The new player experience could use some love. (From a new player)

[Dipndaz]

This is coming from someone really new to every thing. I just recently finished the main story quest for the first time which I really enjoyed. The current event giving out the gear has really helped me in seeing the story to the end with no trouble.

 

That was all great!

 

But now, as I'm attempting to dabble in end game content (for me anyway) like trying to do dailies I'm starting to see some roadblocks. For example, Cold Storage is a dungeon listed under the daily's quest. So I think ok I'll try to run that. So I check the dungeon guide and see the recommended gear and start to get a little dissuaded, because the gear it calls for is unrealistic for a new player like me to get within the call to arms event time frame. Even so I join the dungeon finder to try to get a group to it, and one of two things is happening, either I'm getting kicked from groups that I join, or when I try to form a group myself nobody joins it.

 

I'm not entirely sure what the solution is here, except that perhaps ease up on the requirements for a daily for solo players like me, who are mostly geared through the events and story content. 

 

I really enjoy the Blade and Soul world and want to continue to engage in it, I just wish the barrier to entry wasn't so high for casual players like myself.

[Raiya]

The problem is that there's a serious power gap between what completing the Main Quests give and players should be. 

 

Sadly the game right now is extremely hostile design wise to new players, if you want to enjoy the main story yeah its great but most of the side content wants you to have at least 600 AP more than you actually have, the players wont help unless you have a nice clan and the items required to upgrade are hard to come by.

 

Really is rather depressing to think about.

[Killifishy]

Both the Korean Dev. and the NCWest team are out of touch with where the game is atm on the western version of the game. Max tier endgame players are complaining everything dies too quickly while doing 40-80+ million damage a second, while fresh Call to Arms players are doing 2-3 million (story gear is so far behind I don't want to think about what that does fresh at lvl 60). When I came back to the game 3 years ago I remember doing about 150k/s in Cold Storage with the story gear (at that time), if you want an idea of how bad the power creep has been.Right now, Koreans are doing well over 100-150m sustain with the gear system we are getting in November with the highest I have seen so far at a 194m dummy parse...

So yes, there is a major issue with the damage discrepancies between new and geared players.

[Dipndaz]

I guess Blade and Soul was never meant to be for casual players, it's a shame because of how well crafted the world is, story and art wise. I'll enjoy of it what I can and just move on afterwards. Probably jump back in to wow before long, plenty of stuff for casual players like myself to do.

[Raiya]

In all honesty I subscribed for a month to see if BnS was any fun with the UE4 update but I really feel like I'm hitting excessively artificial walls to my progress and am being severely limited in what I can do. Probably going to go back to playing FFXIV at this rate unless NC has some useful changes planned to fix the situation a bit.

[Dipndaz]

I do currently have a free trial account in FF14, and I do try to play it from time to time, but it's so similar to wow in many ways that it's hard to stay mentally engaged. This is why I found Blade and Soul so interesting. The combat, and the way you move around in the world felt very refreshing compared to other mmos like wow, and was a big draw for me.

[AlisaShiroLover]

@Raiya @Dipndazwhich region do you two play? On topic: bns, like every f2p mmos, are trying to get their money from cash shop and don't necessarily feel the need maintaining their audience on long term bases. See, the big difference with square enix's FFXIV is that they have no p2w elements and listen to their players and feedback as it is important to mainten their subscribers (25 euros for 60 days). Naoki Yoshida answers questions before live letters and has passion for the mmo genre and FFXIV. 

 

I think a big flaw of f2p companies is that they disconnect themselves with its playerbase on the longrun.

 

While bns has been out on na/eu for 5 years, you can see that they really put effort into maintaining their players in the first year and it went downhill. Jonathan always was listening to the needs of players and was a veteran player on the Taiwanese server so knew the game inside out. The pvp tournaments were alive and hence it was the golden age. I remember the first trove gave 10 premium transformation stones, players were competitive in arena and it was a friendly community until the greed got to ncsoft.

 

I understand that a company needs profit, but it is also crucial to keep in touch with your playerbase because in the end those are the ones that will support the game.

[Raiya]

The honest problem seems to be that upper management in these games are stuck in a mindset from 10 years ago or thinking that the mobile gacha element of thinking is sustainable. It's not. People have changed, playstyles have changed. Yet here we are with the same problem's still in the basic presentation of the design that repels people. I can list multiple things that could rectify the current problems. ATM I'm running into the same issues as from several years back finding I cant use my alt's because the AP I have is far too short of the AP the playerbase requires, I get burned out and eventually quit back to FFXIV or another game because I just lose interest from being stonewalled in any sort of way to progress in a reasonable amount of time.

 

The honest to god problem with Blade and Soul atm is that as soon as you finish the main Epic Quest chain right now your having multiple artificial walls put up in front of you with alot of difficulty in progressing to do any of the content available. You come out with something like 1300 AP on an average new player at the end of it but to do any of the content you need to have 2k AP at least. There's nowhere to reasonably farm the materials required for upgrades.

There is literally dozens of older instances that could be retuned to 60 and should be no more difficult than Naksun in Mushin's Tower. Many of these still drop items from upgrade paths from older weapons and which are redundant in the current game. Hell all it would take here would be to add NPC exchanges that let you buy account bound items by exchanging things like poharans perfume etc at reasonable 5 or so items for an onyx scale.

Have these instances drop lower tier weapon gems in decent numbers so people can upgrade easily and quickly.

 

Make all account tradable items 1 copper too, why are people paying gold to transfer things between alts, encourage people to play alts by making it easier to gear them up too. 

 

Rebalance the upgrade paths so that it's easy and reasonably quick to upgrade your initial weapon and accessories all the way up to the last 6 to 10 upgrade stages easily, if costs or inflation is an issue rebalance this so that upgrade costs are always front loaded so only the latests and most recent weapon upgrade is a significant grind to update, this also would have the second effect of closing the gear gap to a reasonable gap and allow more people to play the newer dungeons outside of Hard Difficulty, the current gap is ridiculous and reinforces a closed mind mentality in the player base that shuts out newer plays and these eventually get bored and quit in frustration because they cannot participate in any instance due to the required AP needed by players being far higher than most new people have. (eg you come out with 1300 AP but players seem to require 2000 or MORE or they wont let you join). 

 

Change the 6v6 Battlegrounds Training Mode to Equalised Stat mode as well that allows people to complete quests for these places. NOONE uses training mode. Ever. However if it allowed people to complete quests/dailys while offering a fighting chance it would fix a huge problem with the current BG system. Putting newbies in with veterans is not smart or sustainable, it's just an anti competitive mechanic that kills peoples interest in it. 

 

 

People should also avoid blaming Hime or that too much, they're only community managers they're not the one's who make the decisions as well, the real blame needs to be directed at those who direct and manage the game and who seem to either not realise, not care or are not seemingly interested in the long term growth of the game as well, there's too much reliance on whales in games like this and it's not sustainable because it means a small playerbase as a result.

 

The game could potentially grow more if there was less a reliance on outdated P2W mechanics and more focus on getting people to subscribe and sustain player growth. Those at NCwest need to seriously look at how FFXIV is growing it's playerbase by drawing people in. There seems to be either no understanding of this here OR executives still dont realise just HOW much player's interest's have changed. People will be more encouraged to part with money if they primarily focus on good balance, cosmetics and reign in the excess p2w elements in favour of offering people consumables and resources simply by playing the game. If they just try to aggressively nickel and dime people are put off or they just quit and go play FFXIV or other games where they feel appreciated and developers value their time.  They need to change their approach to how they do buisness otherwise this game will eventually die because it drives off anyone interested with hostile mechanics and insurmountable ingame costs.

 

No game can sustain itself if it's core designs are unwelcoming and it repels new players. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Raiya

[Dipndaz]

Wow, that was very well thought out, you hit the nail right on the head. Even with all the artificial barriers for new players like myself I will still try to engage in what content I can, but eventually as you say I'll eventually get tired of being confined to experiencing so little of the end game content that I'll lose interest, and it seems with the current design philosophy, this will be a reoccurring problem for any new players. Not a good approach fo

r the sustainability of any mmo. 

 

16 hours ago, Yunilesca said:

which region do you two play?

I'm not sure, I would have to check. Haven't logged on for a bit.

[AlisaShiroLover]

Im geared so not running into issues, but definitely do think that at this point, they should add Thornbreaker stage 9 to story mode. People that came back are kinda left with exalted weapon and pretty hard to get into parties even for lfp groups or weekly pleb raids. Not sure about the lifespan of bns because it is just not player friendly for new players. Sure there was cta but what about those that couldnt do it? I just think storymode needs to give good gear so players can enjoy. Some random said its not the destination but the journey. Well tbh, the journey seems pretty grim for new players, alts or ppl that play the game casually. 

 

Also just wondering why they don't do anything about cheaters like in spectral shrine. People using bns buddy, automatic scripts etc. Win trading for seasonal arena bg, seems kinda weird that these ppl aren't getting banned for it. I do hope so, but if not: the future of blade and soul is not gonna last even with ue4.

[ManIQ]

I'm pretty new to BnS myself. Played on release but had to quit do to computer issues. This game seems to lack a path for new players to engage in current content aside from events like C2A. If not for C2A I would not have come back to the game because the road to being able to even do EASY dungeons is ridiculous. And I'm not some insta grat brat either. I like Korean grinders. I played BDO for a year - before they introduced the seasons to help newbies get geared up quickly. It sounds like the devs are addressing the gear issue with the November update which is good but IMO, they should keep the C2A event until then. This thread will probably be moot come November but there should always, and I do mean always, be a path for new players to be able to engage in the bare minimum easy dungeons in an mmo. And I'm not talking about grind through multiple levels of weapon upgrades just to get there. 

 

And I say the above not because I'm an insta grat brat, but because I like the game and want it to grow. Every MMO needs new players. Every business needs new customers to survive. And lets face it. BnS is a business. I've seen the revenue reports for NA. Trust me, NA BnS needs new customers.

[Metatime]

The story update next month gives updated gear. Also there's soul fiesta and mission pass that's suppose to give good gear too. 

 

Current progression I believe is this:

 

[Tufa]

I find this thread confusing.  For most games, the actual fun comes from the act of improving your character.  The end game dungeons are no more enjoyable than the entry or mid level dungeons or raids (in fact they may be less enjoyable).  The reason why people want end game content immediately is because the entry and mid level stuff is so easy, and there are no level limits as to who can enter.  The entry and mid stuff is so easy because NC gives away all the gear needed to make them challenging.  The solution is LESS cta events, and lock out high level players from entry and mid dungeons.  This will force new players and alts to actually cooperate with each other and enjoy the dungeons that were designed for them, and give them a real sense of advancement rather than the artifical and short lived one you experience when you get everything handed to you.  What I hear is new players saying "if I can't compete with the guys that have been playing for 5 years in 2 months I will not be happy."  

Edited October 6, 2021 by Tufa

[Dipndaz]

The issue for me wasn't that I had to do some work to improve my character. I actually enjoy seeing my guy grow in power the more I play him. My issue is that I felt EXTREMELY limited on the content I was able to engage in until I started unlocking more of the call to arms lock boxes. I got as far as stage 4 but from what I understand the event ends today so I won't be able to finish it, which feels pretty bad.

 

I just want to reiterate that I am a fresh level 60 so there was a lot of stuff I didn't understand as far as gearing up was concerned. The materials required for upgrading gear along with all of the various vendors is pretty daunting for a new player, so I spent some time watching video guides to help steer me in the right direction. That in itself I didn't mind because of the enjoyment I got from playing the game was reason enough for me to invest more time in to learning more about it.  I like having clear goals to work towards for my character and making progress towards that end.