FFXIV: ARR Public Beta Info Thread, A realm neegnye Options

[Crushinator]

New intro video release today (although the first 5 mins or so is crap from a previous trailer).



Sign up here:

http://entry.ffxiv.com/beta/na

Here's the roadmap for the beta:

[Knightsword]

You can get the first killing quests right away if you want and skip the ones in the town or if you wish forgo all the quests and just grind. The only important quests are the story ones for the city and your current's class's guild which have their own icon (fancy border around the !). I don't see how options are a turn off, but to each their own.

[Scan_Man]

You can get the first killing quests right away if you want and skip the ones in the town or if you wish forgo all the quests and just grind. The only important quests are the story ones for the city and your current's class's guild which have their own icon (fancy border around the !). I don't see how options are a turn off, but to each their own.

Yeah I am sure you can. But that is knowledge a new player does not have yet. A new player is collecting all the quests they see and doing them. Saying you can skip this and that because this and that is important is knowledge you have once you have played through multiple times already. The point of the introduction is to guide/teach new players the systems to play the game and hook them. The hook to nearly all MMO's is to get out into the world and kill things. That is fun or not based on combat/class mechanics and quests. Additional hooks are gathering and crafting things. That's the gameplay of MMORPGs.

Just like with v1.0, I know what new players expect. But if you have the mindset of a veteran, someone that has ton of experience playing the beta, or even a fan that was going play regardless, you ignore and overlook the flaws because you know where everything is. That's what happened with the developers on v1.0, they designed the game so "it must be fine" because they already have knowledge of the game. They selectively listened to feedback that praised the game by the folks that were fine with the game as is. While the rest of us who were pointing out the flaws got ignored and the game ended up being shit.

All that was required was stepping out the "all knowing" bubble and see the game through the eyes of a new player. That would of seen that v1.0 was a mess long before alpha and beta.


With that said the introduction has pacing problems. It's like the first thing that jumped out at me while playing through it.


How is a new player suppose to know they what they can skip, when in MMOs you get quest for an area and complete the chain until gives you quest to go to a new area? The quest flow in this game is the same as WoW. And that's a flow most people coming into this game will be used to. You get the kill quest, but there is more "!" on my map in town to do.

Seriously, typical new players don't skip quests that are marked on the map like that unless the conveyance and quest flow is shit (like warps you or leads to a very far off area). Whatever your opinions on WoW are, they have trained MMO players to talk to NPCs with "!" to accept quests. The fact the quest have level ranges further incentives the urgency to "get these done" in your quest log as they are near by on the map.

I never said options are a turn off. They I said Guild Wars 2 does this because because you have options and I will add it's clear from the start you can do whatever you want.

New players are not going to understand the symbols right away. They will see "turn-ins" and new quests "!" marked on their map and will inclined to do them.


I want this game to be good for new players, WoW players, Guild Wars 2 players, FFXI players, and anybody else. I am focused on the town introduction right now because everything else I played is good for the most part. That introduction is suppose to hook players. And I just don't see it happening with the current pacing. If WoW has issues hooking 70% of new players with it's pacing. What is this game going to do with it's much slower pacing? You know even Guild Wars 2 answer was to make a faster paced intro than WoW and they don't have the subscription model hanging over their heads.

Understand I am not speaking from a die hard fan perspective. A die hard will have knowledge of where the meat of the game is either through playing beta, or researching via forums and guides. They will know where the fun is and how to get to it quickly. But for a new player they are clueless as to where the game will take them next, and usually assume all starting quests are important to progression. So "you can skip it," when clearly it's there to lead new players, is not a fix.


Edit: I get the impression you think by me bringing up these issues I am asking for help or advice. Not the case, since I thoroughly go through everything and test multiple times with the time I have. The idea is to point out good points and flaws and find bugs. I never said I had issues finding the skip cutscene button or press ESC twice to get the dialogue box to skip; which by the way was bugged on some cutscenes. Again I test this content multiple times, going through watching all cutscenes, skipping cutscenes, and skipping some and not others to see if there is any weirdness. To get a feel what it's trying to convey to the player. That's how you test. Just noting that particular chunk of content is slow and needs to direct you into combat faster.

[Crushinator]

stuff

Are you posting this same feedback on the Beta forums? I know you want to make your point clear to Knightsword but its probably better served on the official forums.

I do agree that you should be "up and killing shit" within a few minutes of starting, I felt like this was a problem with the alpha too. You get all these in-town quests and it took me a good 30+ minutes to even figure out where the gate was to get outside and fight stuff. I think the ideal setting is starting you OUTSIDE the town and you have to fight your way "in" while being tutorialized, then the game can branch from there.