Thoughts on Isgard Lockout.

[Seiryuukishi]

Well random versus scripted mechanics is a slippery slope kind of issue. When dealing with scripted if you pay attention, no matter how long it takes eventually you will complete the task. The trouble is there has to be some sort of draw back within this system so you get instant death mechanics and enrage timers. This is to provide a challenge while still keeping the fight within the realm of possible completion. Of course it becomes tedious and very boring after being done time after time.

Random on the other hand is another animal entirely. While offering a far more "fun" experience for most because of the "don't know what's next" factor that in and of itself is its largest drawback when it comes to completion. Random mechanics have a tendency of not only surprising you but royally screwing you over and quickly at that. Bahamut's AOE randomized for example would send healers into fits. Can you imagine that popping three or four times in a row?

The problem is not that the game wouldn't be fun with random mechanics, it's more to the tune that because of the way it has been designed surviving overpowering random mechanics like what was stated in the example above is next to if not impossible with the current way things are. Tanks HP pools are a joke along with everyone else's not to mention healers MP. So repeated hits from something of that caliber is going to get tensions rising fast. That means mistakes and a lot of them. For random mechanics to work on here based on how hard bosses hit to HP to MP ratio both pools would have to be nearly doubled or the mechanics themselves would have to be nerfed before randomization took effect. Maybe even both. So if something that hit for 3500 a lick before was randomized and you got bad luck and the tank was hit three to four times by it what then? Cool downs sitting on two to seven minute timers will only get you so far and since it's random you don't know when to pop them.

TL;DR I am all for fresh new stuff but doing something like random mechanics isn't that simple. This game isn't designed for it and before it is jobs, stats and gear are going to need SERIOUS overhauling.

[Burningskull]

For fun or spiritbonding? It's still story content as well, its not like its some random dungeon or raid.

In the words of Varric Tethras, Point, Missing it lol. People wont like hitting 50 and finding out they have to do 20 - 50 quests before they can open up Ishgard and start earning exp again. They already stated there wont be a lvl cap quest to allow you to break the current cap. You'll be able to log in and start lvling. So we are going to get exp from current stuff. It'll keep us doing the roulettes as well as doing the expansion content. Which leads back around to if new players hit lvl 52 (for example) and now have a quest to go to the new zones and aquire a new job ability, they can't do it cause the new zones are locked behind 2.55.

well... Ishgard is locked lol. New Zones might not be lol. Who knows lol.

[StouterTaru]

It's 100 quests, not 20-50. Plus all 7 primals, Qarn (low level), Snowcloak, Keeper of the Lake, SoF, and Crystalis.

[Teuciont]

What catering are you talking about exactly, nerfing old content and giving bonuses for running it?

No, designing content with the mindset that it needs to be "easily accessible" to people that have never played a MMO before, or at least this. I 100% believe that the 2.0-2.55 story should give both experience points and gear rewards to help a player gear up without having to grind. And I doubly believe that some of the 2.0-2.55 fights should be tuned towards four people instead of eight. My point was more as I first mentioned, this "completely new to a MMO" group that Yoshida has, on numerous occasions, given interest in continuing to babysit in 3.0.

[Felis]

ps: one important point, people don't ask for a full randomized fight, but for a more random. meaning with more stuff that will ask to the group to react and adapt. not anticipate what will arrive after.
because that the main trouble of this content, we don't react, we know what gonna happend next and are ready to do what we need to do.

Isn't react the same as do what need to do?
Example Stone Vigil hard, the attack orders of the endbosses are random. But the player still know what come next if he watch the movements of the 2 bosses (every attack have a own opening stance). The player do then what he have to do and react.

[Shneibel]

the whole story quest from 2.0 to 2.55 take around 6h (skip all cs and dialog). Lvl 1 to 50 does not take long. I don't see the the lock out as an issue or problem for new player as it take them less than a week to unlock Ishgard

[silentwindfr]

Isn't react the same as do what need to do?
Example Stone Vigil hard, the attack orders of the endbosses are random. But the player still know what come next if he watch the movements of the 2 bosses (every attack have a own opening stance). The player do then what he have to do and react.

you do have a difference between observe the boss for notice what will be him next action, then know what will be the next action because it will always be this! a good example:

http://i.imgur.com/UbacDrh.gif

it's old, but it show you the trouble with content. you don't need to know the boss, but to know the choregraphy... that a huge difference. i know that randomized fight will be harder to tune, and take some example from mechanic coming from the scripted fight is not a good example, since they are tuned for be scripted. but we are far from the subject ^^

[LineageRazor]

No, designing content with the mindset that it needs to be "easily accessible" to people that have never played a MMO before, or at least this. I 100% believe that the 2.0-2.55 story should give both experience points and gear rewards to help a player gear up without having to grind. And I doubly believe that some of the 2.0-2.55 fights should be tuned towards four people instead of eight. My point was more as I first mentioned, this "completely new to a MMO" group that Yoshida has, on numerous occasions, given interest in continuing to babysit in 3.0.

The catering to new players should end when we're ready for the game to shut down. New players are what keeps an MMO thriving, because if no one steps in to replace old players that leave, a game dies. While it's important to gate some of the content behind story progression, I don't believe that the new jobs should have been one of those things. SE needs to continue to supply a steady supply of attractive toys that new players (whether new to MMOs in general or just new to FFXIV) can snatch up and play with right out of the box - and additional jobs are perfect for that kind of thing. Right now, the expansion offers no such toys, except for the opportunity to play as an Au Ra. The incentive for a new player to fork over for the ARR/Heavensward combo set instead of the much cheaper ARR-only set is very low.

[SpiritMuse]

The catering to new players should end when we're ready for the game to shut down. New players are what keeps an MMO thriving, because if no one steps in to replace old players that leave, a game dies. While it's important to gate some of the content behind story progression, I don't believe that the new jobs should have been one of those things. SE needs to continue to supply a steady supply of attractive toys that new players (whether new to MMOs in general or just new to FFXIV) can snatch up and play with right out of the box - and additional jobs are perfect for that kind of thing. Right now, the expansion offers no such toys, except for the opportunity to play as an Au Ra. The incentive for a new player to fork over for the ARR/Heavensward combo set instead of the much cheaper ARR-only set is very low.

But if they only buy ARR they're going to want Heavensward by the time they do get there, so they're going to eventually be buying that anyway.

[XxSliphxX]

It's becoming increasingly clear as I read these forums(which I don't know why I do) that so many of you just don't understand like, the fundamentals of human behavior. Having new classes locked behind a year's worth of post 50 content is a mind-numbingly stupid decision that I guarantee will make a lot of really bad waves once Heavensward hits. This is a 4 million sub game, bone headed moves like this will get noticed.

Now, WHY is it bone headed? Because expansions are made to expand the content and bring back old players who relapsed and new players with the excitement of what's added. They added two VERY popular new classes, which would get a lot of people talking and thinking "hey maybe I should check out that final fantasy game. You know, the one built off of the ashes of an MMO so bad they burned it all down and made a new one." If they have to get through all this and then all this to try out one of the Cool New Classes that were added, they're not gonna be happy! I don't care if you grumble like a country-club stereotype about "ENTITLEMENTS" and "HANDOUTS," this is how humans behave and they're going to be disappointed that they can't try the stuff they wanted to try from this cool new expansion pack they bought.

As a new player myself I completely agree with you and i'm looking forward to the shit storm that hits once heavensward is released it should be pretty entertaining reading. The ONLY reason I even started playing this game is because I heard about the upcoming expansion and saw the new characters and races and got really excited to play an astrologian. Now originally I was going to just wait until the expansion hit to start playing at all but due to just being bored and impatient i decided to start playing about a month ago and thank god i did or I would have been royally screwed and not just a little bit pissed off at this news. And lemme tell you I only recently found out about this because they do a really great job of hiding it from new players.

It never would have occurred to me "and i'm very sure other new players are the same" that I would have been locked out of new content or would have not been able to play the new class coming into the game as no other recent mmo does this when an expansion hits. Heck the entire purpose of an expansion is to entice new and old players to return but this game is doing it ass backwards imo. I can tell you with 100% surety that had I waited until the day of the expansion to play and then been hit with this horrible news I would have raged hard and gotten my money back and never again looked at another ff game. I cannot believe that they are releasing it in this state and pretty much giving new players a gigantic FU.

From a purely business perspective this is the most retarded decision they could possibly make. The only people I see happy about this are the elitist/entitled players who think they deserve this and have that "new players need to suffer like they did" mentality. To them i say grow up it's not all about you and new players being able to play new content isn't hurting you in any way besides your petty digital pride.