An option for characters to start at level 50, pre-heavensward, for FREE

[Seraphor]

A price drop sure.
Basically have the SB skip be the price the GW skip is currently.
Then the HW skip be what the ARR skip is right now.
So then ARR skip can be half of what it is.

Maybe then in 6.0 it'll be free.

[Schan]

As time goes by, I believe that it’s getting harder and harder to get new players into the game. I believe the game’s quality skyrocketed ever since heavensward.

I know lots of people think jump potions should be purchased, but as time goes by I think jump potions shouldn’t be the only option for players to catch up. Starting level 50 from Heavensward makes the most sense to me so we get new characters without disrespecting existing players.
Upvote if you agree

I disagree. Can we not encourage SE to make the same mistakes Blizzard has done please?

[Dyvid]

Why Level 50. Why not just give a free MSQ skip potion with purchase?

[Avidria]

As time goes by, I believe that it’s getting harder and harder to get new players into the game. I believe the game’s quality skyrocketed ever since heavensward.

I know lots of people think jump potions should be purchased, but as time goes by I think jump potions shouldn’t be the only option for players to catch up. Starting level 50 from Heavensward makes the most sense to me so we get new characters without disrespecting existing players.
Upvote if you agree

Or they can just cut out all the ridiculous fluffy fetch quests in post-ARR and streamline the leveling process a little bit instead of letting people carve off a huge chunk of the game for free.

This comes with an unfortunate caveat though. The devs have admitted consolidating the sheer amount of quests would take considerable work. Therefore, if they prioritize it, we, the veteran players, may lose out on new content for something none of us will ever see unless we level alts. It's easy to say "new players should do the story but just make it more streamlined." But far too many people forget there's a cost involved. For myself, if it came down to losing a trial, BA, Ultimate, more fleshed out side quests or really anything of significance, I'd be quite annoyed because as mentioned, fixing the myriad of pointless fetch quests in ARR won't have any impact on me whatsoever. I'll just have even less to do.

It's tricky. Personally, I'd be okay with them going back and focusing on streamlining old content, especially if some extra QoL improvements got bundled in the mix somehow. Trim down some menus, make it so I can do solo dungeons without leaving my group... stuff like that. Just a whole patch focused on fixing what we already have and making it better.

While I totally disagree with OP's suggestion, they are right that the more expansions we get, the more story new players are gonna have to do to catch up, and the more daunting it's gonna get for somebody totally new to the game who's just checked the wiki for how many quests they have left to do. :P

[Hasrat]

Just a whole patch focused on fixing what we already have and making it better.

It's a fine idea, except when you consider how this game has a cycle of players coming and going. Current-content players will often un-sub when they've caught up with nothing more they really want to do, and re-sub at next patch to stay current.

Suggesting they dedicate an entire patch to previous content tweaks is ensuring those players stay un-subbed for even longer. It'd be another repeat of this pre-5.0 lull, right in the middle of the expansion, rather than at the end (or, if that patch is at the end, just makes the lull even worse).

With the dedicated patch cycle time frame they have, there's just no easy way to get major work done on old content like this, without taking it piecemeal as they have time/resources to spare. It's easy for us to say "Just hire enough people that they can all get it done in time." But that's a tough cost/benefit analysis to sell to the people in charge of the money.

[Avidria]

It's a fine idea, except when you consider how this game has a cycle of players coming and going. Current-content players will often un-sub when they've caught up with nothing more they really want to do, and re-sub at next patch to stay current.

Suggesting they dedicate an entire patch to previous content tweaks is ensuring those players stay un-subbed for even longer. It'd be another repeat of this pre-5.0 lull, right in the middle of the expansion, rather than at the end (or, if that patch is at the end, just makes the lull even worse).

With the dedicated patch cycle time frame they have, there's just no easy way to get major work done on old content like this, without taking it piecemeal as they have time/resources to spare. It's easy for us to say "Just hire enough people that they can all get it done in time." But that's a tough cost/benefit analysis to sell to the people in charge of the money.

Oh, I know it wouldn't be easy. What I'm saying really is that eventually, the cost of not doing it might end up being greater than the cost of getting it done. The more quests get added to the story, the more new players are going to have to get through to get to the end - and even if, imo, the story itself is the best part of the game, the sheer volume of it is eventually going to start turning away more players than it brings in.

At least, that's how I see it.

Imagine WoW but they care about the story.

Ooof. Lmao

[Halivel]

Oh, I know it wouldn't be easy. What I'm saying really is that eventually, the cost of not doing it might end up being greater than the cost of getting it done. The more quests get added to the story, the more new players are going to have to get through to get to the end - and even if, imo, the story itself is the best part of the game, the sheer volume of it is eventually going to start turning away more players than it brings in.

At least, that's how I see it.

Actually, it's not the story that makes game boring for new players. The problem is, that while the real gameplay starts at 50 when you get most of features, in fact it starts at cap level. Because people do not do old content anymore, so new players have nothing to do at their 50 but roulettes and MSQ (except they found FC that does such content). Not because story is long.

SE tries to make a lot for keeping old content alive (yes, even recent grindy kupo event it such try), and yet old players are "meh" about it. And this, I'm afraid, inevitably, even if you will completely delete all old MSQ. Because if there will be instant access to end game content, there will be born another problems like "can't find a party because they don't accept new players" and such. So basically... it's not even "system" problem in its core, it's "community" problem, kind of.

[Labyxt]

What’s next? Request to skip all story and start directly at endgame?

[bass9020]

No. /thread

[shaiel]

I agree that ARR is a slog compared to HW and Stormblood, and post ARR takes too long. Something should be done. However, I don't think people should start out at 50 as if they took a story skip / job boost. I highly discourage this because you get too many things unlocked at once and it will be overwhelming. In case you don't remember there's also so so so many things that unlock once you get to 50. I started playing in January and it took me 4 months to get through ARR-HW, then HW was just around 1 month maybe less for me to complete. I mostly got bored of the ARR and post ARR quests. So they can improve the quests, in my opinion, while keeping leveling as it is. They should fix the way quests are handed out for MSQ in ARR - less fetch and return to waking sands, and have like 10 quests just be one block of activity and you turn it in the one time. This is just an example, they could do something else entirely about it. Even as a long time MMO player, there are things I learned through the tutorials from leveling up to 50. And it's not just the little combat popups per class / per job, there's so many qol things that are explained in the tutorial and how stuff works like when someone handed me an in game wedding invitation so I could attend. The little things like that would be far too overwhelming if they all appeared at level 50. For players new to MMOs or RPGs in general they'd be even more confused, I imagine.