All Purchasable Copies of FFXIV Should Have a Level Skip / Story Skip

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Originally Posted by hydralus

I don't see why it should be limited to the start of an expansion. Just make an option to have someone be max level with all content unlocked and they don't even need to go through 10 levels of grinding/story.
"B-b-but-"
Look if they're not interested in the story why bother with making them chat to endless NPCs and skipping hundreds of cutscenes just to get caught up/unlock things?

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All content unlocked, but max level minus 10, so they do have to grind a little and get the general feel of gameplay

I honestly would personally much prefer if MSQ was completely unbound from content.

Honestly , they need to either allow you to skip sections of the story or massively bump up the experience

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Originally Posted by Solowing

Honestly , they need to either allow you to skip sections of the story or massively bump up the experience

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ideally for each expansion we get a general recap, few cutscenes summarizing most important things that we have done and you can skip that expansion. For all expansions aside from the latest.

We should just get rid of the MSQ altogether /s

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Originally Posted by Alicie

ideally for each expansion we get a general recap, few cutscenes summarizing most important things that we have done and you can skip that expansion. For all expansions aside from the latest.

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A thousand times this.
While I agree that the story needs to be experienced to fully appreciate what's going on, it's just too dang much and keeps compounding.

A new player who wants to join their friends has to run through 7 whole games' worth of story, hundreds of hours, and when they "binge" the content like that they also open their eyes to how absolutely dire 90% of the quests are.

"Talk to 3 randoms."
"Talk to 4 randoms."
"Go to a location and wait."
"Defeat 3 monsters."
"Go to a location and wait, then defeat a monster. 3 times."
"Watch 400 cutscenes with 99% recycled animations, especially the grab-chin-thinking and I-am-angry-and-clench-one-fist-and-the-camera-zooms-in-on-it ones."

One of my friends got to 5.0 and he was just done at that point. He was so dog tired of the MSQ that he didn't even care or know who this Emet guy was or why he fought him so he did the trial and quit the game.
He NEVER got the chance to do current content with me.

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Originally Posted by Kansene

A thousand times this.
While I agree that the story needs to be experienced to fully appreciate what's going on, it's just too dang much and keeps compounding.

A new player who wants to join their friends has to run through 7 whole games' worth of story, hundreds of hours, and when they "binge" the content like that they also open their eyes to how absolutely dire 90% of the quests are.

"Talk to 3 randoms."
"Talk to 4 randoms."
"Go to a location and wait."
"Defeat 3 monsters."
"Go to a location and wait, then defeat a monster. 3 times."
"Watch 400 cutscenes with 99% recycled animations, especially the grab-chin-thinking and I-am-angry-and-clench-one-fist-and-the-camera-zooms-in-on-it ones."

One of my friends got to 5.0 and he was just done at that point. He was so dog tired of the MSQ that he didn't even care or know who this Emet guy was or why he fought him so he did the trial and quit the game.
He NEVER got the chance to do current content with me.

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u forgot fancy Escort mechanics, introduced in EW

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Originally Posted by Kansene

A thousand times this.
While I agree that the story needs to be experienced to fully appreciate what's going on, it's just too dang much and keeps compounding.

A new player who wants to join their friends has to run through 7 whole games' worth of story, hundreds of hours, and when they "binge" the content like that they also open their eyes to how absolutely dire 90% of the quests are.

"Talk to 3 randoms."
"Talk to 4 randoms."
"Go to a location and wait."
"Defeat 3 monsters."
"Go to a location and wait, then defeat a monster. 3 times."
"Watch 400 cutscenes with 99% recycled animations, especially the grab-chin-thinking and I-am-angry-and-clench-one-fist-and-the-camera-zooms-in-on-it ones."

One of my friends got to 5.0 and he was just done at that point. He was so dog tired of the MSQ that he didn't even care or know who this Emet guy was or why he fought him so he did the trial and quit the game.
He NEVER got the chance to do current content with me.

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This game's playerbase would rather the game die than ever allow new players to skip F-tier ARR

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Originally Posted by Bru_Tus

This game's playerbase would rather the game die than ever allow new players to skip F-tier ARR

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ARR isn’t as bad as you all making it out to be and if the msq part is so dreadful that it makes you don’t want to touch the game then this MMO IS NOT FOR PLAYERS LIKE YOU.

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Originally Posted by Bubert

ARR isn’t as bad as you all making it out to be and if the msq part is so dreadful that it makes you don’t want to touch the game then this MMO IS NOT FOR PLAYERS LIKE YOU.

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If the only part of the game worth playing is the MSQ, they should just sell it as a visual novel.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

ideally for each expansion we get a general recap, few cutscenes summarizing most important things that we have done and you can skip that expansion. For all expansions aside from the latest.

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Please, I love this idea, you can choose to get an overview to the previous expansion. I get its a story game and I brought into it for that. But after the 3rd Expansion it was already stretching it. Just to get to endgame

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Originally Posted by Bru_Tus

This game's playerbase would rather the game die than ever allow new players to skip F-tier ARR

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Put some respect on ARR. This is my first mainline Final Fantasy game I've ever played. Friends tried to explain it and left me more confused then I started. This game actually broke down the lore of the elements in digestible chucks to where the dots got to organically connect. And had it own neat slow burn story. I would recommend it as a introduction to the Final Fantasy "language"

People expectations went up each expansion. At release ARR was really good, but at this point its the slow start to the "good stuff". ARR was actually cracked.

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Originally Posted by Solowing

Put some respect on ARR. This is my first mainline Final Fantasy game I've ever played. Friends tried to explain it and left me more confused then I started. This game actually broke down the lore of the elements in digestible chucks to where the dots got to organically connect. And had it own neat slow burn story. I would recommend it as a introduction to the Final Fantasy "language"

People expectations went up each expansion. At release ARR was really good, but at this point its the slow start to the "good stuff". ARR was actually cracked.

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The buildup in late ARR patches was some of my favorite content in the entire game. I loved the politics, the intrigue, and Bloody Banquet is still hands down my favorite cinematic in the entire game.
I honestly wish they'd keep exploring themes of internal politics within Eorzea, make the grand companies and their relations actually matter, and create tension within already explored realms. There's literal expansions worth of content in those themes alone, but I think I'm in the minority of people who'd be excited about it. Daringly exploring new horizons every expansion and discovering 2 new cities you can AFK in after an MSQ revolving around them doesn't seem to be a pattern that will ever really change.

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Originally Posted by Kansene

The buildup in late ARR patches was some of my favorite content in the entire game. I loved the politics, the intrigue, and Bloody Banquet is still hands down my favorite cinematic in the entire game.
I honestly wish they'd keep exploring themes of internal politics within Eorzea, make the grand companies and their relations actually matter, and create tension within already explored realms. There's literal expansions worth of content in those themes alone, but I think I'm in the minority of people who'd be excited about it. Daringly exploring new horizons every expansion and discovering 2 new cities you can AFK in after an MSQ revolving around them doesn't seem to be a pattern that will ever really change.

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I've completed the entire MSQ, and I have an alt that's in ARR.

While I agree that the story was intriguing and exciting, I am stuck doing fetch quests, talking to people I don't care about, and beating up three random dogs. If I was a brand new player, I would be bored out of my freakin' mind. I know this because I am bored out of my freakin' mind.

The filler is the problem. It's 80% of ARR. Minfillia tells you to go here, you go there, you talk to someone, then that someone has something else for you to do, then you go do that thing, then another person tells you they need something done, and you do that something, and eventually you get to a point where Minfillia calls you back to repeat the process.

An entire expansion would be needed just to cut all of the fat.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I've completed the entire MSQ, and I have an alt that's in ARR.

While I agree that the story was intriguing and exciting, I am stuck doing fetch quests, talking to people I don't care about, and beating up three random dogs. If I was a brand new player, I would be bored out of my freakin' mind. I know this because I am bored out of my freakin' mind.

The filler is the problem. It's 80% of ARR. Minfillia tells you to go here, you go there, you talk to someone, then that someone has something else for you to do, then you go do that thing, then another person tells you they need something done, and you do that something, and eventually you get to a point where Minfillia calls you back to repeat the process.

An entire expansion would be needed just to cut all of the fat.

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I absolutely agree. Near the top of this page I'm lamenting that exact fact. I'd be so on board with some sort of rework that trims down the MSQ into the absolute necessities, only including cutscenes that have a point to them, or otherwise contribute to immersion or vibes. This has, to my knowledge, already been done once, but it desperately needs it again, especially when there's hundreds and hundreds of hours of it at this point, and the quest interactions themselves, with barely any exceptions, are the same 4-5 ones copy-pasted again and again and again. I find it hard to believe it is absolutely crucial to go to a location and look around, have Thancred walk up and say "Wow the thing we're looking for isn't here" 3 times before we get to move on with the actual quest story.

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Originally Posted by Solowing

Please, I love this idea, you can choose to get an overview to the previous expansion. I get its a story game and I brought into it for that. But after the 3rd Expansion it was already stretching it. Just to get to endgame



Put some respect on ARR. This is my first mainline Final Fantasy game I've ever played. Friends tried to explain it and left me more confused then I started. This game actually broke down the lore of the elements in digestible chucks to where the dots got to organically connect. And had it own neat slow burn story. I would recommend it as a introduction to the Final Fantasy "language"

People expectations went up each expansion. At release ARR was really good, but at this point its the slow start to the "good stuff". ARR was actually cracked.

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I'm not talking about ARR's story (and 2.55 is still the best story they've written). I'm talking about the player experience. For like 20 hours you just press 1 2 1 2 on like half the jobs. Much of ARR is a snoozefest when it comes to gameplay. Let's not kid ourselves and call FF14 a "story game" because it's far, FAR more than that. When people hear "story game" they think of something like Mass Effect or FF7, you know, an actual GAME. The leveling process in FF14 is NOT that lmao. It's like 95% dialogues/cutscenes and 5% actual gameplay.

Meanwhile FF14 endgame is 5% story and 95% gameplay.

How MMOs even survive is frankly beyond me. If you tried to pitch to an investor...

HEY i have this AWESOME new idea, it's called an MMO

Interesting, what is it?

SO the game is MUCH MORE story-focused than almost all genres out there, it's basically a visual novel, except it's MASSIVE so there's a lot of worldbuilding! It's like living in the world! It'll be 95% story and 5% gameplay!

OK, then what happens when they finish the story?

They then spend 43902483284 hours grinding with NO STORY!!!

Been playing since ARR 2.2. Have skipped every cutscene and am just here to play. Watched clips of the story later on YT. It's not for me.

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Originally Posted by Bru_Tus

I'm not talking about ARR's story (and 2.55 is still the best story they've written). I'm talking about the player experience. For like 20 hours you just press 1 2 1 2 on like half the jobs. Much of ARR is a snoozefest when it comes to gameplay.

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This. We may not remember it, but ARR had some complicated combos that they eventually removed to make better combos in later expansions. But in order to do that, they had to dumb down the combos earlier on in the game. ARR jobs used to be fun.

The game is designed in a perplexing way. One one hand there is a single player RPG and that is basically the core of the game as compared to FFXI where the story is there but someone has to search for it. It's far less like growing a chia pet and more like being led by the nose, since there is minimal customization in the ways that matter (original FFXIV before they changed things we had subjobs, but that got axed). The current game feels like a rush for gear while getting time gated and blocked from that objective.

The entire MMO genre went from being about doing stuff together to simply being a massive game of comparing and beating each other over time gated content. Like no one can "catch up" with someone who is weeks ahead on doing savage, or getting geared up through tomestones, or even the relic weapon grind. Years ago before shadowbringers came in I remember stating that I liked ultimate, but did not like savage, because savage was about gear score where as ultimate was cosmetic. If they want a game that is worth playing then the endgame needs to be about doing stupid things and not fighting an endless gated gear grind.

level skip and story skip while i can agree i also disagree. Ran into a scholar who told me using the fairy was stupid it took us 1 hour to complete the dungeon cause they spent the whole time struggling cause they bought skips for the class. If you end up holding people back cause you didn't wanna learn anything just skipped or going i have no idea whats going on can someone explain cause i skipped story. Then no.....if you already been through it all then yeah im fine with that.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

I've completed the entire MSQ, and I have an alt that's in ARR.

While I agree that the story was intriguing and exciting, I am stuck doing fetch quests, talking to people I don't care about, and beating up three random dogs. If I was a brand new player, I would be bored out of my freakin' mind. I know this because I am bored out of my freakin' mind.

The filler is the problem. It's 80% of ARR. Minfillia tells you to go here, you go there, you talk to someone, then that someone has something else for you to do, then you go do that thing, then another person tells you they need something done, and you do that something, and eventually you get to a point where Minfillia calls you back to repeat the process.

An entire expansion would be needed just to cut all of the fat.

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Yeah. Endwalker and Dawntrail's watch cutscene, walk 1 mile then watch another cutscene - sometimes intersected with a non-threatening purple cloud encounter that ends before a full rotation - or talk to 3 npcs in every new location you visit then read dialogue with the Scions that takes 5 minutes to conclude something 3 npcs already told you is much betterer.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Yeah. Endwalker and Dawntrail's watch cutscene, walk 1 mile then watch another cutscene - sometimes intersected with a non-threatening purple cloud encounter that ends before a full rotation - or talk to 3 npcs in every new location you visit then read dialogue with the Scions that takes 5 minutes to conclude something 3 npcs already told you is much betterer.

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I mean it comes down to the fact that if the game is boring or doesn't do anything interesting for the player, and the only thing that holds them there is the skinner box elements and objective farming, it turns into a bit of a burnout problem. Then we got into the entire thing of selling "horse armor", which evolved into selling horse armor on a limited time basis on top of it, with the item mostly being a goofy addon that only applies for people that are playing the game and enjoying it already.

And then we have China with constantly tuning their live service models around extracting as much as possible with the gacha + pity system in order to out produce other developers on sheer animation, graphic optimization, etc, while building their entire game around cosmetics.

Sometimes just going out and shooting hoops or playing cards on a porch is a better idea than trying to somehow get something out of a video game these days. And that isn't even dissing FFXIV or SE that is just the entire state of the industry.

FFXIV Mobile is apparently a failure based entirely around the fact players aren't incentivized to spend money because nothing in its shop is a power boost. It's all glam. Everything has to be earned and Chinese gamers just really aren't into that.

Which sucks to me since that game had a massive opportunity to be that new entry point and a vastly smoother experience for newer players and their general progression. Last I heard the devs are going to finish ARR's content for the current players and that might be it. No international port news, either.

(I REALLY thought the Switch version that'd been rumored for ages would be the mobile version, but Switch 2 has more than enough power to run our client so yeah.)

BadIdeasGaming

I stayed for the MSQ it is the most important part for me. I did not like DT much though and for the first time in over 16 years I skipped some of the scenes. I stay for the MSQ I do feel for newer players with some of the quests and maybe they can be changed but the games core and heart will always be the story for me at least please don't dumb this down.

I do feel that some content should be accessible though things like the newer deep dungeons and criterion as I have a couple of family/friends who have not caught up in the msq and cannot do the content because of this so that is something that needs to change.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

L 110 is insane.

Look, I'm HUGELY invested in the MSQ. I love it. I'm hugely invested in the story, the characters, the everything. But I'm playing an alt and the hill to climb is insane. ARR is just too long. It takes forever to get to Heavensward. And even longer for Stormblood. And Shadowbringers. And Endwalker. And (ugh) Dawntrail. Now Evercold.

Asking a player to go from L1 to L110 in this day and age is too long and exhausting. For some of you masochists, it might seem like a fun time, but for the casual player, it's a lot.

So why not give everyone a level skip and story skip? Make it part of the purchase that allows them to catch up.

You don't HAVE to use it. If a player wants to take that climb, let them. Maybe they'll use it on an alt. Who cares, it's their money.

If you want your friends playing this game, you want to play WITH them. Are you seriously going to invest months and months of playing MSQ with them? Come on, you're not. And trying to bring friends into the game is hard enough.

Every copy should include a skip. They have plenty of opportunity testing the game and the story out with the free trial leading all the way up to Shadowbringers. They can CHOOSE to go this route.

Square-Enix, bite the bullet and allow players to just skip up to their friends and have it included in the purchasable copies of the game.

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I totally agree with you.

My main character, who is level 100 (RDM, SMN, PTC, & MCH), is on Midgardsormr. I have had this character since I first started playing FFXIV when ARR first came out 13+ yrs ago.

I have an alt on Crystal, Dynamis, & Primal, all of them are level 30. Trust me, when SE starts selling those jump potions for the job & story skip (that will cover ARR, HW, SB, ShB, EW, & DT) before EverCold comes out, I will be purchasing both jump potions for one of my alts. I don’t need to relive any cutscenes or quests from ARR – DT. I skipped most of the DT cutscenes because of the overgrown, whiny lion queen.

The OPTION of having 1 free jump potion for job levels/expansions when you purchase a new expansion that players can use IF they choose to do so would be great. The fact that it would be an OPTION is the key. I know in the past SE gave players free Fantasias. I never use them, so I discard them.

I am very much not on board with the idea of incentivizing new players to just drop in on MSQ into an xx1 dungeon. Even with all the handholding in ARR, there are far too many roulettes where someone has no jobstone, doesn't use actions/combos properly, doesn't understand mechanics, and has inappropriate gear. Hell, even people that get all the way to 50/60/70/80, unlock an expansion job, queue up with the default gear, and just guess what buttons to press. If you're lucky, they might start yelling in chat or straight up grief because someone pointed it out. If a level skip is offered for free, people will take it. There has to be conditions, like a higher level Hall of the Novice mandated or something. Maybe guildhests so they actually work with other players? Though to be fair the mentor system even right now is kinda poopoo

I already don't like the story/level boost being on the store. Majority of players will take the path of least resistance and use the boosts if able. Not every game is for everyone, theres plenty options if they are looking simply to grind/endgame as well.

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Originally Posted by TheSky

I already don't like the story/level boost being on the store. Majority of players will take the path of least resistance and use the boosts if able. Not every game is for everyone, theres plenty options if they are looking simply to grind/endgame as well.

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But to be fair none of the lowbie content is still supported other than maybe Eureka and that requires getting up through Stormblood. What's the fun in playing Alliance Roulette over and over again?

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Originally Posted by TheSky

I already don't like the story/level boost being on the store. Majority of players will take the path of least resistance and use the boosts if able. Not every game is for everyone, theres plenty options if they are looking simply to grind/endgame as well.

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To be honest.

This game doesn't actually give people a chance to determine whether it is for them or not.

All content pre-ShB has been butchered beyond repair, and newer players only really have access to Heaven on High and Eureka, with the latter still requiring that the player go through at least 100 hours of basically unsupported content.

It's very easy to make these statements when you are already at the point where what you are doing is current content, and where you're *waiting* for the content... Much harder to make them when you are a new player wondering when you can actually get to relevant content

to be honest I do not mind the story skip but I do think Lv skip should be removed xx)

You're so right man.

It's obvious that it's the wrong choice to use it because of narrative investment reasons but at a point it actually becomes a joke how much content there is to sift through to get to current content.

This is such an awkward problem because, by all rights, this problem is 'oh no there's too much content' which should otherwise be the opposite of a problem. But there becomes a point where there is actively too much to reasonably expect someone to do to catch up (or redo for alts). It's different for everyone where that point is but it needs to be acknowledged as an actual potential issue.

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Originally Posted by TheSky

I already don't like the story/level boost being on the store. Majority of players will take the path of least resistance and use the boosts if able. Not every game is for everyone, theres plenty options if they are looking simply to grind/endgame as well.

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Gatekeeping has never resulted in any positive outcome. You can't rely on veterans forever, at some point you need fresh blood in your game.

People who want to be good will be good even if they use the boost. People who don't care about being good will not be good even if they don't use the boost. They need to focus on enticing new subscribers and not worry about people being bad if they buy a boost.

The MSQ needs a massive overhaul that lets people catch up way faster or people will be too intimidated to get there.

It's one thing that the MSQ is an enjoyable thing, but if I was new and wanted to join my friend's raid static it would suck to spend so long catching up that the expansion is literally over before I could play with them.

I don't think it should take *hundreds* of hours to reach the current patch. It's just not something you can reasonably ask of people unless they're fine not playing with their friends.

Massive cuts and abbreviations would be a godsend.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

People who want to be good will be good even if they use the boost. People who don't care about being good will not be good even if they don't use the boost. They need to focus on enticing new subscribers and not worry about people being bad if they buy a boost.

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Exactly this. It's up to the player if they want to get better at their rotation. 100+ levels doesn't affect endgame rotations.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Exactly this. It's up to the player if they want to get better at their rotation. 100+ levels doesn't affect endgame rotations.

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Especially when it's 100 levels of faceroll slop where you can pass literally all content by just doing your 1-2-3 combo and not only nobody will say anything to you because nobody cares and/or absurd SE's tos exists where you can't say anything to a player, but also because game does not even punishes for it by introducing easy/very easy difficulty on solo duties and mechanics like NPCs in duty support gradually doing more and more damage as encounter progresses.

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Originally Posted by Alicie

Gatekeeping has never resulted in any positive outcome. You can't rely on veterans forever, at some point you need fresh blood in your game.

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Completely true. That's why closing the servers has been such a clusterffff of losing new blood.

We need a skip function to bring players directly into the action, and they can level an alt if they want to play the story.

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Originally Posted by Veritas-Ancora

Completely true. That's why closing the servers has been such a clusterffff of losing new blood.

We need a skip function to bring players directly into the action, and they can level an alt if they want to play the story.

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I pray this never happens.

It should come with a level skip but not a story skip.

Instead of a free story skip, I would want a compressed story option presented around level 1-10 in the MSQ, where you can permanently modify your MSQ and all content becomes unlocked like it does with a story skip. The modification would be a heavy handed elimination of 98% of MSQ that would leave only the key quests to complete. Get rid of the quests that are only there to introduce a dungeon, a village, local lore, a primal, a side character who isn't relevant to today's story, a game feature or a pointless chore. Keep the stuff that involves current scions, ascians, the shards or hyedalyn/zodiark. That would serve as an introduction to the game's new story arc for new players, as well as give more freedom to veterans leveling alt characters.

Yeah, agree. Encouraging story and msq makes sense. Official summaries of the expansions the player can watch would be interesting, perhaps in the inn, or a link to an official YouTube vid or something if too long. But having the option of a free skip is really valid at this point.

The story is fine. Good. Really great even sometimes (Shb). I like that I have completed it. But it’s not better than a ton of single player game’s stories and I don't really get the story fanatics. I have not played other mmo’s so I can’t compare there but I’m rarely moved or too invested in it like I am in games like RDR2, Witcher, P5r, LoP, etc…

I’m not a story skipping type though and I do like knowing what’s going on and love certain characters so I do the msq lol. But I can’t say it’s not one of the weaker parts to me personally. Yet I love the game overall and stay and play much more because of side content, housing, raiding, social aspects, the world itself, the glam, the locations, and am more invested in the gposes and stories I can personally create within this universe on my own/with friends etc.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

It should come with a level skip but not a story skip.

Instead of a free story skip, I would want a compressed story option presented around level 1-10 in the MSQ, where you can permanently modify your MSQ and all content becomes unlocked like it does with a story skip. The modification would be a heavy handed elimination of 98% of MSQ that would leave only the key quests to complete. Get rid of the quests that are only there to introduce a dungeon, a village, local lore, a primal, a side character who isn't relevant to today's story, a game feature or a pointless chore. Keep the stuff that involves current scions, ascians, the shards or hyedalyn/zodiark. That would serve as an introduction to the game's new story arc for new players, as well as give more freedom to veterans leveling alt characters.

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I would honestly be down for a twist in the story that effectively results in us being stripped of our WoL status and powers, which would both allow for a new path into the game for new players where they opt into a much shorter story that just brings them to the current expansion without them having participated in the events of ARR to Dt, and solve the insane power creep issue where we can't really have a meaningful story without us effectively battleing demigods because anything else would be beneath us.