The Problem for New Players

[Blarp]

Which happens in every MMO. Here's a challenge:

Join any established MMOs, the older the better, and see if you're able to afford a lot of the good gear for your level on the AH or vendors the very first 3 hours of your career.

Two come to mind immediately. World of Warcraft and EVE Online. The last time I played LOTRO there was plenty of low level stuff to get in addition to the quest gear that was serviceable to progress with.

[ispano]

Two come to mind immediately. World of Warcraft and EVE Online. The last time I played LOTRO there was plenty of low level stuff to get in addition to the quest gear that was serviceable to progress with.

I agree with this, I stopped playing WoW a while back, but beginning gear wasn't difficult to get. I still currently play EVE and it's the same there.... unless you're a dumbass like my friend and buy weird crap he can't use for weeks.

[Invalice_Vangaurd]

It would be good if a game could cater perfectly to both solo and multiplayer types, sure. I think that's really really hard to pull off though, and I think it's fairly clear that a majority of people here would rather do party-based events than solo up to 50 and beyond, so I think the devs simply chose to lean heavily in the party direction while still allowing enough leeway to solo yourself up if you /really/ want to. Being able to solo to 50 doesn't mean it will be fast though, or fun. And I don't think it should necessarily be either, although I'm glad it's an option for every class (as opposed to xi, where a lot of classes ran into serious difficulty soloing later on, until various items/new jobs became available).

I really don't think it would be that difficult, and I really don't think that a majority of people want to have a game that is built around partying either. You can have plenty of party-based events and still have decent soloing options, I just think some people don't want others to have a viable solo option, because you want to party, and when there is a viable solo option the amount of people actually willing to form parties goes down drastically.

I find it hard to believe game developers couldn't implement a system that allows people to solo mobs around their level for a decent amount of exp without it taking all day to kill a single mob, while at the same time allowing parties to fight mobs of higher level for an elevated amount of exp. I would say it's pretty condescending to think they are incapable of doing something so simple. The problem is, when they try to, people bitch that the game is too easy, and not enough people party, and it's a WoW clone, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

There is no sense in acting like you cannot have a viable solo option, while at the same time having a party option that is somewhat better, and to say you think soloing should be slow and boring, is frankly you wanting to restrict other players based on your own damn preferences about leveling. This party or nothing attitude is bullshit and seems to me a sure way for this game to fail at PS3 launch, because I'm sorry, but many modern MMO players (perhaps the majority even) do not want to be drastically gimped by choosing to solo, and thus, coerced into partying in order to accomplish anything. Some of us have very hectic lives, work odd hours, live in various time zones, etc, etc, etc, and imagine this, some of us may not even like partying. *gasp*

Partying obviously has it's place, and should probably be required on the majority of end game content, but there is more to consider than this. I can agree, that people shouldn't be able to easily solo mobs 10+ levels higher than they are, however, I do think you should be able to solo mobs higher than you, IF you've put in the time and effort to acquire all the best gear, skills, etc. So, I'm not saying the previous system did not have faults in need of tweaking, but to go to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum is not any better.

[Physic]

while it is a lot more difficult than before, it isnt really that difficult. In most MMOs it takes you awhile to get 1/5th of cap, and 2/5ths.

I think its a problem of comparison, my biggest worry is low end gear, will anyone be able to get it from players? i dont know. They may have to give more money, or items to low level players some how.

[Nuru]

I've been playing for 3 hours and I barely made it from R14 to R15 on my PUG xD

But oh well, considering the level cap is 50 right now that's not entirely bad, and I hear XP is insane at higher levels because of XP Chains and Links.

you should try your hand at Shposhae, the mobs in there give great amounts of exp even for me at lvl 23, so since they are around your level then the xp should be much better

[Blarp]

while it is a lot more difficult than before, it isnt really that difficult. In most MMOs it takes you awhile to get 1/5th of cap, and 2/5ths.

I think its a problem of comparison, my biggest worry is low end gear, will anyone be able to get it from players? i dont know. They may have to give more money, or items to low level players some how.

Have you tried to solo grind when you're out of leves as a fresh player recently? It's not difficult, but it's extremely tedious. I got fed up with getting 100 XP from a Dodo that takes ~30 seconds to kill, and figured I'd attempt to find some people to play with or even chat with to make it more bearable. I just got done shouting in Ul'dah for a PT or even an active NA LS and nobody said a word. In fact, the entire time I was there nobody said anything at all. I wave to people, say hello, try to start a conversation, and it's like you're not allowed to talk in this game.

The LFG function in this game is embarrassingly bad, and people tell me if I want good XP I need to PT? What am I supposed to do? Stand around in Ul'dah while everyone acts like an NPC and doesn't speak? For a game supposedly focused on PT play, the community and the game itself put huge obstacles in the way of new players trying to make their way.

[Xello]

Which happens in every MMO. Here's a challenge:

Join any established MMOs, the older the better, and see if you're able to afford a lot of the good gear for your level on the AH or vendors the very first 3 hours of your career.

Well obviously. but factor in that new players here are so broken and weak it's going to be an absolute nightmare getting ANYWHERE. There's not much chance of those new players working themselves up to bigger and better things, as is the case with those other games. anyone can achieve in those cases, But this patch clearly favors the no lifers who've stuck it out in this broken world for a year.

Why screw the people who actually left and have taste and standards? they're interested in returning after all.

Either way you look at it, balance is screwed and the adjustments are fail. cause the only way I've seen low players successfully levelling since patch? Power levelling. big ol' level 50 popping mobs for massive skill ups. and THAT is crappy design imo.

[Teth]

I started back to FFXIV on friday just before the patch. I hadn't played since beta. I talked about it a bit at the weekend and a friend picked up a copy to join me. So that's us 2 very new players duoing the low end. We played for around 5 hours last night. We played together and apart as he went to do the story missions as they became available. I think there are improvements to the new player experience but I think there is a long way to go.

Longer fights are good it's not just spam biggest skill and mob dies. They actually had enough HP at all levels for a Duo to need to use skills.
Linking and EXP chains are great.

We started in Limsa and initially we did sheep to lvl 3, then Chigs and then the wheels came off. We had hit 4-5 and we decided to do Leves. At 1 star the mobs are lower level and the EXP is worthless and the rewards are worthless. 18g really? At 3 stars we did an even level Lev but died on the second pack. 2 even level mobs on a gladiator in weathered gear at level 4-5 was horrific. They kill me very very fast but at least I live a while. 2 mobs agro on the conjuror and he explodes. The Conjuror leveled from that leve so for the next we had to go to 4 stars. It was mole patrol. We died on every pack but 1 simply because as a glad I did very little damage and couldn't hold mobs off the Conj. He couldn't nuke them fast enough because of their dive underground thing. We did another Leve after this with no full wipes but still a couple of deaths. Again teh rewards were pityful. I think 186gil was the best of them.

I was a FFXI player who really liked that game but found it hard to get friends involved in it. I was hoping that FFXIV would be a similar level of difficulty while still requiring the grouping and co-ordination that FFXI did so that it had a similar community feel but with a better designed new player experience that would teach people what they needed to know to get on in the world and enjoy what the game has to offer. I think as of 1.19 FF14 is failing at this. As a new player starting pre 1.19 made me feel more like the game was teling me to do the right thing and I was seeing results. Now the game feels like it is actively missleading us as new players.

So moving forward what are our plans.

Gear. Hopefully lvl 6+ equipment will help us even the odds with enemies again. The Leves provide totally inadequate rewards to allow us to buy it from NPCs or market wards right now. In my opinion this is an easy fix for SE. Provide level 6 and 12 gear from vendors or leve quest rewards for DoW players. As it is leves are just not worth doing.

I leveled some crafts with my remaining Leves last night while my friend did the story quests. I plan to make us our lvl 6 gear. This however exposed another flaw in the game to me. Starting out as a crafter with a mental goal of "I want to make gear for my gladiator" is downright retarded. I was able to level miner, botanist, carpenter, blacksmith, and lether worker to 6, 8, 6, 4and 5 respectively in a couple of hours. I have a nice collection of resources BUT. I have no earthly clue how to actually make anything. I had to refer to external sites like ZAM at every turn and they are of course out of date. I have not yet been able to figure out what the new recipies are other than tanning leather and making lumber / planks.

We aim to keep at this and see if we can overcome the newbie period. Our plan going forward is get gear and then go duo links and XP chains. I found some lvl 6, lvl 9 and lvl 11 camps while I was leveling DoH jobs so once we get gear sorted that should provide our leveling route. I'm keeping Leves for crafting as it seem essential to learn it to get gear and they seem worthless for DoW leveling anyway.

So folks. Comments. How does our duo experience end up differing so radically from the guy who soloed lancer to 10 on leves last night, do you think SE should be helping us more or should we just suck it up, does anyone have a list of new recipies for a set of gladiator and Conjuror gear in the new system?

All constructive advice, leveling paths, camp suggestions and recipies welcome. We're on Selbina BTW.

[Teth]

Ok I figured I'd update this after another night on FFXIV.

Last night was a mixed experience. It is really not fun trying to navigate the combination of ingame UI and external website resources needed to get anywhere with crafting gear for a character in FFXIV.

Figuring out what gear is available for you, screening it down to what is good for you and then figuring out if / how you can actually make that gear and what crafting skill levels are required is akin to voodoo right now with the tools available. 90% of those tools our outside of the game too which I think at this point with MMOs like WoW, Rift, STO, and Eve as competition is not acceptable.

However. Once I figured out what I wanted to make leveling the crafting skills was fun as was making my first set of lvl 8-11 Gladiator gear.

I made

Sheepskin Boots
Dododo skin cap (which is made with sheep leather)
Dodoskin Wristbands
Dodoskin hauberk
Maple shield
Bronze Gladius.

I then went out into the world and was able to EXP Chain #3 mobs between equal and 2 levels higher than myself yielding nearly 2 levels of EXP in Gladiator all in a little over 30mins.

I also tried to leve quests and I have to say balance here is very broken. Grinding works solo because you can single pull, to get good exp out of a level you need to make it equal level and equal level 2 mob pulls is death solo and still pretty close duo. I don't mind leve quests being group targetted if that is what they want but at the moment new players are steered into them by the new player experience and they are a dead end. Grinding EXP is quicker and the rewards in terms of Bonus XP and Gil are so trivial there is nothing to redeem them. I'm using mine for Crafting for now and I'll check again closer to level 20.

I like it, it works and is fun and different to other mmos. I'm really looking forward to getting my Duo buddy on tonight and pushing on to lvl 12 or so where we will have to stop and sort out new gear I imagine. I assume that later we will party up and that's what I really miss about mmos like Everquest and FFXI.

The game is a brick wall to newbies and that will need to change and vets arguing it isn't or that it is a good thing to have a nearly verticle learnign curve with downright missleading advice from the game are doing the game they obviosuly love a great disservice. To have a community FFXIV needs players and to get those players the game needs to bring them in, educate them and hook them. FFXIV is far too user unfriendly right now, without my FFXI experience I probably wouldn't be here post 1.19.

[Betelgeuzah]

How does our duo experience end up differing so radically from the guy who soloed lancer to 10 on leves last night

If you mean me, I didn't solo on leves.

I know how the marketplace works, you don't. SE should be making tutorial to help you there. Selling shards and crystals is good source of income. Doing the first set of missions too.

Lodestone has all the new recipes. Those should be in-game too, but aren't.

The game misleading you is true. Leves are worth it at level 10 (for money), not at level 1. That should be addressed.

Lots of things unrelated to 1.19 changes are needed to make the game more user-friendly.