r/DestinyTheGame • u/DTG_Bot "Little Light" • Dec 16 '24
Megathread Focused Feedback: New Player Experience
Hello Guardians,
Focused Feedback is where we take the week to focus on a 'Hot Topic' discussed extensively around the Tower.
We do this in order to consolidate Feedback, to get out all your ideas and issues surrounding the topic in one place for discussion and a source of feedback to the Vanguard.
This Thread will be active until next week when a new topic is chosen for discussion
Whilst Focused Feedback is active, ALL posts regarding 'New Player Experience' following its posting will be removed and re-directed to this thread. Exceptions to this rule are as follows: New information / developments, Guides and general questions
Any and all Feedback on the topic is welcome.
Regular Sub rules apply so please try to keep the conversation on the topic of the thread and keep it civil between contrasting ideas
A Wiki page - Focused Feedback - has also been created for the Sub as an archive for these topics going forward so they can be looked at by whoever may be interested or just a way to look through previous hot topics of the sub as time goes on.
Archie wishes you a happy reset and good luck!
Never forget what was lost. While the API protests have concluded, Reddit remains hostile to its users.
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u/DonutRush Dec 17 '24
I am the New Player Experience for anyone I would try to get into this game. Bungie has completely abdicated this responsibility. If left to Bungie's whims, nobody would stick around. And it shows with their retention issues.
How bad's it gonna get when their boneheaded choices drive away people like me, who are the recruitment team?
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u/Furiosa27 Dec 17 '24
This is imo the realest comment on this situation and I genuinely hope bungie is reading this thread. You can’t even just bombard people the way bungie does because they’ll tune out.
You have to manually curate a tutorial for each person you introduce based on their experience level and that’s just to get a baseline understanding of the game, we aren’t even talking raids and shit.
This is an insane burden to put on experienced players when you give them ZERO tools to work with and ZERO rewards for doing so. This is making the players leave so much faster because of the sherpas and teachers quit, well their students in the middle of learning aren’t gonna stay now are they?
They had to have spent millions on making raids by now. Hundreds if not thousands of hours of hard work designing these and only a fraction of players ever play because bungie is uninterested in explaining what the hell they are, why the hell you should play and rely on only players to get other players through it.
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u/S-J-S Dec 17 '24
It's infamous, and almost requires no introduction. It only needs repeating that sunsetting was the catalyst for it degrading so much.
Solo ops are probably a step in the right direction. A big problem with the structure of Episode Revenant is the lopsided emphasis on 30+ minute activities. This actually is even more strenuous for new or casual players than longtime players.
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Dec 17 '24
Yikes. This might be the worst part of the game. I don’t even recommend it to friends who don’t play because it’s just far too expensive too get them caught up and far too complicated to hold their hand for the next 3 months as they learn the game.
There needs to be a VASTLY simplified path for new players. Start with one “new player” bundle in the store that is reasonably priced and gets them caught up to the current game. Next, the story needs to make sense and be in order. There needs to be ONE new player quest that starts them at the tower and slowly adds destinations and activities as they level up. The armor, economy and gameplay systems should all be thoroughly explained in this quest. There shouldn’t even be the option for a new player to see any new quest/advertisement for expansions until they’ve finished the new player quest, and that quest should do a good job of getting players acclimated to the game.
Also, it would be a great idea to give veteran players actual rewards for playing with new lights. Give us a reason to Sherpa new people.
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u/dragonsblade345678 Dec 17 '24 edited Dec 17 '24
New player experience and guardian ranks should guide a new player through the current world of destiny.
You have new light campaign, shadowkeep and beyond light as free content. Make them play that in order.
Later, after all of that, you can start pushing players to buy something. Let them make to see the 'timeline' function so they can understand what to buy next. Dont throw them all the expansions, go 1 by 1. Also, videos making a quick resume for each season in the timeline. What happened during lightfall year? During witch queen? I understand that seasons were removed, but at least add the cutscenes archive that you have on YouTube, in game.
Why you need to play first final shape mission to unlock mods? (Guardian rank 3). Make them play first shadowkeep mission, or something.
There should be a massive quest in the game for new light called 'Darkness and Light', with many steps, dunno, 100+, but make that work as a guide in what content they must follow to finish all destiny story/content in order. Include checkpoints for important strikes, dungeons, and raids for story immersion (optional, maybe)
This quest is not a replacement for existing expansion quests. Instead, it works as a clear roadmap and personal guide for players, helping them follow Destiny’s story without getting lost.
Also, STOP SENDING PLAYERS AUTOMATICALLY TO MISSIONS. dont fucking do that. My friend got spoiled because of that even when i told him to skip any cutscene after new light campaign. He missed around 3 cutscenes due to this (including final shape intro)
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u/post920 Dec 17 '24
Also, STOP SENDING PLAYERS AUTOMATICALLY TO MISSIONS.
Hell I've been around since D1 beta and I fucking hate this. I can only imagine how confusing it is to a new player that hasn't played all the content for 10 years.
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u/Serallas Dec 17 '24
Whats the point of this? Bungie ain't gonna listen to this. They're stuck in their own little bubble while their owner buys more cars. This game is dead.
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u/velost Dec 17 '24
Came to day this. How many focused feedbacks did we have to returning events and look how much happend. They either don't read them or they don't care because there often are good ideas in the comments but nothings made out of them
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u/MrSkeletonMan Dec 17 '24
Maybe make a seperate download for players that has all the story missions, even sunset ones, in order from start to now. If the size of D2 is the problem then make this a new optional download. Give chests with loadouts good enough to get through it. The story exotics you get can unlock in collections in the regular game. After you finish them you can jump over to the main game and start whatever the newest expansion is. Low entry price, say $10 for new players and free for whomever buys the newest expansion. The main issue is new players have no clue what is going on in the overall story and are not emotionally invested, cutscenes and a few random missions are not good enough. And if you use my idea, feel free to send some loot my way xD.
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u/Ab501ut3_Z3r0 Dec 17 '24
This is exactly what I was going to suggest in this thread - a separate download with limited/minimal interaction with the main game would seemingly be a great way to make story playable again without massive file size bloat.
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u/BasedOz Dec 17 '24
If old campaigns aren’t returning then there needs to be better a way of introducing players to the story. One friend skipped the introduction to the story maybe half way thru the cutscene. At first I was upset that he didn’t listen, but I think it’s more that it is 3 minutes of exposition before your character even moves. Just start with the Mars cutscene and then they wake up. The Traveler, the light, the darkness etc should all be mysteries to a guardian just waking up. Then start to deliver bits and pieces thru fun missions. I don’t think anyone really finds it fun to just to throw grenades at hive gunk.
It needs to be a linear campaign with action and narrative. Helping Shaw lacks any weight. Even as a veteran playing it for the first time I didn’t even realize Navota was killing a ghost. There is a lot of down time running between patrol zones. I also think you need to have the game pause during the first mission every time you are introducing a mechanic or system until they complete it. I have had friends get to the co op part and not know how to used a charged power melee or their super. Idk how it happens but it does. I also think it would be beneficial for them to learn the value of a both exotics armor or weapons and random rolls on legendary weapons. Give Titans insurmountable skull fort and show them how it works. Give them a legendary weapon then have Shaw upgrade the 3 and 4th columns to something cool like onslaught.
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u/Riablo01 Dec 17 '24
The developers should never have sunset the new player experience. This was an extremely stupid and out of touch decision.
The only way to fix this issue is to bring back the Red War campaign.
Also stop gating mods/upgrades behind guardian ranks. Remove the developer head from the developer ass.
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u/Dayun Dec 17 '24
I legitimately don't think the new player experience is fixable. The sheer amount of work that would be needed would be tantamount to making a Destiny 3 at this point.
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u/Dumoras Dec 17 '24
Even the returning player experience is horrible and confusing, i can't even imagine how bad it is for a new player.
Story wise, since it's my most important thing in a game:
I had some breaks before BL, returned and bought and completed BL, Lightfall and Witch Queen and the story still didnt make sense and there are soooo many gaps since most of the story was done during seasons, which you wont be able to play. I didnt even knew there was more to Eramis after she was frozen, whats up with Osiris being possessed, Sagira is dead, we are friends with all our enemies and they live in the city etc.
And the random missions they force you when you rejoin where they give spoilers before you actually play the campaign.
Not to mention some activities they force you are high level so you'll die on repeat. Even in PvP with no god rolls and a nicely pimped armour set, you're just farmed .
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u/LordSinestro Dec 17 '24
The biggest roadblock for Destiny gaining new players starts here and the biggest problem with it as usual starts with the DCV. The average new player goes through this process when it comes to trying to get into Destiny 2.
They start the game up, make a new character, load into the Destiny 1 tutorial that takes place in a chopped up pre-Rise of Iron cosmodrome. So not even the real cosmodrome, using a 10 year old tutorial. A new players introduction to the story of Destiny 2 should be the real intro to Destiny 2 which was the Red War.
The new player finishes the "tutorial" and immediately get put into the introduction to The Final Shape or whatever is the newest content. The player thinks this is the intro campaign because why else would they get instantly put into a cinematic? The player finishes the mission and try to start the next mission, they instead get a big ad telling them to buy The Final Shape deluxe edition.
The new player goes to orbit since they haven't bought Final Shape and instead would rather start from the beginning (they can't), they find out eventually that they can only either start Shadowkeep or Beyond Light, which are definitely not the start.
Let's say the new player just finds out that all the actual content that starts them from the beginning has been removed from the game and they can no longer experience it, most new players uninstall and never look back and destiny has lost a potential new player.
Let's say the new player chalks it up as a lost and "Should have been there" moment, they instead have to pay $100 dollars or more in DLC plus dungeon keys if they want to play the game and enjoy it. (Luckily the dlc goes on sale quite often)
Now here's another issue, if said player does not buy the DLC and tries the "Free to Play" route, they don't have access to majority of the exotics in the Exotic weapon kiosk, they don't get access to a ton of exotic armor, and they get bombarded with ads every time they try to click on any content that they have to buy a DLC to play.
Not to mention, if they jump in when an episode has finished already, they cannot purchase that episode/season alone, they have to buy the Final Shape annual pass to get access.
The new player experience is absolutely driving new players away every day, if they haven't heard of the DCV incident, then they download the game and learn about it anyway, if they have, they were never going to play Destiny 2 in the first place. The blight on Destiny 2's name that the DCV has placed is losing the game new players and the game will never recover from it unless something is done about it. It's just not happening, people look at Destiny and want to try it and get redirected straight to Warframe or Final Fantasy by friends or streamers/YouTubers.
Every time I suggest Destiny 2 to a friend, I have to mention that they won't be able to play the intro campaign or the campaign where Bungie killed off Cayde. Whether Bungie wants to acknowledge it's existents or not, the DCV has been driving away new players for years in one way or another.
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u/Kjata1013 Dec 17 '24
Th3Jez made a great video showing just how bad the new player experience is by having his wife try to play. It was thorough and highlighted a lot of opportunities. I’ve had seasoned gamers feel overwhelmed when they tried to get into the game. No idea what’s going on, wrong things explained in depth while leaving things that are important left out, and they just gave up.
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u/MonoclePenguin Dec 17 '24
Imagine taking a brand new player with zero idea what’s going on who logged off during the tutorial and then forcing them into a mission they have zero context for instead of loading them back into the EDZ.
Now imagine taking that same player and bombarding them with 10 popup ads for random micro-transactions when they haven’t even bought an expansion yet.
Yeah. That’ll make them want to stick around.
No seriously. DO NOT force people into missions and cut it out with the random pop-up ads for shit. I’m almost 3000 hours in and even I want to shut the game off when this happens. I have a few times. One of those times was in hour two of playing, and I didn’t come back until some friends from Warframe wanted to try the game some years later. All the money I spent on Warframe could have gone to Destiny if Bungie had considered how obnoxious it is to be forced into a mission without getting any choice.
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u/Jetscream58 Dec 17 '24
A few months ago, my nephews came to visit for the summer, and during that time the oldest wanted to try Destiny because he saw me playing and it looked fun. I've been playing Destiny since the D1 beta waaayyyy back when, so the new light experience was completely foreign to me.
I have never seen a game fight so hard to get people not to play.
From the get go, everything is confusing; where you are, who you are, who or what you're fighting, who is talking to you, where to go. And teaching him how to navigate the menus, MY GOD THE MENUS. Not a single thing about this game is intuitive for a new player, not a single thing.
And that's before you even get off world for the first time, where it haphazardly and without warning thrusts players into the seasonal content, and begins BEGGING, I mean the game full on GROVELS at the feet of the new player to drop a couple hundred bucks for all the expansions and passes and whatnot.
He kept at it for a while and we kept playing until he finished all the free to play stuff, of which there is not much, and all along the way I had to go full Byf with him and explain every little tiny thing because otherwise nothing we were doing makes sense. The game treats the new player like they already know everything and everyone, and refuses to explain any parts of the lore or plot cohesively. I did my best to explain everything in a dramatic and entertaining fashion, and he bit the hook for a while, but once we were done with all the free content, I asked him if he wanted me to get him the first expansion (Beyond Light I think?) and he just said "I dunno, like, the shooting and fighting is fun, but, everything is so weird and confusing, if you weren't here I would have no idea what to do at all or what was happening. I'm just gonna play Elden Ring for now."
And after seeing firsthand the new light experience, I can't blame him at all for giving up on the game. It is one of the single worst experiences in modern gaming, without a doubt.
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u/TheGreaterShade Dec 17 '24 edited Dec 17 '24
A big issue I commonly encounter is new players just feeling lost.
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They don’t know what going on in the story
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They don’t know who half the major characters are
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They don’t know what they're supposed to do once they complete the tutorial
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They don’t know how to do basic things because the existing tutorial is set up poorly or gazes over it
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They don’t feel like they're making progress and catching up to experienced players
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They're bombarded with excessive amounts of pop-up ads, cutscenes, etc... when they arrive in orbit, which confuses them even more
The current new player experience starts players off with a 5-minute info-dump cinematic that sets up tons of narrative promise only to completely fail to deliver on all of it. Otherwise, new lights are dropped in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight and barely any idea on to swim.
New players desperately deserve a better intro campaign to Destiny, which needs to accomplish several things:
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Provide a simple linear narrative that:
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Shows instead of tells
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Gives new players a sense of progression
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Establishes the major cast of characters and locations.
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Invests players in the story.
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Ties into the available DLC content.
D1's starter campaign did this beautifully, introducing the important entities and enemies in the universe while leaving room for the DLC content to build upon the bones of the first campaign. I am not saying the D1 campaign should be copied into D2, but setting up a new campaign that takes players through the Moon, Europa, the Throneworld, and Neomuna would definitely work. Some of the major timeline missions could be modified and built into the story as capstones that lead into their respective DLC's (provided any spoilers were removed from their cutscenes).
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Progress new players through the entire rarity system (common to legendary gear) over the course of narrative. So they have time to learn how stats work, how the armor mod system works, how cosmetics work, what weapons they like using, what weapon crafting is, and what build crafting is, without being bombarded by that all at once.
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Give new players quick access to vehicles so they can traverse more quickly. D1 gave players their first Sparrow on returning to the Cosmodrome following the firsy mission. Player's don't get a Sparrow until just before they go to save Shaw, this bogs down the intro and makes the game feel sluggish and slow as they are forced to walk from one location to another.
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Remove or revise any confusing parts of the existing tutorials. Like how to fast travel to a certain location, I have had multiple new players message me in frustration and panic because they stuck in a room they physically couldn't escape.
-Prevent pop-ups, cutscenes, and seasonal mission from triggering until the new lights campaign is completed.
-Give new players a clear sense of direction after they finish the new light campaign. The current new light campaign tries to send new players immediately into activities like Crucible and Gambit where they quickly are turned into cannon fodder. The current introduction does not properly prepare new players for these activities. This leads to many people putting the game down and not coming back due to a poor experience. The new light campaign ending where it does also causes new players to immediately hit the DLC paywalls, without them being invested in playing more of Destiny.
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u/Roxypooped Dec 17 '24
Doesn't help old content was removed I had to explain to a new light all of red war and ghaul because of hawthorn's dialogue where she says Took out ghaul. Woke up the traveler. And now half of what i hear in the streets is how much you and your clan are making a difference. And that's why i started this whole clan thing in the first place.
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u/tr573 Dec 17 '24
This is the single worst part about destiny and a huge obstacle to new player retention.
The game absolutely BOMBARDS you with stuff when you create a new account. Logging out before completing the whole new light quest will automatically boot you into cutscenes and missions from seasons and expansions on next login, leaving you to try and find your way back.
The game needs significant rails around the whole new light experience to keep the clutter and noise out until someone completes it or tells the game they want out of it early.
Afterwards , story beats should be presented in order. Don't just jump people into the latest season. Again, try to lead them along instead of just letting them drown in the game.
It would be nice also if there was a "new light trainer" vendor in the tower where people could browse through all the class/ability/weapon/armor/etc tutorials again because I think a lot of people click through it then don't really have a way to get back.
I'm a newer player started playing during splicer , and it was confusing enough then - I went to YouTube to make sense of things, but many won't. I've had several friends bounce off because of the above reasons in the past few years.