New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Roda]

As someone who is currently replaying the new player experience 7 times right now. It's not that bad. Honestly I don't see the big stink about the titan quests that have become a meme lately.
If your only interest is endgame raiding, sure I guess you might feel like you're wasting time, but that's not really the only part of the game worth playing. :T

[Melichoir]

Depending on how carefully and deliberately the streamlining is done, you probably could cut 2.1-2.55 down by half, and wouldnt necessarily require removing it out right. Some events in 2.1-2.55 are a lot less consequential to the MSQ and could be turned into side story quests that help flesh out the broader MSQ but arent totally necessary to complete. This would keep content in the game for people, still require the MSQ, and cut down time.

But it should be noted that a 25 hour reduction (from the hypothetical 100 hours) is a lot of time. Thats about 2 weeks for a player who plays a modest 2 hours a day averagely. Most MMO players easily play double that I would hazard when all is averaged out. Furthermore, ARR is an MMORPG so its going to have a large pool of playtime. If we were talking about reducing the entirety of ARR to 25 hours play time, that is a huge cut to an MMO by any standards. Even by WoW standards, someone eeked out 1-100 in about 24 hours, thats with preplanning, skipping everything, having exp gear, having equipment ready to go, having Gold, etc. For a casual player to complete all of ARR in 25 hours would be insane. Even 50 hours might be punching it to fast.

Taking a casual player 75 Hours to complete all of ARR 2.0 seems reasonable, considering the size and scope of it. Consider that it supposedly took someone about 110 hours of playtime to go from lvl 1 sprout to Ilvl 340 (with beating deltascape savage). Thats with the planning and prep. Id hazard a casual player could do all of ARR in 135 hours playing at a fairly decent pace currently and reach HW. As a point, there are 285 MSQ from ARR 2.0-2.55. Assuming each one takes an average of 20 minutes to complete, thats 95 Hours of time. Now that number obviously would fluctuate depending queue times, if a player switches jobs, cutscenes, how much they read, how smoothly dungeons go, etc, so a 135 hour completion time seems within reason.

Now I said 2.0 above for a reason when mentioning that 75 hour mark. From what Ive observed, 2.0 isnt the issue. It's 2.1-2.55 that kills people. That specific slot of MSQ is what most people have a hard time with. If pruning and streamlining was to occur, it would be in this section. Here's where most of that 'slog' sits. This is what people tned to talk about taking to long. And I would hazard that this section is shorter quest wise, but because of it's set up (with some filler and convolusion here and there), it drags on. It is not great pacing in this section and should be addressed (possibly even redone). This isnt to say we should allow it to be skipped, but that it needs a face lift.

[Shougun]

After which, you are ... where?

I hope you're arguing in good faith, just that I'm not sure as it doesn't feel like it. Obviously you're wherever the intro leaves you lol, whatever info that may be.

I know you find much of the story important but as I used the movie example for on purpose much of a story can be boiled down into core essence and a person can get the gist of what's going on from that. From leaving the intro you then enter the book narrative (from the movie start), so if you skipped ARR you're heading into the dragonsong and so what is taught in the ARR skip would be what you need to get HW without going "I AM THE WARRIOR OF LIGHT!? LOL I THOUGHT I WAS A CARPENTER".

Much of the info you need is reiterated as you play the game and so the accelerated start would just need to cover very core bits of info to get you into the book, and let the reiteration introduce new bits like in a book new info is usually told in the way that "it's always been this way", many characters are done that way too (when introduced not everyone gets a trumpet intro in books).

Obviously the more you know the smoother everything is but there are many reasons why someone may prefer the "movie" (not sit and watch, using it metaphorically) intro over the much longer in-depth description of the world (and clearly many love the in-depth style as well, I /do not/ want to take that away or modify it away from them in the future). I have never argued that ARR has no importance in the lore, just that for many people getting the core info to "good enough" and getting them to where they wanted to go could mean a lot more people sticking around (some people don't like early mmo combat, perhaps especially now that action mmos are more popular and so getting them deeper is a huge benefit, some people started exclusively to play fresh content because they saw a trailer, others have played old content and would love to start up in the expansion but don't want to spend $30 + $15 a month + $50 to come back in, there are many reasons why I've come to this particular solution).

Not suggesting people will have every detail of the game underlock but I'm just suggesting with a few core pieces of info you could go from "entirely lost" to "oh I think I got it, and this guy here is my friend right? I should go help them because the start said Garlean is bad! (and then a later quest might change those values but they have a start at least)" and hopefully from there like one may play Witcher 3 because it's new shiny and fancy they'll go back and try witcher 1 because they're invested now (Try HW, loved it- goes back and plays ARR with new game+).

[DPZ2]

I hope you're arguing in good faith, just that I'm not sure as it doesn't feel like it. Obviously you're wherever the intro leaves you lol, whatever info that may be.

Seriously, I wanted something a bit more specific...

How, in two hours, do you encompass the entirety of the story line up to level 50-60-70 and assure a basic competency in playing your job? There is a reason for all of the solo and group instances in the main and job story-lines beyond just telling the story.

The longest period of down-time in this game is the 100+ main story quests between the end of 2.0 and the beginning of Heavensward. I could see a 'skip forward with movies' at that point since you don't actually learn anything new for your job. Then again, you can get that with a story-skip potion already, so I don't see SE creating that content since it already exists and there is a way to see it. [Hint - do the level 50 story skip alone once you reach level 50, since the current job skip takes you to level 60].

You had better be sure to watch the cut-scenes surrounding "Keeper of the Lake" quests, since a lot of Heavensward makes no sense without them.

[Shougun]

Seriously, I wanted something a bit more specific...

You asked me to write out three different intros in detail of all that they'd do, that's a huge ask lol. That's like having issues on a job or wanting a new job and then having them detail every point of the job, maybe possible but yeeeeehaaaaa what series of details. You may have wanted something more specific but that'd take me a long while to put down into words.

So I responded with the general "whatever was the target direction is what they'd leave you with". You don't need to know everything to avoid being lost further in the story. I skipped most of bard because I found it a bit eh, but read the last few and was fine lol (and I didn't get a guide to do it , something like I'm trying to upgrade/get skip potions to have a guide and short summary that can also hook someone in). Which I am trying to go away from skip potions as I don't like skip potions as they are - they don't have enough balance and investment hooks in my opinion, I know some people think we need a lot more investment but I believe many would be fine with a more grazing investment.. but currently skip potions have zero and I think that's an issue.

How, in two hours, do you encompass the entirety of the story line up to level 50-60-70 and assure a basic competency in playing your job?

Simple since our competency levels have been abysmal since ever, pressing buttons is a strong start . I suggested many pages ago that you'd start out with your job at around level 30 and quickly remember up until whatever cap you were set to be at. Also many of the job quests don't teach anything anyways- which I wish they did, and the ones that are harder usually get nerfed down after complaints lol.

Also would suggest that the novice / intermediate / advanced halls are tied deeper into the game experience for all players (lower halls being great rewards perhaps but still optional, while extreme content requiring advanced hall completion), skipper players and not (slow burn lore readers too).

You had better be sure to watch the cut-scenes surrounding "Keeper of the Lake" quests, since a lot of Heavensward makes no sense without them.

Anything that is DIRE info would be included, but there is a lot of world building info that isn't dire. Like Ascian is almost purely covered in just painting them as the bad guy, you lose so much little info but just making them "a mysterious baddy trying to revive Zodiark by sowing chaos" is all you need to not be completely lost (on Ascians).

[DPZ2]

snip

After which, you are ... where?

The three examples were end-points for your two hour streamlined intro to the game, not a suggestion to provide detailed synopsis for each.

The current job/story skip potions already fulfill most of what you appear to want. What's still missing?

[Shougun]

The current job/story skip potions already fulfill most of what you appear to want. What's still missing?

I really don't see how you think that- since I've stated already skip potion doesn't introduce you to the game as an entity (who or what you are, or where you're starting), nor introduce combat to you (even if it's just cursory), requires significant investment to someone who may already be an edge case sell (want to get them to invest in the game, like going witcher 3 and THEN going witcher 1), as an aside its new content for everyone who cares to do extra quests, and it also is an opportunity to introduce the game in a different style for people with a different preference (to me the first hour or so wasn't as good as it should have been and one of the lower beginnings I've had in MMOs I thought were interesting, although obviously it improves and that is an opinion lol).

It (skip potion) tosses you to later points in the game and that's about all it does that was what "I want". While it also does things I don't really want. So how is that most of what I wanted? Skip potion is like a meteor coming in on top of a house, an accelerated start is like a meteor with 5 parachutes (still hits the ground hard, probably broke the chimney), and normal start is like a long scenic highway (which is good when you want that).

I don't like destroying the house, I know the scenic highway is great if you wanted to do that (it's how I've played the game), but some don't want that while they could still find a lot of value out of the game if you gave them a hot intro (and may even go back with new game+ after they decided it was worth it, rather than being tested up front).

Also I already said I don't think each expansion needs a fast start, just after a certain canyon worth of MSQ gates there should probably be one (is what I've said).

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Right now theres a ton of people in the same boat as your friend. At the very least people are running that MSQ content and Party Finder is what a lot us who are on top of things do when we get bored. It could be much much worse. I've been level 70 in Neverwinter for like 3 years and have never even gotten close to endgame because ilvl there is a lot harder to attain than in FF. I understand its a slog but its a much nerfed slog. If your friend concentrates purely on leveling (while doing msq) then about 2/3 of the content is soloable once they hit 70, even in base 290 gear. Their buff is the earring. New content is what keeps this place running and if they seriously only concerned with making expac then buy a skip after it comes out. Otherwise be a good friend and help them unsync the crap out of it. They can all the grindy things like anima or relics once the path is cleared. It feels massive but really its just prioritizing. Good luck in any case.

[GrindShack]

[kidalutz]

Just leave it as it is if someone wants to skip let them pay for it. not that difficult a concept to understand yet some people insist on trying to speak for everyone.