New Player Experience Sucks! - Impending Expansion Problems

[Ronduwil]

I am new to FFXIV, and I have to say that I love the New Player Experience so far. To me, all content feels "relevant" right now. I started experiencing the content I paid for on day one, so I don't know why your friend's experience is any different. Are you sure that your friend is actually frustrated, or are you projecting your own frustrations onto him? Relax and let him enjoy the game. He'll get to your level someday. The reason I am playing this game now is because WoW wholeheartedly embraced what you're proposing and rendered their entire game irrelevant with the exception of the latest content drop. That does not make for a compelling gameplay experience. I like working my character up gradually and building a lasting legacy. I don't want FFXIV to go the way of WoW where every piece of gear and crafting material feels like a disposable piece of garbage that will be chucked into the scrap bin sometime in the next three months. For me, this entire game feels relevant right now. I hope they keep it that way.

[van_arn]

I am new to FFXIV, and I have to say that I love the New Player Experience so far. To me, all content feels "relevant" right now. I started experiencing the content I paid for on day one, so I don't know why your friend's experience is any different. Are you sure that your friend is actually frustrated, or are you projecting your own frustrations onto him? Relax and let him enjoy the game. He'll get to your level someday. The reason I am playing this game now is because WoW wholeheartedly embraced what you're proposing and rendered their entire game irrelevant with the exception of the latest content drop. That does not make for a compelling gameplay experience. I like working my character up gradually and building a lasting legacy. I don't want FFXIV to go the way of WoW where every piece of gear and crafting material feels like a disposable piece of garbage that will be chucked into the scrap bin sometime in the next three months. For me, this entire game feels relevant right now. I hope they keep it that way.

My sweet summer child. You don't have a single job, or a class above 21.

You haven't seen the winter.

[DPZ2]

My sweet summer child. You don't have a single job, or a class above 21.

You haven't seen the winter.

You sound a bit, um, jaded after 8 years of this game.

You've had your fun, now it's time to spoil it for others ...

[Ronduwil]

My sweet summer child. You don't have a single job, or a class above 21.

You haven't seen the winter.

We are talking about the New Player Experience, right? In what world is there a level minimum to be classified as a new player? I don't get the point you're trying to make. Why do I need to be a veteran player to gain insight on the new player experience? If anything, it's the other way around.

[Vahlnir]

We are talking about the New Player Experience, right? In what world is there a level minimum to be classified as a new player? I don't get the point you're trying to make. Why do I need to be a veteran player to gain insight on the new player experience? If anything, it's the other way around.

Yeah, I don't think levels should dictate who can be considered a new player or not, especially with the existence of jump potions and story skips. Time and experience through various pieces of content is usually a better gauge of player experience.

[van_arn]

Yeah, I don't think levels should dictate who can be considered a new player or not, especially with the existence of jump potions and story skips. Time and experience through various pieces of content is usually a better gauge of player experience.

Levels aren't the issue. It's the combination of time, lack of progress through the msq, and lack of a job stone that tells me they really haven't had enough time with the game to appreciate how much the msq blocks, not to mention how long it is. Not to mention the sameness of the fedexing.

I'm glad this individual sprout is enjoying themselves. I've seen too many of them sour in 2.x, often going into potd to try to 60 everything before burning themselves out.

Perhaps it will happen to this sprout, perhaps not. I've only seen it happen enough to be cynical when someone's on a story high on their first 20.

Six game phases away from the present day. Soon to be seven.

[Skivvy]

We are talking about the New Player Experience, right? In what world is there a level minimum to be classified as a new player? I don't get the point you're trying to make. Why do I need to be a veteran player to gain insight on the new player experience? If anything, it's the other way around.

It tends to be difficult to see flaws in a game when you are new and in your honeymoon period. This isn't to say you will suddenly despise the game when you reach endgame, or that you may take the side of those in this thread who feel the forced 100% completion is not a good idea, you may very well love it for years to come.

One thing in your original comment that may have spawned Van's initial remark:

I don't want FFXIV to go the way of WoW where every piece of gear and crafting material feels like a disposable piece of garbage that will be chucked into the scrap bin sometime in the next three months.

With XIV, your gear may last 5-6 months. New patches bring higher ilvls, and then most of what you have will become obsolete outside of glamour.

[Ronduwil]

With XIV, your gear may last 5-6 months. New patches bring higher ilvls, and then most of what you have will become obsolete outside of glamour.

Fair enough, but that comment was in response to the OP's comment about "relevant" content. As you just mentioned, once you hit the endgame, relevant content becomes disposable. I don't think that rushing new players to that point is going to be good for the game's longevity. WoW lost 8% of its playerbase last quarter for a reason.

As a new player, everything feels like relevant. I'm enjoying that experience. I'm in no hurry to get to max level and lose all sense of progression. Right now, I'm having fun leveling all my crafts, clearing my target log, and taking on different classes. I don't think my experience would be improved by boosting my character through the game at an ungodly rate the way WoW does. In fact, I found WoW to be much more fun before it succumbed to that style of play.

[Melichoir]

If I wanted the lvling experience like WoW id say for it all to be optional yes? Have I demanded FF14 do everything WoW does? No. I don't remember demanding anything really. The fact that you keep going back to the "go back to WoW" thing makes it seem like you don't have anything to really say. I already said I like the game enough to pay for it. Turning FF14 into a WoW clone also does nothing for me as I'm not currently playing WoW because I don't enjoy it. Some random player skipping some of the story doesn't do anything to you and yet you feel the need to make sure everyone does it just like you did it in the past. Even with max lvl of previous expac msq being optional the lvling in FF14 wouldn't be the same as WoW. Not even close.

The issue is what allowing easily skipping the MSQ would end up doing. There's a fundamental difference between smashing your mouse button to skip dialogue or cutscenes, and changing the architecture of the game to make the MSQ optional. If you can access any content based solely on level, you are changing how the game operates. This will, in my own opinion, lead to a degradation of the game overall. Itll suffer the same problems I think WoW does - Focus shifts away from a common narrative which everyone is a part of to getting the biggest numbers, you start seeing elitism grow, player dissatisfaction their class isnt good enough or has to change for those big numbers, less investment from new players, and overall less cohesion of the player base over time.

Is the MSQ perfect? No. Could it use trimming/pruning? Carefully done, but sure. But the point of hte MSQ is that it sets up the game as plot centric and generates an interest/investment into the game that people can rally behind more readily. It doesnt matter if you did or didnt do savage, the core of the game's plot and premise is there for people to rally around. WoW did not have this feature as much (until recently from what Im told), and the focus on wow originally was small vignettes and end game raiding. Getting those big numbers. If MSQ becomes optional, it becomes a defacto WoW. MSQ is just a glorified side quest and people dont have to pay attention to it. And funny, people tend to not pay attention to most side quests when given the option because MMOs like WoW have set unfortunate expectations that you come to MMOs to Riad and get shiny gear and big numbers, not explore a story and plot. You know, that whole RPG element.

It tends to be difficult to see flaws in a game when you are new and in your honeymoon period. This isn't to say you will suddenly despise the game when you reach endgame, or that you may take the side of those in this thread who feel the forced 100% completion is not a good idea, you may very well love it for years to come.

Yeah but it's worth noting if you want to know how new players feel about the experience, asking new players is probably a good start. So the input is valuable. From what Ive heard from players who start out, 2.1-2.55 is the trouble spot (they dont say that specifically but more along the lines of it slowed down a lot after Ultima weap). This is where trimming and streamlining might become useful.

I don't think my experience would be improved by boosting my character through the game at an ungodly rate the way WoW does. In fact, I found WoW to be much more fun before it succumbed to that style of play.

It's worth noting that a pretty big demand over the last few years is for Vanilla WoW to be a thing again. A big complaint is how hand holding WoW has become in many respects. This is the opposite of what we should be expecting if the idea is New players hate the MSQ generally and it takes to long to get to current content. Because the argument for Vanilla is that yeah, it was longer and more intensive, but people felt it was worth it. Another reason why WoW probably is failing is they pushed to hard to include every person, and as a result dumbed down the game to much.