I’d like to kick off a friendly discussion about what the title says because I see a lot of various threads on it but more surrounding people that have been in T3 a while, have high-ish level characters and are still being gated. We need to discuss and advocate on behalf of newer players too.
Whats going to happen is that a new player see’s this beautiful game with a ton to do. They spend 15-30 hours leveling through the campaign at their pace or use a gifted powerpass (when working lol). With the honing buffs and a fair amount of effort, they push through T1/T2. Throwing it out there, maybe 1-2 months after picking up the game, they are in Punika. The fun begins.
Oreha/Oreha Hm… We see rainbow stats, 1x engravings + 5 pips on crisis evation, explosive expert, etc. Sigh. Going to be tough. Group disbands at some point, maybe they get lucky in MM and some chad carries them through later.
They hear about raids and muster enough courage to click on the Matchmaking button. Hopefully they don’t get into an 8man full of people like them and some 3x3, 4x3 engraving chads and alts can carry. Great. Maybe this person watched a video, maybe not. This person runs argos for a few weeks and begins to understand.
Now its time for valtan… They realize once in a blue moon a group can be formed via matchmaking but now they are forced to use the dreaded and toxic party finder. They aren’t being accepted into groups. Or are they? One of two things happen, they are never accepted into a group, or they are. If by some miracle they are, and clear the raid, its a big confidence booster. Now this person can do vykas in a few more weeks.
Vykas…They dont even bother with matchmaking because they know no one is running it on MM. They have enough brains to potentially watch some videos on vykas. They apply to groups and get denied 100% of the time because Vykas IS very difficult, there IS a lot going on, and the NA/EU communities DO have overly high requirements (KR streamers confirm this). They realize they hit a wall. They don’t have what it takes to lead a group. They meander around horizontal content for a few days or a few weeks. They quit.
This is a 100% real scenario for new players. Argos luls them into a false sense of hope because a few people can carry that even in MM. Maybe by a stroke of luck they can get into a Valtan NM. Vykas is a hard stop. Absolute hard stop unless they are on their A game and take raiding seriously to any degree.
What do we do about these players? Let them run into that wall until they quit?
Do we create some a$$ version of WoW’s LFR where raids are easier for MM pugs but rewards are significantly reduced?
Do we create a ‘mentor’ system where you sign up in game GUI as a mentor, get rewards for that but youre helping newer players (not talking about bussing).
Do we create more Oreha HM style content for players to obtain materials, at a slower pace than even normal raid, so that they can continue to progress and feel like they are doing something moving forward?
Or is the simple answer ‘Do Nothing’. Let the weak players bleed off of your game and take their wallets with them? Along with their wallets, they take their opinions of the game and spread that around. Now, I understand theres a rehearsal mode for clown with some rewards, but is that enough? It might be daunting enough for some of these players to get into even valtan groups, let alone vykas. Is Smilegate considering a rehearsal mode for these?
Opening the floor to discussion!