Island Sanctuaries - End Game Only

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Originally Posted by WindyGamer

How disappointing. I had assumed that they would be available at, oh say, 30 or 50..

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I just started another character last night (10th overall, first on Midgardsormr) and then I realized that, since I started in Gridania, I had to progess the MSQ up to the point I get airship authorization in order to get to the Moonfire Faire in Limsa, or I'll never get that sweet glam.
Boy was I pissed ... no, wait, I wasn't. Not even a little.
I'll probably make the Faire before it closes, but if not, no big.

So, when are Island Sanctuaries going to close?
Huh? Not any time soon, you say?
So, what's all the salt about?

Oh, a need for instant gratification?
Yeah, that's a thing.
I see it a lot in 3- and 5-year olds.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

One of the worst dungeon releases in my view hopefully the new one won't be cringe worthy if you get it in a roulette.

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Yeah it was horrible at release. So many people left the instance as soon as they saw which fight it was. And even though I am not a fan of leaving I could understand them in this case. After all you still had to fight to the end even if it was clear that it was a wipe.

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Originally Posted by WindyGamer

How disappointing. I had assumed that they would be available at, oh say, 30 or 50. So I could take my friends who are new to the game and show them my IS. Or as an alternative activity for my 2 dozen alts. But no. The IS are locked behind a tall tall ladder of level 90 and Endwalker.

All of my Alts are 50+ and about half have completed Heavenward. And my friend started more recently and of their half dozen alts they only have a couple beyond Heavensward and one at Endwalker.

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Alright, that's it.
I'm done reading these forums.

Complaining about having to beat the msq of all things.

It's sort of a shame, I feel for Free Trial players who were super excited for Islands and were really hoping they'd be able to access it. Otherwise, I'm neutral on this.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

It's sort of a shame, I feel for Free Trial players who were super excited for Islands and were really hoping they'd be able to access it. Otherwise, I'm neutral on this.

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I don't feel for them at all. They can already do so much, even with the restrictions.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

It's sort of a shame, I feel for Free Trial players who were super excited for Islands and were really hoping they'd be able to access it. Otherwise, I'm neutral on this.

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To be honest, it's just fair for such a big feature not to come for free. And considering how limited free trial functions are, even more so.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

Oh geez.. How dare they lock Ishgard Restoration behind Heavensward! And Eureka behind Stormblood! And then they lock Bozja behind Shadowbringers?! NEW THINGS ON AN EXPANSION?! Preposterous!!

Also, current Steps of Faith isn't even real OG Steps of Faith.

Vishap had twice as much HP, you had to land both Dragon killers and a DPS LB3 and maybe you killed the boss. Claw hit boxes were gigantic and they'd one shot you, no matter if you were a DPS or a Tank. Lose two/three DPS once and the whole run is probably dead. Heavensward was hard locked behind this, and you needed your FC or a premade to clear, I'm not kidding. That sounds fun to you?

Current Steps is rather mindless in comparison... People just kinda meander around, someone may or may not do Dragon Killer, it doesn't really matter, and nothing does any meaningful damage anymore. So much fun...

They did a really good job with Cape Westwind and with Lahabrea for ARR turning them into solo duties. You can also very easily see that there's NPCs fighting with you in the new version, so I don't understand why you'd suggest WoL is killing Vishap alone.

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While most of this is true, the part about FC or Premade is a little off. Did it the day it released with randoms and we succeeded on our second run.

I do find it's weird it's gated at all. But whatever.

Without a retainer bell and MB, and no tie in to the game, it is little more than doman enclave reconstruction for me.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

The location would be the biggest reason it's tied to the end of 6.0. It seems to be somewhere in the area of Thavnair, which we've only just discovered.

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Thavnair has red soil doesn't it? So it's far closer in soil colour and plant style to Eastern La Noscea - and Mist - than Thavnair.

Edit to add:

Mist:
https://i.gyazo.com/735989bb087d884b...319925b56c.jpg

Island:
https://i.gyazo.com/1d27ef329c9b914a...50eff9432c.jpg

I'm gutted about there being no retainer bell more than anything else.

I was a bit disappointed it's tied to 6.0 story myself but I'll wait and see what the connection is. My hubby isn't up there yet and this is content I think he'd love, so I was hoping it was something he would be able to try out before he catches up on story. No harm, no foul, just want to see the reasoning.

Lahabrea was made into a solo instance and he's not a pushover anymore. I imagine that Vishap will be the same.

I'm hoping Thordan will follow suit at some point.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

I'm hoping Thordan will follow suit at some point.

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Me too. I mentioned as much in another thread. They told us originally they wouldn't be making 8 mans usable with Duty Support. But then they did the unexpected and revamped 8 man content to be solo instances and 4-man. And it's been received very well. I think Vishap will be received well, too, and feel like a challenge again. Thordan normal never felt like a challenge, so this is their opportunity to beef him up and make him feel like a real threat. I wouldn't be surprised if they circle back around to the other trials later, and they're just focusing on the expansion end and beginning points right now.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I do find it's weird it's gated at all. But whatever.

Without a retainer bell and MB, and no tie in to the game, it is little more than doman enclave reconstruction for me.

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The MB makes sense as that's only ever in a major city. Did they specifically mention the bell somewhere?

This is way more than Doman Enclave.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

The MB makes sense as that's only ever in a major city.

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One outside my Shiro house. That's not a major city.

As an "idle place" to wait for your next queue to pop, it seems like a waste not to have the ability to keep the retainers busy on ventures.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

One outside my Shiro house. That's not a major city.

As an "idle place" to wait for your next queue to pop, it seems like a waste not to have the ability to keep the retainers busy on ventures.

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Technically, it's part of Kugane.

If they didn't specifically mention retainer bells yet, it's possible that could show up. If it doesn't, enough feedback might see it added.

Since you have to complete 6.0 storyline before you can get an island I would assume that it has something to do near Thavnair since they did say it never snows but rains where it's located and the area/region is a tropical area.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I do find it's weird it's gated at all. But whatever.

Without a retainer bell and MB, and no tie in to the game, it is little more than doman enclave reconstruction for me.



Thavnair has red soil doesn't it? So it's far closer in soil colour and plant style to Eastern La Noscea - and Mist - than Thavnair.

Edit to add:

Mist:
https://i.gyazo.com/735989bb087d884b...319925b56c.jpg

Island:
https://i.gyazo.com/1d27ef329c9b914a...50eff9432c.jpg

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The Mist is in La Noscea region and it does have tropical areas. But since you have to have the 6.0 storyline done and being that the region of Thavnair has islands it would make sense of it being related or associated with that. But again this is all hearsay as we don't know yet.

I'm another one that was disappointed to see that it's locked behind completion of the 6.0 MSQ.

The island itself seems to have nothing to do with any of the places we visit in later portions of the MSQ. As others have said, it looks a lot more like La Noscea and places like Hullbreaker Isle than anything in Thavnair. I know there's a chain of islands that's been mentioned as being south of La Noscea (can't remember the name) and so I'm assuming it's one of those.

It seems more like it would have been a perfect reward for the Champion of Eorzea after completing the 2.0 MSQ. The choice of story behind how we get the island could have been anything. Players already advanced well beyond that part of the MSQ could have been given separate dialogue about how it was a reward long overdue just as there are other parts of the game where dialogue can change based on other progression.

What is wrong with giving lower level characters access to more new content beyond just the occasional new GATE at the Gold Saucer or a relaxing place to visit when they want a break from MSQ? No one should feel compelled to reach end game in a theme park, story based MMORPG. If someone wants to spend their time on their island, that's their choice of how they want to have fun.

Worried about free trial players straining instance server resources? Require an active subscription to the game for access. That's not difficult.

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Originally Posted by WindyGamer

How disappointing. I had assumed that they would be available at, oh say, 30 or 50. So I could take my friends who are new to the game and show them my IS. Or as an alternative activity for my 2 dozen alts. But no. The IS are locked behind a tall tall ladder of level 90 and Endwalker.

All of my Alts are 50+ and about half have completed Heavenward. And my friend started more recently and of their half dozen alts they only have a couple beyond Heavensward and one at Endwalker. [x]

So if you want a Garden Simulator or to build a settlement, try another game where you can do that from the beginning I guess.

And do I hear that the Steps of Faith is going to be a solo duty? Hardly Epic. But I guess the warrior or light can take down a two story tall Vishap solo with no problems. But it's just not going to be as fun as it was with 7 other folks. My preference would have been to make it a 24 or 30 player event rather than a solo one.

I play another game where I just did an epic event with 50 or 60 other folks that was originally released in 2015. They didn't solo duty that epic event and despite the fact that there were no Flying Mounts in the game in 2015, the event was still fun and relevant for players today most with flying mounts and some just gliding like back in the day. It's done several times a day, as are the other large map wide events from that expansion.

Sure, we could have more glamour dresser slots or we could just make the dresser hold all the glamour in the game, for the whole account - all the alts could get any glamour seen by any alt. That would be another way to go. It's not a new idea.

New jobs appear just a rung or two below the End Game. Why is this a thing? And why do Alts have to climb that ladder to unlock those jobs too? The next new jobs unlocks at level 90? or 80?

How soon before we see that the ladder is just too high to put all the new content at the top and that it's not a service to new players to dumb down all the rungs along the way? Could we please find new ways to make previous [ I'm not saying old here] content relevant for all players rather than putting all relevant content at the end of a long long climb? Anybody else bored with running only level 50 four man dungeons for moogle tomes for moogle treasure events? I didn't even bother. Despite the cut scenes, an 8 player was more fun that these 4 player replacements. And they could have been 24 or 30 player just as easily. Why was that not a thing?

Yep. More than one subject here. But they all seem related somehow.

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That's an awful lot of words to say the first 60 levels of free content isn't enough.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

It seems more like it would have been a perfect reward for the Champion of Eorzea after completing the 2.0 MSQ. The choice of story behind how we get the island could have been anything. Players already advanced well beyond that part of the MSQ could have been given separate dialogue about how it was a reward long overdue just as there are other parts of the game where dialogue can change based on other progression.

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I dunno. Saving a region vs. saving the world... saving that region while conflict still rages on elsewhere?

It's part of the Endwalker expansion, that's how I see it. It's like a gift from the city states to the WoL.

And people get upset when I say the pve is the "main" gameplay cycle. Despite the fact all the content that appeals to casuals and people who DON'T take pve seriously continues to get locked behind clearing pve content...

You also don't find the good glam until later in the game, so it makes even more sense where it is. :)

we save the world, we deserve an island where we can retire

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

As others already pointed out, there is a number of locked content, diadem/firmament being lv60 to unlock for example.

It’s not a big deal.

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But is when it's a non combat/ crafting content. This time it's lvl 90,starting to take long. Next it's be lvl 100.

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Originally Posted by magitekLuna

But is when it's a non combat/ crafting content. This time it's lvl 90,starting to take long. Next it's be lvl 100.

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It doesn't take that long to get there and you'll get there faster without the distraction. :)

When the next expac hits, people can buy a skip to 90 and have their island.

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Originally Posted by Tlamila

To be honest, it's just fair for such a big feature not to come for free. And considering how limited free trial functions are, even more so.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

I don't feel for them at all. They can already do so much, even with the restrictions.

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It'll forever be funny to me that the players hate FTs more than the developers do. Not the first time they're looked upon like common rabble, coming in the way of your enjoyment or something. When queues are unmanageable, it's not the FTs who are even able to join it in the first place and ruining your playtime. It's Limsa AFKers, ERPers, /beesknees spammers and whatnot.

All I mentioned was that I knew people who were hoping that Islands would be within the 1-60 level bracket. And this unnecessary pushback is what I get in answer.

No need to turn on fellow players. Maybe you were one of them too, once. They can't even log onto SQEX when FT (which is probably a measure put against potential DDOSing methods). They don't have a voice in these forums to speak against petty discrimination. If SQEX is supposedly too "strained" to handle FTs as it is, that's not on the players enjoying a feature put into the game. It's obviously SQEX. And if SQEX is some generous, benevolent figure already giving "too much" to FTs, remember that Yoshida said that FTs turn over to paid very quickly usually. They know it's profitable.

i mean wouldnt it be a nice side content for new players while taking a break from this very VERY long msq? some people burn out if they 'rush' through so much story at once

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

It'll forever be funny to me that the players hate FTs more than the developers do. Not the first time they're looked upon like common rabble, coming in the way of your enjoyment or something. When queues are unmanageable, it's not the FTs who are even able to join it in the first place and ruining your playtime. It's Limsa AFKers, ERPers, /beesknees spammers and whatnot.

All I mentioned was that I knew people who were hoping that Islands would be within the 1-60 level bracket. And this unnecessary pushback is what I get in answer.

No need to turn on fellow players. Maybe you were one of them too, once. They can't even log onto SQEX when FT (which is probably a measure put against potential DDOSing methods). They don't have a voice in these forums to speak against petty discrimination. If SQEX is supposedly too "strained" to handle FTs as it is, that's not on the players enjoying a feature put into the game. It's obviously SQEX. And if SQEX is some generous, benevolent figure already giving "too much" to FTs, remember that Yoshida said that FTs turn over to paid very quickly usually. They know it's profitable.

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I said I don't feel for them. I don't know how that translates to anything close to hate. They're never a thought until something like this comes along. I don't see them as common rabble, but perhaps a little greedy when they're hoping to squeeze more out of the game.

I started on the free trial and I eventually made the decision that I was enjoying things enough to properly support the game and play with no restrictions. I think it took about a month.

It would be nice if we could all just play for free, live for free, do whatever for free... but that's not the world we live in. This is a business and there are paying customers and they shouldn't have to feel bad about paying for something when others get it for free, especially in this model where unsubscribing means you're just out of luck.

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Originally Posted by Asari5

i mean wouldnt it be a nice side content for new players while taking a break from this very VERY long msq? some people burn out if they 'rush' through so much story at once

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Why the rush? One of the best things about this game is the fact that you can take as long a break as you need and you can come back and things will generally be the same. There's no pressure to get to the top. If anyone feels it, that's on them. People will populate the queues for all the stuff that's going to level you up and take you through the story.

New players have the gold saucer to take a break in with a lot of content that's new for them. It's ok to have expansion content locked behind completing the expansion.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

All I mentioned was that I knew people who were hoping that Islands would be within the 1-60 level bracket. And this unnecessary pushback is what I get in answer.

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The free trial is more than generous in my view. It should be a limited and not an open ended trial one can play forever. I would put a time limit on free trial personally. If they want more they should sub pretty simple. If anything I can see people who sub complaining they can't get access because they are not 90 but access to this at the very least should carry a sub to play it.

Comes a time when free trial peeps actually need to sub to the game to help support the development of things like Island Sanctuary and not get up and about they can't access it for free.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

It'll forever be funny to me that the players hate FTs more than the developers do. Not the first time they're looked upon like common rabble, coming in the way of your enjoyment or something. When queues are unmanageable, it's not the FTs who are even able to join it in the first place and ruining your playtime. It's Limsa AFKers, ERPers, /beesknees spammers and whatnot.

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Wow, calm down there. You seem pretty angry.
Nobody here is hating on anybody, I don't know where you got that from.

You're making a classist fight or something, when all free trial is is in fact a trial. It's not like free trial players are badly treated or something, they're just TRIALING a game. And since the trial is not time-limited, of course it has a lot of game functions cut out. If people were able to play free forever without any restrictions it wouldn't be a trial, it would be free to play, but it's not.

As for "we've all been on free trial". I started the game way before free trial was a thing. I quit for like 2 years, then returned with free trial and a new character, thinking of playing like that forever and just roaming around and whatever. Needless to say, after like a week I subbed back because the restrictions of trial made me game absolutely unplayable for me.
It's not that free trial players "get treated like rabble" because people don't like them. The company just differentiates between paying customer and someone who's just trying the product for free. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm surprised they made it endgame to be honest.

In XI, Mog Gardens were added in the last expansion Seekers of Adoulin. However, players can unlock it after reaching Rank 3 in their home nations which is part of the base game story.

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Originally Posted by RobynDaBank

It'll forever be funny to me that the players hate FTs more than the developers do. Not the first time they're looked upon like common rabble, coming in the way of your enjoyment or something. When queues are unmanageable, it's not the FTs who are even able to join it in the first place and ruining your playtime. It's Limsa AFKers, ERPers, /beesknees spammers and whatnot.

All I mentioned was that I knew people who were hoping that Islands would be within the 1-60 level bracket. And this unnecessary pushback is what I get in answer.

No need to turn on fellow players. Maybe you were one of them too, once. They can't even log onto SQEX when FT (which is probably a measure put against potential DDOSing methods). They don't have a voice in these forums to speak against petty discrimination. If SQEX is supposedly too "strained" to handle FTs as it is, that's not on the players enjoying a feature put into the game. It's obviously SQEX. And if SQEX is some generous, benevolent figure already giving "too much" to FTs, remember that Yoshida said that FTs turn over to paid very quickly usually. They know it's profitable.

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A free trial is frequently of very limited duration and may have very limited access to certain features, In the case of FFXIV, the free trial is extremely general in that the duration is not limited and most people would say that FTP have access to a very generous set of functions.

Also, for those features that FTP lack - such as forming groups- it isn't at all unusual for paid subscribers to help them out to form a party for not other reason than they know that FTP can't do this on their own. Now that's hardly a sign of "players hate FTs". I don't know why you would want to use inflammatory language like "rabble" that's only going propagate arguments for no reason, or say that people are turning on fellow players. No one is.

I don't see anything abnormal about some content being unavailable to FTP. It's a trial- it's not meant to have all features available so that someone can play without paying and enjoy the content that paid subscribers enjoy. It's meant so that someone can evaluate the game and decide whether it is worth it for them to subscribe. SE is smart, it's a good free trial, it helps people so that they think it's fair, it also to get their friends to try the game. It's a win-win. So if if that means paying to get access to the island sanctuary, not a problem. There is a lot of free content for a trial.

I also agree that when an expansion hits, the queues aren't due to FTP precisely because they are discriminated against (so as to speak) , if necessary, by SE. That too is normal, to me- as a paying customer does and should get priority in the queues over a FTP. Just as SE has also enforced the AFK timer as well during a new expansion to kick out AFKers.

"Forum goes tribal over a sensible request" Happens more often than you think.

Even as someone who has no plans engaging on IS content I'm not a fan of MSQ-gating specially for features like these.

It makes sense to at very least keep any new content outside of the free trial range to make people sub for it.

You cllown .. Did you forget this is a STORY game? gotta do the story first before u can access the goodies.

Keep in mind they said u can invite people, so MAYBE they can access somehow, just as people that visit Shiro/Empyreum

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

It makes sense to at very least keep any new content outside of the free trial range to make people sub for it.

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I agree that the Island would be a bit too generous to give to free players. "Why pay for the cow when the milk is free" comes to mind. :3

Buuut, locking it behind the purchase of EW would have been easy enough. There's no reason to require full MSQ & level 90.

Maybe they're just trying to keep free trial bots from farming it until the instance servers choke. Of course, that only matters if there's something from the island worth selling. I dunno, pure speculation.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

Maybe they're just trying to keep free trial bots from farming it until the instance servers choke. Of course, that only matters if there's something from the island worth selling. I dunno, pure speculation.

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It's possible, but given how much they talked about everything being so separate from the rest of the game, I would think there's nothing tradable on that vendor.