New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Shougun]

It's a matter of opinion.

For example I found WoW boring, you begin, get no story to do, then do some random quest. Not my thing. While it was for some friends. Dungeoning right away for their way.

On the other ends. Some of those friends couldn't care less about the story so went back to WoW or other game. While some others stayed because they liked a MMO that have a story to do. And the fact that the content is tied to MSQ making it relevent.


Edit : yes I didn't played WoW much, because as I said earlier found it boring, it's not my type of game.

I think it depends on the race you started as too, because some of them started a bit more aimless than others. Having tried all of them some don't start with "some random quest", but still get you in on the action very quickly (tried all pre-panda at least).

I know its just an opinion but I would argue that WoW starts better (depending on race you pick at least) on nearly all fronts except perhaps presentation (graphics and such). Some start you out with lore, combat, and engaging unique mechanics very early and at a great pace. So I mean to say even at your own variables of what is subjectively good or bad I imagine one of WoW's start would take back that impression you have. Keeping in mind I'm talking like the first few hours of the game, this thread is clearly talking about way more than the first few hours so I just wanted to be clear on what part I was focusing on when saying I think we might be able to argue on "starting" quality. I'm here because imo FFXIV is superior in the end, but I'd very quickly change (add) at least one of FFXIV's start for something more akin to WoW's if given the opportunity to implement one like it.

Also there was something really special about the experience of "going to the big city". Where your world just expands and expands for a while. First time I get to that "reveal" moment in most of the race storylines with the fresh music and far grander civilizations was like.. "awww yussssssss".

[MistakeNot]

To be honest i don't know why exactly people defend the terrible MSQ experience.

Because it isn't terrible? The MSQ and the sidequests are the fun part of FFXIV. The endgame with its gear grinding, now that is boring and best skipped.

People like to give WoW a lot of crap, but at least its new player experience is much better than FF14's new player experience.

No. No, it isn't.
As a brand new player in WoW you get slow leveling, not much story to speak of, and there is basically nothing much fun to hook you to the game.
Perhaps it does get better in WoW later on - but I have never managed to get that far.

[Aurelius2625]

It IS whining. Whining that he cannot have his cake and eat it, too.

Special snowflake syndrome of how terrible it is that someone has to actually play the game. Literally every game does this.

Might as well sell every game as the final mission only. Like whining about Lord of the rings, and wanting only to skip to the battle of the black gate.

That is childish.

[Aurelius2625]

The new player experience is fine. Yall just want to skip everything and have no patience. In old games, the whole point was to go thru the whole thing.

[Squig]

Don't be ridiculous. If you know exactly what you should be doing and where you should be going at every instant during the MSQ, getting into 4.x content while skipping *all* cutscenes takes upwards of 100 hours. I hate seeing new users using skip potions but there's no denying that there is an absolutely ridiculous entry barrier for newbies getting into the game. *All* endgame content is gated behind the completion of the MSQ which, if you started with 2.0 or even 3.0 (as I did) it was manageable and the plot was delivered going forward in patches. The longer the game goes, the worse that barrier will get and there needs to be some kind of fix before long.

The early game content is garbage in this game because the expectation is that you'll either have the MSQ or knowledge of the game + the Armoury bonus to fasttrack you through it. For new players with little interest in the MSQ, sure you could ask why play a story-driven game if you have no interest in the game but there are people drawn to the other aspects. It's like a TV show that only gets good, like, halfway through. It's no problem if you were watching and got hooked from the start but if you're just in it for the ending, it's a total slog.

Maybe some kind of story squish or not gating future content would make it more tolerable, I honestly have no clue.

[LyraKuroneko]

Maybe some kind of story squish or not gating future content would make it more tolerable, I honestly have no clue.

Having the story on one side and the dungeons on another would feel really weird to me.

It's about 50/50 for now and I hope it stays like that.

[Melichoir]

Don't be ridiculous. If you know exactly what you should be doing and where you should be going at every instant during the MSQ, getting into 4.x content while skipping *all* cutscenes takes upwards of 100 hours. I hate seeing new users using skip potions but there's no denying that there is an absolutely ridiculous entry barrier for newbies getting into the game. *All* endgame content is gated behind the completion of the MSQ which, if you started with 2.0 or even 3.0 (as I did) it was manageable and the plot was delivered going forward in patches. The longer the game goes, the worse that barrier will get and there needs to be some kind of fix before long.

The early game content is garbage in this game because the expectation is that you'll either have the MSQ or knowledge of the game + the Armoury bonus to fasttrack you through it. For new players with little interest in the MSQ, sure you could ask why play a story-driven game if you have no interest in the game but there are people drawn to the other aspects. It's like a TV show that only gets good, like, halfway through. It's no problem if you were watching and got hooked from the start but if you're just in it for the ending, it's a total slog.

Maybe some kind of story squish or not gating future content would make it more tolerable, I honestly have no clue.

My understanding is someone speed ran from lvl 1 - clearing 04S (with 340 gear) in 4.5 days of playtime. Granted there's huge grains of salt to be considered like this isn't a new player, they had help, probably crafted gear, etc etc.

However, that is still fairly quick. I would hazard getting someone who's new to the game and to 4.0 and NOT having to worry about Savage and the like could probably be done within 6 or 7 days playtime reasonably(and I think I am being generous in that estimation) if they skip everything and have people speeding them through dungeons. That would be....168 Hours worth of play time. If you played ONLY a modest 2 hours a day, that's 3 months of play time. For an MMO, that is beans. I would hazard, btw, most people who do MMOs play averagely 4 Hours a day when things are relevant. So that cuts down the time spent to six weeks or so. Again, on an MMO, six weeks isn't long. That's shorter than a patch cycle. If you're in it for the story and don't want to skip, then yeah, it'll be longer but that becomes a moot point as you would be enjoying the content as is.

Chances are, yeah, you'll see an MSQ squish eventually. Probably by 6.0. It will likely be part of any new ARR sales going out to have one MSQ skip potion and class potion for new players because at that point the MSQ might be so daunting that it's more financially sound to have people skip that content, particularly since new game + will exist.

[MistakeNot]

Playing with a friend of mine, returner from ARR content, I can already feel how demoralized he is trying to catch up in time.

So why rush to "catch up"? Why not play the game and enjoy it as it is? Eventually they will reach the latest parts of the game anyway. New content is not more "relevant" than old content, just newer.

The idea that you need to reach the newest parts of the game as soon as they are released - that is the problem.

[Sciwolf]

New players should take the time to learn the basics indtead of paying real money to skip it.

So what if they dont start the expansion "on time?" They will progress through the game naturally while learning the use of each ability and testing out in low level dungeons.

Compare that to a new player who just skipped everything and has no idea how to play, and of course, plays tank or healer because QQ queue times.

[yukiiyuki]

Long story short, if your friend just want to play with you and don't care much about the story - go play another mmo with him, better give those dirty money to another company, so we can have more limited stuff and server issues.