Game difficulty, syncing, minimum ilvl and new players

[Hycinthus]

Is that... optional?
Cuz if my friends wanna join but we can't play together for awhile that's no fun for anyone.

In BDO yes, it's optional. If your character is in the "Season" server, that character can jump around between "Season", or "Regular" server.

However, tenured players cannot enter the "Season" servers with their high level characters, but they are free to create a new character there too if they want to accompany their friends.

In the "Season" server, the quests are streamlined, condensed, and rewards gears faster. There's a fair amount of handholding, teaching you the necessities of crafting and improving armor, albeit, using easier ingredients and simpler terms. There are mentors who live in the "Season" server all the time, to help out.

Basically it's like a "breeding pond" for new fish, only last for 2 months, before their graduation and be released into the ocean. Then after graduation, a new season will start for the next batch of guppies.

Now that we can jump around servers in a data center, they may be able to do this, just create a "Guppies" server for each data center that will feature condensed MSQ, etc, and to prevent the Guppies Duty Finder to be lacking players, then just ntroduce a Data center wide new Roulette Queue called "Guppies" Roulette where it rewards higher rewards, BUT, you must join with minimum ilvl gear so you cannot zerg-fest or steamroll stuff. Maybe only open it for mentors.

[Addy]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

[Gemina]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

I came into the game at a time when you very much could die in that fight if you got hit by bad. FATEs like Svara, Odin and Behemoth were still heavily ran with tons of deaths as well. Those were fun times, but we have new special FATEs and NM raids to go along with trials where going in blind definitely increases the chances you'll get smoked.

I really enjoy the unreal trials and hope they extend it to the HW primals and onwards. Thordan EX and Nidhogg EX in particular when they were relevant were sick fights that I would love to see added at some point.

I wonder if they could do instanced FATEs with old badies like Svara and sync them up to recall some of those times. Could probably allow 48 players in there, and let the fun begin.

[ForteNightshade]

Man the Thordan trial is pretty bad with the high ilvl too...the cutscenes were really nice then you do the trial and......oof you can literally stand in all of the "mechanics" (If you can literally call them that at this point.) and not die. At least the visuals in the fight are cool I guess.

I'll never forget when I first started how underwhelming Thordan felt. While the build up towards him was fairly solid, his fight was so poorly tuned I could stand in AoEs and not worry. That didn't make for an epic, grand finale but an anti-climatic one. And this was only ten months into Heavenswards. Nowadays, so much older content is utterly laughable. I appreciate they don't want new players to be left too far behind, but it makes doing old content less fun. In fact, it's one of the main reasons I almost never touch it anymore.

[Iscah]

Now that we can jump around servers in a data center, they may be able to do this, just create a "Guppies" server for each data center that will feature condensed MSQ, etc, ...

For all that some people complain about the MSQ, condensing it on the designated newbie server would be a horrible idea. You're basically forcing people to choose between experiencing the story properly and getting assisted as a new player.

If anything, that's exactly the time where people should be allowed to take it slow and expect to see cutscenes in their entirety without others wanting to rush.

[Hycinthus]

For all that some people complain about the MSQ, condensing it on the designated newbie server would be a horrible idea. You're basically forcing people to choose between experiencing the story properly and getting assisted as a new player.

If anything, that's exactly the time where people should be allowed to take it slow and expect to see cutscenes in their entirety without others wanting to rush.

Yes agree with you on that. What I meant is, this can be used to fix ARR MSQ to make in 2021-newbie-friendly (because the ARR MSQ are the ones mainly getting the criticism by media in terms of slog right?), making it more up to standard to SB and ShB, things like that. Definitely I did not mean to suggest to start deleting quests or deleting storyline. But even if they did not, my idea was more regarding the Guppies server.

[technole]

MMOs have a shelf life on content and if you were not around when it was hot like Ravana or Bismarck story mode, you're going to miss a point in the game where 100% of the players were new or have similar gear. Today some people still get wrecked and falloff in Ravana because the tank doesn't realize they need to stop attacking when the shield is in-front.

Let us not forget the salty people in Stormblood when they complained that Shinryu trial story mode was "too hard". YoshiP never touched it once, they just let the player base catch-up.

[Iscah]

Yes agree with you on that. What I meant is, this can be used to fix ARR MSQ to make in 2021-newbie-friendly, making it more up to standard to SB and ShB, things like that.

The edits in 5.3 were intended to do that already, so I can't see them doing further work on it besides possibly a focused update of the two MSQ roulette dungeons.

[Jin-]

I remember good old times people wiping multiple times on Garuda NM. Now it's just an another close your eyes and do 1+2+3

[Barwara]

I am trying to get a friend to play but the issue is they get all excited about a trial as a first time player, like they have it in their head it's going to be an epic boss battle and the boss is dead in 20 seconds.

Ya I feel you. I gotta say as a newish player, I'm disappointed by how easy the game is. I understand the need to do daily roulettes quickly just to get your exp, hence rush through content. Unfortunately this is something you'll have to get used to.

One thing I started doing was to go back to doing content blind, instead of researching before hand. I started researching after the embarrassing experience that was failing as tank in Aurum Vale, but now I'm much more comfortable with my classes so I feel like I'm better at thinking on my feet. So I go in blind now, and I don't give two cents if I mess some mechanics and make other people angry. At the end of the day I want there to be some challenge for me and this is the way I'm making the game 'fun' and 'dificult'.

Preparing for a dungeon for a whole day is not really necessary, but as I've just said, just go in blind and try to figure out the mechanics if you can (if they even have time to kick in). Or, look for other beginners who might want to do new content with you (through a FC, party finder).

These days I try to delay new content so I can do it with two of my friends. The 4th random person joining has to suffer our antics but oh well. :P We have fun! And we actually are forced to do the mechanics, instead of being carried by the rest of the party.

So far (I'm at HW) the Extreme Trials have proven the most challenging content, and it usually takes the party I'm with 30+ minutes to clear, if not almost the entire time.