Job Quests...please make them mandatory

[MistakeNot]

Still if you do the normal things that come in a MMO such as exploring by running around to seeing what this quest gives, talking with friends or FC \ LS members, if you have the internet you may read more about the game online. There are so many scenarios where you can gather information about this game compared to missing it. People love to chit chat. Heck even in dungeons if I see someone as a job I'll say "You'll love it when you're a Dragoon!" and they'll ask questions "When do I get that?" ..bam..now he knows...and we all can say that knowing is half the battle.

One can learn it all, sure. But some people are just not going to read any guides unless they are forced to. And why should they? They surely expect the game itself to tell them what they need to know.
Me? I read guides, but I am under no illusion that everyone else does.

As for chit-chat I have not seen much of it in the game. Outside of my FC (and many people don't join any Free Company for a long time, if ever) I have seen very little chit-chat. Most dungeon runs I have been on have had practically no talking at all, and certainly no discussions of anything outside the dungeon itself.

As for linkshells - I know they exist, and that is all I know about them. Again they are not exactly something the game goes out of its way to teach you about.

For those who really want to learn and are willing to spend some time and energy on finding information there are plenty of resources where one can do so, no doubt about that.
But unless one actively seeks out the information (and lots of people won't) there are many things in the game that are very easy to miss, unless one just happens to stumble across them.

As an example, from checking some guide I see that one can unlock something called Treasure Hunting by doing a level 36 quest. I am currently level 44 and I have yet to come across that quest by just playing the game. I could of course go and look for it - but only because I know it exists, something I know only because I checked a (player-created) guide.

[Sorata]

Interesting debate on both side of @Leigaon and @MistakeNot, but maybe I'm a little older and have been playing games for a lot longer, as much as I think things can always be clearer, I am siding @Leigaon over this one.

Every single red "!" tells you what is the criteria to unlock it. I can see someone over leveled the first 30 levels and went back to do their class quests, and therefore see no red "!". But that still doesn't explain why you would not click onto a red "!" later at a job quest.

Unless the job quest is not within the range of anywhere you will visit, the red "!" is very hard to miss even if you do very minor walking around, and if someone see that icon and choose not to click on reading, that is pretty ignorant by nature.

[MistakeNot]

Every single red "!" tells you what is the criteria to unlock it. I can see someone over leveled the first 30 levels and went back to do their class quests, and therefore see no red "!". But that still doesn't explain why you would not click onto a red "!" later at a job quest.

Unless the job quest is not within the range of anywhere you will visit, the red "!" is very hard to miss even if you do very minor walking around, and if someone see that icon and choose not to click on reading, that is pretty ignorant by nature.

Sure, IF you click on the quest and try to take it, despite it being red, then you will see why you can't take it. That is actually a pretty big "if".
First of all it is not obvious that one can do that.
Secondly why would you click on it? For almost all other quests a red "!" merely indicates that you are not high enough level yet, and it is thus just a matter of time (and levelling) before they open up. Clicking on those is just a waste of time, and there is no real reason to believe that the job quests are any different.

Note:
I am not saying it is too hard to find information in the game, or even that anything needs to change - personally I do not mind having to do some exploration to find everything.
I am saying that people should not be surprised/outraged that other people have missed stuff - much of it is really not all that obvious.

As for reading instructions - you have never done any tech support I assume. To a first approximation nobody reads instructions. If they do it is only as a last resort when everything else has been tried without success.

[Sorata]

...

I know what you're saying, but I can't simply accept that as an answer (in terms of not being obvious.) From a logical stand point, you're basically saying "because every quests before this one indicate I can't do this before I reached a certain level", then we should be safe to assume they know the concept of reaching a certain level will unlock some quests. In this case, after say, 5-10 levels why don't such person go back and check? Again, I'm not arguing if this is possible. Of course ANYTHING is possible, but in the context of saying that's not obvious, this is, for me, categorize as "even if we put a giant red balloon over every single thing with flashing lights, someone will miss something."

[Leigaon]

As for chit-chat I have not seen much of it in the game. Outside of my FC (and many people don't join any Free Company for a long time, if ever) I have seen very little chit-chat. Most dungeon runs I have been on have had practically no talking at all, and certainly no discussions of anything outside the dungeon itself.

Maybe there is a lack of conversation in the dungeon parties, since people are there to get things done. And some don't want to talk at all or can't, some do not have a USB keyboard. If you start the chitter chatter sometimes you get nothing, sometimes you get something that makes a boring run fun. Of course there is the occasional guy who gets upset because you don't finish it 30 seconds earlier so they can move on..but what can you?

Maybe there needs to be a lot more hand holding for those who don't wish to try to figure things out. Usually those are the ones who don't care enough. Not in a bad way, some people just want to do one thing. This game isn't made for that though.

Our FC is filled with new people now which is why I can only go so far into the whole they aren't informed enough. We have active conversations constantly about rotations for crafting, people asking how to start jobs, gear, main story line quests. One thing, people LOVE telling you what they know.

If anything this shows more that social interaction in a MMO should be encouraged. Not everyone wants a guide, not everyone wants to explore and find everything some just want to be hand held and told "You can do this..go here". Maybe the game doesn't tell you every bit of information, or maybe it does and it's just overlooked by people and it's in the "wrong" place.

Still in my years of playing a lot of what I learn is through exploration, communication and being so in love with the game I look up tid-bits online because I want to know more. Not everyone is like that. Then again if you try to cater to every single individual, that's just as bad too.

People get upset when you lock them out so I don't know about making things mandatory. In 1.0 you would have a linkspearl com to talk to people...we would get messages for them to come see them. Could bring that back, but we have to go only so far before the game is playing the game for them, they're just...there. A person playing should want to know more, be better and have the incentive to learn more and not be afraid to speak out if they feel uncomfortable or unsure. In return people need to be kinder to these new people who might have issues with optimal rotation, lack of job / gear iLV requirements.