New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Emmanellain]

Speak for yourself, don't try and vouch for other players.

Kamatsu is stating stats though, and I happen to be among them. Regardless I welcome their input.
Instead of shooting down the conversation you should try and add to it sometime.

[MistakeNot]

I think that the problem here is not "people wanting to rush to end game", it is the fact that, in order to unlock almost anything in the game, you have to spend hours doing solo stuff. FFXIV is a good game, but it's 90% solo and most people that play MMOs don't wanna play a single player game.

Most MMOs are 90% solo game, and most of them require a lot of play before you reach the "endgame." FFXIV is not at all unusual in this aspect.

If anything FFXIV stands out in how much multi-player content is required to do before reaching level cap. In most other MMOs you can easily play solo all the way up to level cap, and lots of people do just that.

[Lersayil]

I can understand both sides personally. Messing too much with the MSQ might take away one of the more unique aspects of the game, but 1-50 is something of a slog.

Cutting down on some of the useless stuff (like returning to the Waking Sands for a conversation that could take place on linkshell as well) might help, but there is only so much of that.

To be frank I am one of the people that view the 50 quest marathon with rose tinted glasses. Sure running around was as mindless as it could get, but the story telling did get better around that point, even if it was used to communicate mostly mundane things intended as world building.

If anything I have a burning hate for the 1-49 MSQ. Utterly boring and predictable, mostly serving as an introduction to the world. Not sure how I'd remedy that though (if at all).

[Berret_Snow]

Yeah I left the game the first time around when I finished the patches leading to HW because they were just horrible. Friends that I tried getting into the game enjoy the setting and gameplay but get burnt out in the tedious ARR quest or those that make it quit during the patches. Really if they could cut out half of the filler quest I would 've 100% for it.

[Physic]

Oh, and you can't do everything in GW2 or SW:TOR with friends. Most of the story instances (GW2's vanilla personal story & all of SW:TOR's class stories) are SOLO only, not able to be done with friends at all. GW2 I believe has fixed this with the Living Story being able to be done with groups instead of solo. SW:TOR's last 2 main expansions still has the main story insstances/quest's being solo-only.

As for the last point.. I will agree that for those who don't want to play a story-based MMO for it's story and just want to jump into grinding dungeons, trials & alliance raids... being forced to play through the MSQ to unlock these is troublematic. And even with the story & class skip potions, they'd still have to play the MSQ for the 'current' expansion to unlock it's dungeons, trials and raids.

Maybe they could add another skip potion that unlocked dungeons, trials, raids for players so they could do them whenever... as long as they met the level & gear reuirements. Sure they'd still have to level up somewhat to even start the dungeon running... but hey, that would take 1? day of MSQ even without the road-to-60 buff. Or buy a class-skip potion.

And yes, my suggestion is another 'pay for it' option. Because whether you use a potion or play the MSQ, you'll be paying for it - either with time or money. So if your time is more valuable, cough up the money... else play through the MSQ.

all of gw2 story missions can be done with friends, including starter stories, i know because i have done them, you can even progress together if you are up to the same story steps, the person who starts the instance makes the talking decisions. I havent played swtor in a long time, but i remember seeing a friends cutscenes and choices that i was grouped with at launch.


https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comme...ow_to_do_coop/


ok, yup can do it in swtor as well.


the problem with pay for it options is this. The people you are expecting to pay are not invested in this product. The whole reason people are suggesting they give new players some option to get around MSQ is turns off a lot of new buyers, and makes it way harder for existing players to get newbs into the game.

We are saying, hey if msq stays the way it is, many people will leave before they can get into the game, for various reasons. If some one is unsure about the game, and wondering if its worthwhile, i dont think they are looking to spend an additional $ to skip.


i think a good method might be having a mechanic where you can skip to the beginning of any expansion/post expansion story step, and of course go back. Or i guess anything, as long as it allows the player to access other parts of the game, and go back to thestory later when they are ready/feel like it.

i just dont think you will retain a lot of players with ARR and other expansions of story the player has to consume to have access to the other parts of the game. At this point in its cycle, mmos have to honestly consider how effectively new players can access content. Some one may be here just for the dragons of heavenswatd, or the dancer job, etc.

[Physic]

Please tell me how a lvl 20 character would be able to do lvl 30+ dungeons synced with players of similar lvl. I'll say it again; WoW doesn't have a msq but it doesn't automatically mean all the content is unlocked or doable at low lvl. Your options are small at low lvl in every mmorpg.

At this point I think you're just deliberately trying to misunderstand me.



It appears the person who has a problem with the msq isn't your friend, it's you. You don't want to be around when your friend is doing it.



Ah, no. It's a mix of group and solo content. How much you do of one or the other is up to you, but it's always a mix. For example you can choose to only do msq, or you can choose to mix in roulettes, fates and leves with it.



But it can be if you weren't so allergic to the msq that you cannot fathom the idea of starting an alt to play with your buddy.

You hate the msq, I get it. But what you want would change a major core aspect of the game. Everything is tied to the msq in some manner be it mechanically, by lore or both. It is central to the game.

I would be shocked if SE detached the msq from the lvling experience given that they would have to alter a gigantic amount of the game to facilitate this. They would have to change the prerequisites of an incredible amount of content. It wouldn't be just dungeons. It would also be other content like side quests, the gold saucer, the challenge log, Palace of the Dead, beast tribes...the list goes on and on. I doubt they would put in this much work for a minority. Especially when other things like new playable content, adding male viera and female hrothgar or fixing housing would be far better received.

And especially considering jump potions exist. SE at the end of the day are a business. They're not going to work on making the msq an entirely separate entity from the rest of the game when they know that if they don't they will sell more jump potions.

uhh i feel like you havent done msq in a long time. Even when you are the same level, most of the time is spent teleporting around talking to npcs and watching cutscenes, you cannot do that with your friend, you have to progress it yourself. There are a handful of times you get some spawned enemies. Heres how it goes when you are both same level:


ok, lets do our quest stuff (one finishes) ok let me know when you finish your cutscene..... kill 2 guys, ok lets do our quests again, teleport talk to 8 dudes, ok let me drop story to do solo instances, do teleport drop off cutscene, he remake party, lets kill two monsters.

its not something that works out to feel like playing together. You can not believe me, but other people said the same thing, and i ve actually done it. And yes, me and others have had friends tell us out their own mouths that they just wanted to play together, or the msq was messing up their enjoyment. This thread isnt for my benefit, i have a level 70, this is people recognizing a problem, that only gets worse with each expansion.

They can ignore it, but they will continue to lose a % of referals, that they might not lose otherwise.

and they dont have to do a ton of work, the story skip potions can apparently unlock everything up to whatever story point they choose, new game + will allow players to go back. The tech is alreafy there, they might have to make a new menu, or npc, thats about it.

I am not saying they need to let people skip levels for free just choose to how to tackle story.

[Kaleidoua]

I strongly agree on the topic of this thread.
I started and stopped playing FFXIV 3 times before actually battling through the MSQ to the end of Stormblood.
This is very unusual for me and my friends just quitted in ARR.
Right now my girlfriend is playing through the ARR MSQ and I keep telling her "the best part is coming just keep holding on".

In short, the main STORY line is not that bad. What is bad is that there are so much random things in between the actual story quests.
The reason why it's tedious to level up a character in this game is not that it takes time to watch great cutscenes or do interesting missions. It's the enormous amount of fetch quests in between the important quests that just makes it boring.
I somehow understand that SQ wants to keep people subscribed, but when I started playing the FFX remaster last week I was just blown away how the story keeps progressing through the whole game without grind.

At least now when the ARR, HW and SB content is getting old, SQ could remove all the non-important fetch quests in the MSQ and let the players have the story.
I've been forcing my girlfriend through hours of the horrible "fill out" quests between ARR and HW. There is just so much running around. I mean it takes you so many quests and running and teleporting just to move the Scion headquarters to Mor Dhona for example.
This still exist to an extent in the Stormblood MSQ, but it's extra noticeable in the older content.

This can't be so hard to edit. Remove the quests, give the players a cutscene and extra exp or something and voila!

[Penthea]

uhh i feel like you havent done msq in a long time.

I invite you to look up my fc in the lodestone. You will see a rank called "officer alt". I have three alts in that rank. The alts that do not belong to me have the first name of one of the officers in the character names. I would be happy to even log in and speak with you on those alts if you don't believe me. I also have alts on other servers.

Even when you are the same level, most of the time is spent teleporting around talking to npcs and watching cutscenes, you cannot do that with your friend, you have to progress it yourself.

There are a handful of times you get some spawned enemies. Heres how it goes when you are both same level:

ok, lets do our quest stuff (one finishes) ok let me know when you finish your cutscene..... kill 2 guys, ok lets do our quests again, teleport talk to 8 dudes, ok let me drop story to do solo instances, do teleport drop off cutscene, he remake party, lets kill two monsters.

You just said that's only a handful of times. So what about the rest of the time then? I suppose the implication is that it's fine?

I have done the msq with friends before. I didn't find it as cumbersome as you make it out to be. I admit that leaving and remaking parties is a mild annoyance at times but it didn't bother me too much as it literally takes two seconds.

its not something that works out to feel like playing together. You can not believe me, but other people said the same thing, and i ve actually done it.

I believe that you feel that way. What I don't believe is that everyone does or that enough people do that SE need to do a huge amount of work to change the msq.

They can ignore it, but they will continue to lose a % of referals, that they might not lose otherwise.

The only part of the msq that needs a serious look at is the lvl 50 patch content, it's notorious for causing the feeling of being dragged down to some new players. I enjoyed it but even I feel that there is too much travelling back and forth going on. Some cutscenes in the game teleport you to the next area. Introducing this to those quests would help streamline the experience a lot. So much of the running around is quite literally irrelevant to the story.

and they dont have to do a ton of work, the story skip potions can apparently unlock everything up to whatever story point they choose, new game + will allow players to go back. The tech is alreafy there, they might have to make a new menu, or npc, thats about it.

The story skip potions don't work the way you think. They basically do the quests for you given you cannot go do them yourself after using the potion. Leaving the quests intact but removing triggers they have, such as unlocking content or unlocking quests, is what would need to be done to achieve what you want. Having a bunch of redundant quest triggers could actually cause some bugs. For example a trigger might have a fit if you have already done the quest it's supposed to open up, or it might have a fit it triggers nothing and it keeps trying to retrigger to fulfil its function. Leaving behind old code that used to have a function is -never- a good idea.

I am not saying they need to let people skip levels for free just choose to how to tackle story.

Doing it the way you want it done would change the game a lot. What you're asking for isn't a mere convenience but would actually change the most central element of the game. The msq is the road everyone must walk to interact with the game. Even those who use jump potions have to at some point (unless they plan on unsubbing until the next jump potion is released). Removing the msq from its mechanical connections to content would be removing that road and replacing it with another. You're basically asking for a different game. Not necessarily a bad game, but it's certainly not the same game.

[Physic]

I invite you to look up my fc in the lodestone. You will see a rank called "officer alt". I have three alts in that rank. The alts that do not belong to me have the first name of one of the officers in the character names. I would be happy to even log in and speak with you on those alts if you don't believe me. I also have alts on other servers.



You just said that's only a handful of times. So what about the rest of the time then? I suppose the implication is that it's fine?

I have done the msq with friends before. I didn't find it as cumbersome as you make it out to be. I admit that leaving and remaking parties is a mild annoyance at times but it didn't bother me too much as it literally takes two seconds.



I believe that you feel that way. What I don't believe is that everyone does or that enough people do that SE need to do a huge amount of work to change the msq.



The only part of the msq that needs a serious look at is the lvl 50 patch content, it's notorious for causing the feeling of being dragged down to some new players. I enjoyed it but even I feel that there is too much travelling back and forth going on. Some cutscenes in the game teleport you to the next area. Introducing this to those quests would help streamline the experience a lot. So much of the running around is quite literally irrelevant to the story.



The story skip potions don't work the way you think. They basically do the quests for you given you cannot go do them yourself after using the potion. Leaving the quests intact but removing triggers they have, such as unlocking content or unlocking quests, is what would need to be done to achieve what you want. Having a bunch of redundant quest triggers could actually cause some bugs. For example a trigger might have a fit if you have already done the quest it's supposed to open up. Leaving behind old code that used to have a function is -never- a good idea.



Doing it the way you want it done would change the game a lot. What you're asking for isn't a mere convenience but would actually change the most central element of the game. The msq is the road everyone must walk to interact with the game. Even those who use jump potions have to at some point (unless they plan on unsubbing until thenext jump potion is released). Removing the msq from its mechanical connections to content would be removing that road and replacing it with another. You're basically asking for a different game. Not necessarily a bad game, but it's certainly not the same game.

i never said every player hates/has problems with msq, just that a decent % do. Allowing those people to opt out wont hurt those that opt in, and will get more people to the parts they like.

as to the story skip, it shows they can by pressing button, move a player from one story step to another. New game+ shows they can allow people who have already unlocked content to experience it without losing unlocks. This means both parts needed for what i am talking about already exist.

A complete rework of msq might be expensive(might be worth it) but thats not what i am saying they should do.

Allow people to unlock content, if they wish, and go back and do story later, if they wish. both parts are already going to be available in july, just allow new players to access it.


and you misunderstood my comment about once in awhile. I am saying the msq is mostly teleporting around talking to npcs, the once in awhile, is fighting spawned enemies.

the only time two players can play msq together is spawned enemies, and dungeons/trials. Both of those are a comparitively small part of msq.

i believe you enjoy msq, and feel it is the most integral part of ffxiv, what i am telling you is many others dont feel that way, and the longer/more of that they have to do to experience content they want to play, the less likely they are to keep playing. This i think, is most likely with referals, because people being refered expect to play mostly with their friends.

[Wynn_Storm]

Kamatsu is stating stats though, and I happen to be among them. Regardless I welcome their input.
Instead of shooting down the conversation you should try and add to it sometime.

You do realize i have said plenty about this topic throughout this thread and including another thread similar to this topic.

If you are going to try and call me out, maybe do some research and look at my post history.

I still stand by what i said. She does not speak for everyone, therefore she should stop.

I play for the gameplay, i don't care for the story.

Also anyone can state facts but she is not including any of the resources where she is getting these so called facts.