Letter to SE: Improve New Player Experience with a new introductory story instance

[YojimboM]

Disclaimer: Since I know the topic will be brought up, this is only intended to be enforced for the first character per account, with an option being given to skip the intro after it's been completed once. The duty should last, at maximum when played at a decent pace, around 7 to 8 minutes for an experienced MMO player and around 10 minutes for someone brand new following simple instructions.

TL;DR: I suggest that SE use the Battle of Carteneau as an introductory instance for new players on their job of choice as their own character, at level 50 with access to specific important job-defining skills. The purpose is to give new players something to look forward to when leveling their first job and to lend context to some of the beginning of the plot which can seem disjointed.

As someone that had the opportunity to start this game fresh when 2.0 was released, I've been both sad and disappointed to see many new players turned off by the now-watered-down new player leveling experience. Classes barely resemble their original forms in some cases, and lots of new players have to step back and ask the question, "when does this get better?". Soon, we will be experiencing a pruned version of the ARR MSQ, which is a good thing, but it could also lend even more to the barebones feelings of the early game and more new players questioning aspects of the story. People tend to give them responses like, "try different jobs", "if the slow pace is boring for you then this game might not be for you", "just keep playing, eventually your rotation is better", "you'll like it more when you get to Heavensward", etc. None of these answers are correct, because the situation is a failure of design and not a failure of new players enjoying the game. There was once a point where even the beginning of this game was exciting and engaging, however.

The Story

First of all, a point of criticism I've regularly seen given about the introductory experience of the game is that it tends to start quite slow from a plot standpoint. You are given little context for the world or situation you're in and arrive as a traveler to your city-state of choice. It does lend to the "working your way up in the world" feel of earning your place as a storied adventurer, but it betrays the significance of the events preceding the ARR story.

Immediately after creating your character, you are presented with a cryptic scene depicting Hydaelyn communing with your character and resurrecting them back into the world. It makes no sense without knowing the context of the end of the 1.0 plot. The end of the plot is conveyed through the initial cutscene when opening the game without any expansions, and may simply never be seen by players who have already purchased the complete version of the game or that simply skip it when starting the game. This leads to a disjointed understanding of the overarching plot and why the world has become the way it has for a long period of time.

The Gameplay

Most old and new players that I've spoken with or encountered agree that the new player job experience is absolutely abysmal now. You get tossed into the game on your class with only 5 or 6 skills by the time you hit the first dungeon and due to the restructuring of jobs most within the same role play exactly the same. DPS jobs are egregiously uninteresting throughout most of the 1-50 leveling experience.

Here is an example: Dragoon (Lancer), a very popular melee DPS beginner job, has True Thrust, Vorpal Thrust, Life Surge, and Piercing Talon by the time they reach Sastasha. Piercing Talon is a dead skill for almost all situations throughout the entire game. Life Surge at this level adds virtually nothing to the rotation in terms of complexity. So, you spend the entire dungeon pressing 2 buttons. Most of your time outside of dungeons is spent pressing the same two buttons. You don't get access to a combo finisher skill until level 26, which is FIVE dungeons into the game.

A new player casually progressing the game without any experience boosts and playing solo will probably spend 2-3 days (playing a few hours a day) before reaching the point where their class begins to make much sense beyond pressing a couple buttons over and over again. This is a long enough period of time for someone to begin to lose interest.

Additionally: Many mechanics of the game are left unexplained to someone who is brand new to the MMO genre. The Hall of the Novice exists as a way to explain some mechanics, but things like stack markers, interception mechanics, beneficial AOEs, and properly judging skill usage are not covered.

A Solution

SE has a gold mine of introductory content already available to them in the form of 1.0 and the Calamity. The End of an Era video is an intense, dramatic, pulse-pounding exhibition of action and both finality and restoration for the plot. The crowning achievement of Yoshi P and his team is that they brought a dead game on the brink of complete shutdown back to life in a way that not only saved it from failure, but made it a success that most other game developers can only dream of accomplishing. Why leave that ending as a footnote of the launch of 2.0? Let people experience it!

The End of an Era and Battle of Carteneau is a ready-made gameplay experience. It features a full party of all roles working together in battle. It shows where our characters came from, why we are speaking to Hydaelyn, why we should fight the Garleans, and why Eorzea's landscape is scarred by giant canyons and craters on a world-altering scale.

Implementation

My personal suggestion for this is to begin with character creation as we have now, then start an introductory duty instance. Take advantage of the newly featured role-play duties where we take control of different characters. Show off some of the new technical features you've developed to create an immersive intro experience.

New players start on the job they have selected at level 50 in full artifact equipment with their appropriate relic weapon, like represented in the End of an Era video. Taking advantage of the features used for the Trust system, new players will be in a party with NPCs as if they were in a real player party and will fulfill whatever their chosen job's role is. There will be no access to inventory or the character sheet, and important skills will be pre-assigned in the way that we have in role-play duties. It is purely a story and gameplay experience.

The setting would be Carteneau Flats, on the field of battle preceding the events of the End of an Era video. The player is in a party of Warriors of Light fighting the Garleans minutes before Bahamut is released. The Carteneau Flats battlefield lends an epic scale with Dalamud looming near overhead, which is truly a spectacle on a scale familiar to the Final Fantasy franchise.

Many of the game's basic mechanics can be explained here easily with some examples:

• The player character has been knocked down by an attack for the initial fading in of the duty, an ally helps you up, and tells you to look at them, introducing the tutorial for targeting a party member or NPC.
• The NPC asks you to speak to them, initiating the tutorial for using chat through /say and /p (I have seen many brand-new MMO players that don't know how to use the party chat).
• A Magitek Reaper shows up and fires at you with a circle AOE marker, but the game pauses to show a tutorial explaining what various AOE indicators look like and their purposes, and then progresses after you move your character out of the AOE.
• Specific role mechanics will be introduced, with some Garlean soldiers entering. A tank will need to activate their tank stance and use their AOE skill to hit all of them at once. A healer will use a preparatory healing skill, such as Divine Benison/Regen on WHM or Adloquium/Sacred Soil on Scholar. A DPS job will activate a key job buff and use AOE attacks to hit all the enemies. Etc.
• More advanced mechanics will be touched on, with a single Garlean officer entering as a "boss". Tanks will need to use a defensive cooldown after identifying a tank buster attack with a cast bar and use their Silence or Stun for an attack. Healers will have to identify an invulnerability buff on the tank and watch the duration while casting damage spells on the boss, then begin healing the tank after it ends. DPS jobs will have to use skills in a specific order to demonstrate "weaving" and the difference between GCDs and oGCDs and properly completing a combo. Ranged DPS will have to use their silence to interrupt a cast and melee DPS will have to use their stun instead.
• All jobs will be shown a stack AOE indicator and have to enter the stack area to absorb damage.
• All jobs will be shown a beneficial ground AOE, such as Sacred Soil or Asylum, and have to move into it to receive the effects.
• Some job-specific details that could probably be introduced in passing: WHM will have both Cure II and Cure III and will be instructed to use both for their appropriate situations. Tanks will be instructed to use one defensive cooldown at a time with the strongest cooldown first. Tanks will be reduced to 1 HP and have to use their invulnerability. DPS jobs with maintenance buffs will have to put them up and keep them up for one rotation.

Using a methodical and logical flow to introduce each mechanic with pauses and specific skills highlighted and tooltips shown would go a long ways towards to correcting some of the problems new players encounter with learning the mechanics of the game. Within an engaging setting like the Battle of Carteneau Flats, players will feel excited to be there as part of a party (although they're NPCs) and fulfilling their role on the grand scale rather than the small skirmishes that the Hall of the Novice presents which can be uninteresting or feel like a slog to some.

Lastly, being presented with their job at level 50, having access to some of their most powerful or defining skills will excite new players with the prospect of sticking to their job through the grind that may otherwise deter them instead with no frame of reference. This also affords the opportunity for new players to try out many jobs at level 50 in a reduced capacity to see which they might enjoy the style of most before investing hours and hours into a job they may not like.

Plotwise, after introducing the player as one of the Warriors of Light fighting at the Battle of Carteneau Flats, it would smoothly transition out of the introductory solo duty to the cutscene, then directly into the conversation with Hydaelyn afterwards when the Warrior of Light is reborn into Eorzea. Now the introduction would be given context and players would be hooked into the world from both a plot and gameplay perspective, with something to look forward to on both fronts, as the Calamity is quite the hook.

Conclusion

As a veteran of the game, someone who has been here since the beginning of ARR, I want to see new players coming to the game and enjoying it and staying. Not only just staying to play, but being engaged and interested and wanting to be better at their jobs, and realizing that there is so much more to this game than initially let on.

Many other MMOs have taken this route successfully with an introductory instance showing off some of the technical aspects of their game and also the gameplay aspects of the classes that players can choose. It is much more interesting to start with a spectacle, a demonstration of the things that you can do in the game, the things your job can do, the variations of mechanics in battle, and working as part of a team to win a battle (from both a literal and plot perspective for those that prefer to play solo).

I simply propose that SE take advantage of some of the resources available to them to get new players into the game in a big way, using the features that the dev team have been excited to introduce to us, such as Trusts and the role-play battle system. And to maybe even excite some veteran players with a short glimpse into the Battle of Carteneau and even more participation in the story.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. This is my attempt at hopefully offering a direction to go with the issue of the new player experience's current state.

[Rasikko]

The carriage ride is a pretty important plot point to the story that you don't even realize til waaaaay late into the story.

[Enkidoh]

Exactly, the importance of the other occupants of the carriage isn't apparent then, but hindsight much later in the game makes you realize that (even the old merchant), as they become extremely important to the story (you even get to actually play as one of them for a brief period during Stormblood's storyline ).

As for having a tutorial set during the Calamity, although I agree there could be a bit of a better tutorial at start, I don't think the Battle of Carteneau is a good idea for it - specifically, a new adventurer is actually lore wise not a veteran of that conflict (new adventurers are actually people from a foreign nation who were attracted to Eorzea to become an adventurer because of the stories of the original adventurers taking up arms to defend the realm in that conflict).

The 'original' fighters of that conflict are player characters from the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0), who return to pick up where they left off, with the 'original' Warriors of Light specifically player characters who accomplished a certain story requirement in 1.0, and have a slightly different main scenario through ARR where they're basically incognito (they also don't start ARR the normal way, they actually teleport in and just walk to their starting city).

Either way, although a tutorial battle right at the beginning of the game could be useful, SE already has the Beginner's Hall in the game anyway that basically satisfies that so such a tutorial would be kind of superflorous.

[HyoMinPark]

I do think that it should be noted that, unless your character was actually imported from 1.0, you aren’t the same as the Warriors of Light from Carteneau. That’s a title you earn only after all of your trials throughout ARR. When you begin the game as a non-Legacy character, you’re just another adventurer. Reliving the battle of Carteneau and emerging as a veteran from that battle doesn’t make sense if you didn’t exist during the 1.0 era—and that was an intentional development on the behalf of Yoshida when he and the devs went forward into 2.0 and beyond.

Also note that the introductory scene between you and Hydaelyn has very little to do with Her “resurrecting” you from a 1.0 slumber. I believe Legacy characters actually get a different opening, where they appear outside of their starting city state. The dream between them and Hydaelyn may also be present (not 100% certain of that), but it’s not what you’re thinking it is in your opening post. Legacy characters are transported five years after the Battle of Carteneau by Louisoix’s magic. The rest of us arrive on a carriage—neither are “resurrected”.

[YojimboM]

I do think that it should be noted that, unless your character was actually imported from 1.0, you aren’t the same as the Warriors of Light from Carteneau. That’s a title you earn only after all of your trials throughout ARR. When you begin the game as a non-Legacy character, you’re just another adventurer. Reliving the battle of Carteneau and emerging as a veteran from that battle doesn’t make sense if you didn’t exist during the 1.0 era—and that was an intentional development on the behalf of Yoshida when he and the devs went forward into 2.0 and beyond.

Also note that the introductory scene between you and Hydaelyn has very little to do with Her “resurrecting” you from a 1.0 slumber. I believe Legacy characters actually get a different opening, where they appear outside of their starting city state. The dream between them and Hydaelyn may also be present (not 100% certain of that), but it’s not what you’re thinking it is in your opening post. Legacy characters are transported five years after the Battle of Carteneau by Louisoix’s magic. The rest of us arrive on a carriage—neither are “resurrected”.

I'm not entirely sure on the specifics of the lore, but I've always been under the impression that in 1.0 there were very many "Warriors of Light" (The Path of the Twelve, all the people who had received The Echo), instead of the Warrior of Light that our characters in ARR and beyond become. And that the introduction with Hydaelyn had to do with our characters being one of those of thousands or more that were displaced by Louisoux's summoning of Althyk at the end of the battle. So, when we arrive as a "normal adventurer" in 2.0, we're one of those Echo-attuned people from 1.0.

Of course, the game doesn't explicitly show specific numbers or anything like that, but the characters in The End of an Era were the "placeholder" poster party for the 1.0 players, while there were many off-screen characters established throughout the 1.0 story that had The Echo.

Regardless, that was just an example given. It could be a purely role-play experience in the shoes of a different character or a dream given to us by Hydaelyn to show what happened in the past with our predecessors.

[HyoMinPark]

I'm not entirely sure on the specifics of the lore, but I've always been under the impression that in 1.0 there were very many "Warriors of Light" (The Path of the Twelve, all the people who had received The Echo), instead of the Warrior of Light that our characters in ARR and beyond become. And that the introduction with Hydaelyn had to do with our characters being one of those of thousands or more that were displaced by Louisoux's summoning of Althyk at the end of the battle. So, when we arrive as a "normal adventurer" in 2.0, we're one of those Echo-attuned people from 1.0.

Of course, the game doesn't explicitly show specific numbers or anything like that, but the characters in The End of an Era were the "placeholder" poster party for the 1.0 players, while there were many off-screen characters established throughout the 1.0 story that had The Echo.

Regardless, that was just an example given. It could be a purely role-play experience in the shoes of a different character or a dream given to us by Hydaelyn to show what happened in the past with our predecessors.

The Warriors of Light from 1.0 were the adventurers physically present during the Battle of Carteneau that disappeared in a blinding light after Louisoix attempted (and failed) to summon The Twelve and stop Bahamut. They’re called Warriors of Light because, when anyone tries to remember them, all they can see are silhouettes surrounded by a blinding light; no individuals faces. In this game, that means Legacy players. If your character isn’t a Legacy character—if you never played 1.0—then you aren’t a 1.0 Warrior of Light (the ones that are referenced during early ARR). You become a Warrior of Light after your deeds in ARR because they mirror the heroic deeds of the heroes that fought and disappeared during Carteneau (for non-Legacy characters, those WoLs are considered dead and/or lost). If your character is a 1.0 character, there is an extended scene after you finish the Praetorium where the Scions, Cid, and Grand Company leaders suddenly remember that you were at Carteneau with them, and that you are one of those legendary Warriors of Light. But this doesn’t happen for non-Legacy characters. We just become one because we’re found to be as heroic as the original WoLs that fought during Carteneau.

The Path of the Twelve and the Circle of Knowing weren’t Warriors of Light. Most of them go on to become the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in 2.0 (Minfilia, Thancred, Y’shtola, Yda, Papalymo, Urianger); the only one that had the Echo in 1.0 lore was Minfilia, if I recall my lore correctly. The Path of the Twelve was tasked with protecting and aiding (and possibly researching) those with the Echo—but none of them were considered WoLs.

2.0 characters are simply normal adventurers with no ties to anything from 1.0—Warriors of Light included. The only thing “special” we have when we arrive in Eorzea is the Echo; and we don’t even understand what it is. Non-Legacy characters are not 1.0 characters; the two are considered separate.

The characters in the End of an Era video are placeholder characters—just like Derplander is in all the other franchise trailers. Sure, there were more in terms of 1.0 numbers, but he and his party aren’t really meant to be representative of size (since there were more than just 5 players present when 1.0 shut down). They’re just theatric versions of the Legacy playerbase.

[Lambdafish]

2.0 characters are simply normal adventurers with no ties to anything from 1.0—Warriors of Light included. The only thing “special” we have when we arrive in Eorzea is the Echo; and we don’t even understand what it is. Non-Legacy characters are not 1.0 characters; the two are considered separate.

This might be a bit out there, but what if it was a role play instance where you play as derplander? Then again, as the players first introduction to the game, there could be a disconnect between their avatar and this new character.

[Rannie]

The Warriors of Light from 1.0 were the adventurers physically present during the Battle of Carteneau that disappeared in a blinding light after Louisoix attempted (and failed) to summon The Twelve and stop Bahamut. They’re called Warriors of Light because, when anyone tries to remember them, all they can see are silhouettes surrounded by a blinding light; no individuals faces. In this game, that means Legacy players. If your character isn’t a Legacy character—if you never played 1.0—then you aren’t a 1.0 Warrior of Light (the ones that are referenced during early ARR). You become a Warrior of Light after your deeds in ARR because they mirror the heroic deeds of the heroes that fought and disappeared during Carteneau (for non-Legacy characters, those WoLs are considered dead and/or lost). If your character is a 1.0 character, there is an extended scene after you finish the Praetorium where the Scions, Cid, and Grand Company leaders suddenly remember that you were at Carteneau with them, and that you are one of those legendary Warriors of Light. But this doesn’t happen for non-Legacy characters. We just become one because we’re found to be as heroic as the original WoLs that fought during Carteneau.

The Path of the Twelve and the Circle of Knowing weren’t Warriors of Light. Most of them go on to become the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in 2.0 (Minfilia, Thancred, Y’shtola, Yda, Papalymo, Urianger); the only one that had the Echo in 1.0 lore was Minfilia, if I recall my lore correctly. The Path of the Twelve was tasked with protecting and aiding (and possibly researching) those with the Echo—but none of them were considered WoLs.

2.0 characters are simply normal adventurers with no ties to anything from 1.0—Warriors of Light included. The only thing “special” we have when we arrive in Eorzea is the Echo; and we don’t even understand what it is. Non-Legacy characters are not 1.0 characters; the two are considered separate.

The characters in the End of an Era video are placeholder characters—just like Derplander is in all the other franchise trailers. Sure, there were more in terms of 1.0 numbers, but he and his party aren’t really meant to be representative of size (since there were more than just 5 players present when 1.0 shut down). They’re just theatric versions of the Legacy playerbase.

There were other npcs in the path of the twelve who had the echo. In 1.0 you got a companion who did some of the main story along with you as an echo user there was also that one npc from 2.0 who was in 1.0 as well who got killed after the garleans invaded the waking sands.

As a matter of fact in 1.0 when you did the quest that introduced you to the Path of the Twelve, you find out how the goldsmith Elezen (cant for the life of me spell his name I do know it begins with an N) died via the Echo. When you come out of it the Npc you were speaking to (Minfillia) goes and contacts people for help because you're fainting and before the screen goes blank you see the chat pop up with her saying that there was another who knows how he died.

[HyoMinPark]

There were other npcs in the path of the twelve who had the echo. In 1.0 you got a companion who did some of the main story along with you as an echo user there was also that one npc from 2.0 who was in 1.0 as well who got killed after the garleans invaded the waking sands.

As a matter of fact in 1.0 when you did the quest that introduced you to the Path of the Twelve, you find out how the goldsmith Elezen (cant for the life of me spell his name I do know it begins with an N) died via the Echo. When you come out of it the Npc you were speaking to (Minfillia) goes and contacts people for help because you're fainting and before the screen goes blank you see the chat pop up with her saying that there was another who knows how he died.

Okay. So I misremembered my lore and there were more with the Echo. But I don’t think the lore considers any of the Circle or Path members as WoLs. The OP seemed to be under that misconception.

This might be a bit out there, but what if it was a role play instance where you play as derplander? Then again, as the players first introduction to the game, there could be a disconnect between their avatar and this new character.

I don’t think throwing a solo instance at a new player with a random NPC they have no real knowledge of is really the way to go. It may hurt their own immersion into the beginning of the story because they’re forced into playing a character that isn’t theirs.

[Elladie]

I'm not entirely sure on the specifics of the lore, but I've always been under the impression that in 1.0 there were very many "Warriors of Light" (The Path of the Twelve, all the people who had received The Echo), instead of the Warrior of Light that our characters in ARR and beyond become. And that the introduction with Hydaelyn had to do with our characters being one of those of thousands or more that were displaced by Louisoux's summoning of Althyk at the end of the battle. So, when we arrive as a "normal adventurer" in 2.0, we're one of those Echo-attuned people from 1.0.

No, this isn't the case.

There were no Warriors of Light in 1.x. The name is one given by people after Carteneau to the people who died there whom they can't remember. All they remember is a bright light. This is all explained simply and clearly by Miounne/Momodi/guy in the Drowning Wench whose name escapes me currently. It has nothing at all to do with Hydaelyn.

Yes there are multiple Warriors of Light of this kind but none of them - or only one if you're a Legacy player - becomes the actual, one of a kind Warrior of Light. Again, though, that name has nothing to do with Hydaelyn, it's just a title folks give you.

On the subject of some epic battle at the start for new players, I hate games that do that. Much rather learn how the controls work without overly stressful music, pyrotechnics, and bits of story I won't even listen to because I'm panicking about how I jump from here to there.

I very much enjoyed the battle tutorials in the Hall of the Novice. So what you're suggesting would absolutely not improve the new player experience for people like me.