believe that DoH/DoL are both very important aspects of the game and are as important as the DoW/DoMs but really, who's gonna start the game for the first time as a carpenter or a fisher?

That's all the key issues I feel that are important to a new user and I feel that if these are all implemented, it would help not only streamline the new player user interface to a bigger player base, but also make learning the game more fun and more enjoyable. Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you feel the same way I do about this game, I hope that you give your support. I think that Final Fantasy XIV can be made into a great game given time and emphasis in the right places. I want to see this game become successful, and I hope you do too.

I also would like to apologize if these are all suggestions or plans SE will make for FFXIV already. These are just things I don't see in the game at present and would like to see it for all the newer players, especially for those that will potentially play at PS3 release.

tl;dr I feel the game can be improved by putting extensive on the new player user interface. This can be done by 1. having clickable visual walkthroughs 2. taking player surveys and having rewards 3. having an instanced area for beginners and 4. removing the DoH/DoL as a choice for a starting class in order to streamline the new player UI to a bigger player base to make the game more fun and enjoyable.