As a new player, I really don't want jump potions.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Regardless of all that fun though, what do people suggest (that are against potions) SE does when we get to say 7.0 or 8.0? Also how plausible for that solution?

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I'm against the potions but I'm not going to throw a tantrum if they add them. That said...

I don't know exactly how plausible, but I'd like to see them cut out all the side junk from the MSQ and just keep it focused on the main story. Could also possibly offer teleports to your next destination or something to cut out all the walking. For example, some cutscenes ask you to go to another location just to see another cutscene. It should just take you there.

Also, the MSQ alone should give enough exp to get you to 60. No hitting level 28, 36, and 48 and then having to grind. The quests should give enough exp to let you do the next quest.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

I'm against the potions but I'm not going to throw a tantrum if they add them. That said...

I don't know exactly how plausible, but I'd like to see them cut out all the side junk from the MSQ and just keep it focused on the main story. Could also possibly offer teleports to your next destination or something to cut out all the walking. For example, some cutscenes ask you to go to another location just to see another cutscene. It should just take you there.

Also, the MSQ alone should give enough exp to get you to 60. No hitting level 28, 36, and 48 and then having to grind. The quests should give enough exp to let you do the next quest.

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Reworking the MSQ to cut out stuff would require a massive amount of rework and frankly most of the MSQ is focused on the main story. Some introduced elements aren't obvious at first but they become relevant as you go further. The measure would be temporary since it would still mean expansions and patches of MSQ to go through to catch up. Right now we have one expansion and people have some trouble. What happens when we have 3 expansions? Even streamlining everything won't make it shorter than the existing MSQ is right now.

To overhaul the MSQ in the way some people suggest would mean dedicating a lot of resources that currently are spent on content for endgame players. That means to do this, endgame players would have to go without story content for a prolonged period of time as all the people who work on it would be going back and reworking hundreds of quests, cutscenes, narrative cohesion and questflow. This is why they cant do something like that.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

This is why they cant do something like that.

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Won't. Not can't. They can always hire more staff. Something they should have done years ago.

But yeah, why do that? Free money! People are more than willing to pay to not play your game.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Won't. Not can't. They can always hire more staff. Something they should have done years ago.

But yeah, why do that? Free money! People are more than willing to pay to not play your game.

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They have been actively hiring for over a year. Practically every live letter they invite people who are interested to apply.

I think you drastically underestimate how much work it would entail. To do it effectively and keep it high quality and engaging, they would basically have to go through the entire story, figure out what they could cut out, then figure out how they can work around that, then basically rewrite the whole thing, checking for consistency the whole way. Cutscenes would need to be modified and revoiced. Its not like they can just trim bits off and it will be as good as new just shorter. All of that is ignoring the fact that in two years time when the next expansion comes out any gains would have been lost due to the MSQ being even longer.

Without negatively effecting the story for new players and old players there is no easy way to do it.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

They have been actively hiring for over a year. Practically every live letter they invite people who are interested to apply.

I think you drastically underestimate how much work it would entail. To do it effectively and keep it high quality and engaging, they would basically have to go through the entire story, figure out what they could cut out, then figure out how they can work around that, then basically rewrite the whole thing, checking for consistency the whole way. Cutscenes would need to be modified and revoiced. Its not like they can just trim bits off and it will be as good as new just shorter. All of that is ignoring the fact that in two years time when the next expansion comes out any gains would have been lost due to the MSQ being even longer.

Without negatively effecting the story for new players and old players there is no easy way to do it.

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A lot of what you say would not have to be done. Why would they need to change cutscenes? They wouldn't be cutting any of the cutscenes out. I've gone through the damn thing a lot of times, there's tons of content that has no relevance to the main story at all.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

A lot of what you say would not have to be done. Why would they need to change cutscenes? They wouldn't be cutting any of the cutscenes out. I've gone through the damn thing a lot of times, there's tons of content that has no relevance to the main story at all.

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If you went through it all carefully you would be surprised how much seemingly unrelated stuff gains relevance later on. Someone or something introduced in that content, even in passing, is reintroduced and the prior introduction creates a sense of cohesion and continuance. There is also the fact that often the MSQ references events that happened during the MSQ prior and so they would need to assure non of them get in the way. One of the things I love about the story in this game is how it weaves world building and side elements into the story, sometimes setting up stuff way in advance. That needs to be maintained or the quality of the story drops. The whole little Ala Mhigo chapter really didn't seem particularly relevant at the time but it set the ground work for a character that played an important role later and it introduced us to the Ala Mhigans who's story is about to play out now. Stuff like this invests people into the story.

I am not saying that there is unnecessary grind, particularly in 2.1. However there were some quests that seemed pointless that actually had significant story beats. We are sent to hand out uniforms in one quest and that quest introduces us to a number of the Crystal Braves we will interact with later, including some from earlier in the story. A lot of people don't realise that at the time and just assume its a filler quest.

And all that is beside the point because 1 expansion later after doing that we end up with the exact same problem because a new player has to now clear ARR, ARR's patches, HW, HW's patches, Stormblood and Stormblood's patches, before they can even start playing 5.0 which will be another at least 50 hour story chapter, just to get to endgame. You spend a lot of money and don't solve the issue at all.

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

It takes 4-5 days of casual play to reach 50
It takes 3-4 days of casual play to then reach 60

If it's taking you longer to level than a casual player, I recommend reevaluating your free time.

Then again, it's fairly well known where Balmung's free time goes.

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Glamouring..it goes into glamouring~

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

A lot of what you say would not have to be done. Why would they need to change cutscenes? They wouldn't be cutting any of the cutscenes out. I've gone through the damn thing a lot of times, there's tons of content that has no relevance to the main story at all.

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Because those cut scenes tie to story content that may no longer exists. Take the Company of Heroes, for example. That story arc amounts to roughly 33 quests with varying bits of plot development sprinkled in between time wasting fluff. If the devs were to cut it all wholesale, they now need to rewrite the entire lead up to Titan to retain narrative cohesion. That is no small undertaking, especially when you consider it's not a one and done scenario. You then have to factor in what actually constitutes filler. I liked a good chunk of the political dealings in Camp Dragonhead but I know plenty of people who found it boring to tears. So what gets cut? Even putting all that aside, it's still only a temporary solution. When 5.0 launches, what do you trim down in Heavensward and Stormblood? Without a jump potion, you're asking new players to play through three full games worth of old content. That simply isn't a very enticing sales pitch. Hence why most MMOs moved away from gating content the way XIV does.

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Originally Posted by NolLacnala

It takes 4-5 days of casual play to reach 50
It takes 3-4 days of casual play to then reach 60

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Please define "casual".
I'll just use an example to show my point. There is two new players in my fc, both play very drastically different.
The first one has been playing for at least two or three months by now. She's a prime example of an actual casual player, playing only on the weekends, and is very invested in the story. She's online and doing story for about 10-12 hours every weekend and is still, after months, not completely done doing the MSQ.
Now the other player has been playing for maybe three weeks. He's finished the MSQ in about two weeks and he's been playing a few hours every day, just trying to finish it as fast as possible.

Now say you have someone who wants msq done asap, but he only has the time the first player here has, so he's only able to log in on the weekends. If someone who spends hours every day doing MSQ takes two weeks, your evalution is clearly wrong and that guy has to play for... well longer than he probably cares about it. And if you take another player: Just someone's friend who plays very casually and wants to finish MSQ to play with that friend. It's gonna be even longer if you actually play casually and don't have a lot of time. So jump potions are a pretty logical solution. You can either pay and get done with somethign you don't really want to do anyway that keeps you from enjoying the game, or if you care about the story and think it's the only real way you can enjoy the game... well don't buy it. But that's how you enjoy it. Offering jump potions caters well to the differnet kinds of players: Don't forget that people are different, kids :D

I don't think I have ever seen a new player, casual or no, clear the MSQ to 50 in less than a week. I certainly haven't seen any clear the patches and the HW story in 4 days.