Hot Take: The MSQ grind is too long and its harmful to expanding friend groups.

It doesn't take that long even for someone who has a full time job to do the story.

I created an alt when 5.3 launched to see the new MSQ as SE did trim out a decent bit of filler.

Due to things outside of FFXIV, I didn't start really playing her until basically March 2021. By end of July, I had finished all the MSQ. I have a full time job. There were times in there where I didn't play FFXIV. There were days, I didn't play that character - namely when new patch content came out, I would play my main until she finished the content from the patch that I wanted to do.

I don't think anything needs to be done to shorten how long it takes players to get from beginning to end beyond what SE already offers.

Personally, I wouldn't ever recommend a skip to a stranger given you only play a story for the first time once and end game will spoil previous points that were supposed to be suspenseful.

Friends it would be if I absolutely knew the player wouldn't enjoy the story or doesn't care about spoilers and would definitely enjoy end game and jumping into a story in the middle of things with no context.

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Originally Posted by Lium

I don't want to de-rail this thread, but I find it odd you're getting that kind of verbal abuse in this game. Yes, it happens, but I can honestly say that in the five years I've been playing FFXIV as my main game, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen blame hurled at a tank or healer. And it's usually the tank or healer casting the blame on each other. I should also mention I play a healer at max level. Two of them, in fact. And I greatly enjoy healing in this game.

The added stress and responsibility is something I can totally identify with, as that's the primary reason I don't play a tank in groups. I leveled DRK through mostly squadrons and trusts. But that isn't because of group toxicity. It's because I just don't want the responsibility.

FFXIV is quite strict about verbal abuse. If this were some other MMO I could see where you are coming from, but I just haven't seen that here. Not to a high degree, anyway.

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I have to agree, I main healers as well.. never had any comments except for compliments. I have leveled tanks, and I am admittedly not awesome at them, but again, never had any rude comments or anything. I generally ran all of my jobs up through groups, msq's leveling etc, and never had any comments, so, all the stress was self imposed at my own appraisal of my performance.

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Originally Posted by PartyBarn

Fully skipping is bad because it requires you to sit in an inn or a house and watch everything with no gameplay

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This is the second time you've asserted this. It is False. There is no such requirement.

You can safely do a job+story skip to [currently] level 70 and see zero cut scenes before beginning to play the current expansion.

You can revert to New Game + in order to experience those story lines you may have missed that you want to go through (including the job quests).

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Originally Posted by Derio

Just pay 50$ to storyskip and level boost. Simple as that. Just dont complain about the lack of content when the main content of FFXIV is the MSQ

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Yep, just pay 50 bucks on top of the price of the game+expansion, and your sub fee. Then someone might have some fun with their friends!

Patch content is just as important to the story as the rest of the MSQ. It isn't less relevant just because you get less EXP out of it. Your level isn't supposed to be going up during those phases because you'd get too far ahead.

I think for many that it's basically the longest sRPG with light multiplayer elements is a huge win. That said I do think as the MSQ gets longer and longer, if they intend to keep the game going with frequent "at the end" expansions, that something might need to be done. One suggestion for that was an alternate start (optional thing). If one played the mods for Bethesda games you've got a pretty good picture. Starts you at a later point in the game, keyword being that it's an alternate start not a skip. I think the skips are generally a very bad idea for any new player except for those who truly understand what they're doing by taking that route and that's a difficult position to be in given you're new as so understanding what is being done is.. iffy at best. Skips I think have a decent chance to just throw someone at the wall really hard and they then bounce off and leave for another game upset that they spent extra money too. For those who've already played the game skip is fine though (second character, don't want to do the story again, sure sounds fine).

Alternate start would be something like imagine that cinematic of the WoL climbing through the mountains, maybe an avalanche comes down and knocks them out, they hobble forgetting most of their skills, making their way through the winter forest, a small smoke trail in the distance rises in the sky, suddenly the screen shatters in a localized space with Ultima's claw coming out and a line AoE appears towards the player, in slow motion the player learns to move AND move out of the way of markers, they dodge it, another claw bursts through reality (screen shatter) and they both fire off- less time to dodge (but still quite friendly, and they will finish animation quickly once you're in a safe area so you don't have to wait if you're quick to learn), then the claws rip the rest of the scene away revealing an arena, as you go through the fight you go through levels in a few phases (like you start at 25, and by the end of the cinematic you're 45), some important npcs voice over as you fight, adding both flavor and lore context, big move causes you to collapse, dragged off to the nearby hamlet (where the smoke, from a fire, was coming from). Awake small hamlet, some basic geographical content, some basic quests, explore the area a bit, hear some more voices as you complete quests, chocobo wail in the distance (lost your whistle but your boco is trying to find you), etc, make a journey to Ishgard, at the gates your boco is running to you with Aymeric (who your bird got help from), sit down tea, more back story, voiced, with opportunity to ask some more questions that provide further backstory (slides, short animations, etc, try to keep it not just info dumps), new quest to continue the MSQ, introduced to MSQ+ to visit your past when you're ready (some rewards left in MSQ+ to encourage you to go back), some quests to go learn important systems and side content (Golden Saucer, Glamour, etc).

Or another might be being inspired by FF7 Cloud's fall into mako. Memories of your friends, and events, playing out in small content snippets that are engaging, with this wild fantasy presentation, like you might remember an area but it's also clearly a dream as the world is rolled up into the sky (like Cid's dreamspace in presentation). I think you could even have one of the Ascians guiding you through it, like Emet (before ShB could be actually him, post ShB could just be one of the memories).

Nice part of these alternate starts is you can add rewards to them, in the context of whatever they are, and just open it up as a quest for everyone. Add it to the MSQ+ system so players don't stumble awkwardly onto this quest line, but it's there as content for everyone.

We are now nearly ten years in of MSQ content, so of course it is going to be long. If people really want to skip through there is a jump potion. While I don't agree with it's inclusion, it is there for those that don't want to play this game while simultaneously wanting to play the game.

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Originally Posted by Sotaris

There is a storyskip if you want to skip to current expansion. /endthread

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“Thanks for playing out game to level 80, but please spend $50 more to skip the required reading.”

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Originally Posted by Derio

Just pay 50$ to storyskip and level boost. Simple as that. Just dont complain about the lack of content when the main content of FFXIV is the MSQ

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The only content behind MSQ is expansion access and a few dungeons. Expansion Classes, post-praetorium raids, Eureka/Bozja, Collectables, Wondrous Tails, PoD/HoH etc. are all sidequest content the MSQ never leads you to.

I dare say if you cut out MSQ you got PLENTY of content.

I don't think it's any great secret that FFXIV is very much a game where 'need to get to endgame' is a horrible mindset to have. The first thing that's always front and center about FFXIV is it's story. It's a Final Fantasy game first and an MMO second. An RPGMMO as opposed to an MMORPG, to put it as Jesse Cox did in his video comparing FFXIV and WoW.

Yes, the journey to 5.0 is long, to 5.5 even longer. That's because this game is all about exactly that journey, not it's final destination. Starting this game only with 5.5 and getting there asap in mind is the worst thing you can do.

People are still free to do it however, the boosts for both levels and story skip are there and that's how the 'problem' being perceived here is handled. You either play the game as it's intended or you say 'nah fuck dat shit' and boost to get past it all. OP sounds like he wants for his friends the ability to have one's cake and eat it too, which I do not believe Yoshi P and team will be accommodating. They've already done a lot of trimming of the fat in arguably the very worst offender, post ARR.

My personal opinion? If Asmongold of all people, who absolutely no one thought would get through ARR and it's post 2.0 slog can do it, anyone should be able to.

My personal opinion? If Asmongold of all people, who absolutely no one thought would get through ARR and it's post 2.0 slog can do it, anyone should be able to.[/QUOTE]

Yup comparing someone who is getting paid for it to normal people who try it for fun completely reasonable..