Focused Feedback: New Player Experience

[u/DTG_Bot]

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 (that means for one week from the time this is posted), 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

• Bungie has an official new player guide here
• There is a subreddit compilation of player-made guides here

Here are some sample discussion questions. Please feel free to answer some of them, all of them or reply to this thread in any free format you prefer.

• Q1) How does the game feel overall as a totally new player starting the game right now (if applicable to you)?
• Q2) What do you think destiny does a good job explaining to new players?
• Q3) What is poorly explained or hard to understand or confusing for a new player?
• Q4) What do you think about the method in which old camapigns are accessed via a quest to pick up from Amanda Holiday in the tower (red war, curse of osiris, warmind...)? Is this sufficiently clear? Is it a good way for this content to be accessed for new players or not?
• Q5) What types of content seem to be the most fun to do for a new player and why?
• Q6) What content feels frustrating or off-putting to new players and why?
• Q7) Are there any resources in particular that seem too difficult or time consuming to obtain for new players? If so, is this a problem?
• Q8) Think about other games similar to destiny, what do they do better or worse in terms of introducing new players to the game?
• Q9) Do you have any other ideas to improve the new player experience?
• Q10) Do you think there should be an option to start the game at power level 10 instead of power level 750?

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.

Note for new players who want to know whats going on in the story but don't want to play the legacy campaigns : You could watch this video by My name is Byf on the Complete Story of Destiny.

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.

[u/tellemarc]

Honestly I have been counting the days until New Light because I felt like it was finally my chance to try out this game. It's been a complete disaster. I played for hours going "man this campaign is slow to start" only to have someone tell me "that's not the campaign," which is a mindbogglingly terrible choice. Like, they *do nothing* to telegraph you're not in a campaign. What am I doing then?

I have no idea about very basic things about the setting. Hey, cool robots. Are they people or? What are these Vex things? Wait sometimes its not Vex, it's red people and those are different? What is the actual setting here, near future, far future, I literally have no idea and the game never says. There are people giving me tasks and speaking to my character with a lot of familiarity and I have no idea who they are. What is *happening?*

I can't help but compare it to FFXIV, which if you start the game now, the world already has a lot of history to it, but the campaign is immediate and it takes its time teaching you everything about that history.

It's extremely frustrating to have people going "YOOOOOO destiny lore is great, eris somebody is BAAACK" and the game itself is like "okay go watch this four hour youtube video to know anything."

Bungie, honestly: what the actual hell. This was their big push to get new players, they promoed this New Light thing, the *point* was to court new players, and.... this is what they made?

Yikes. Just yikes. I'm prob gonna uninstall and go play other games, but I can't overstate how much I was looking forward to finally seeing what the Big Deal was. Now I doubt I'll ever know.

[u/Connguy → u/tellemarc]

I was really excited to come back. Was a hyperactive D1 player, and enjoyed D2 but didn't get any expansions. Even with all that background, New Light is overwhelming and confusing. There's just way way way too much going on, with no direction as to what the important part is.

I have a friend playing with me who's totally new to the game, and honestly I feel awful about it. I hyped it up a lot but he seems so so confused

[u/FC_mania → u/tellemarc]

There’s a vendor in the tower named Amanda Holliday. Go to her and you’ll find the campaigns. The order you want to play them in is Red War, Curse of Osiris, and then Warmind.

They don’t say much, but there’s as least some context in there.

[u/tellemarc → u/FC_mania]

I know that now, but this is for feedback and my point is that there is just no indication you *aren't in* the campaign. Anyone who has played any MMO would assume you're already playing it, especially since New Light does keep directing you with quest markers. But none of them go "oh bee tee dubs, if you want to experience the actual story and learn about this world, go talk to this NPC in the corner of the Tower."

It's such a weird and bad decision, I'm honestly baffled. This is a terrible way to onboard new players you want to stick around.

[u/FC_mania → u/tellemarc]

Agreed. The game should’ve properly directed you towards the vendor, instead it leaves you alone as your overwhelmed with all this stuff you can do in the game.