New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Skivvy]

A heavy story based gameplay designed to take years to roll out and complete.

People whining that they can't speed through it.

Hmmmm.

Yes there is absolutely some fluff or fat that can be trimmed (Go to this end of the world, then that one, then this one and return to me). But overall, the story is crafted the way it is for a reason.

I hate the reasoning of "It's a story-based MMO, what did you expect?". This is an MMO which draws people for many different reasons. The story is only one part, and you don't have to enjoy it to play this game. I personally dislike the story, and have read just about none of it.


XI handles the expansions far better in my opinion. They never forced you to slog through the past expansions in full just to unlock whatever relevant new endgame item was being introduced in the newest expansion. You would have to complete some quests to unlock the newest endgame item, but it was never the full story-line (or past MSQ).

[Laphael]

I hate the reasoning of "It's a story-based MMO, what did you expect?". This is an MMO which draws people for many different reasons. The story is only one part, and you don't have to enjoy it to play this game. I personally dislike the story, and have read just about none of it.

For those ppl there are the story skip potions.

[Aomine1992]

For those ppl there are the story skip potions.

Which should be free for new players. Why make them go through the boring black hole that is ARR. I have lost many friends to it because it was simply boring and they felt so far behind and moving at a snail pace because it doesn’t pick up until you get into HW. This game is great but it’s older parts not so much so why force new players to pay for the expansion and a skip potion (not logical)

[LyraKuroneko]

Which should be free for new players. Why make them go through the boring black hole that is ARR. I have lost many friends to it because it was simply boring and they felt so far behind and moving at a snail pace because it doesn’t pick up until you get into HW. This game is great but it’s older parts not so much so why force new players to pay for the expansion and a skip potion (not logical)

Because it is not boring to everyone. And we only have skip potion because China had them (or so I've been told).

But some ARR quest could be removed as some said. Actually I thought a "lighter" ARR was planned, it being reworked I mean, was it only in my head?

[Astarotha]

i got through arr in like a week and hw in a similar timeframe (on an alt watching all the cutscenes, spent a looong time on my main doing everything at my own pace cause below, did 2.x in like 7 hours on al different alt just bum rushing for pure speed) so its totally doable to GET to shb by the time it drops, but my actual advice is to slow down and queue for their dailies and while youre waiting for a pop explore, unlock the side dungeons, do the msq, help guide him to certain things so he gets the full experience in a (mostly) efficient manner, while preserving the worldbuilding in arr that does set up a lot of threads that come in during hw and sb, once you have access to poe msq daily every day, get your iw+ gear to be ready for hw by the end of 2.x, then start saving up for shire+, sb will be the more involved gear grind since its got a cap but 70ing early should mean your dailies start giving you tomes, and thatll help you through 4.x, yall have plenty of time.

take it from someone that pushed straight through wow to 90(?) during pandaria because all my friends were at endgame and then stopped because the entire point of the endgame was running one dungeon ad nauseum until the next expansion hit wasnt fun, i didnt have friends running with me that entire time, i skipped nearly every dungeon along the way, and i just didnt have fun for large swaths of it cause grind (and i originally played back during vanilla/bc days so the removal of trainers and skill ups and a bunch of other things removed the fun little sidetracks that kept the game from being one singular grind all the way through). the best resource your friend has is YOU

[Vaer]

Just a design choice. The XIV story has continuity where everything else happens after the previous stuff. In XI, the expansion stories sort of branch off from the same starting point and are mostly self contained (some have connections but you don't need the previous stuff to make sense of it - it's sort of like how the raid stories work other than Coil), but you still needed to go through the story to get to the end game areas and some of the content.

They should trim the fluff out of it and make them optional quests (not delete them entirely) though. They said they've wanted to for a long time now who knows when they'll get around to it.

[Schan]

Playing with a friend of mine, returner from ARR content, I can already feel how demoralized he is trying to catch up in time. To actually reach relevant content he has to go through a backlog of slog, and I have a feeling he never will actually reach the content that he has paid for, and I have a feeling a lot of new players have the same point of view, and will also never likely reach content in time (without paying for a skip) to actually play the new expansion. I do not think a skip is a good thing, not only for the intimidating price, but because these players cannot go back and do the story any longer, I would assume (I have never actually used one).

They feel like they are just wasting time. I think there needs to be something in place, to alleviate this feeling. In WoW a new player has a boost, but can reach the relevant (expansion) content, and can go back and do older content at their own leisure. Granted, FF is very story based, and centered around your character (WoL). I think a way to go back and do the old story content (expansions) to catch up and do later, would be a good way to get players to relevant content, and keep them playing the game, while being able to go back and do the story content when they want to, so they don't miss out, and can get the full context of the latest story arch.

The more expansions and story content, added just make this worse, and worse.

I know this is very difficult but... remind your friend it's all about the voyage, not the destination. The game is stupid repetitive at endgame (albeit at a casual pace if you want to)

I never understood why the vast majority of MMORPG players have this mentality of RUSH TO THE ENDGAME NAO. (i blame wow for that)

Chill and enjoy the game. It's cute to see the patterns each expansion brings.

Heavensward introduced quick time events. Stormblood had the cutscenes / attacks from outside the arena.

[HyoMinPark]

While I concede that ARR is incredibly boring, your friend has 2 months until Shadowbringers releases. Unless he doesn’t have a lot of time where he’s available to play, he should have no problem catching up to Patch 4.57 before Early Access/Launch hits. When I first did ARR, it took me a week of off-and-on playing to do 2.x, little over 2 weeks for HW because I was a bit busier with work, and I just recently did 3.x on an alt over the course of a week—this included Alexander and all side-dungeons in addition to the MSQ. And with my alt I actually go through things fairly slow because I’m just enjoying the story again (HW forward, anyways).

Am I only one, who actually enjoyed playing from level 1 to current point - exploring world, doing story content and all that completely new things?

Sure I started shortly before Heavensward dropped, but I didn't have any "gotta rush now" -feeling.

No, you aren’t. I have an alt that I use explicitly for story—and I take my time when I’m on her just enjoying the game, the areas, and the lore. Honestly, the most fun I’ve had in this game since clearing UwU was redoing HW on her.

[Shougun]

Imo the starting experience in WoW was really nice, they usually had you doing combat and goofy gimmick content really quickly and it was even better because there were a bunch of different variations of that (different races). In that thought, I have wondered if perhaps SE in some expansion could create a better "skip" potion where it introduces you as new player but at a much higher level with some story behind you already.

Just as an example (does not have to be like this at all):

While the installer runs, have some lore going and nice music, concept art panels flittering by (if that's here now I wouldn't know because I haven't needed to reinstall in ages lol).

Now once in game start our player character from Ishgard, if they picked the accelerated start option at least (can be other cities), there would be 5 to 10 quests that get you going on the basics and have a particular attention to keeping a nice flowing cadence (good pace) and perhaps a few gimmick quests. These quests would help give you a bit of background to your area, your current objective, and a bit how to play / understand the game (like making sure they know about the golden saucer, and other side stuff). In fact through the story there could either be use of playing other NPC shortly (Aymeric) where the ability list has basic concepts but is straight forward for quick conceptual understanding or a few "time skips" so you play your character at level 30, 50, and finally like 60 (perhaps jumping the player through key moments in the MSQ that they can go back to with new game+). These flash backs besides capturing some key story moments could also be teaching concepts of later fighting (stack, run away, etc, like a flash back of your Nidhog fight). Simultaneously if SE has made the intermediate hall / expert hall they could direct the player to that at the end.

Now you're put into the game with a purpose and sense of belonging but also further along and past some of the "give me soup, slave of light - this soup is cold, do it again!".

Can let other players complete this content via new game+ (so it's not inaccessible unless you're starting new). May also be a way to add a new GC to the game. Ishgard GC could be level x+ (so they don't have to design a lot of old gear/tiers).

Eventually, you could play together.

Just want to say I've seen this be non-satisfactory/deal breaker for people cross many MMOs. When a friend is like you should try "x" and they ask if they'll be able to play together soon or if it'll be potentially weeks before they can have fun together. Obviously there is a skip potion for that but now you're trying to sell someone the game and cash shop at the same time, that's a fairly big horse pill lol. Probably part the reason WoW gives one skip "potion" for free in the expansions for a while now. Although like I was trying to add above I think SE could add a new start to the game, which would be better experience than just flying by stuff with no reference at all.

Of course some people would prefer to go through it all, because story. So I'm saying the current mountain of content (before being able to reach friends/fresh pastures) would definitely be a deal breaker for some people (even if they're being sold on it by friends).

[NanaWiloh]

I'm sorry guys, don't pile on! You caught me, and it is exactly as I feared. A new player, like me, voice would not be heard. I just wanted to get my say in, my feelings on my rush to get through all of the content, because I want to be caught up in time for the early access of Shadowbringers. I just came from WoW, and just wanted to try something new.

Continue posting lies and soon no one will trust any post you make. You will simply be treated as troll who cant be trusted to post seriously which is far more frustrating then anything the game throws at you. If you have a concern then talk and you will get answers to those concerns lie like you have and you will be met with sarcasm, lies and misinformation as no one will believe you. Your also making it hard for veterans to trust people who say their new..