Maybe it's just that I hang out with too many casuals, but it seems like a really uphill battle trying to get people into this game.
I think the main problem (besides the players themselves) is the forest, and the fact that the games complexity doesn't spike until right about level 10. The first friend who I tried to get into the game was NOT HAVING FUN AT ALL during the first 10 levels of the game. He kept talking about how it was too slow paced, and the combat was too simple. I had to talk him out of uninstalling it. Then finally he got out of the forest, played an emergency mission, fought some bosses...and became addicted. Now he regards it as one of the top ten games of this generation, ranking it just below freaking Demon's Souls.
It's the same story with many of my other friends. Either they are same level as me, or they are stuck at level 6, constantly procrastinating about playing the game. Right now, the main challenge is getting them to level 10, getting them to the city emergency mission, or getting lucky enough to have one of those rare REALLY AWESOME challenging sequence of codes (fang banther + avoid code or some shit like that).
Now, when I first played Blue Burst on pc, my friends took me all the way up to Ruins to be wowed by all the cool stuff and I immediately decided the game was awesome. I can understand Sega not wanting this to be possible since new players would inevitably just power level through the game and end up skipping half the content. But I still think there needs to be something veteran players can do to just "WOW" newbie friends to give them a taste of what's in store.
Maybe if party leaders could take the party to anything that was half their level (for example, level 30 party leader with 3 level 1 party members can take entire party to a quest with level 15 level lock). Or maybe if players took exp and loot penalties for running quests they had not yet unlocked. I dunno.
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