Can't Access 3.0 until you complete 2.0-2.55

I don't have a link or anything, but I distinctly remember Yoshi-P answering a question involving being able to take our chocobo companions into dungeons with us, and he replied that while they had no plans to do that at the time, that he might consider it as a way to mitigate the issue of completing older content somewhere down the road.

Or, seeing as most content is rarely dynamic, it wouldn't be too hard for them to script NPCs for each role in a party and have them get added after a person or a group short 1-2 players has been waiting for a set amount of time, and only for content past a certain "age".

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Originally Posted by Red_Wolf

This is a general annoyance to me, but my biggest issue is:

The MSQ's from 2.1 to 2.55 don't offer any XP. So there is nothing the player is gaining until 3.0. Right now you're earning access to dungeons and new parts of the game. When 3.0 comes out most of that stuff will be old news and not worth it.

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You need incremental item levels for the primals, Snowcloak, and most importantly the Keeper of the Lake. That's enough reason to do the level 50 dungeons and Crystal Tower, at least.

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Originally Posted by Chevrefoil

LOTRO ran into a similar issue since they also required players to complete previous story arches before entering into new content...but they resolved that by simplifying some of the "group" content to accomodate smaller groups and/or the solo player. That may be a good option for SE to look at going into the future.

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They've said before that they're looking into it. I wouldn't worry too much.

It's actually hilarious how the only people here "worried" about new players having to do the MS are players who have already done it, and not any of the actual new players. If I had to guess, what you guys really want is an easy skip to get your alts up to Alexander... Raiding is a privilege, not a right, and like all things in this game, it has to be earned. Sorry.

Since this game is very story heavy, it makes alot of sense that new adventures can not enter Ishgard, untill they trigger the event that happens in the 2.55 questline. It sucks for newcomers, but they have the whole of the 2.0 content to enjoy, before they get to Ishgard.

Im mostly happy about this because it means i'll be plaing with people who actually do MSQ and content for the game and didn't just grind to 50. I have a few IRL friends who always talk about XIV but areeither like lvl 10-40 or think theyre just going to grind EX Primals for gear when they haven't even finished the story quests.

Im just glad I won't be be walking through Ishgard and seeing level 20 people running around.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

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Or they could just disagree with you and are genuinely worried about accessibility? Everyone involved in this argument has basically completed the MSQ so by the same way you find it funny that someone can be concerned about new players being gated, they can find it hilarious that you feel the need to block off content behind "story" to give yourself some imaginary status above new players. And yes, I used "story" in quotes, because SE has and will continue to make game play and story adjustments for the sake of accessibility. We all know SE is going to simply ignore that fact that there are going to be some greenleaf Au Ra running around after 3.0 launches. None of us are going to be affected by SEs decision, but let's not pretend that we are any better because we are on one side "lore rawr rawr" or the other "accessibility rawr rawr".


Do I think that new players should get to skip 2.1-2.5. Heavens no, the story is so tied into the plot of Heavensward that it wouldn't make a lick of sense. Do I think that some content shouldn't be gated behind it, it depends on the content. Heavensward is a 51-60 expansion pack to a story based game so anyone buying it should realize that they need to be caught up and at the appropriate level so I'm fine with dungeons and locations being locks. I'm a bit iffy when it comes to Jobs however.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

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They will probably raise the level cap in each expansion so there is no problem with that aspect.

The MSQ contained with each expansion will merely be used to help level to the new cap within the expansions content alongside unlocking content contained within that expansion during that level range for example the expansion dungeons, trials or raids and teaching the players about the world they are playing in.

Currently Umbral Era MSQ helps get you from level 1 to 50 and unlocks most of the dungeons, game features and such along the way. Astral Era MSQ unlocks more dungeons, trials and such plus game features on top of giving some very good quest rewards aka the materia IV's which benefit the new players a lot financially from doing them.

The expansion MSQ will help level players from 50-60 alongside unlocking new dungeons, raids and such plus probably more decent financial rewards and helpful gear from quests while leveling to the new cap. In the expansion which follows this one they will probably raise the level cap again and once more the MSQ will help level from 60-70, unlock lots of new content plus reward players with gear, gil and knowledge about the world etc.

Rinse and repeat for each expansion. There is no real problem here and no need to really be concerned.

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Originally Posted by Omegakiyohime

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I do believe you made up an argument from me to respond to, instead of responding to anything I actually said.

The developers are doing what they can to live up to this game's dual nature as both an MMO and a numbered entry in the Final Fantasy series.

It's an MMO, so they can't simply let new players skip the character progression that defines the MMO genre. End-game is not the "start" of the game, but merely a countermeasure in place to prevent current players from unsubbing after they've completed leveling content. Most new players aren't in a rush to get to level cap and "start" the game, so they'll be in it for the 60 levels worth of story content before they even hit that point.

It's a Final Fantasy game, so story has to come first. They're doing the best they can to keep the MMO aspects of the game tied into the ongoing story, with features being unlocked at the rate they would be in any other Final Fantasy game. I'm not sure why that surprises anyone, honestly.

Eventually, they may pull a XIII-2 and simply drop a massive spoiler warning on the latest add-on scenario, but there's no need to start doing that with the first expansion.

just saying, doing the Main Story Quest will become easier at later stage, why? because at some time, they will probably reduce the exp needed for level up. about the dungeon/trial, we will still have the duty it will not be really different of what we have soo far.... let's wait before say the new player will be screwed.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

I do believe you made up an argument from me to respond to, instead of responding to anything I actually said.

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I was responding to the condescending snipe that you made that anyone actually "worried" about new players was just doing so to level their alts as quickly as possible and raid. I agree with most of the things that you've said to an extent, but accessibility of content has been a goal for this dev. team and I really took issue with that snipe so I responded to it.

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Originally Posted by Omegakiyohime

I was responding to the condescending snipe that you made that anyone actually "worried" about new players was just doing so to level their alts as quickly as possible and raid. I agree with most of the things that you've said to an extent, but accessibility of content has been a goal for this dev. team and I really took issue with that snipe so I responded to it.

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In that case, I apologize. It was never a statement I intended for anyone to take too seriously, but then again, sarcasm and forums are like oil and water.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

In that case, I apologize. It was never a statement I intended for anyone to take too seriously, but then again, sarcasm and forums are like oil and water.

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I apologize for my tone as well, Fenral. You never really know on these forums and I could have stated my point/issue more eloquently.

This is a great way to discourage new and returning players who want to see the expansion stuff without dragging through other things.

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Originally Posted by Omegakiyohime

I apologize for my tone as well, Fenral. You never really know on these forums and I could have stated my point/issue more eloquently.

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It's nice to see people settle things in a mature fashion on here..

As for the main topic. I'm not really too excited. I'm a little concerned about any new players that happens to come.

Who skips the story in a Final Fantasy game? What is wrong with you people?

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Who skips the story in a Final Fantasy game? What is wrong with you people?

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People that play this game as an MMO, and not final fantasy..
You have 2 schools of people in this game, and they have different tastes.

I believe what they're trying to address is the possibility of new players being pressured into skipping the story entirely, were it ever to be handled as "optional." Lots of players, especially those new to MMOs, pick up FFXIV for the story. The MMO grinding vets can skip quite a lot already, but if the story were ever to become "optional," then there really would be a high risk of it becoming impossible to complete.

Try to look at it this way:

Making the story a requirement is, in essence, a promise from the dev team that new players will always be able to experience the story. This of course includes making adjustments down the line as the population balance gradually shifts over time. They have no way of predicting the state this game will be in years from now, so the last thing they want to do is start completely overhauling a system that, at the present moment, isn't in need of major adjustments.

I highly doubt any point raised in this thread hasn't occurred to the developers at some point. They seem to have some pretty sophisticated analytics going on their servers, so they'll be aware of shifting trends long before the majority of players are, and will probably have the required measures ready for deployment when the time is right, but not sooner.

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Originally Posted by Adelard

Heard that they auto level new characters in WoW, so you can play the new expansion. Hope SE never ever go down that route.

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10 years of expansions makes it make some sense, SOME, also you get one free boosted character when you buy the Warlords expansion (Level 90-100), and if you wish to boost any character after that, it's 60.00 each, they don't just auto-boost any newly made character.

That being said, it's one of the things that made me leave that game, and I, too hope SE doesn't do it ever XD

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Originally Posted by Ilitsa

10 years of expansions makes it make some sense, SOME, also you get one free boosted character when you buy the Warlords expansion (Level 90-100), and if you wish to boost any character after that, it's 60.00 each, they don't just auto-boost any newly made character.

That being said, it's one of the things that made me leave that game, and I, too hope SE doesn't do it ever XD

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Yeah it's just a really bad idea, as some people have worked hard to level their characters and a new player could just boost and skip all the old content. What were they thinking? I don't think they considered how it would affect current subscribers.

I personally don't have any problems with this. In fact, that's probably because I kinda expected this to happen, given the way the main story is going. How odd would it be to try starting directly in 3.0 content with no understanding (nor even going through) of the main story content from 2.0?

My only question is if we'll be able to march into the new fields anyway, with just the main story content locked out to those players, and still be able to explore the new fields anyway. I could see it being like an old school game for the lower leveled and geared players where wandering into a new zone results in being overkilled by monsters that you suddenly find to be way beyond you at the time.

But eh, all we can do is speculate right now.

I've been thinking about this topic a bit. As a returning player from 1.0, I have a boatload of main story quests to complete. I was going to do them at a leisurely pace, as I want to do some gathering and crafting. But I want to be able to pick up Astrologian as soon as possible, so I have decided to buckle down and get them done!

"Use the Duty Finder to enter [insert duty here]" is quickly becoming the bane of my FFXIV existence. I'll be going along my merry way and killing things and fetching things and BAM! There it is. I've got to be sure I have a good stretch of time set aside to be chained to my desk, and then wait about a half hour to start said duty. And I've just finished Brayflox, so that's what, only 20 more required duties to go? Ugh. :(

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the occasional dungeon, but I do not enjoy so many of them being placed as roadblocks in the ginormous chain of quests that is the main story.

in the story quest from 2.1-2.5 part 1, we do have soo far:
- mog hm trial
- leviathan hm trial
- ramuh hm trial
- shiva hm trial
- snowcloak
- and the keeper of the lake.

exept ramuh, the rest is often done by people, especially the trial, recently i have done it as dps for my nexus, at the main hours this trial had something like 30 sec to 1 minutes of wait time... this part are not the harder, actually all the fetch quest are more annoying than this part. since most of the time you get people over stuffed for do this sort of content.

New players will level in 2.0 areas. Relatively, it's "old" content to us, but to new players ALL of this will be new. There won't be a dearth of leveling players at launch either, considering we have 3 new jobs to level, all of which cover the holy trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS.

From a developer standpoint, for an expansion that matches or exceeds the content size of ARR launch is easier to accomplish when you don't have to accommodate the initial leveling phase since they already established that with ARR. All resources can then be used in end-game content creation (ranging from casual/mid-core/hard-core raids).

It could be argued that it's boring to have to go through old content to level the 3 new jobs, so I wouldn't be surprised if they added a handful of new content for leveling (but nothing in the scope of 2.0). But who really enjoys grinding to 50 anyway? Nothing is really learned until you gain the entire toolset at level cap; rotations/skill priorities change for arguably all jobs by the end.

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Originally Posted by Snugglebutt

The Astral Era quests not giving XP is not a big issue, they unlock a lot of content the new player may want to try from dungeons and trials, raids or such in the future...just like every few levels of the MSQ has done from the offset with Umbral Era and expansion MSQ will do. Don't forget a few of the Astral Era quests also give Materia grade IV which can net a new player a lot of Gil which alone makes them worth doing.

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You really think a brand new player won't get incredibly annoyed by having to do several hours of MSQ's for no xp?

It annoys me now. That'd be good xp for a secondary class.

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Originally Posted by Red_Wolf

You really think a brand new player won't get incredibly annoyed by having to do several hours of MSQ's for no xp?

It annoys me now. That'd be good xp for a secondary class.

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Those quests don't give EXP because 50 is the level cap. Once the cap raises, that will probably change.

This makes sense because you have to finish the story to unlock end game content. FFXI worked differently because the stories weren't like and had no impact on what was available to you other than unlocking a new end game zone. I'm glad SE chose this route for XIV.

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Originally Posted by Chevrefoil

My only concern here is as others players have voiced (****please listen SE!!!!!*****).....the dungeon/raid based content is going to become difficult to complete. Maybe not the dungeons since we'll have people leveling new jobs all the time, but CM/Prae/Westwide are really long queues on my server, which is quite busy, esp. if you are DPS. LOTRO ran into a similar issue since they also required players to complete previous story arches before entering into new content...but they resolved that by simplifying some of the "group" content to accomodate smaller groups and/or the solo player. That may be a good option for SE to look at going into the future.

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Didn't Yoshi state in a live interview that they were looking into making it so you could enter dungeons with your *own* grand company NPC that level up as you go along?

Problem Solved.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

They've said before that they're looking into it. I wouldn't worry too much.

It's actually hilarious how the only people here "worried" about new players having to do the MS are players who have already done it, and not any of the actual new players. If I had to guess, what you guys really want is an easy skip to get your alts up to Alexander... Raiding is a privilege, not a right, and like all things in this game, it has to be earned. Sorry.

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I have 3 characters at 2.50 right now and another 5 in between (covering various different jobs for lower level dungeons). I really only want my 3 'mains' at end game currently. Yes I have completed the *entire* (minus turn 9+) story 3 times already and loved every minute of it because that's what I personally like to do. My 3rd character just finished 2.50 2 days ago.

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Originally Posted by Red_Wolf

This is a general annoyance to me, but my biggest issue is:

The MSQ's from 2.1 to 2.55 don't offer any XP. So there is nothing the player is gaining until 3.0. Right now you're earning access to dungeons and new parts of the game. When 3.0 comes out most of that stuff will be old news and not worth it.

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That will likely change when the Expansion hits. The current Endgame content and quests will likely be good sources of XP for levels 50 to 60, minimum expected ilevel for Heavensward is likely to be i90 to i100 and i130 gear is supposed to be viable level 60 endgame starting gear.