ARR needs two simple fixes until an actual revamp

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

1. Voice acting. It is seriously lacking. Some of your FF14 players are actual voice actors and will probably do this for free. Just add it already.

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Never going to happen. MMO volunteer programs are rare. AOL lost a class action lawsuit for theirs. Basically the Court agreed that it was an employment arrangement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Co...Leader_Program

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Well the issue with SWToR was the base game was 100 million dollars built on a bad game engine.

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While there are multiple issues with SW:TOR engine issues are very far down the list. Yes their Frankenstein version of Hero is a disaster but that pales in comparison to the other issues that saw their population collapse down to 5 servers.

Essentially they naively though MMO players would be perfectly happy with just story. Even the people who took their time were asking "Where's the beef?" once they hit endgame.

Anybody who scratched the surface of their single player games was well aware that they did not have the technical chops to tackle an MMO. Sadly LucasArts was also significantly ignorant what it took. Story is a nice "extra" but it cannot carry an MMO.

Have to admit the English voice acting, particularly in ARR is ridiculously bad and I'm surprised so many people are fine with it. That said, it's definitely not a simple fix, especially when adding extra voiced scenes needs to be done across multiple languages.

But yes, it's appalling. I guess players just get used to it over time.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wouldn't it make more sense to do any of this abridging after the conclusion of the Hydaelyn arc, leading directly to that new arc with a sort of two-pronged focus? (Hell, that could be massive in terms of bringing in new players, as they could go straight to the newest expansion alongside everyone else, albeit it on an adjusted path of discourse and NPC interactions, while the previous Arc is available via Echo for leveling other jobs).

In the meantime, though, we need only make more of the much less relevant arcs (Haukke Manor, much of the Company of Heroes, etc.) optional and improve the early combat experience, much of which could have more universal implications.

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Yes, but to be fair I do already think they are going to already do this going forward with 7.0 akin to a soft reboot or new arc after a hiatus. So with that in mind my suggestion—while unlikely—is based around less of a slog since I feel 90% of ARR could largely be seen as optional or text scroll fulfills the same purpose of ARR. From a gameplay POV I cannot say ARR has any real meaningful moments that are tied to gameplay. Sure adjustments to jobs and making the less story relevant arcs as optional would help but just speaking from personal experiences as someone who has tried FFXIV many times prior to story skips I could never get into HW due to the long slog of ARR and even after the rework of the storyline the massive experience gains coupled with a preferred world only make it worse due to the nature of our content and how it syncs you down. Going large chunks of levels without getting new skills due to them being story gated is not a great feeling either.

The structure of FFXIV puts SE in a weird spot I get this much, but personally I did enjoy my time with the game from HW on, and from an anecdotal POV many of those I have referred have felt the same way. Pretty much whenever I ask a friend to join I gift them a story skip. I have still been able to follow the story beats and do not feel like I have messed out in anything by not experiencing ARR. Granted, I have gone back with NG+ And I do still feel the same like I did not miss out on anything, through maybe that will change with endwalker I am not sure.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Have to admit the English voice acting, particularly in ARR is ridiculously bad and I'm surprised so many people are fine with it. That said, it's definitely not a simple fix, especially when adding extra voiced scenes needs to be done across multiple languages.

But yes, it's appalling. I guess players just get used to it over time.

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A couple of them aren't bad. I still prefer the earlier voices for Raubahn, Merlwyb, and Midgardsormr. But a lot of them are pretty bad.

Although I'm not sure how much of it is the actual actors' fault versus how much is just bad directing. I still laugh at the scene where we find out about Lahabrea possessing Thancred, with Minfilia's half-hearted "Thancred, nooooooo....." as if the actress just had no idea what was going on and nobody bothered to call for a do-over.

I've no idea if changing the voice acting in ARR will change much, I suspect not. I did look back at some of the early cutscenes recently though having not seen them since I played through them at launch and some characters are..... challenging. I have finally convinced my Brother to try the game again after we both started playing at launch so I watched them to see, and hope they would pull him in. Compared to newer cutscenes the quality is very poor and some character are like nails down a chalk board. I hope he accepts my promise it gets better, but from a new player experience its not a great opening act.

Bring back Vanilla ARR. add all the fetch quests back to the msq. all voice acting in Esperanto please.

Voice acting is fine as is, and teleporting is a good thing. Sure beats having to walk/fly.

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Originally Posted by Artemiz

I've no idea if changing the voice acting in ARR will change much, I suspect not. I did look back at some of the early cutscenes recently though having not seen them since I played through them at launch and some characters are..... challenging. I have finally convinced my Brother to try the game again after we both started playing at launch so I watched them to see, and hope they would pull him in. Compared to newer cutscenes the quality is very poor and some character are like nails down a chalk board. I hope he accepts my promise it gets better, but from a new player experience its not a great opening act.

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Advise him, if he's at all open to the idea, to try the JP voice overs, it'll vastly improve the voiced experience at the very least in ARR.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

Advise him, if he's at all open to the idea, to try the JP voice overs, it'll vastly improve the voiced experience at the very least in ARR.

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"The voices are great if you don't understand what they're saying" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, you realize.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

Advise him, if he's at all open to the idea, to try the JP voice overs, it'll vastly improve the voiced experience at the very least in ARR.

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I mean that's a pretty subjective matter... to me a lot of Japanese voice acting, even without being able to understand the actual words said, sounds terrible. Over-acted and some with high nasally pitches that actually are physically painful to listen to.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

"The voices are great if you don't understand what they're saying" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, you realize.

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I understand both just fine (I play on the JPN client as often as not, and finish the MSQ once each in either version across this char and my main alt), and it's still a mixed bag. With some exceptions across ARR specifically, overall, some VAs seem to fit their alleged characters a bit more than others, or just have more attractive (or, less grating) voices outright, in either direction -- some better on the ENG version, some on the JPN version. For instance, I prefer JPN Cid (not as cocky-sounding as his words sometimes imply) and ENG Tataru (JPN being grating, for me). Most, though, they're just different, more so than one being "better" than the other.

(Though Shadowbringers ENG Gaius, Ardbert, and maybe even Ranjit, for instance... it amazes me how well they fit while also seeming to uniquely fit. Whereas many of the JPN voices felt like they could have been reslotted/recast any which way, something about the ENG voices there felt right and right for that character only.)

Tbh, one of the huge marks of quality for me is that the lines themselves are often so well adjusted to those different voices. At that point it just becomes a matter of which personality you prefer (e.g. ENG Alisae vs. JPN Alisae) and, honestly, even while different they tend to be equally good, imo.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Look put a dumb mount on the shop and tell the players this money will be used to add voice acting to ARR. I promise you it will sell at a stupid pace.

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So you're saying SE should start some sort of kickstarter campaign through their store to get voice acting sorted out? Seriously? I would only purchase a thing I don't want if it would be for a good cause like a charity. Not because SE won't give extra money to FFXIV they can easily afford to hire some voice actors.

I would like ARR improved but not like this. I'm sorry but your ideas for fixes just don't match up with how a big company like SE does and should work.

The only further adjustments I think that ARR needs after very recently pushing four players through it is:

Adjust the 1-15 stories to be a bit more compelling. Not sure how, but the path to those dungeons just isn't quite enticing enough.

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and that's it. The only other problem my players ran into? Toxic players who want to rush through everything and yell at new players for not having good enough gear/tanking to the wall in their first time/whatever excuse. It's to the point that they almost want to refuse to do content because of these players. The game isn't really the problem. The players are.

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Originally Posted by PeekayTom

The only further adjustments I think that ARR needs after very recently pushing four players through it is:

Adjust the 1-15 stories to be a bit more compelling. Not sure how, but the path to those dungeons just isn't quite enticing enough.

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and that's it. The only other problem my players ran into? Toxic players who want to rush through everything and yell at new players for not having good enough gear/tanking to the wall in their first time/whatever excuse. It's to the point that they almost want to refuse to do content because of these players. The game isn't really the problem. The players are.

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The storytelling with those first few dungeons is a bit more environmental, your literal reason for going there aside anyway. Specifically about a bit of a rivalry between you, a party of adventurers including Avere and Edda(!!), Alianne and her grandpa and another party of adventurers led by Dolorous Bear.

In Sastasha you're able to accomplish what the others couldn't, in fact I'm pretty sure you blaze through it before the others can even attempt it, to the point where Dolorous Bear's party was still in Limsa to pick up the job. In Tam-Tara you learn that Alianne and her grandpa only just managed to get back out with their heads still attached, as well as learning after you're done and back in Gridania that Avere got decapitated in Tam-Tara, resulting in the break up of their party and Edda being left standing in the Adventurers Guild with Avere's decapitated head. Finally in Copperbell you learn that Dolorous Bear's party, determined not to be beaten by you again rushed in and got themselves killed at the hands of the giants in the mines.

The story is there, it just takes a bit more of an attentive approach as you actually have to take note of all of them outside of the dungeon as well as talk to them all. Alianne and her grandpa also appear again later, with Alianne joining the Crystal Braves in the post 2.0 story. The matter of Edda in turn becomes relevant again in Tam-Tara Hard and finally the Palace of the Dead.

Also fun fact, outside of Sastasha (Hard) is a party who is composed almost exactly the same as Edda's party (they even look the same), Hyur Gladiator and Conjurer, Lalafell THM and Elezen Archer, only in this party the Conjurer has a personality the opposite of Edda, standing her ground and not allowing herself to be blamed for the Gladiator's mistakes.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

So something I am noticing is not only WoW players who come here but long time veteran salty FF14 telling LITERALLY everyone to boost passed ARR. I find this to be incredibly stupid as you skip some of the most important story aspect in the game and the actual introduction to the MMO but it has happened. As we know they trimmed roughly 30% of the ARR grind but we need further changes until we can get an actual full revamp of it.

1. Voice acting. It is seriously lacking. Some of your FF14 players are actual voice actors and will probably do this for free. Just add it already.

2. Reduce the amount of teleporting. Do this by deleting quest that are effectively fetch quest. This makes the world seem small and it is pretty obvious to notice.

These two fixes would help a lot.

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As much as I'd love voice acting, I highly doubt that they would spend resources to add it to ARR content as opposed to direct that budget to even more voice acted cutscenes in the current expansion.

It would be great if the Raid and Alliance Raid stories had more voice acting... I think the only time where we hear Gaia's voice is during fights.

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Originally Posted by lezard21

IMO the combat during the ARR portion is the biggest turnoff. Some job's combat system really suffer from not having any oGCD till past ARR making the job feel clunky and stunted.

Of particular note is MNK who only gets Perfect Balance at level 50 and outside of that window you are just constantly cycling through your GCDs over and over, and worst of them all, WHM who only gets Benediction at 50, causing new healers to get it hard coded in their brains that Cure and Cure II are their main heals and continue using them all the way up to level 80 barely touching Assize, Afflatus and Tetra.

This is why jobs like DRG (Jump, Spineshatter, Dragonfire) and MCH (Gauss Round, Ricotchet, Wildfire) end up being a lot more attractive for newer players because the combat feels more fluid

Just add earlier weaker versions of some oGCDs that later get upgraded via trait to the current versions and you fix the combat problem.

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FFXIV have a serious problem with skill syncs also, seriously pre70 -dungeons are so easy even if you get paired with newbies there is 0% chances that you will wipe, unless your tank/healer disconnects.

Big brain, just delete ARR. Give a summary and start players at 60 in HW.

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Originally Posted by Caurcas

Big brain, just delete ARR. Give a summary and start players at 60 in HW.

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galaxy brain: remove msq

To add a quick note as a new player that just played through ARR and is in Heavensward right now:

I thoroughly enjoyed playing through ARR!
- The Story was great, I loved every bit of it, including exploring the world
- The pacing really allowed me to learn the Job I'm playing right now well
- The one hiccup to the entire process was doing group content; most of the time it was fun because after noting I was new, a lot of players were really helpful and patient! It only was an issue a couple of times where folks were apparently solely focused on speed running and didn't want to communicate at all, or larger group content where some folks just delved into straight-up harassment of others for "not playing perfectly"

I'm not new to MMOs though so that last one wasn't really a surprise, lol. If anything, I've appreciated how the majority of the time folks were really nice and supportive. Definitely a difference from the majority of games I've played in the past.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

galaxy brain: remove msq

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Good take, uncouple side content from msq.

True enlightenment: Drop a moon on the servers. All is an illusion.

It would be nice if Squarenix eventually stopped the MSQ circlejerk. Yes you tell story very nice good yes, congratulations Squarenix, but if I want to play as a merchant that just gathers and crafts I get roadblocked from going to Ishgard, Kugane and Novrandt till I pick up a weapon and cutscene skip through the critically acclaimed MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

How about LITERALLY the first scenes in the game?!?!? There is no actual voice acting outside of the old guy who gives like a 10 second intro to the cities. I just find it strange they have not thrown some cash at this to fix such a blatantly obvious issue.

ARR is basically a long form novel.

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Voice acting isn't important, and lack of it is not really any issue at all.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

"The voices are great if you don't understand what they're saying" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, you realize.

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I'd rather hear Japanese voices and get the gist of what's meant to be said through the English text than to subject myself to the cruel and unusual punishment that is English dubbing in this game.

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Originally Posted by Pirana1

I'm right there with you. I grew up the 80's and 90's, so having.... to put it politely, questionable graphics and almost no voice overs aren't really a big deal. Anyone that was around during that era, knows exactly how far gaming has come. The thing that baffles me regarding the ARR story is your own character has nothing to say, notably on the Minfilia quest chain. You would think, the character would at least have some voice overs, other than a few grunts and/or hand gestures... lol It is what it is, not a big deal, just strange.

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I also come from that era of gaming, but I'm on the opposite train regarding silent protagonists because that was pretty common in that era of games too. You just imagine what your character is saying in response; at least that's how I've always worked with it.

The game does get a bit better with letting you pick text responses in some key moments, particularly Shadowbringers.

In any case, the sheer range of characters and voices available would make voice acting for the player character very expensive, and they'd need to add recordings for new races as well.

ARR is fine.
Voice Acting is also fine if you play it in Japanese. Back when I didn't know that was an option I just played the game completely muted and that helped against awful English VA.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

Voice acting isn't important, and lack of it is not really any issue at all.

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Voice acting honestly is important. I am not asking for every single line to be voice acted but come on there are so major moments LIKE THE ENTIRE CRYSTAL TOWER questline that is not voice acted that without a doubt would be voice acted in the later expansions.

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Originally Posted by lezard21

It would be nice if Squarenix eventually stopped the MSQ circlejerk. Yes you tell story very nice good yes, congratulations Squarenix, but if I want to play as a merchant that just gathers and crafts I get roadblocked from going to Ishgard, Kugane and Novrandt till I pick up a weapon and cutscene skip through the critically acclaimed MSQ.

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Welcome to the World of MMOs.

And, if you do not find it to your liking, I'm sure you could find another game that will let you do exactly as you desire. Mostly. You'll still have to pick up a weapon and level up.

Or, you could go directly to every single one of those areas you mentioned by using a job skip to level 70 and a story skip through all of the SB content with no cut-scenes nor MSQ nor dungeon instances required.

Until you hit ShadowBringers content and, darn it, you have to take up a weapon and skip through 10 more levels of cut scenes to be able to get to Eulmore as a level 80 Warrior.

But then, if you don't want Story, why are you playing this particular game?

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Originally Posted by lezard21

It would be nice if Squarenix eventually stopped the MSQ circlejerk. Yes you tell story very nice good yes, congratulations Squarenix, but if I want to play as a merchant that just gathers and crafts I get roadblocked from going to Ishgard, Kugane and Novrandt till I pick up a weapon and cutscene skip through the critically acclaimed MSQ.

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1.0 allowed players to do just that, but as we've seen they moved away from that concept. It would be interesting to see if they could tackle that idea again but considering how they neutered and phased out the Companion system that paired with it, I'm not sure they even want to at this point.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

galaxy brain: remove msq

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universe brain: delete ff14

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

But then, if you don't want Story, why are you playing this particular game?

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Are you really saying this game as nothing to offer apart from story?
Cause you know, there are plenty of people who couldn't care less about story and skip all cinematics but love the game for everything else.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Voice acting honestly is important. I am not asking for every single line to be voice acted but come on there are so major moments LIKE THE ENTIRE CRYSTAL TOWER questline that is not voice acted that without a doubt would be voice acted in the later expansions.

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You mean like how the entirety of Yorha: Dark Apocalypse was voiced? Oh.. wait..

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Voice acting honestly is important. I am not asking for every single line to be voice acted but come on there are so major moments LIKE THE ENTIRE CRYSTAL TOWER questline that is not voice acted that without a doubt would be voice acted in the later expansions.

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No, voice acting it is not important. Not even remotely important.
Good voice acting is nice to have, but no more than that. Bad voice acting is bad and is worse than having no voice acting at all.

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Originally Posted by MistakeNot

No, voice acting it is not important. Not even remotely important.
Good voice acting is nice to have, but no more than that. Bad voice acting is bad and is worse than having no voice acting at all.

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I do not have the data but I bet Square Enix can prove people are more likely to skip quest that are not voice acted.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

I do not have the data but I bet Square Enix can prove people are more likely to skip quest that are not voice acted.

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They prioritize the scenes with the most relevance and impact on the story for voice acting, so as a result people skip the unvoiced parts because they’re not seen as important. This is fine.

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Originally Posted by van_arn

They prioritize the scenes with the most relevance and impact on the story for voice acting, so as a result people skip the unvoiced parts because they’re not seen as important. This is fine.

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ok maybe here on the FF14 forums this might not be an issue to you but LITERALLY everywhere else on the internet the majority opinion is ARR sucks and you should boost passed it. Veteran FF14 players are telling mass audiences to skip passed ARR because it sucks.

I am throwing out suggestions to help. Compared to any of the expansions the amount of voice acting in ARR vs even Heavensward is minimal. I mean come on literal Gendry from Game of Thrones does voice acting after ARR. There is no reason this keeps getting ignored.

I am not sure how much longer FF14 ARR needs to keep getting thrown under the bus by content creators across the internet before Square Enix steps in and forces them to update it.

Everyone knows ARR is the weakest part of the game. The problem is that fixing that means diverting budget and resources from other content. What are you willing to give up for an ARR do-over?

And no, talking about how much the game already brings in doesn't help. We all know that profits from this game go to funding other SE projects, too. That's just how corporations work.

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Originally Posted by Lanadra

The storytelling with those first few dungeons is a bit more environmental, your literal reason for going there aside anyway. Specifically about a bit of a rivalry between you, a party of adventurers including Avere and Edda(!!), Alianne and her grandpa and another party of adventurers led by Dolorous Bear.

In Sastasha you're able to accomplish what the others couldn't, in fact I'm pretty sure you blaze through it before the others can even attempt it, to the point where Dolorous Bear's party was still in Limsa to pick up the job. In Tam-Tara you learn that Alianne and her grandpa only just managed to get back out with their heads still attached, as well as learning after you're done and back in Gridania that Avere got decapitated in Tam-Tara, resulting in the break up of their party and Edda being left standing in the Adventurers Guild with Avere's decapitated head. Finally in Copperbell you learn that Dolorous Bear's party, determined not to be beaten by you again rushed in and got themselves killed at the hands of the giants in the mines.

The story is there, it just takes a bit more of an attentive approach as you actually have to take note of all of them outside of the dungeon as well as talk to them all. Alianne and her grandpa also appear again later, with Alianne joining the Crystal Braves in the post 2.0 story. The matter of Edda in turn becomes relevant again in Tam-Tara Hard and finally the Palace of the Dead.

Also fun fact, outside of Sastasha (Hard) is a party who is composed almost exactly the same as Edda's party (they even look the same), Hyur Gladiator and Conjurer, Lalafell THM and Elezen Archer, only in this party the Conjurer has a personality the opposite of Edda, standing her ground and not allowing herself to be blamed for the Gladiator's mistakes.

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Ah, my apologies, but I meant everything before the dungeons. Your starting city-state's stories, and such.