Hall of the Novice should be mandatory

[Skiros]

The game should force you to complete the trials before you continue on to Sastasha. People think Hall of the Novice is insufficient but there are new players right now that literally don't even know how to build aggro (because they don't know about tank stance) or to dodge out of gigantic and slow-casting AoEs in a Lv 20-30 dungeon.

I'm sorry to say but if they fail to even attempt to dodge literally every AoE through an entire dungeon they have no business continuing on with the game. At the very least Hall of the Novice won't let you complete the trial if you fail to dodge AoEs. I do not know how some of these players reached a Lv30 or 40 dungeon.

Keeping aggro, dodging AoEs, and knowing how to click on a tank and heal them. These should be mandatory skills before they even enter Sastasha. I've already had multiple encounters where such skills are missing and we literally cannot even progress in something like Haukke Manor without a kick.

[True-to-Caesar]

Personally I did it for the free lvl 15 gear.
But I knew doing it would give me that after watching a streamer.

I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise because I knew what my skills did. And to be honest the whole thing is quite bare bones but it’s for newbies or people without MMORPG experience.

[Skiros]

Personally I did it for the free lvl 15 gear.
But I knew doing it would give me that after watching a streamer.

I probably wouldn’t have done it otherwise because I knew what my skills did. And to be honest the whole thing is quite bare bones but it’s for newbies or people without MMORPG experience.

Right. It is bare bones. But some people literally cannot even do the bare bones and they're let out in the wild plaguing low level dungeons. I'm not talking about tryhard level optimization. I'm talking about stuff like killing the healer because they couldn't maintain aggro on a single trash pack. Or just sitting in every single AoE and dying repeatedly. Or not being able to heal the tank at all on a single trash pack. I literally have no idea how these people got to Haukke Manor and beyond.

[Fyrebrand]

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

[AlyaNimfa]

I did it because I thought i had to do everything when I first started.

Okay, so I have leveled one other toon, and I done it because I thought you had to in order to unlock duties. I'm still a sprout. Personally it was good the first time, especially for the gears but I've sorta played a bit of another MMO and had an idea what to do.

[kaynide]

You’re not wrong, but rather it should just be part of the main story and should really only be like…4-5 solo-missions long total with NPCs explaining what’s going on/how party play works for everyone, then offer role specific stuff.

Or alternatively, part of the specific job’s quest line, with levels capped until the job quest is done.

[Vyrerus]

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

The MSQ points you to it, but that portion of the quest completes after talking to the NPC, such that you're only strongly encouraged to go do the Hall of the Novice.

Kind of funny, on my main who's had Mentor status since mentorship came out, the game recently started putting Hall of the Novice in my login recommendations, as my main had never done it, as it did not exist back in the day.

My guess is that they can't make it mandatory, because they'd have to retroactively make it mandatory, and suddenly a lot of people who've never done it would have to stop and go do it. Plenty of people don't need it at all, lol, others... definitely do.

[Iscah]

I thought they changed it so that the MSQ made you do it before going into Sastasha, no? I guess I just assumed, since it was mentioned during my story but because I was so over-leveled I had already done it anyway.

In any case, absolutely yes, it should be mandatory. As should class/job quests.

I think it brings you to the hall but doesn't (perhaps can't) force you to undertake the training courses. They're not handled as quests so maybe can't be gated.

But in any case this thread was started by troll persona #37 in "people are terrible and deserve to be kicked from early dungeons" mode. So yes it should happen but we don't need to spend a great deal of time discussing it.

[Jeeqbit]

It is part of the main story. You don't have to complete it but you are taken to the hall of the novice before entering Sastasha and one of the people you can talk to explains common phrases people say in dungeons that they are expected to understand.

[Caitlyn]

I would love to see if they add more features into the Hall of Novice.

For example:

- Identify and dodging AoEs (stack marks, look away, donut, cleave, etc)
- Healing priority and when to shield/mitigate
- AoE vs Singletarget

etc.