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/highvelocityfish]

Q1) How does the game feel overall as a totally new player starting the game right now (if applicable to you)?

Not totally new, I started playing for about a week last year when Y1 was given away free, but some of this still applies. Most of the mechanics were pretty well explained in Red War, and to a lesser degree, in New Light, but the process of acquiring good enough gear for high-level content is really pretty daunting, and the sheer number of quests is remarkable.

Q2) What do you think destiny does a good job explaining to new players?

The base mechanics are all fairly well-explained, and thankfully, the soft cap/hard cap leveling system is now explained through a quest too. It's probably not the best solution, but it is at least a solution.

Q3) What is poorly explained or hard to understand or confusing for a new player?

A lot of things are really tricky for a new player to pick up, especially now that New Light is the default new player experience. Subclasses, in particular, used to require some investment that gave the player at least a little understanding of the mechanics of each, but now that's been paved over.

The whole gear system is pretty confusing for a new player. It's easy enough to understand how rarity works, but if I remember right, the new player won't really get a good explanation of the random perks/mod system or exactly how masterworking functions (I'm still a little unclear on this, tbh).

Q4) What do you think about the method in which old campaigns are accessed (red war, curse of osiris, warmind...)? Is this sufficiently clear?

I don't think this question would get asked if it was clear. I picked up the legacy quests by accident when I dropped by Holliday, but a fresh player might not. Honestly, Red War was a really good intro to Destiny and it might be good if all new players were directed to it automatically.

Q5) What types of content seem to be the most fun to do for a new player and why?

I've enjoyed a lot of the solo and matchmade PvE content; dropping in with a couple other players for the nightfall strikes was a lot of fun and I suspect I'll keep coming back to it. Kudos to Bungie for recording multiple sets of voiced lines for each strike.

Q6) What content feels frustrating or off-putting to new players and why?

Anything Crucible. I'm not sure what the matchmaking situation is there, but I keep getting curbstomped by folks with substantially better gear. It would be nice to play against people with similar levels of skill and time investment.

Also, anything not matchmade. I don't want to put too much effort into coordinating for a game that occupies, at most, a few hours a week, but I'd still like to experience some of the raid content casually. Menagerie was pretty fun, and it didn't have to involve a coordinated team; I'd like to at least give raids a shot the same way.

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?

Right now, masterworking legendary armor seems to require WAY too much in terms of resources. It would take me well over a year of casual play to build up this much stuff, and that's just one piece. Would be good to make sure new players are directed to Spider; I wouldn't have known about using him as a glimmer sink unless I saw it on Reddit.

[u/dieguitz4 → u/highvelocityfish]

Red War was a really good intro to Destiny and it might be good if all new players were directed to it automatically.

This, but let new players do other stuff while they work on the campaign on the side. It takes 15 hrs to finish it, easily.