Making the case for a new starting point in 7.0

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Originally Posted by Iscah

6.1 is still going to be a continuation of the level 90 storyline, same as ever, probably wrapping up loose ends in preparation for 7.0 to be a good recommended "skip to here" point.

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And you know it will be a continuation how? Considering how it wrapped up in 6.0.

From a recent interview, there is this.

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・ The concept is to deliver an adventure that goes to various mysteries as an adventurer again like when patch 2.0 started in adventure

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

And you know it will be a continuation how? Considering how it wrapped up in 6.0.

From a recent interview, there is this.

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I think it's going to be more of an interim chapter. Some short-form stories to tie off loose ends and get new pieces into place, ready for a larger story arc starting in 7.0.

Story skips always drop you at the start of a main expansion, so it makes no sense to put the first chapter of a new major story arc in the patch quests of the previous story.

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Originally Posted by JudgeRAW

You say its not endgame focused but we have 2 years between expansions which means there is two years of endgame. Maybe it isn't "endgame" focused but it certainly should be a priority

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No it shouldn't.

Assuming that Season 2 begins with a unique storyline divorced from Season 1, I see no reason as to why players should be forced to undergo over 100 hours of MSQ to get to the beginning of what is essentially a new game coming in 7.0.

1 free boost to the start of Season 2 for the job of your choice per service account seems like a perfectly reasonable option. The enthusiastic defenders of the game's story would do well to remember that this is moreso for the sake of convenience and they lose literally nothing from this option being made available to other people, who will ultimately engage with the game as they wish.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

The enthusiastic defenders of the game's story would do well to remember ...

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I am one of those enthusiastic defenders of the story, and that makes me want the "one free story skip" route over them trying to write two independent versions of the story depending on your starting point.

If people know they are skipping a chunk of the story then they are accepting that they've missed some things, rather than needing the game to behave like they've come in at the start.

As much as I believe the narrative MSQ is the fundamental aspect of the game, taking precedence over things like raiding, I don't think a single MSQ skip for one character per account would be a world-ending horrible thing come 7.0. I understand that some people won't want to go through ten years of MSQ to get to 7.0 and that skips can help mitigate that. HOWEVER; if people encourage their friends to play the game based on getting them into "end game" raiding; the new players are likely to be very disappointed at the pace of group activity release through the typical patch cycle. I actually see this harming the game over the long term as players coming from other end game focused games don't get what they expect and become disillusioned and get "actively critical" of the game, to put it mildly.

This will assuredly cause greater division and rancor between the Give Me More Endgame and This Game Is Story Driven Maybe You Should Find A Different Game crowds. I staunchly believe that people should play any game for what it is, not what it isn't. Players are at their happiest when they find a game that fulfills their design philosophy and content emphasis needs. We all have different desires from a game and it's up to we, the players, to find the game that suits us best, not to make a design team make major fundamental alterations to a game to have it suit our needs.

CBU3 are putting a lot of effort into making the game solo-friendly and have clearly stated their wanting to attract players interested in a single-player FF experience so I'm skeptical about the prospects of a free skip being given. If someone really doesn't care and wants to buy skips, they're available.

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Originally Posted by AlyaNimfa

WoW did this, aaaand look where they are now. That game is a steaming pile of crap.

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Yes, but that's unrelated... It's not because WoW did something and now it's a steaming pile of crap that that something is the reason why.

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

This is not an endgame focused MMO and they have given no indication they plan to turn it into one.

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This is an endgame focused MMO, like... every MMO out there. MMOs are the essence of games as a service, and games as a service are endgame focused because that's the only way you can give content to players.

What that endgame is, however, differs from one person to another. But, despite being a roleplayer, most people I know that have started the game since ShB have bought story/leveling skips for their first characters, and log in each day or so to do their endgame. For some, it's raiding, for others, housing, gathering, glamour or whatever. Not everyone wants to enjoy "the world of FFXIV", some just want to play Animal Crossing XIV, and yes, they're as legit as you, and yes, locking Animal Crossing XIV behind a paywall or hundreds of hours of story and leveling is a bad thing.

Not sure we'll get it any time soon, though.

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Originally Posted by Illmaeran

This will assuredly cause greater division and rancor between the Give Me More Endgame and This Game Is Story Driven Maybe You Should Find A Different Game crowds. I staunchly believe that people should play any game for what it is, not what it isn't, and find a game that fulfills their design philosophy and content emphasis needs. We all have different desires from a game and it's up to we, the players, to find the game that suits us best, not to make a design team make major fundamental alterations to a game to have it suit are needs.

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King.

Adding to that, my personal point... why would anyone care about what others are doing ? People that want to enjoy the story can, people that want to get to the endgame can. Everyone's happy.

You don't have to be unhappy about people being happy.

I don't have a problem with a new starting point personally but the starting point should be new and not an excuse to allow some to skip all the prior expansions. Those should stand alone.

The idea of the skips costing money is to discourage you from getting one and to convey "you are meant to do the story" because it's a story-driven game.

The idea of skips existing is so that if you really, really want to that much, the option exists.

If skips were free, some people would conclude "well the story must suck if they are letting us skip it" when that's not true and then they will not understand a lot of the content the way other people do and what is so cool about it.

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Originally Posted by Conundrum

No it shouldn't.

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Why? You don't want to use your level 90 WoL with all their abilities? Do you need the echo or unsynced content to appreciate FF14? Because I don't, and I want more content to play with my newly level 90 jobs, not more lvl 50 CT roulettes. I'm not even talking about raids here. I just want something to do that is not the expert roulette or EX/savage.