Message from actual new player

[Alhanelem]

Hi all,

I bought this game and played it for the first time 2 weeks ago. I've been on every day since (loving it!), and just experienced the patch. As you can see, I'm a level 20ish archer and marauder. I've played a few hours since the patch hit, and I'm completely disappointed. I wasn't even attacking mobs much higher than me before the patch, but occasionally I'd hit something 1 or 2 levels above and I'd make it through alive. Now, I get my ass kicked by mobs 2 levels below me and anything higher it's hopeless. All my hand picked gear (mostly by helpful players) isn't helping at all and the game just generally seems way HARDER. Harder than it should be..it just kills the pacing. Sorry, but I play video games for fun, not to be bored and frustrated. I was pretty happy right before the patch with the level speed, combat flow and yeah, I died now and then when I did something stupid, but now the game seems excessively hard. So all you high-level people with lots of experience, I'm glad you are having fun, but I'm going to go play Aion now. I suspect a lot of other new people like me feel the same way. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this patch at all...it just simply made the game no-fun for me as a new player around my level. I've been severely nerfed playing other MMOs too, and it just kills the fun for me when that happens. It's like someone took away half of everything you've been building up and working hard at. Normally, that is called a punishment.

And yes, I've done nothing but group with other new players since the patch. We get our asses kicked constantly, even when 3 of us gang up on a mob 2 levels above us. Both of my friends logged out with a long goodbye and quit, both claiming they might be back after 1.20, but probably not with GW2 and SWTOR coming out. So there I was alone, at level 20 with crappy gear and nobody to play with surrounded by monsters that I can't kill. Yuck. I guess there is a form of permadeath now in this game after all, in the form of this pretty digital purgatory I found myself standing in.

Don't you think this is a bit of an excessive knee-jerk reaction to what is probably not an intended effect of the patch? Did you stop and think that your problem probably isn't going to be permanent?

I find it a stretch to believe that someone could play for two weeks, have fun, then a patch comes along that has a few issues and BAM! I'M QUITTING FOR GOOD!. Give them a chance to straighten it out.

[Bahn]

Don't you think this is a bit of an excessive knee-jerk reaction to what is probably not an intended effect of the patch? Did you stop and think that your problem probably isn't going to be permanent?

I find it a stretch to believe that someone could play for two weeks, have fun, then a patch comes along that has a few issues and BAM! I'M QUITTING FOR GOOD!. Give them a chance to straighten it out.

That's pretty much my mentality at this point. I think the OP needs to calm down a bit and just take a break. Along with PLing, the sudden "difficulty" increase from 1-20 doesn't sound like it was thought through by Square (probably because they made 1-20 leveling easier due to feedback from the original beta). This is the issue with patching a live game along the way without providing any sort of beta test server to provide feedback on: you only get to learn about the consequences of your work when it actually starts affecting the players. I am informed by my XI friends that they're actually doing a beta server in XI which allows all players from all other servers to log in and test proposed changes and providing a means for players to give feedback.

IMO when Square has the time and resources to do so they should probably go this route with XIV. I know when asked about a beta test server awhile back Yoshida simply said that they're unable to "at this time", but judging from the way 1.19 was handled, it seriously sounds like any dramatic changes to the game NEED to be tested with the community before becoming live.

Kailok's proposed solution for leveling is also a pretty elegant one too. Obviously it should be polished, but that could be a great way to address the current leveling issues with 1.19.