How to make the game better for new players?

[Jeeqbit]

Yeah I think some classes/jobs could do with a retooling of when they get certain things.

The game's longer GCD for me tends to be kind of mind numbing at lower levels when I only have a fraction of my job's total kit. I don't mind it aas much by level cap when there's more going on but it's always so boring getting lower level dungeons, depending on the job to what extent though.

For people who haven't played an MMO before, they may not be used to a pace faster than that. Even people who have played a lot of MMOs are adjusting to how the mechanics in this game work and are usually distracted by all the new things they are seeing on their screen, and if you watch them play you can see how overwhelming just ARR rotations are for them.

For some people, it won't be satisfying enough at early levels, but others need this slow transition from a bare ARR rotation to what we have at level 80.

From a game development perspective, I think that when we sync down to level 70, 60 or 50, we are doing the SB, HW or ARR rotation respectively and that content was designed and balanced around the type of actions available in that expansion. Even when adding new jobs, there seem to be actions that are intentionally not added at the lower levels because other jobs don't have them at those levels and it would imbalance certain content.

[Bright-Flower]

For people who haven't played an MMO before, they may not be used to a pace faster than that. Even people who have played a lot of MMOs are adjusting to how the mechanics in this game work and are usually distracted by all the new things they are seeing on their screen, and if you watch them play you can see how overwhelming just ARR rotations are for them.

For some people, it won't be satisfying enough at early levels, but others need this slow transition from a bare ARR rotation to what we have at level 80.

From a game development perspective, I think that when we sync down to level 70, 60 or 50, we are doing the SB, HW or ARR rotation respectively and that content was designed and balanced around the type of actions available in that expansion. Even when adding new jobs, there seem to be actions that are intentionally not added at the lower levels because other jobs don't have them at those levels and it would imbalance certain content.

Some jobs have changed more substantially than others. PLD for exmaple used to only have circle of scorn for aoe damage and flash for aoe enmity but no damage. THen they added total eclipse and gave pld a spammable aoe button. And in SHB gave us total eclipse at a much lower level and then a second combo for aoe for example.

Some jobs have changed a lot more than others over the years. And it wouldn't hurt things to say, make sure everyone has some basic aoe around level 20 for dungeons. They wouldn't have to do everything from the ground up.

[Vahlnir]

From a game development perspective, I think that when we sync down to level 70, 60 or 50, we are doing the SB, HW or ARR rotation respectively and that content was designed and balanced around the type of actions available in that expansion. Even when adding new jobs, there seem to be actions that are intentionally not added at the lower levels because other jobs don't have them at those levels and it would imbalance certain content.

I disagree. It is gear that makes old content imbalanced. Look at the Crystal Tower raids. Or Void Ark. Or even old dungeons synced down, with players still having an edge just because of their gear. That being said, they should have tweaked the boss HP levels or something to reflect that growth, but they did not. If anything, our characters are way too strong in some instances and could use some nerfing in the form of a lower synced item level. The Ivalice and Nier raids are much more balanced in this regard, though that doesn't completely stop players from steamrolling through Rabanastre. I'm guessing all of this is at least a small factor in their reasoning to perform their future stat squish.

[Bright-Flower]

I disagree. It is gear that makes old content imbalanced. Look at the Crystal Tower raids. Or Void Ark. Or even old dungeons synced down, with players still having an edge just because of their gear. That being said, they should have tweaked the boss HP levels or something to reflect that growth, but they did not. If anything, our characters are way too strong in some instances and could use some nerfing in the form of a lower synced item level. The Ivalice and Nier raids are much more balanced in this regard, though that doesn't completely stop players from steamrolling through Rabanastre.

I think it's intentional. They want the older raids to become easier so that people do them in roulettes. Even orbonne is MUCH, MUCH EASIER today than it was when it first came out due to gear. If it wasn't they could just lower the syncing cap to keep people closer to gear levels from when they were relevant, but they don't.

The nier raids too will succumb to this in 6.0 when people are level 90 and ilvl 600 or w/e.

[Jeeqbit]

I disagree. It is gear that makes old content imbalanced.

It doesn't really matter if you disagree, or even if I disagree. It's SE that seems to think this. That's the reason why you don't get certain abilities at lower levels even on new jobs.

Even when a new job releases if you look at their kit you can see they have carefully given them things that other jobs have at that level so that it has about the same potency and the same capabilities.

I don't disagree with you that gear is an issue that makes things too easy, but if you examine the kit of each job you'll notice some patterns in what they have available at each 10 levels.

Examples of what isn't available at level 50 include party heals by non-healers, party area damage buffs by non-healers, damage increasing buffs that you apply to other players, area mitigations, most off-globals and a lot of gap closers, even on new jobs.

[Colt47]

Yeah I think some classes/jobs could do with a retooling of when they get certain things.

The game's longer GCD for me tends to be kind of mind numbing at lower levels when I only have a fraction of my job's total kit. I don't mind it aas much by level cap when there's more going on but it's always so boring getting lower level dungeons, depending on the job to what extent though.

That's been the problem with the system from the start. They actually have a button bloat issue at end-game that really pushes the limit on what people can rote memorize with some jobs, so it turns into how do you get enough to make the job interesting without breaking it. Melee DPS is absolutely the worst due to also having to manage positionals and it really shows in savage with all the deaths they keep accumulating to boss mechanics.

Being in discord it feels like back seat driving with the melee to make sure they get call outs and don't die to things.

[Vercinotrix]

The biggest complaint I've heard besides the ARR filler quest, is the game is the combat is awful at low level. Mashing 3 buttons over and over isn't really all that interesting and god forbid you pick lancer or thaumaturge since you'll be waiting until level 40+ for anything interesting.

I'm not sure if it's a big enough problem to warrant a fix but introducing the abilities earlier and then giving traits that enhance their potency at higher levels would be a good one but then you run into the issue of lack of progression at the top end of leveling.

Game seems to be growing despite either complaint and I didn't think the ARR rework was really all that necessary. Either you like the way the game is enough to play it or you made a 2 hour long video about how you miss game design from 1998 and somehow people not wanting to play with you is the game's fault and not your own.

[Dzian]

The entire msq should be groupable to players thay want to play with friends. Rather than find you're all watching the same cutscenes in solo mode or forever having to disband in order to progress the msq.

In many ways letting players group up for the msq would also help to alleviate server load as those players who do want to experience the story together with friends would require less instances for msq quests such as "brush of cold steel" which was a notorious bottleneck for the msq with so many players trying to do it at the same time... If I want to do that quest with 2 or 3 friends then that's only 1 instance the server needs to run not 4. the same goes for many other instances within the msq.

You can't really make balancing an arguement either when the game already throws a massive echo at you and gives you a very easy option thats literally impossible to fail taking some friends with you couldn't possibly break it anymore than that..

I know many players would enjoy the story so much more if they could do it properly with friends and share the experience and memories.

[Themarvin]

Player attitude towards new players when doing content such as dungeons, I think as in general, that mentors via mentor roulette also is a part of the abuse of players, and also why they should tie the reward to it with 3000 commendations required as well, so good manners and actually being helpfull through that, would have a good meaning and also actually put work into getting the two seater pegasus.

[Jirah]

Almost got my friend to play it since he loves ff8....bbuu the job he wanted to main was gated to 60 and that turned him off completely that he couldn't enjoy his job at 1 or even 30