The story is great, but it blatantly gets in the way of the rest of the game

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Originally Posted by Amenara

So they went in with a reasonable expectation that it would be a similar to every other MMO out there experience? I think you might be missing the issue.

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Maybe they should do actual research on a game before they play it to know if it's for them or not rather than just assuming it will be like other games they've played?

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I would rather just see players be allowed to skip it if they want once they reach max level for that expansion. They are spending enough dev time on reworking old systems when we could be getting more end game stuff.

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What end game?

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Maybe they should do actual research on a game before they play it to know if it's for them or not rather than just assuming it will be like other games they've played?

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There are some people that avoid trailers and stuff to avoid spoilers in movies and video games. So some people do not do this for that reason.

I am really shocked at how people that have already completed the MSQ don't want it to change to improve the new player experience. I will be honest if you replay this games MSQ frequently you are a masochist, cause it honestly is not that fun in any expansion. It is just simply a long story, which players can get with out actually playing through in the game already.

The best way to engage new players and keep new players is give them different options of leveling or experiencing the game. There shouldn't honestly be any reason why a player can't just buy the game and start dungeon grinding up to the current expansion. There shouldn't be any reason why some one can't just go spam deep dungeon or explore side content to level up to the current expansion. It is fine to have the story gate keep the current content, but it shouldn't gate keep old content, specially now that you have the unending codex on top of the unending journey inside the inn, and new game +. It is just gatekeeping to think players should have to be forced to go through that slog unless they want to.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

What end game?

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This is another problem as to why player retention goes down after a month or two of the expansion launch.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

There are some people that avoid trailers and stuff to avoid spoilers in movies and video games. So some people do not do this for that reason.

I am really shocked at how people that have already completed the MSQ don't want it to change to improve the new player experience. I will be honest if you replay this games MSQ frequently you are a masochist, cause it honestly is not that fun in any expansion. It is just simply a long story, which players can get with out actually playing through in the game already.

The best way to engage new players and keep new players is give them different options of leveling or experiencing the game. There shouldn't honestly be any reason why a player can't just buy the game and start dungeon grinding up to the current expansion. There shouldn't be any reason why some one can't just go spam deep dungeon or explore side content to level up to the current expansion. It is fine to have the story gate keep the current content, but it shouldn't gate keep old content, specially now that you have the unending codex on top of the unending journey inside the inn, and new game +. It is just gatekeeping to think players should have to be forced to go through that slog unless they want to.

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To be fair, I can’t think of a single long open world story that I’d be interested in replaying again. The closest is something like Disco Elysium, but only because of branching narratives and content that you can be locked out of, neither of which would be a good idea to implement for 14.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Maybe they should do actual research on a game before they play it to know if it's for them or not rather than just assuming it will be like other games they've played?

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How much research are people supposed to do before buying a game? Are they supposed to read reviews? Watch gameplay trailers? Listen to randos on youtube tell them its the best game ever made?

If you are the kind of person that looks at maybe a few sources to get the general gist of the game and go ahead and try it out. Depending on where you look you may or may not get the feeling that you are gated from doing a large amount of content by the games story. You may or may not get the knowledge that you will be spending hundreds of hours playing the game before you will make it to the end of the "leveling experience" and be able to do the current level content.

It is pretty harsh to just say they should do "research" on a game before they play it, especially when researching a game is different to every single person. The MSQ is bloated and has a lot that needs to be cut to make the leveling experience for new players better as well as reduce/remove the gates the MSQ puts on a lot of content in the game.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

There are some people that avoid trailers and stuff to avoid spoilers in movies and video games. So some people do not do this for that reason.

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You just completley misinterpreted what I meant. You should do research on a game to understand what kind of game it is prior to playing it (like you would not play Life is Strange if you don't like interactive movies and wanted a First Person Shooter). What kind of genre it is, what is the game about? Anyone doing research into FFXIV would know it's a story-focused game and would treat it as such. The problem with people like the afformentioend is they do no research because they just hop on bandwagons and just assume they will like X game because it's currently popular and trending as this game is right now, and are then in for a rude awakening when they discover it's not.

Also, if they don't care about the story, why the hell would they care about spoilers? Looking into a game to know if it's for you or not has absolutely nothing to do with spoiling the story for said game and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.

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This is another problem as to why player retention goes down after a month or two of the expansion launch.

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Endgame focus is a cancer that needs to stop.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

How much research are people supposed to do before buying a game? Are they supposed to read reviews? Watch gameplay trailers? Listen to randos on youtube tell them its the best game ever made?

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Is this a serious question?

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Is this a serious question?

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No it wasn't. The point I was making in the rest of the post was that everyone researches games differently and depending on what you do you may not have any idea just how gated the game is behind the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

No it wasn't. The point I was making in the rest of the post was that everyone researches games differently and depending on what you do you may not have any idea just how gated the game is behind the MSQ.

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If you did even a semblance of research into this game, and especially if you are familiar with final fantasy as a franchise, you would know this is a story-heavy game from the get go. The real problem is people who hop on bandwagons and just want to play whatever is currently popular rather than finding the right game for them. Because that's why we have so many people coming in and getting filtered by the story. This game has been trending since last year and it's brought with it a wave of FOTM types who just want to be where they percieve everyone else to be. These are not the type of people to have patience for a story game in general. They are oversocialized idiots who just go whereever the wind is blowing.

Researching a game prior to playing it is an alien concept to them. All they think is "Game popular, I play game cuz that's what everyone else is playing!". The opinions of these cretins does not matter and they will not be missed when they are innevitably filtered.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

If you did even a semblance of research into this game, and especially if you are familiar with final fantasy as a franchise, you would know this is a story-heavy game from the get go. The real problem is people who hop on bandwagons and just want to play whatever is currently popular rather than finding the right game for them. Because that's why we have so many people coming in and getting filtered by the story. This game has been trending since last year and it's brought with it a wave of FOTM types who just want to be where they percieve everyone else to be. These are not the type of people to have patience for a story game in general. They are oversocialized idiots who just go whereever the wind is blowing.

Researching a game prior to playing it is an alien concept to them. All they think is "Game popular, I play game cuz that's what everyone else is playing!". The opinions of these cretins does not matter and they will not be missed when they are innevitably filtered.

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That's a pretty toxic mentality to have towards new players. I agree about people joining the FOTM train and we should be taking advantage of that by trying to hook new players into the game with better gameplay, a better way of telling the story and not forcing people into hundreds of hours of story just to play the entire game. The 1-50 experience in this game right now is abysmal and SE isn't fixing the problems with it. They are trying to make an MMO that is single player friendly without making the gameplay at the beginning more fun. It is even worse when a vocal portion of the community talks about how great HW is and how much better all the jobs are in HW, but new players have to push through 2 button gameplay for 20+ levels with rotations only getting marginally better through level 50. They have to push through a bloated MSQ in ARR to even unlock HW while seeing their jobs level going up and all the skills that are locked behind being in HW. Potentially they will out level HW and get no new skills for the 50-60 experience while still doing ARR content.

We should want to reduce gating behind the MSQ so more people can do more things and we should want to reduce the bloat in the MSQ to a minimum.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

That's a pretty toxic mentality to have towards new players. I agree about people joining the FOTM train and we should be taking advantage of that by trying to hook new players into the game with better gameplay, a better way of telling the story and not forcing people into hundreds of hours of story just to play the entire game. The 1-50 experience in this game right now is abysmal and SE isn't fixing the problems with it. They are trying to make an MMO that is single player friendly without making the gameplay at the beginning more fun. It is even worse when a vocal portion of the community talks about how great HW is and how much better all the jobs are in HW, but new players have to push through 2 button gameplay for 20+ levels with rotations only getting marginally better through level 50. They have to push through a bloated MSQ in ARR to even unlock HW while seeing their jobs level going up and all the skills that are locked behind being in HW. Potentially they will out level HW and get no new skills for the 50-60 experience while still doing ARR content.

We should want to reduce gating behind the MSQ so more people can do more things and we should want to reduce the bloat in the MSQ to a minimum.

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Not every game is for everyone.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Researching a game prior to playing it is an alien concept to them. All they think is "Game popular, I play game cuz that's what everyone else is playing!". The opinions of these cretins does not matter and they will not be missed when they are innevitably filtered.

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Pfffff the memes givith once again! The heck am I even reading? Filtered out.. :D

"FFXIV is all about playing it your way."

"No no not that way foul cretin!"

Perhaps they simply wish to play something that everyone has told them is good? Yeah I am done.

Many apologies OP if you are still perusing this thread. Grab many snacks for the blood sugar and power through until you can play the class you wish. Give Heavensward a chance it was actually pretty darn engaging or play through in the later times with New Game+ as others have suggested. Perhaps use this thread as takeaway about what occurs when you criticize FF14 story.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Not every game is for everyone.

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I agree, but we should be trying to make the game better so we have more people that do want to stick around and try out the rest of the story, to keep playing, and to add to the community.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

You just completley misinterpreted what I meant. You should do research on a game to understand what kind of game it is prior to playing it (like you would not play Life is Strange if you don't like interactive movies and wanted a First Person Shooter). What kind of genre it is, what is the game about? Anyone doing research into FFXIV would know it's a story-focused game and would treat it as such. The problem with people like the afformentioend is they do no research because they just hop on bandwagons and just assume they will like X game because it's currently popular and trending as this game is right now, and are then in for a rude awakening when they discover it's not.

Also, if they don't care about the story, why the hell would they care about spoilers? Looking into a game to know if it's for you or not has absolutely nothing to do with spoiling the story for said game and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.

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No I know exactly what you meant, and it is really just a petty excuse to say don't change the story or don't allow players to not do the story. Which is something that has 0 effect on your experience with the game currently. The genre of this game, is an MMORPG it it wouldn't hurt it to treat itself that way sometimes. Sure FF games are known for there stories but when you look at FFXI, it treated itself as an MMORPG while maintaining a rich story that was not forced. Once Again, the suggestions I have made do not prevent people from doing the story, and does not force players to play any certain way, it just opens options to new players which in no means is a bad thing. It is no different than supporting the trust system being added to all previous expansions as that allows new players to play the game as a solo experience and does not detriment other players experience. When games give players more options and more choices they become more appealing to a broader audience.

Also don't try to say the story teaches players how to play, even Yoshi P said it doesn't in the last live letter. Learning how to play is a decision one has to make.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

Endgame focus is a cancer that needs to stop.

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Everything after the MSQ is end game, so maybe they should just stop releasing patches, get rid of housing, get rid of glamour, roll credits, and put a sign up saying "the end see you again in two years".

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Originally Posted by Mirhd

Also, it most certainly does not take months to get to EW. Hyperbole much? I suppose it could if you play a few minutes a day, but that's a bit much to claim.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

Two or more weeks perhaps if are willing to "no-life it" as friends sometimes say. Highly not recommended if you are already experiencing the burnout as this is likely to make you quit.

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I made this character that you see as my new "lodestone main" around 2 or 3 weeks before Endwalker's original release date of Nov 23rd, did up to the Sastasha unlock quest and stopped and did other random stuff on my other alts until Endwalker released on December 7th, as I wanted to play the game from level 1 to max level as the reworked SMN because why not and also remake this character without having to spend 20 dollars on a fantasia and namechange.

I was planning on purchasing the expansion the 2nd week of January so I blazed through the MSQ as quickly as I could. I skipped every cutscene, every piece of dialogue, I sprinted everywhere, used mounts whenever available, had a friend of mine unsync every single MSQ dungeon and every single MSQ trial. I did around 30 to 60 quests per day, that's all I could stomach doing at any given day otherwise I'd have fallen gravely ill from all the MSQing and slumped over dead at my keyboard.

-With 164 quests in total, 2.0 took 5 or 7 days to get through. It would have been 2 or 3 days longer if the MSQ didn't throw so much exp at you that you become, on average, 5 levels higher than the MSQ.

-With 92 quests, which also includes the 4 mandatory primal quests and the 8 mandatory CT raid quests, 2.X took around 4 or 5 days to get through. Flight makes this part extremely quick to do. Without it it would have taken twice as long and would have caused me to question why I am doing this. Flight also makes doing the CT raid bearable. I did this without flight back when it was mandatory to do for 5.0 and flight had not been added in ARR zones and it was gods awful. It was the worst part of 2.X. Sanding It Down and A Performance for the Ages being the absolute most vile of quests to have to do with or without flight. Those two quests need to be reworked.

After completing 2.X I did spend time grinding GC ranks to start buying survival manuals to start speed-leveling Fisher through ocean fishing so I could cheese the overworld with stealth. Only took a day ocean fishing 4 times to get to level 60.

-With a whopping 94 quests in total, 3.0 was rapid. It took roughly 3 days to get through as the zones are enjoyable to coast around with stealth from Fisher and the quest pacing was alright.

-With 44 quests comes 3.X, same as above. Very quick and enjoyable to do especially with the aether current nerf. I admit I watched several of the cutscenes here.

Now comes, to me, the worst part about the MSQ, Stormblood. Whenever I have to do this expansion for my alts it makes my skin crawl. I would rather do ARR 5 times over than do this expansion's MSQ.

-With a 122 quest count 4.0 took around 7 days to get through. It was long, it was grueling and on several days I either didn't do any questing or did very little.

-With a 40 quest count 4.X ironically takes a long time to do. 5 days here.

I had failed my deadline thanks to Stormblood's slog. But I had finally reached the pinnacle of FF14, Shadowbringers. The expansion with the best pacing, the best story, the only expansion I watched every single cutscene on, prior to making this character.

-With 106 quests, 5.0 was quick work. Took 5 days to get through. Like HW it was enjoyable to go through even though I was speedrunning. Only thing unenjoyable was being forced to do the role quests again.

-With 51 quests, 5.X took 1 day to do.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

If you did even a semblance of research into this game, and especially if you are familiar with final fantasy as a franchise, you would know this is a story-heavy game from the get go. The real problem is people who hop on bandwagons and just want to play whatever is currently popular rather than finding the right game for them. Because that's why we have so many people coming in and getting filtered by the story. This game has been trending since last year and it's brought with it a wave of FOTM types who just want to be where they percieve everyone else to be. These are not the type of people to have patience for a story game in general. They are oversocialized idiots who just go whereever the wind is blowing.

Researching a game prior to playing it is an alien concept to them. All they think is "Game popular, I play game cuz that's what everyone else is playing!". The opinions of these cretins does not matter and they will not be missed when they are innevitably filtered.

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Big yikes. Super glad you're one of the ones that stuck around. :X

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Originally Posted by Faafetai

Most of this comes from the fact that many people have friends at end game. They don't want to sit in ARR for months they want to play with their friends where they are in the story. It is a consequence of coming late to the party. I still feel this way still being in shadowbringer while many brazillian friends are progging savage together and hanging out. While I can not be the fill in for their lack of tank, I am still stuck in post shadowbringer. It is a bit of a catch 22 because I take my time through the story, but if the option was there to unlock content and than enjoy the story at my own pace and still get to not be left out. I would do it. That is the reason at least personally.

Though I also don't believe people should rush to fast through leveling. Buying a jump pot will only leave many confused and the process of leveling is needed to get better acquainted with your tool kit. not just have a hotbar fill up with a million skills you have no clue what to do with.

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Your friends do have the ability to play with you at any level and level alternative jobs. Friends being at the "end game" is not the same as wow. Since we have the duty roulette, you would be going back through older content anyway, especially when the relic grind comes out, and you are rewarded for helping new players if your friends are not willing to play with you because of an arbitrary gap in progress you might need to get better friends. It seems they are more concerned with their progress than your well being.

I would add though that having the option for a sandbox experience in this game when creating a character would also be a good idea for those who do not like the story and would just like to level, craft, socialise etc.

Some people might not want to be the WoL some might just want to be an adventurer.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

If you did even a semblance of research into this game, and especially if you are familiar with final fantasy as a franchise, you would know this is a story-heavy game from the get go. The real problem is people who hop on bandwagons and just want to play whatever is currently popular rather than finding the right game for them. Because that's why we have so many people coming in and getting filtered by the story. This game has been trending since last year and it's brought with it a wave of FOTM types who just want to be where they percieve everyone else to be. These are not the type of people to have patience for a story game in general. They are oversocialized idiots who just go whereever the wind is blowing.

Researching a game prior to playing it is an alien concept to them. All they think is "Game popular, I play game cuz that's what everyone else is playing!". The opinions of these cretins does not matter and they will not be missed when they are innevitably filtered.

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So everyone that is drawn to FFXIV for other reasons than story or doesn't conduct a thorough research before is a cretin and idiot?
It amazes me how toxic people are towards others that dare to play a game for different reasons than them.

People give MMOs a go because a friend plays and recommends it all the time.
People enjoy starting a game blind all the time.
People enjoy different aspects of a game all the time.

But according to you none of them have a place here.
I know this will sound really, really crazy but... it's okay to not like the story. It's okay to not play FFXIV for the story. It's even okay to be annoyed by absolutely everything being gated behind MSQ. Someone saying "btw FFXIV is story-focused" doesn't mean you instantly have the right idea about just how much is locked behind MSQ and that it dictates your entire leveling process and takes hundreds of hours to complete, especially as a new player that doesn't play efficiently and gets lost easily.
I did enjoy the story for the most part enough to not be annoyed and it also helped that I've started in ARR and thus always did it in more bite-sized steps compared to starting with EW and getting hundreds of hours dumped on me at once.
But if I were to start now, I'm not sure I'd stick around. Not because the story is bad or because I'm an "oversocialized idiot with no patience" but because not having a choice in how I level and knowing I'm locked out of a lot of things for a few hundred hours would eventually drive me off. We're not in ARR anymore where MSQ lock is much shorter. We're in EW and the low level experience isn't terrible. I've replayed the story more than once on alts and I can see why many new players either drop FFXIV completely or take very long breaks because they just can't deal with it all at once.

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Originally Posted by Vryn

Your friends do have the ability to play with you at any level and level alternative jobs. Friends being at the "end game" is not the same as wow. Since we have the duty roulette, you would be going back through older content anyway, especially when the relic grind comes out, and you are rewarded for helping new players if your friends are not willing to play with you because of an arbitrary gap in progress you might need to get better friends. It seems they are more concerned with their progress than your well being.

I would add though that having the option for a sandbox experience in this game when creating a character would also be a good idea for those who do not like the story and would just like to level, craft, socialise etc.

Some people might not want to be the WoL some might just want to be an adventurer.

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They can join you for roulettes and the occasional MSQ dungeon but let's be honest: the vast majority of leveling is done alone because it's mostly talking to NPCs, watching cut scenes, having the occasional overworld mobs and solo duties. Sure, you can level an alt class and dungeon spam with them but that means pushing back MSQ even further and eventually stopping because you can't do any higher level dungeons.
The leveling process is very much a solo experience, as was intended by SE.
You can do bits and pieces with friends but it's not much. The friends hang out in different content for the most part. That's just the reality of MSQ-locking content.

I would love to have a "regular adventurer" route as an option though. I love this idea and it would go well with the overall theme of the game.
I don't want to be the WoL, the chosen one the whole universe looks up to and the solution to every problem. I'd be quite content with being just another adventurer.

We're just going in circles, and since that's the case, I don't see much point continuing. I'll just say a few more things and leave it here.

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

If you are going to shove words down my throat and misinterpret things I have said at the least take me out to dinner first. The least people could do is read my damn posts before hyper projecting into the sunset for the love of the twelve. I attempted engaging in cordial discussion until I hit my post limit but replies like this do little to make me wish to continue being cordial. Yall act culty sometimes. That is my opinion do with it what you will. Telling people to alter their mindset to enjoy something they clearly are not is.. creepy. Many apologies if that ruffles the jimmies? Amusing though how of alllll the things you could have replied to that I posted you chose that. Huh.

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Not once did I put "words in your mouth." Per your other post (not to mention the above) :

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Originally Posted by MiaShino

This Mia believes the problem with these types is that you are not experiencing the medium the way they did, the correct way. Sounds almost cult like if you begin dissecting it. "No no no you just require the correct mindset young initiate. Once you see things the way we do it will all become clear."

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You brought up cults, honey. I suggest you actually watch and/or read a few programs/books on cults by actual experts before throwing the word "cult" around so flippantly in an attempt to sound clever or deflect the arguments of another, as there's nothing "cult-like" in anything I've typed. That's also part of the reason I ignored your posts. The rest is that your "arguments" are just more repeats of what others are saying/have said, and that your tone is incredibly obnoxious. You may think you're being funny or cute, but you just come across as cringy and patronizing. Thumbs up if that's what you're going for, but don't expect others to engage with you in a sincere fashion when you can't be bothered to do the same.

Finally, telling someone they're coming at something with the wrong mindset is not "culty" what-so-ever. This applies to anything in life. Hypothetical scenario here. Say you're in grade school, trying to get on the track-and-field team, but you're only doing it because a friend is on and loves it but you have no real interest in it. It takes up a lot of their time so you don't get to hang out much, but you figured this could be another way to spend time together. You can either a) try to understand why your friend loves it, and maybe even begin to enjoy it yourself as a result, or b) acknowledge that it'll probably just frustrate you, forcing yourself like this, and endeavor to find some other way to spend time with your friend. Both are valid options. What isn't would be insisting your friend should stop doing it, or that the school should stop the program because you feel it "inconveniences you" in some way, which would also ruin things for others.

If someone wants to take this as me insisting skipping the story shouldn't happen... again, that's not what I've said at all. I even mentioned in the Alternate Start thread that I'm fine with people skipping as long as the narrative is maintained. What I'm not fine with is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

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Originally Posted by Cithaerias_pyropina

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Still isn't months, and it wasn't when I did it on new alts (such as my Viera during SHB), either, nor did I no life it. I also didn't think ARR was a drag when I started during HW, which was obviously before they streamlined ARR-post ARR, and I'm hardly the only one. I did feel they could cut some back and forth, which they eventually did, anyway. Helps that, unlike some, I don't think the game starts at "end game", which again, is the wrong mindset to have (This isn't WoW). That's lit throwing out a huge chunk of the game, which is just silly. Not directing this at you necessarily, but I'm throwing it out there since it applies to other posts as well.

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Originally Posted by Faafetai

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Won't go into this too much since I've already said my peace for the most part in earlier posts, so I'll just address one thing.

A lot of the "back and forth" was cut out, though, meaning you've just been referencing old information that's no longer relevant, so they're non-arguments. Further, the "team" thing is a strange complaint to make. You are still on a team, but part of being on a team means at times you'll need to split up or work in smaller groups to cover more ground before coming together to share information afterwards, which makes sense - it's more efficient than having everyone together in one place all the time.

If it wasn't clear before (I mean, I felt I made it quite clear), I don't have a problem with you, I just strongly disagree with your stance. Also, your English is fine, so don't worry about it.

I have to agree with the OP here. I joined about the same week Heavensward dropped, and had found a nice fc that was very helpful and fun. But they were all at endgame already, and when I found out about this alexander raid from them, I knew that's what I wanted to do. Badly.
It was at this point that the MSQ became this little story I could do while levelling other jobs, to the biggest roadblock I had to overcome if I wanted to have fun with my new friends.
And so I skipped it. I skipped the end of ARR and all of Heavensward. Not because they were bad, they are fantastic stories, but they were in the way. And I still don't regret it. I was able to enjoy my time with friends.

But with the game on its 4th expansion, new players experiencing this must be absolutley dreading how much they are forced to do if they want to play with their friends at endgame.

And saying "oh well this isn't the game for you, don't play it" is a pretty toxic and blatantly incorrect statement. A MMORPG is still MMO. They see the content they want to do, and will enjoy doing. it's right there! All their friends are doing it! That part of the game is exactly for them! But look at all this forced story you have to do first...

I've had multiple people I know irl quit because they saw a list of all of the quests they had to do to catch up to me, and decided the time investment isnt worth it. Most of them said the story was decent but it didnt grab them enough for it to matter. Despite all the people saying, "huehue this game isnt for you", and "have you ever played a FF game", this IS an mmorpg. I think the "this game isnt for you" comments make sense if, this game just had arr + HW. But now we have the base, and 4 expansions + all patch content, and even then your unlocks would be sparse after finishing msq so youd want to do some side content. It feels unreasonable to ask new players to undertake this to catch up to current content. If it wasnt, all of the people I tried to get into the game wouldve carried on playing. All of them wanted to play/raid with me, and loved playing MMOs.

One quit in ARR patch content, one at the start of HW, and another midway through ARR. My brother however cleared msq and levelled a few job to cap+ went heavy on fishing etc. However he's a lifelong FF fan, so that's the distinction between them. Even then he ended up quitting after EW anyway but thats a different story lol.

I think the best thing they could do for future players is establish a new optional starting point, at 7.0+ or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Lustre

I've had multiple people I know irl quit because they saw a list of all of the quests they had to do to catch up to me, and decided the time investment isnt worth it. Most of them said the story was decent but it didnt grab them enough for it to matter. Despite all the people saying, "huehue this game isnt for you", and "have you ever played a FF game", this IS an mmorpg. I think the "this game isnt for you" comments make sense if, this game just had arr + HW. But now we have the base, and 4 expansions + all patch content, and even then your unlocks would be sparse after finishing msq so youd want to do some side content. It feels unreasonable to ask new players to undertake this to catch up to current content. If it wasnt, all of the people I tried to get into the game wouldve carried on playing. All of them wanted to play/raid with me, and loved playing MMOs.

One quit in ARR patch content, one at the start of HW, and another midway through ARR. My brother however cleared msq and levelled a few job to cap+ went heavy on fishing etc. However he's a lifelong FF fan, so that's the distinction between them. Even then he ended up quitting after EW anyway but thats a different story lol.

I think the best thing they could do for future players is establish a new optional starting point, at 7.0+ or whatever.

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And I understand it's a kinda "journey not the destination" game, but it's worth noting that not every player is story centric, esp if they came from another more gameplay centric mmo. One of those friends just wanted to do cool raids and bosses with me. Another wanted to create an fc and do community stuff. Etc

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Originally Posted by Lustre

I think the best thing they could do for future players is establish a new optional starting point, at 7.0+ or whatever.

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They already do this. Today. It's called Tales of Adventure + One Hero's Journey, and costs US$50, unless discounted during a sale.

I don't have an issue with a new optional starting point at 7.0+ for an additional albeit lower-than-current price (say, US$15), without the gil reward. I imagine the complaints from long-time players about new players who don't know how to play rock, paper, scissors on their jobs will still abound.

Next time, tell your friends that ARR patch content can be skipped for US$11 by purchasing Tales of Adventure: A Realm Reborn once they hit level 50.

If your friends dislike story-heavy MMOs, they're not going to appreciate the leveling experience in any case. That's one of the reasons that there are a variety of MMOs, each with some modicum of success. That's why there are First Person Shooters and MOBAs -- different people enjoy doing different types of games.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

If your friends dislike story-heavy MMOs, they're not going to appreciate the leveling experience in any case

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I do agree that the last couple of posters sound like they would have been prime candidates for purchasing skips. I won't speak to their long term enjoyment of the game but if their current time enjoyment comes from doing the "end game content with friends" that's the quickest and easiest way to achieve that, and it is provided as an option.

I've been thinking a bit on the quoted point specifically though and I do think it raises a valid point as well. It's not necessarily just about The Story because it really is that the entire levelling progression process for a first character is based around the MSQ. Not that there aren't other ways to level of course as we always have extra jobs to level somehow but the general course of character progression does run straight through the MSQ. If SE completely detached the story from the progression then we'd largely be left with a fairly hollow levelling experience. I can understand someone being discouraged by the amount of story to play through to get to "end game" if they're just starting out new, but I'm not really sure they'd be more encouraged by being told "Okay, just do your dailies/weeklies and grind dungeons/FATEs for a couple of months and you'll be able to play with us!" any more. At least the story can be clicked through and the cutscenes can be skipped in a way that the grind can't.

In any case, I do think the best thing for SE to do at this point is find some way to create an alternate starting point, which is something they are clearly thinking about as YoshiP himself has mentioned as much.

I agree with the OP. I remember those 50 60 70 80 points. I called them the LIMBO. U get virtually 0 XP. U need to grind through DOZENS of quests, cutscenes, and dialogue. Good lord. Even if u fast track everything, it takes many, many hours. Ugh.

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Originally Posted by Rilifane

So everyone that is drawn to FFXIV for other reasons than story or doesn't conduct a thorough research before is a cretin and idiot?
It amazes me how toxic people are towards others that dare to play a game for different reasons than them.

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No, I mean people who don't do any research on a game before they play it and just assume it'll be like other games they've played should not be surprised when it turns out it is not what they want. You have agency, as a consumer, to do a basic level of research into a product you're spending your money on before buying it. Almost anyone could tell you this is a story-focused game and if that is a deal breaker, than you shouldn't play it. My point was there has been a recent surge of FOTM players who just go whereever the percieve the majority of other consumers are going and don't consider if a game is for them or not, and they have been filtered en masse by this game's heavy focus on story. But it's not like they would've stayed either way as these are the same type of people to immediately drop a game once other people/their favorite streamers move to the next FOTM. Hence why their opinions don't matter, they're like a locust swarm for games, not long term players.

But yeah, don't just buy a game you did no research on then complain when you find out it's not for you.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

No, I mean people who don't do any research on a game before they play it and just assume it'll be like other games they've played should not be surprised when it turns out it is not what they want. You have agency, as a consumer, to do a basic level of research into a product you're spending your money on before buying it. Almost anyone could tell this is a story-focused game and if that is a deal breaker, than you shouldn't play it. My point was there has been a recent surge of FOTM players who just go whereever the percieve the majority of other consumers are going and don't consider if a game is for them or not, and they have been filtered en masse by this game's heavy focus on story. But it's not like they would've stayed either way as these are the same type of people to immediately drop a game once other people/their favorite streamers move to the next FOTM. Hence why their opinions don't matter, they're like a locust swarm for games, not long term players.

But yeah, don't just buy a game you did no research on then complain when you find out it's not for you.

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Their opinions do matter though. It's absolutely ridiculous to expect new players to go through all this story content to actually be able to get to the parts they want to play, regardless if they did their research or not. Look at ESO, players can do any zone and any expansion whenever they want. Sure, they can just go play that game if they want, but the point is that this is an issue that will just keep getting worse as the game continues (and it's already really bad now). Whether they are people who researched every inch of this game before buying, or a "FOTM" player, all opinions are valid especially when it comes to a huge one and done time sink that the MSQ is for them.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

So, I've been playing this game for the last two weeks about. I've owned it for longer than that, but never really got into it until some friends told me they were really enjoying it so I resubscribed and gave it another shot.

For the most part I've been having a lot of fun, but I have run into a problem that really annoys me: The way the main quest gates access to the expansions makes your progress grind to a complete halt in an obnoxious way at several points of the game.

For example, the ARR storyline has 80 (!!!) quests in a row at the end of it that are all level 50. I understand that this made sense when these quests were released episodically with game updates when the max level was 50, but from the perspective of a new player it's absolutely ridiculous.

You can't make any real progress on any classes you have at 50 with those quests.

You can't use the quests to level other classes up to level 50 either, because they are too low level to do them.

The only thing you can do is just accept the fact that the game randomly completely stalls out your progress until you've completed the quest chain.

The same thing happens at level 60, 70 and 80 again.

This is honestly the only thing in this game for me so far that has stuck out as a genuinely negative experience.

I enjoy the story, but I also enjoy leveling up and exploring other aspects of the game. I want to get to the content my friends are playing. Suddenly the story goes from being something I was enjoying at my own pace to something that is blatantly getting in the way of me accessing the other content. It takes a lot of the fun out of of the story when you feel pressured to just grind through it to be allowed to access the rest of the game.

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go play fortnite then

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

No, I mean people who don't do any research on a game before they play it and just assume it'll be like other games they've played should not be surprised when it turns out it is not what they want. You have agency, as a consumer, to do a basic level of research into a product you're spending your money on before buying it. Almost anyone could tell this is a story-focused game and if that is a deal breaker, than you shouldn't play it. My point was there has been a recent surge of FOTM players who just go whereever the percieve the majority of other consumers are going and don't consider if a game is for them or not, and they have been filtered en masse by this game's heavy focus on story. But it's not like they would've stayed either way as these are the same type of people to immediately drop a game once other people/their favorite streamers move to the next FOTM. Hence why their opinions don't matter, they're like a locust swarm for games, not long term players.

But yeah, don't just buy a game you did no research on then complain when you find out it's not for you.

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Originally Posted by Lily_Skye

go play fortnite then

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Do people not even read the OPs post before they shoot off with their toxic mentality? They literally said they enjoy the story, enjoy playing the game, and are having fun. All they want is the MSQ to not gate so much in the game. It is a very valid complaint and I think they are 100% correct, it is one of the biggest problems with the new player experience.

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Originally Posted by splinter1545

Their opinions do matter though. It's absolutely ridiculous to expect new players to go through all this story content to actually be able to get to the parts they want to play, regardless if they did their research or not.

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What if.


WHAT IF

The story is the content people play the game for? And the story getting longer and longer is only more content for those players and thereby not a bad thing? It's like complaining about a TV show going on too long "Man if I want to get to the latest season I gotta watch all these other seasons first!".

Your entire problem is you see the story, along with all other content prior to "Endgame" (whatever that even is in your mind) as an obstacle. This is the way the game is. This is what it's about. If you don't like it, PLAY ANOTHER GAME and stop trying to change the game to suit what you want. You are not being forced to play this game. You CHOSE to play this game out of countless other MMOs. You have no excuse.

I am so sick of these FOTM kiddies and narcissists who think every game should cater to them and cannot accept the existence of niches that cater to a more limnited, but specific pool of people. They can either buy a skip, just speedrun the MSQ and skip all the cutscenes, or play another game better suited to their interests.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

What if.


WHAT IF

The story is the content people play the game for? And the story getting longer and longer is only more content for those players and thereby not a bad thing? It's like complaining about a TV show going on too long "Man if I want to get to the latest season I gotta watch all these other seasons first!".

Your entire problem is you see the story, along with all other content prior to "Endgame" (whatever that even is in your mind) as an obstacle. This is the way the game is. This is what it's about. If you don't like it, PLAY ANOTHER GAME and stop trying to change the game to suit what you want. You are not being forced to play this game. You CHOSE to play this game out of countless other MMOs. You have no excuse.

I am so sick of these FOTM kiddies and narcissists who think every game should cater to them and cannot accept the existence of niches that cater to a more limnited, but specific pool of people. They can either buy a skip, just speedrun the MSQ and skip all the cutscenes, or play another game better suited to their interests.

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It's not why I play for and I've played since HW. The story has been a snoozefest for two out of the four expansions we've had, so I'll admit to trying to blitz through it. If Ii wanted purely story, I'd play a more carefully constructed singleplayer RPG. Like FFVI.

So, with me not enjoying the story, clearly not being a "FOTM kiddie", I guess I just have to be a narcissist because I think the story is a bit too obtuse in gating gameplay. Cool. You sound very even-handed and reasonable and not at all a blithering banshee with more fangs than brains.

I'll stop being coy: You're an elitist and you're one in an ultra casual game. Calm the hell down. This is as much "their game" as it is "yours". You don't own anythinig. You're not privy to dev team project direction. You're barely a drop in the ocean. So take deep breaths, sit down, and be another catgirl in the ocean of catgirls since you're apparently so keen on being special.

EDIT: Also lmao. Thinking this game isn't going for mass appeal since ShB. You don't pay attention too good.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

All they want is the MSQ to not gate so much in the game.

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Then, as I said, they should be going into the game fully aware that's the way it is. They can skip the story if they don't want to do it. Beyond that, what more do you want? This is not like many story games where you can't even skip cutscenes (not even on second playthroughs). The only cutscenes forced on your is Praetorium, beyond that a player who isn't interested in the story can just press ESQ and click "Skip Cutscene" from the moment they log in. There's many people who play the game and have never done the story and don't complain because it ISN'T completely forced upon them, but they still accept the story ties into the game and a lot of content is going to revolve around that leaving them not as much to do as opposed to less story-focused games.

Again, I repeat, just play another game. Why can you not accept this as an answer? There is nothing wrong with catering to a niche audience, going for mass-appeal and trying to be like every other MMO is not necessarily the right move and I'd strongly rather they did not, and it's certainly not how the game became as popular as it has.

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Originally Posted by BrokentoothMarch

So, with me not enjoying the story, clearly not being a "FOTM kiddie", I guess I just have to be a narcissist because I think the story is a bit too obtuse in gating gameplay. Cool. You sound very even-handed and reasonable and not at all a blithering banshee with more fangs than brains.

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No but feel free to think that. Nothing wrong with not caring about the story, lots of people don't. I bought boosts for most of the jobs I play because I think leveling alts is a slog and 90% of job quests were clearly written by unpaid interns or they certainly have the quality of being so, so I don't care to go through them. I just wanted to play those jobs for gameplay / glam. However, outside of making arguments for making leveling alts not so much painfully slow (which just encourages buying boots, working as intended though I guess), I accept that my options (since job quests give you a number of your abilities) that I either bought a boost or went through those quests to level up and get all my abilities. I'm not complaining about it.

You don't seem to be able to understand what I'm saying, there is nothing wrong with not giving a dam about the story and playing the game for other things. Just don't complain that the game is not catering to you primarily and likely never will.

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Originally Posted by Tychonius

I want to get to the content my friends are playing.

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If you mean endgame, there's barely any of it, and if your friends won't play the content you are at with you, then I'm not sure why you need to rush to play with them. That's pretty lame and one-sided of them, I say.

Don't rush, the game is about the story and there's barely anything to do at endgame in comparison, if you want to play with your friends there's nothing stopping them from joining you for roulettes or the content that you are actually able to access.

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Originally Posted by StriderShinryu

I've been thinking a bit on the quoted point specifically though and I do think it raises a valid point as well. It's not necessarily just about The Story because it really is that the entire levelling progression process for a first character is based around the MSQ. Not that there aren't other ways to level of course as we always have extra jobs to level somehow but the general course of character progression does run straight through the MSQ. If SE completely detached the story from the progression then we'd largely be left with a fairly hollow levelling experience. I can understand someone being discouraged by the amount of story to play through to get to "end game" if they're just starting out new, but I'm not really sure they'd be more encouraged by being told "Okay, just do your dailies/weeklies and grind dungeons/FATEs for a couple of months and you'll be able to play with us!" any more. At least the story can be clicked through and the cutscenes can be skipped in a way that the grind can't.

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This is a really solid point. They can tie so much into the story because the story is the main way to level your first class. I've even heard instances where people out-level the story on Road to X servers or if they stick to all the story and side quests on a single class. And if they did just say "Okay story's not required" then those new people would be stuck with the much-less-effective alternate grinds for leveling instead of the story custom-made to get them to the right levels for content. Which means they could end up in an even worse position.

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Originally Posted by Amenara

Do people not even read the OPs post before they shoot off with their toxic mentality? They literally said they enjoy the story, enjoy playing the game, and are having fun. All they want is the MSQ to not gate so much in the game. It is a very valid complaint and I think they are 100% correct, it is one of the biggest problems with the new player experience.

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Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Am I reading your suggestion correctly here? The answer is to, quite literally, rewrite the entire game to resolve the problems some new players have with content being gated behind the MSQ? How about we do away with the MSQ entirely? That'd certainly mean a much quicker run up to the so-called "End Game" so that people can enjoy two months of content every couple of years. And, while they're at it, they may as well remove all the earlier patch end-game content, since it's no longer current. Dungeons too. That'd certainly resolve the issue.

Yeah, it's a ridiculous read of the OP, and your comment, but it would certainly take care of the "New Players hate slogging through 8 years of content" argument that keeps cropping up. Of course, at that point I'd expect most of the playerbase to bail.

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None of us can see any sort of retention/exit data, but the fact that SE bothered taking the time to rework ARR should be a clue that there is some concern over the MSQ and the player experience.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

None of us can see any sort of retention/exit data, but the fact that SE bothered taking the time to rework ARR should be a clue that there is some concern over the MSQ and the player experience.

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While not completely accurate, Steam's player count can give you a general idea on how well the population is holding up.

December 2021(EW Release): AVG players: 53,729.2.....Peak Players: 95,102
March 2022(Content Lul): AVG players: 17,937.2....Peak Players: 29,126
Last 30 Days(Patch 6.1): AVG Players: 24,552.6.....Peak Players: 54,905

It's great that SE is bothering to fix the mess that is ARR/MSQ experience, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the endgame (or lack thereof) if they want to keep players around.

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Originally Posted by YukikoKurosawa

What if.


WHAT IF

The story is the content people play the game for? And the story getting longer and longer is only more content for those players and thereby not a bad thing? It's like complaining about a TV show going on too long "Man if I want to get to the latest season I gotta watch all these other seasons first!".

Your entire problem is you see the story, along with all other content prior to "Endgame" (whatever that even is in your mind) as an obstacle. This is the way the game is. This is what it's about. If you don't like it, PLAY ANOTHER GAME and stop trying to change the game to suit what you want. You are not being forced to play this game. You CHOSE to play this game out of countless other MMOs. You have no excuse.

I am so sick of these FOTM kiddies and narcissists who think every game should cater to them and cannot accept the existence of niches that cater to a more limnited, but specific pool of people. They can either buy a skip, just speedrun the MSQ and skip all the cutscenes, or play another game better suited to their interests.

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You are calling people narcissist, while saying everyone should view the story the same way I do. That is a horrible take buddy.

I don't think there is any reason in 2022, if some one were to pick this game up, did not want to do the story or care about the story to require them to do the story up until the current expansion. There should be an option to level up other ways if you choose to. The key thing is giving players a choice, with out paying a stupid amount of money to do it.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I don't think there is any reason in 2022, if some one were to pick this game up, did not want to do the story or care about the story to require them to do the story up until the current expansion. There should be an option to level up other ways if you choose to.

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it's called the cash shop. You can buy your way to the tier before current RIGHT NOW! There's the option!