Making the case for a new starting point in 7.0

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Originally Posted by ArcaviusGreyashe

All the riftwar cycle take place in the same universe, but it is several different duologies/trilogies/quadrilogies. Some characters do appear in multiple ones, there is one character that does appear in all of them and could be considered the riftwar cycle main character, but you don't have to read the riftwar legacy to understand the serpentwar saga.

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With a book series, you can be certain that the events of the other books have happened in that universe even if you haven't read them.

With this game, so far, you can be certain that your character has lived through all of the MSQ and built those relationships with any recurring characters.

The ability to create a "season two character" who hasn't actually been through any of the preceding events is horrendously messy for storytelling purposes (and what happens if the player makes use of New Game Plus), and also says that the events of the first arc don't need to have happened at all.

A skip to the start of season two, on the other hand, says "you are fast-forwarding over events that did happen, but this is a good place to pick up the story".

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Originally Posted by Jennah

... why? The game is essentially over once you hit maximum level and complete the MSQ.

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Personally I didn't spend several thousands of hours just doing MSQ stuff. For how important it seems to be, it's such an insignificant amount of time there's to spend on the game compared to repeatable stuff. The problem is that despite being proportionally small, it's still hundreds of hours gating the actual gameplay loop. And if Yoshida wants to keep the game going for 10 more years, that's gonna be two decades worth of really bad questing gating the more fun parts of the game.

Despite what those with survivor bias would like to believe, it's not how you grow your playerbase. As story focused as it is, it remains a MMO.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

I am not sure what the correct path to take is, but eventually they will have to make an alternate starting point. It is unfeasible now to expect new players to want to wade through 300+ hours of story to get to endgame. Imagine it in 4 more years when it is 500 or 600+ hours of story. It will reach a breaking point where it will be extremely hard to convince new players to try FFXIV, and will likely hurt SE's numbers.

I think it would just be worth to let people skip ARR - EW and hop straight into 7.0 at the appropriate level if they would like. Make it once per account so story and job skips aren't useless (SE would never remove these, so best compromise I can think of). Sure - it would drop unskilled brand new players into dungeons that might be far above beginner skill-level... but that's just normal DF anyways. Could even make a tutorial they have to play first so they understand the basics of the game such as tank stance/common damage markers/limit breaks/etc.

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People have always had the option to buy a story skip. This game is designed as a mmo single player game. That is the core game is designed to be enjoyed at your pace solo, with the option of doing it with friends (eventually this will also include dungeon content that currently forces groups).

Its fair to allow for skipping straight to 7.0, and it’s fair to ask for it, but the thing is, this option already exists if people want it.

I’m not against further story pruning to shorten/cut the less important parts of the MSQ (turn into sidequests?), but just because 5 years have past doesn’t make Heavansward any better or worse than it was at launch. A player coming in in 2022 can still enjoy 3.0 in all its glory.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

People have always had the option to buy a story skip. This game is designed as a mmo single player game. That is the core game is designed to be enjoyed at your pace solo, with the option of doing it with friends (eventually this will also include dungeon content that currently forces groups).

Its fair to allow for skipping straight to 7.0, and it’s fair to ask for it, but the thing is, this option already exists if people want it.

I’m not against further story pruning to shorten/cut the less important parts of the MSQ (turn into sidequests?), but just because 5 years have past doesn’t make Heavansward any better or worse than it was at launch. A player coming in in 2022 can still enjoy 3.0 in all its glory.

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Dont know if people watched that recent JoCat video of some advice he gave for new players wanting to get into FFXIV. One of the options he made was indeed go ahead and by that story skip if you seriously care for the "endgame" content, because you will still have the option to go back and either New Game+ the MSQ or watch only the cutscenes via the Inn journal and he happened to have done that himself. Although he did mentioned that while he was able to see and appreciate the narrative content he skipped, it came at a cost where he missed how this narrative slowly immersed you into its story if you went through its quests and pace normally. That honestly only happens BECAUSE of how much effort the devs put into the story.

So yeah, while I dont necessarily agree that new players should just skip the story when pretty much thats 70% of the game itself because Im a firm believer that FFXIV's story is still content, they already have that option via the story skip purchase (which is at a reasonable price).

I love the hipocrisy of people who insist players MUST go through MSQ or else, but same people dismiss the increasingly undertuned experience of past duties as "good because it's not relevant content anymore".
How would you feel if all duties were just as hard as they were for you in Day 1, and when you complained you just wanted to go through the story their suggestion for you was to pay 25+ USD to auto-clear all duties pre Lv80?

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Originally Posted by kaynide

People have always had the option to buy a story skip. This game is designed as a mmo single player game. That is the core game is designed to be enjoyed at your pace solo, with the option of doing it with friends (eventually this will also include dungeon content that currently forces groups).

Its fair to allow for skipping straight to 7.0, and it’s fair to ask for it, but the thing is, this option already exists if people want it.

I’m not against further story pruning to shorten/cut the less important parts of the MSQ (turn into sidequests?), but just because 5 years have past doesn’t make Heavansward any better or worse than it was at launch. A player coming in in 2022 can still enjoy 3.0 in all its glory.

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I want to preface this by saying I am not a cutscene skipper. I've watched the story in its entirety on 5 different alts. I firmly believe that not watching the story lessens your FFXIV experience. I read every single bit of side quest dialogue. I still believe that eventually they will have to open up a new starting point free of charge to new players.

The answer to a glaring issue that is actively discouraging people from playing is not "lol go to the cash shop".

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Well there are a number of solutions. One would be to introduce a new experience for new players in order to introduce them to the mechanics of the game while quickly leveling them to the current level cap.

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FF 14 is not and never will be rush to level cap.

In FF 14 the game starts at level 1

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

I love the hipocrisy of people who insist players MUST go through MSQ or else, but same people dismiss the increasingly undertuned experience of past duties as "good because it's not relevant content anymore".
How would you feel if all duties were just as hard as they were for you in Day 1, and when you complained you just wanted to go through the story their suggestion for you was to pay 25+ USD to auto-clear all duties pre Lv80?

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I began this game day 1 of ARR. I would vastly prefer if earlier fights/dungeons at least had some level of fun to them as opposed to how completely fallen apart the state of ARR combat has become. I cannot think of any fight until level 50 that lasts for more than 2 minutes. I would not subject myself to hours on end of that level of gameplay while being forced to tolerate being Minfilia's errand-boy, nor do I recommend for anyone to start at that point anymore.

When I recommend this game to people, I straight up tell them to start at Heavensward because the first 50 levels of this game are so horrifically boring. People will tolerate story-weak games with great gameplay, and games with great story but maybe not the best gameplay. However you cannot expect for people to sit through a game whose initial story takes forever to get good, along with the present state of ARR gameplay. I've played nearly every Final Fantasy game and similar rpgs out there-I would not be able to put up with ARR in its current form and would subsequently quit if not for the option to buy a skip.

The new additions to the Trust system will hopefully make those early dungeons more fun, and will hopefully serve to make going through the "basic" ARR story more tolerable. In the case of Season 2 however, it remains unclear how much this initial adventure story will build upon Season 1's foundations. It wouldn't take more than a cutscene to give some fundamental exposition, "The Empire fell and now here you are with your best friends in a new land (assuming we retain some/all of the Scions)..." and they would be well-prepared to start their journeys. You shouldn't need to play through 8+ years of content to start Season 2 at what is otherwise a clean slate.

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Originally Posted by Tsumdere

I want to preface this by saying I am not a cutscene skipper. I've watched the story in its entirety on 5 different alts. I firmly believe that not watching the story lessens your FFXIV experience. I read every single bit of side quest dialogue. I still believe that eventually they will have to open up a new starting point free of charge to new players.

The answer to a glaring issue that is actively discouraging people from playing is not "lol go to the cash shop".

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That’s the thing tho, the point of this game (in the devs view) is to play through a story. The original game didn’t even have endgame and it was largely assumed people would just level other jobs as the endgame. Obviously they have changed their stance and embraced endgame, but I firmly believe the devs will never encourage letting people just start at the end. This should be obvious by their having story skip potions- even when they added them they said they don’t like it, but they accept other people having different play styles.

I’m sure they might write future expansions in a way where a story skipper won’t get lost without lore, but especially in a game where they want to encourage you to play long term…why would they ever do this.

There's also the fact that for a lot of people who have friends whom are interested into getting into FFXIV, will find them wanting to share their first time experience going through the msq with them and it happens to be a lot of fun. Its how I at least got in.

We'll have to wait and see how 7.0 will start things because if they're intentionally going to start completely fresh with little to no hanging plot threads; goodbye all that developed character building (which I seriously doubt) then I'm all for having new players start at 7.0 for free as an available option for them.