How would you design a new player start expansion?

[XtremePrime]

A random idea popped into my head recently and I wanted to open the discussion for this!

What if the writing team does go ahead with our WoL exploring a new shard or a new world, that could be perfectly window to create a new spot for players to jump in the story!
The reason I picked shard is because maybe it could be made so that our WoL reaches this new shard but finds themselves stripped of rank/title/blessings (even temporarily) which could put us on an equal footing with a new adventurer who starts at the same locations as the WoL would arrive, similar to players that transferred from 1.0! It could be different dialogues based on how you got there (started there or arrived).

My solution might not be perfect or even what you have in mind, but I'd love to hear your fun ideas!

Throwing this back at you guys, if you had complete freedom to design the next expansion to be a new starting point for new players, how would you make it? (regardless of what info we have right now on 8.0)

[Shistar]

Oooh I love this idea! Thanks for starting the thread!

Here's my take on it, just for fun! Very loose points since I sadly don't have time to sit here and write all day, as much as I'd love to.

The Warrior of Light is at some point in the MSQ where a clear major goal hasn't been defined yet (Let's take the Alzadaal mini arc as an example, but not necessarily where I'd place my idea at all) - you're just out there, you find something that might be cool (a treasure map, a rumor at a local tavern, a relic with an inscription or a magical voice, you name it) so you follow its trail to see where it leads you!


This leads into an early dungeon unlock instead of leaving it for the mid to end of the tie-in patch. My idea actually begins in a X.5 Part 2 instead of the expansion itself as a way to provide some context for new players (you are a veteran adventurer and you're out on a sidequest of sorts) without having to be an extended cutscene where people just stand there awkwardly or do the same 5 recycled animations.


The dungeon ends in a cliffhanger cutscene where you get yourself into an ambush, trap or an NPC you met along the way turns out to be Not The Nicest Guy Around, and you basically either get sucked in by a portal or the good ol' sack on your head and taken somewhere you don't know. All your fancy weapons and things are taken from you and the goal is clear: Find anything that qualifies as a weapon and bring hell to those that stole from you (and get your stuff back, obviously). The new jobs can be quickly picked up in this area or you can stick with your preferred class and your WoL can materialize an aetheric weapon like the Padjali ones, but a new design preferably. These weapons can be unlocked for glam later on, but you have better things to do right now.


So it neatly leads you into areas you don't know at all, the WoL is just as confused as you are and you rely on worldbuilding, NPCs and exploration to find clues on where you might even be. You don't know who to trust so some NPCs could straight up lie to you to throw you for a loop or try to fight you on sight - you will later on find out you are somewhere in one of the recently liberated provinces formally under Garlean rule and they've trapped you with an elaborate plan to use you against Garlemald, Eorzea, both, who knows? They're not going to explain their reasons to you, they're using you!


You're thrust into this difficult situation (you could kill them, but doing so would strike the next biggest war in Etheyris, potentially setting up the next Umbral era if you're not careful - but you'd like to return home in one piece!) where you meet all sorts of people, from commoners to the highest powers, stuck in this complex war of interests. As the WoL, you will use your experience as a veteran adventurer to strike new alliances with those who are willing to hear you out before they kill you and bring your hide to their boss. You will have to prove yourself like you did in ARR but you will be treated with the due hostility/waryness as someone whose reputation is less than stellar from Garlemald's perspective.With this new group of people, you try to make your way to the core of the problem while trying to make contact with anyone who may be out there looking for you (Scions or relevant NPCs for the area), sometimes making progress but sometimes also failing, adding tension. You're strong, but everyone is against you and you have precious little people you can rely on, and you have good reason not to turn all Murder Machine on them, because you will find out clues about the various reasons you're here early into the expansion and slowly find more details as you go (stuff like wanting to use you to gain advantage over other powers such as Eorzea, trying to use you as a weapon against Garlemald if they were to try to lead another conquest into their territory, perhaps they also want your skills to fix problems inside the nation itself, or more personal reasons tied to the ruler of the region)


Also, I just want a nice classic fantasy setting, preferably with a kingdom and court and stuff. We have so many but they're all a thing of the (far) past or basically useless. I want a cool, drama-filled story where you have all the reasons not to use your OP powers, realistic struggles born from the current state of Garlemald (and maybe a chance to redeem the rushed nature of that arc in EW) and just gimme a pretty princess we can all agree must be protected at all costs. Speeeeeeeen but more likeable lmao

[Myotis]

New players would be able to start the newest MSQ with Lv1 to balance this with the old players they would start with Lv1 as-well yet it would be a {blue colored} level.

Previous level cap would be a legacy achievment and still used in previous dungeons and so on.

Someone could say it could create a disbalance but to make it happen SE would actually need to re-balance each of the class so it's fun to play and downside of the button bloat on high levels and high level number itself it's that at some point it all will create this very issue we face right now.

So mine solution is old levels are legacy levels and new players cap at 50 where whole content is re-balanced towards that new level 50. ( whatever the number of legacy will be displayed for the old players.)

[Azurarok]

Think a sort of level reset in another shard's the only real way they could make it work, given how well-known and powerful the WoL is in the source at this point. Wake them up in another shard with amnesia (on a chocobo-like carriage if we're feeling daring) or just put the player in the perspective of another shard of Azem while the WoL's out in a coma or something.

Start players off with new versions of all jobs with refreshed kits from then on, while allowing their lv100 versions to be used in past content so the devs don't have to guarantee their viability in old hard content.

[Enkidoh]

Essentially, I wouldn't. Because each expansion is a continuation of the previous story, and even 1.0 players started ARR with their existing levels and EXP intact, it wasn't reset (thus there was a whole section of players who started ARR at level cap), so such an idea would completely invalidate that.

New players who want to skip ahead to the most recent expansion have the story skip items on the Online Store to use anyway, so such an idea is completely redundant.

[BlisteringFrost]

We aren't a cog in the machine, like in WoW, that can be socketed into it at any point. We ARE the machine in FFXIV. It just wouldn't work to have an xpac give us a new starting point to the game.

[Jeeqbit]

They could give us a new starting point easily:

- Have us go to another shard. We're completely fresh there and can ignore any prior lore related to our character including the scions, and make the enemies not center around being replled by the Blessing of Light.

- Have us go to another island - the New World was an example of this. We're completely fresh there and can ignore any prior lore related to our character including the scions, and make the enemies not center around being replled by the Blessing of Light.

- Have us go into the past or the future. A lot of interesting things happened in the past. Our current lore would definitely be out of the window in a different time period. We could go and fight one of the previous calamity wars.

The reason SE didn't start a fresh page of lore with Dawntrail is because journalists frequently approach them and say how much they loved and appreciated having to go through the entire MSQ that gave them a lot of memories, and that would be lost if they were not required to do it.

[Derio]

It would have to be a new shard. Only problem is that would have to be our largest expansion yet because it has to do:

an updated hall of novice
Branching storylines for people who have done the previous story and those who are new.
Complete introduction of existing systems that already exist in the game and roll them out at a not overwhelming pace.


Basically it is better to just improve the current leveling system and jobs to make early game more fun than it is to create a new starting point

[BlisteringFrost]

It would have to be a new shard. Only problem is that would have to be our largest expansion yet because it has to do:

an updated hall of novice
Branching storylines for people who have done the previous story and those who are new.
Complete introduction of existing systems that already exist in the game and roll them out at a not overwhelming pace.


Basically it is better to just improve the current leveling system and jobs to make early game more fun than it is to create a new starting point

Well, no, the problem is our main targets are Primals. And it's because of Hydaelyn's Blessing we can even fight them. It was made very clear you don't fight a Primal without something to make yourself immune to being Tempered. Or without the Echo. Because just simply going into proximity of one immediately tempers you.

And nobody can ever get the echo again after Endwalkers .... Soooo.... There's a massive narrative hole there to have to fill otherwise it won't make sense why new adventurers after that point are able to fight primals. Unless they start calling everything a Turaal Vidraal there's just no way.

[VeyaAkemi]

They could give us a new starting point easily:

- Have us go to another shard. We're completely fresh there and can ignore any prior lore related to our character including the scions, and make the enemies not center around being replled by the Blessing of Light.

- Have us go to another island - the New World was an example of this. We're completely fresh there and can ignore any prior lore related to our character including the scions, and make the enemies not center around being replled by the Blessing of Light.

- Have us go into the past or the future. A lot of interesting things happened in the past. Our current lore would definitely be out of the window in a different time period. We could go and fight one of the previous calamity wars.

The reason SE didn't start a fresh page of lore with Dawntrail is because journalists frequently approach them and say how much they loved and appreciated having to go through the entire MSQ that gave them a lot of memories, and that would be lost if they were not required to do it.

I think the core problem with this is that, unless you are outright discarding everything that came before, the "new shard new world" experience would be temporary, we would be in a new world for this one storyline, and eventually, in a couple years IRL, we would be back to the Source, and the deluge of previous lore would come about, maybe you could say that the goal would be for those new players to go back eventually after getting invested in the game, but I guarantee a lot of people wouldn't, and suddenly that would be a lot of complaints.