100+ old quests to access expansion content...?

A quick google search would of turned up the fact that you have to do the main story quests to access the expansion? I like to learn a little about the world I am playing in before I start playing it. Don't blame others because of your incompetence

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Originally Posted by zbtiqua

Sure it would, it would literally work. The complaints you have about the specifics are easily written away. It wasn't the king, it was the pope. He never usually leaves, but he had to for xyz reasons. If you don't like the dragon attack substitute for anything: foiled assasination plot, resembled a foretold prophecy hero, provided critical resources, etc etc.

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But your suggestions (or any of the possible variations, of which I'd agree there are many) are just ways to simplify the story so it wouldn't take as many quests to tell it. That might sound fine to someone who doesn't like story anyway, but it would be a horrible thing to do to everyone who does like storytelling in their games.

A great many of the people here are playing this game because we're avid fans of the entire Final Fantasy franchise and the rich stories told through these games. We want intricate involved plotlines with well developed characters in a richly detailed political environment. Taking a rich involved story and instead replacing it with something so simple that it could be told quickly in just a few quests would be robbing the game of the very thing that makes it worth playing.

That would not only drive their core audience of FF fans away from this game, but could endanger the sales of future games in the franchise as well. The Final Fantasy franchise is far too important to Square Enix to endanger it like that just in case they might pick up a few extra fans of generic MMOs with minimal plots. It's unlikely that they'd pick up enough long-term players to replace the ones they'd lose.

Well you are going to be really upset once you get to ishgard and find out you have 30 more hours of story before you get to endgame then... so you still won't be able to do any content with your friends. Perhaps they should just start people at level 60 and you can just skip the entire story?

Honestly the journey to end game is the best part. Once you get there the real monotony begins. If you think the patch stories are unnecessary wait until you try and get a relic. =D

I think perhaps this might not be the game for you. Or maybe it is. Who knows. Either way you still have a long way to go and an even longer way after that if you plan on doing extreme level and savage content. Good luck.

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Originally Posted by gilgetr

A quick google search would of turned up the fact that you have to do the main story quests to access the expansion? I like to learn a little about the world I am playing in before I start playing it. Don't blame others because of your incompetence

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Hey now, no need to throw that around. It's impatience, not incompetence ;)

@ OP. I can see where you're coming from, even if I disagree with it. As others have stated this is first and foremost a Final Fantasy title, where lore is an important part of the story. I ALWAYS play games for their story, whether an MMO or not. Others not so much and I can't understand why, which is the point a lot of others are trying to bring up. We can't understand WHY you wouldn't want to progress through the story. FF14 has a very good story so I could never imagine skipping it. If you're in FF14 just for progression and raiding, FF14 really is not the game for that. You already have a group of friends you do that with, which is great, but what happens when you are finished with that? There really is not much in terms of progression in FF14 and it honestly does not take much time to complete what raids it has as they are largely scripted fights. My FC just finished going through Coil raids not for any fancy loot or some such but to experience the closing of that part of the story (which was great BTW, it close a lot of doors).

As an example, there are several games that I tried to get into before I came to FF14 but I simply couldn't. The story was lacking. Even in WOW I could only last a year, even if I was playing with friends from work. Once I was all caught up on the story, I didn't have much else to do. Playing a game just to experience raiding once a week isn't my thing. That was back in WoLK days. I haven't been back since as the demographic that WOW seems to focus on doesn't interest me.

self-entitled brats are at it again. :(

They can't "write an alternate explanation" as that would make half the story not make sense in Heavensward. Why you go to ishgard is directly linked to what happens at the end of 2.55 and that story continues into Heavensward. By you saying that you completed the msq and still dont find the story as a proper reason....you most likely didnt finish the main quest line and are just saying that to be an idiot.

Everyone here saying lore reasons has already been proven wrong by the devs themselves.

4.0 will not require the completion of HW to enter, you will be given a brief summary of HW and you are on your way to new content.


This exact thing could have been done for ARR<HW. This was an unintentional oversight by devs, not something they did for lore reasons and the fact that they have adressed this and stated it will not be the case anymore for future expansions only proves this

How the hell did you get to 50 and have 100+ quests left. They're like the fastest way to level now and you get EXP for them if you have the expansion.

Honestly. Too bad. Casuals need to quit crying. It's a fucking FINAL FANTASY game. If you're not here for story than you should probably play LOL or some crap.

Casuals have ruined everything in MMO gaming.

Go play your instant gratification in WoW. Skip wat little story there is an buy an instant level to max.

He'll casuals have ruined everything in RPG gaming in general.

Dragon age was amazing. Dragon age 2 was a complete fucking joke dumbed down fr the mindless casuals.

These people refuse to play games like league of legends when that's exactly what they want them to become. Mindless instant gratification Epeen flexing garbage

If anything with how slow updates come out I WISH I could go back and experience ALL of the quests in order, non stop without 3 months inbetween all the story. And these people complain about it

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Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

These people refuse to play games like league of legends when that's exactly what they want them to become. Mindless instant gratification Epeen flexing garbage

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You want some more salt?

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Originally Posted by LeeraSorlan

You want some more salt?

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Only if you got pepper

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Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

Only if you got pepper

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Pepper cost extra

In all seriousness though. With the 00s kids getting into gaming, the quality of video games as an art medium has been in serious decline in the past 5 years.

Trends in Asia are moving towards mobile markets and casual games.

Game systems are being constantly dumbed down. Not streamlined
but literally dumbed down.

Story is being traded for flashy graphics. Complexity for simplicity.

Look at dragon age 2. You cant even equip party members because people found it too complex to manage.

WoW did away with the skill tree to "simplify" things.

Metal Gear Solid V, Destiny both look great and play great but lack any actual depth.

Most gamers would rather play minecraft than experience any real story telling art.

I thought in 20 years we would have hyper realistic games. Virtual reality. Meaningful stories and expressions of art but all I see is buy to win cheat codes and gimmicks.

But catering to the lowest common denominator as shown with garbage like candy crush, angry birds and flappy bird have shown to make as much money, if not more than triple A titles.

It's like the movie industry. Every once in a while something beautiful comes out and because it doesn't have explosions, sex, teenage romance... It has depth that people can't understand, the masses hate it.

More people legitimately love Justin bieber than any other musical artist in history. Again more garbage that caters to a dumbed down society that accepts and actually wants to be stupid and spoon fed.

Art is dead.

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Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

More people legitimately love Justin bieber than any other musical artist in history. Again more garbage that caters to a dumbed down society that accepts and actually wants to be stupid and spoon fed.

Art is dead.

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Guess its more of a generation changing rather than art being "dead". I can agree with you somewhat because i enjoyed games way back on nes ps1 etc more than i do now.

But its changing, in 30 years, the people who grew up in this era will look back and say this was art and whats happening in their time in 30 years is crap.

You should have looked into it before purchasing? SE has announced for months before release that the MSQ of 2.X would need to be completed to gain access to HW, which if you would follow the end of 2.X leads up to the beginning of Heavansward, it's all part of the storyline really. All of us have had to do it, granted some players do not like to read, that's why they added skip option...
@ Kelu, you could actually edit your post instead of making 3 or 4 in a row, lol
Casual.... Just kidding :P

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Originally Posted by LeeraSorlan

Guess its more of a generation changing rather than art being "dead". I can agree with you somewhat because i enjoyed games way back on nes ps1 etc more than i do now.

But its changing, in 30 years, the people who grew up in this era will look back and say this was art and whats happening in their time in 30 years is crap.

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It's only somewhat arguable.

What is inside red "art" now days is mass produced and monopolized by giant money sucking corporations. Art has soul, that doesnt.

XIV very much has soul but it's teetering between a fine line f what they want the game to be and what most of the paying players want.

Unfortunately development costs are astronomical for these games.

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Originally Posted by Maero

You should have looked into it before purchasing? SE has announced for months before release that the MSQ of 2.X would need to be completed to gain access to HW, which if you would follow the end of 2.X leads up to the beginning of Heavansward, it's all part of the storyline really. All of us have had to do it, granted some players do not like to read, that's why they added skip option...
@ Kelu, you could actually edit your post instead of making 3 or 4 in a row, lol
Casual.... Just kidding :P

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I would. It eats up my post count and is annoying but there's no edit option on the mobile site

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Originally Posted by zbtiqua

If this were a single player RPG, you would be right. Since this is an MMO, it's really more preference. I would not opt to skip the story of FF7 or FF8 if I was given a choice. Those are different types of games.

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I'm not going to bash you for not watching the cutscenes and reading the dialogue of the story as you seem to be in a minority of players that have no interest in story, but what I will say is that FFXIV's story is on par with stories from other FF games. It's not like your typical MMORPG game that has a weak story compared to single player RPGs. You missed out on a great story skipping everything, though you can still view cutscenes from an inn room. The story to me was fairly boring until around endgame in 2.0 and got real good in the last bits of 2.X story leading into Heavensward. Then Heavensward's portion of the story has been even better than 2.X.

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Originally Posted by LeeraSorlan

Everyone here saying lore reasons has already been proven wrong by the devs themselves.

4.0 will not require the completion of HW to enter, you will be given a brief summary of HW and you are on your way to new content.

This exact thing could have been done for ARR<HW. This was an unintentional oversight by devs, not something they did for lore reasons and the fact that they have adressed this and stated it will not be the case anymore for future expansions only proves this

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No it doesn't. That bit of the story isn't needed for 4.0 because it wasn't written for 4.0. It was written as a lead-in to 3.0 so of course 3.0 is the one that needs it. The fact that down the road they'll have another story that doesn't is completely beside the point. This specific story needs it for lore reasons.

For later expansions, SE won't have the luxury of knowing for a fact that everyone who gets the expansion also has the previous one. Here, since the previous piece of the story comes from the base game that's required in order to register the expansion, they do. So this is the only place that SE could put so much lead-in heading towards an expansion's story. All other expansions will have to provide their own lead-in.

Perhaps it helps to consider later few 2.x patches to be in essence 3.0 content. It just doesn't require purchase of the rest of 3.0 to do those prologue chapters. So, by that measure, there really aren't 100+ patch quests before accessing the expansion, because you're essentially already on the expansion when doing them. All later expansions will still need their own lead-in prologue quests that have to be done to set the stage for their later quests. The only difference being that you won't be able to do that lead-in part in advance like you can here, as it will have to come within the expansions themselves.

I literally started FF14 a month ago and I was initially frustrated with the number of quests I needed to do to get to Ishgard. That said, I'm SO glad it was a requirement. The story was so good, and I got so attached to the characters that it is what made me really love the game. I sincerely hope that there is some kind of story requirement going forward, the story is genuinely great and one of the big things that separates this game from other MMOs. If I had had the option to skip it I can guarantee that I would have succumbed to the temptation of impatience and missed out on the best MMO experience I've had since I can remember, and I've been in the genre since UO came out.

A side benefit is that some of the story missions you need to do to access Ishgard are not especially easy for a newbie (not hard granted, but definitely not a "push buttons till it dies" kind of experience) - kind of provides an artificial floor to player skill that I think helps the community greatly.

I recently decided to make a new character, and I have to say, one of the things I'm looking forward to most is enjoying the story again. Granted a story isn't everyone's cup of tea, and there are plenty of people who play just to enjoy the game. At best the only compromise I could think of would be opening Ishgard at level 30 for players, but even then, a lot of dungeons are gated behind MSQ content. Maybe allowing players to enter dungeons they haven't unlocked so long as they're queuing with friends might be a way around that, since a lot of new players want to play with their friends without doing catch up?

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Originally Posted by KeluBehemoth

More people legitimately love Justin bieber than any other musical artist in history. Again more garbage that caters to a dumbed down society that accepts and actually wants to be stupid and spoon fed.

Art is dead.

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I'm glad you enjoy the art and story of this game, and I wouldn't want to diminish that experience for you or others. That being said, forcing people to go through the old quests (as basically a pause to the game's progression) to access the expansion is simply a bad idea. It doesn't mean the art or story needs to be removed from the game. But, there are plenty of better ways to do it, i.e. incorporate this storyline into the leveling process, either in the ARR portions or in the HW portions.

In any case, it is clear that the dev's agree, as exemplified by their intention to remove these quests from requirements to enter future expansions. It's not about lore, it's about design and choices.

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

Just want to point out that 18% of people in the poll linked by OP want to visit Sharlayan in the next expansion after heavensward ... I guess that's what happens when you skip all the cutscenes >.>

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While I doubt you are paying attention to this thread anymore: TO be fair to those players, they might want to visit the actual Sharlayan area, which would be rather interesting.

So to see the basic problem with lore and story is, the Heavensward story begins with 2.3 when we begin to look at Ishgard and try to help them with the heretics. So basicly you are in the expansion story or just the prolouge since mid endgame of 2.x. All other expansions can start their prolouge from 2.0 endgame, lorewise. So there will be a prolouge wich has to level you from 50 to 60 to get in line of all the HW players and than start the new story from 60 to the new level cap. There will be tons of quest for all HW players they have to do and getting no reward for it. It's always dangerous to balance new versus old players in terms of addons and progresion.

The point is. If you don't like it then quit. Stop complaining about how the game was written, and the focus the developers are going towards.

4.0 wont require the 3.x content to be complete?

The story will still be tied together right? I have no idea thats why im asking.

I love the story and i want it to continue being awesome.

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Originally Posted by Nhadaly

4.0 wont require the 3.x content to be complete?

The story will still be tied together right? I have no idea thats why im asking.

I love the story and i want it to continue being awesome.

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We don't know yet, but I think they've acknowledged that what they did with locking 3.0 behind 2.x was a bad idea. I personally didn't mind since story is one of the main reasons I play, but a lot of people didn't like it.

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Originally Posted by Nhadaly

4.0 wont require the 3.x content to be complete?

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Not everyone who gets later expansions is going to have all the earlier ones, so in order to require 3.x content before 4.0, they would have to release 3.x content that does not require purchase of 3.0. That would be possible, and a number of other games have patches between expansions that are considered part of the base game rather than part of the expansion, but so far, SE is following a pattern where 3.x content is only for those with 3.0 as well. If that remains true, then 4.0 content cannot be based on it.

I expect that there will still be a significant amount of lead-in quests setting the stage for 4.0. Story-wise they'll need to provide a reason for moving on to wherever the next chapter is going to happen. Gameplay-wise they'll need to provide an alternate leveling path from 50-60 for those without Heavensward. The biggest difference between that and the later 2.x quests that were leading into HW would be that they'll come within the 4.0 expansion itself rather than being released ahead of time. (Whether there will be more or fewer quests in that 4.0 prologue section as there are in the 2.3 - 2.55 patches that led into HW remains to be seen.)

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Originally Posted by Ehr

I think they've acknowledged that what they did with locking 3.0 behind 2.x was a bad idea.

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Did they say it was a bad idea, or just that they wouldn't be doing the same for later expansions? If the later, I'd assume that has more to do with the issue of requiring content people don't have.