Is it though? I guess that depends on your definition of ‘catch up’. If they want to be geared in higher M+ gear it will take them some time without the benefit of being carried. I personally think the catch up is minimal for this type of game. You are not supposed to be ‘caught up’ in a matter of a week of playing for example.
Honestly,yeah,and that also our alts,gg.
And driving from San Francisco to San Diego takes 3 hours?
I agree with OP it’s an enormous amount of questing for new players to get their soulbinds and legendary. All the skips and unlocks are still only available for someone who has played through them before.
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So, whats the answer, since you agree its so terrible? Give the “new” people all the rep and gear when they create a new character so they can jump right into end game? I cant stand reading this crap any more, no one needs to earn their own way anymore, through the game, or life for that matter…
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3-4 months from a new expansion in a scuffed placeholder season? Absolutely. Otherwise new players might just walk away. They should make the level 60 skips available, especially the Maw quests on foot. That was garbage to begin with.
New players still have to open Torghast layers, unlock all 3 soulbinds which is hours of covenant quest lines, farm Torghast for cinders or grind out ZM rep to honored and grind flux, and somehow get into groups to gear up from garbage ZM iLvl 233 cypher gear quest rewards. A new player doesn’t even have any anima for the iLvl 226 greens for sale in ZM.
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End of an expac… awful time to jump in fresh imo.
If your friend plays DF from the start, they should get gear early on enough to get them level to jump into pvp or whatever.
But yeah, grinding world quests etc for gear (sometimes) when everyone around is running with ilevel-whatever is daunting for new players.
I’ve seen many get to ZM, having fun, then have their dailies and weekly game loops explained to them and just bow out.
I come from RO originally (old) so grind is pretty much engrained in my soul. Not so much for people new to the genre.
ZM does not requiring finishing either of the previous 2 campaigns.
I don’t remember if you need certain progress on them or not, but if you do, its like Chapter 2 or 3 of each (see: finishing the intro thru the torghast tutorial and sanctum tour / finishing the intro thru unlocking the korthia hub). I still have never gone beyond chapter 4 in Korthia, since thats where you get flight.
That said, for a player coming in at the tail end of an expansion, figuring out what content is and is not required for the current patch / which of it is relevant for catching up is a MASSIVE problem in this game. Sometimes, even googling how to get to x does not return the correct answer, because the answer is explaining how it was BEFORE “catchup” blatantly changed it, which isn’t as well documented as the original methods.
Yes, it’s so horrible that a new player has to actually play the game in order to progress to the endgame. Whatever will they do? /sarcasm off
If they don’t have the patience for an MMORPG then they should stick to MOBAs.
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I mean, daily/weekly world content is AWFUL for anyone who wants to actually play their character. There’s nothing to engage the player. You’re just there because there’s a reward tied to wasting your time. Players playing at that level who aren’t interested in instanced endgame content where you get to do more would probably enjoy FFXIV more, since it has more casual stuff like housing, more relevant and interesting crafting, the relic weapon quests, and just better transmog (see: dye, 3D armor) and RP tools (see: more emotes, facial expressions, idle poses – though WoWs RP addons are nice).
So IMO, gotta introduce new players to instanced content once they catch up and hit the endgame grind. If they’re gonna stick around, that’s probably what’s going to hook them, not doing 3 world quests a day and the world boss once a week in ZM while running in circles no-braining rares in a swarm of other players.
Also gotta explain which boring grinds can be skipped without hurting too bad. You do NOT need to grind ZM for 3 weeks for Unity. The belt is more than enough. You did NOT need to grind Korthia or the Maw for the bonus Gem Sockets. By the time you could unlock and afford them, you wouldn’t need them. Conduits? The ones unlocked by catchup mechanics are good enough – higher ilvl will come from playing the game. That was true before this season as well.
Welcome to late season in an MMO…?
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It’s pretty quick to gear up if you have a friend willing to help. Did you offer?
Tell them to try ANY Korean MMORPG and then come back here and see if they still have problems with the grind.
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What Nerai had said is only slightly confusing, but never the less, concerning the times you quoted, you are indeed incorrect. Doing the campaigns without skips or flying, with crappy quest gear I would say took me easily over 8 hours.
Now just to be clear, before any silly arguments such as “Well you must not know how to x”, I’ll cut it off right there, any of those arguments would also be incorrect as I have played this game for a very long time and am very savvy with it.
FYI, you don’t see any significant performance change in SL until iLevel 230 or so gear wise, so the road there is just a slog as far as killing mobs goes.
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Why are you so salty? Did you forget your Wheaties?
KMMOs actually jump you to very close to current content to ensure that you hit the paywall efficiently.
This is coming from someone who fishes for attention with threads like:
What a joke.
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That’s how it’s always been.
I think that’s not unreasonable at this point. Last season. No firsts. Df in november.
What reason is there to drag it out
I’ll point out one of my friends as a ‘new player’ never even got SL, and has still managed to NOT unlock BFA flying months later. New players and etc don’t always go the route you think they do, and often do NOT play efficiently so for newer players everything gets very daunting very fast.