Main Scenario Restriction Bloodstorm - Very Very Bad idea.

The problem is we can't have noobs holding us back in high level content. All that time spent before heavensward is useful for learning the things that just can't only be taught. I'm thankful I didn't go straight into heavensward without playing a realm reborn, as much as I wanted to skip ahead.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Jobs outside the expansion area, must have beaten 2.0 (not 2.55) in order to unlock (people will cry foul, but logistically it makes the most sense as you can't have the job until 30 (if it starts at 30), and locking it behind level 50 allows the story to be structured around you actually being the WoL. People forget that the class quest story has MSQ implications).

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Considering Rogue and Ninja aren't gated behind 2.2, they could probably open every job without any MSQ restrictions unrelated to the real level of the quest. (i.e gating a lvl 35 behing Brayflox's Longstop completion is legit, gating it behind defeating Ultima Weapon makes no sense.)

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Originally Posted by Sparktacus

If you tried to do that in 11 it would still take hundreds of hours (and still worth it, man some good stories there).

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Well, in XI, ZM is gated by the Rank 5 mission. As for CoP, since it's the direct sequel to ZM, not gating it maks the story...pretty weird.

And in XIV, with Duty Roulette, lots of solo quests, and the unsync mode, you can't really be blocked in your progression. And they should make 4-man new (and shorter) versions of Meridianum and Praetorium and add them to the lvl 50 roulette.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

The story drives this game for you. Not everyone feels the same. If they're skipping every cutscene, the story drives nothing.

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Whether someone decides to skip the story or not, is a choice. It does not negate the fact that FFXIV is a story-driven game. Your character, despite your friend wanting to roleplay otherwise, is the central focus of a story; an on-going story. It is their journey, and you are asked to fill that role. Regardless of you ignoring it, or skipping it, or sticking your fingers in your ears when someone mentions it; there will continue to be a story to drive that character onward. That is the simple definition of a story-driven game. Now whether or not that motivates you to continue playing, is irrelevant. It will never supersede the game itself being story-driven.

This idea that you need to skip all the old content to get to the new content has always seemed backwards to me. If a friend of yours is watching a currently airing TV show and they're super hyped about it and recommend it, you don't just start by watching the latest episode, you go back and start from episode 1.

"people don't like the parts of the game that i like, therefore they shouldn't play"
what a childish mentality. personally, i love the plot but why should i hold it against someone, or try to hold someone back if they don't?

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Originally Posted by Xiao_

"people don't like the parts of the game that i like, therefore they shouldn't play"
what a childish mentality. personally, i love the plot but why should i hold it against someone, or try to hold someone back if they don't?

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They can just rush the plot while skipping every CS...the problem is that those people would probably burn through everything and complains one month after that the game lacks content.

If you decide to skip the content, you have no right to complain about the lack of it.

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Originally Posted by Xiao_

"people don't like the parts of the game that i like, therefore they shouldn't play"
what a childish mentality. personally, i love the plot but why should i hold it against someone, or try to hold someone back if they don't?

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Because there are better ways to resolve the issues, rather than selling a jumping potion. It sets a bad precedent.

Not this nonesense again.

1. We do not know currently if the new jobs will be gated or not.
2. The new areas will have high level enemies and quests anyway so you won't be able to do anything at all if you just waltz into Gyr Abania after you finish up the Gridania starting experience.
3. We have enough bad players. I don't want DF to be filled with people who are even more clueless than the ones now.
4. No matter how empty your FC is you really don't want to fill it with people who want to skip big chunks of the game. You want people who want to play it.
5. The title is Stormblood.
6. You might not even like the new jobs or care about them.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Considering Rogue and Ninja aren't gated behind 2.2, they could probably open every job without any MSQ restrictions unrelated to the real level of the quest. (i.e gating a lvl 35 behing Brayflox's Longstop completion is legit, gating it behind defeating Ultima Weapon makes no sense.)

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Rogue was also a class that started at lvl 1. It was also part of ARR, so there were no new zones (essentially they added a new base class, rather than an expansion job). If you ever played through the DRK questline, the plot is very dependent on your previous actions as the WoL, which is a freedom allowed by restriction, whereas if you started at say lvl 30, the advanced job would simply treat you as an adventurer. This extra freedom is worth it if all you need to do is finish 2.0 (which is not hard).

We should be designing the game for existing players, as well as new players, and the idea of an expansion is a continuation of the core, and my idea is a compromise that allows everyone to be happy.

Conclusion: This game is not for everyone. Those that enjoy a heavy storydriven game this is a good choice. For those that want to rush for the endgame it's not. But don't worry, there are plenty of games out there that might suit their desires.

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Originally Posted by TarynH

Because there are better ways to resolve the issues, rather than selling a jumping potion. It sets a bad precedent.

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Like what?

One of the key differences is that FFXIV doesn't have alts, all classes are on one character. Other MMOs are forced to let you get a free boost to max level because people can be playing 3-4 classes/charaters at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Rogue was also a class that started at lvl 1. It was also part of ARR, so there were no new zones (essentially they added a new base class, rather than an expansion job). If you ever played through the DRK questline, the plot is very dependent on your previous actions as the WoL, which is a freedom allowed by restriction, whereas if you started at say lvl 30, the advanced job would simply treat you as an adventurer. This extra freedom is worth it if all you need to do is finish 2.0 (which is not hard).

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Frankly, this has no big impact on the actual questline. From level 1, you're already an adventurer whom everyone asks all sorts of tasks. And if we keep the lvl 30 requirement starting point, by that time, you've already slain Ifrit and enlisted into one of three grand compagnies, so you're not just any adventurer.

Here is my 2 cents.... Levels 1 - 48 ARR story needs to be slimmed down a lot. Level 50 Story quests needs to be slim down to a hand full of quests with all the fetch quest removed. There is no reason that we have to go from point A to B back to A, then to C, back to A, then to D, back to B, then to E, back to A... then swing by the coffee shop to pick up a cup of joe foran NPC located in E then get there and the NPC say's "where is the sugar" then have to travel to D to get the sugar then back to E to only be told the NPC needs a spoon to stir the coffee..... have of the Main story quest in FFXIV is pointless and is only filler bs.

Now Heavensward should be left out of the equation all together except there should be a simple pick up quest to learn the the full story of Heavensward... Just a quick 30 min video of all the big details... Once completed you move on to the 4.0 expansion..... If new to the game or even an older player that dropped sub pre Heavensward you should not have to be forced to pay for heavensward to only speed through it so you can move on to 4.0...

Just saying if they want new or old players to to finish the HW's main story quest then they should give Heavensward away for free if you buy the new expansion.

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Originally Posted by Astral145

If new to the game or even an older player that dropped sub pre Heavensward you should not have to be forced to pay for heavensward to only speed through it so you can move on to 4.0...

Just saying if they want new or old players to to finish the HW's main story quest then they should give Heavensward away for free if you buy the new expansion.

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Again, why would new players skip so much content ? It's new to them, they have things to learn or discover, they have XP and quests to do in these zones.

And I suppose they should also offer ARR for free then ? This is getting ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

The main story doesn't teach you anything about combat, you can kill all MSQ monsters by just spamming 1.

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Nobody spam just 1 against Shiva (an enemy in the 2.0 MSQ) or Niddhog (3.0 MSQ enemy)

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

I get it: this game is all about story (then why 1.0 failed?)

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- cumbersome UI
- need an PC over average to run it
- no endgame (after reaching lv 50 you started the next class to have something to do)
- Leves (8 every 36 hours) and Behest (evey 30 minutes) the only way to level up
- Only a handfull MSQ quests (every 3-5 levels only 1 quest) and no sidequests
- worse market (a room full with retainers and no search system, good luck to find what you want)

In a game where the story is important, allowing people to skip is detrimental to the experience. As others have said, if you don't like the story, this is not the MMO you should be playing. WoW is right around the corner for no-nonsense raiding and the like.

One more point that I agree with is that it promotes ignorance. People who are allowed to skip segments have no idea what's going on, effectively losing immersion in a game that has it as a major selling point. Not to mention the leveling/understanding of jobs/classes. Instant leveling in a job does not equate to being skilled or even knowledgable about the job's mechanics and playstyle, and definitely does not give you instant knowledge of dungeon/raid mechanics, which will infuriate the players who actually worked toward getting to the same point. This will also lead to an even more dumbed-down difficulty level (that said, we need harder content, the game is really easy as it is) for future content, because you can be sure as hell that the 'skippers' will be the vocal majority when it comes to complaining about content difficulty.

I really don't want this game to change just because of the immense stupidity that will ensue if a skipping feature is implemented. I run into that enough already when I'm forced to pug people for Duty Finder whenever one of the people of my regular party isn't on when I run roulettes.

For the OP:

Is a FF game where is story driven, deal with it. Anyway, If you have friends that want to play with you or to go to your FC why don't they get the game now and start doing the story and etc to be ready for expansion? Why they must only buy it and start playing when expansion come?

That's bs to me, if they really want to play the expansion then prepare yourself and get ready for it then start now and get it done with some jobs at 60.

Even I got some friend is getting interested and I just told him to get the game now than at expansion or his mind would blow with so much to do at once.

Nowadays seems people want to log in and have max gear and max lvl from first log in. And then what? This is an MMORPG which is story driven. Some things if not everything is related to lore and story progression. You can't just skip thigs just because. There must be an X reason to go here or there. Can't new areas just pop in out of thin air and players go there without a reasn which is explained by the story. If you are not used to it by now then this game is simply not for you. If this game have some good against other MMORPGs is its story and lore. We can't just skip everything just because some people want everything on a plate.

First i had a negative feedback regarding the idea with the skip content, but since then i tried to look at various angles which it sums up like this :it gives error.
About the old reasoning with the df, we have now players that give that much interest anyways, usually i don't even bother to comment only say in shortest way possible to avoid this and that or better to jump off the platform in order not to waste the healer mana. This after I really tried to be nice and try to help, but help is not always wanted so why even bother.
Yes, it would ok to cut or to sum it up somehow than to just let them skip it together, but the dungeons /trials shouldn't be removed, for that I can give + , but for a potion or a way to skip all of it, no.Call me old fashion , but i like to start and discover the story of a game, not jump right into raiding without knowing 0 of the lore, how i got so far, did i want to make that choice or not.
My 2 cents on this matter as it has been discussed more than once and the Op reasons I find them shallow to be honest .

Put the new jobs quests in ARR areas so new players can unlock them at 30 and level them up while doing the MSQ, Ala Mhigo should be locked behind the story but no reason the jobs need to be.

My suggestions:
- Improve class/job quests, have them teach you about the moves and how they work, and get you to understand combos, and stuff like that. Place more value in the quests. Have the class/job duties make you use your combos and cooldowns to progress
- Remove the filler BS from MSQ (2.x and to a lesser extent 3.x)
- Make the new jobs accessible from level 30, so long as you have Stormblood
- Nicking someone else's suggestion here, but this could work really well, is somehow create a tie-off point whereby you don't indulge in the DragonSong War, and instead jump to post-DSW. Where from though, I don't know.

I have friends I'm trying to get into the game. I'm possibly going to wait until all crafters bar CUL are 50 though, so that I can craft them all the stuff they need.

I don't know why people have problems with MSQ.

They are basic a guide to level up to 60. In ARR, you can simple skip any of side-quests and focus in MSQ and you are in lvl 50 in no time.

Please DON'T let people go to 60 by simple buying a expansion or some upgrade item in MogStation.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Nobody spam just 1 against Shiva (an enemy in the 2.0 MSQ)

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Actually, some do, because the other 7 people are there on trial roulette and are so overgeared it doesn't matter much.

But honestly, the skills in this game are transparent enough that you can figure out a decent rotation just by reading the tooltips. I find it laughable that some people suggest people who are unable to do that would somehow become better by having to do fetch quests for Minfilia. Do they expect people to start reading tooltips out of sheer boredom or something?

For me personally, all the quest restrictions only achieved one thing for me: I skip all cutscenes by now. It's become force of habit - at first it started with me simply wanting to try out the new jobs, then I started an alt and already knew all the cutscenes, then another alt, same thing and eventually, it just happened everywhere. And honestly, I lost interest as well in the process.

More important than that, though, is that SE will have to keep reviving old content over and over forever. If new people have to run that content, it needs to be run with acceptable queues at all times and newbies alone can't do that, so they gotta push Vets in there somehow. If you see a connection to tomestones, wondrous tails and the relic weapon quest setup, I'm sure that is entiiiiirely coincidental.

Wondorous Tails is great though. Carrying newbs for loads of tomes and tier V materia? Yes please. Ex primals now literally die before my Battle Litany runs out. I can set up pony farm parties amd get crafting mats for days

Why is this thread even a thing? You can go back and read countless community threads on here about why this isnt a thing
and im glad they listened to the community, at least on the english forums about this issue. you guys crying about how unfair it is for new players not to be able to raid the first day they buy the game, for a 100$ fee of course for that good good free pass potion, are being a little bit crazy here. It isnt even a question of why its a thank the twelve they listened to us. comes out?
Though, personally id be fine with story being sort of skippable in the light of how x npc changed their dialogue based on whether we were dragoons or cleared coil, etc. ANYWAY what is the issue here'? It doesnt take years to got through HW from 1, you actually dont miss out on anything with our lovely weekly cap welfare program, cause ypu know in a few short months that stuff will get replaced and have no cap, the end game catch upis rediculpusly fair to people that are absentee for long periods of time, and have no hope of changing, and now you want yoshi p to add to the stop playing this game till a new patch comes out to, buy a potion, try the new raid, dont actually pa y a sub, then come back in 3 months when a new patch

If you're starting a new character from scratch, you're not obligated to watch the cutscenes. The escape key is great. And smacking the 0 key repeatedly to spam through dialog.

If you don't enjoy the leveling process, and you're just starting characters for RP purposes, then don't level them.

Personally, I love leveling. I've got a lot of one-job wonder characters, and while grinding out the story is real chore on them, there's something really exciting about getting them up in terms of levels.

I always advise all my newbies to enjoy the story. Racing to the finish line is silly on this story driven game.
I've seen so many people skip story quests and then once they reach the end and start seeing some story, they REALLY regret not knowing what's going on.

Someone on my FC doesn't want to hold people up with his cutscenes. I gotta make him watch every time lol

The raids have story as well. So basically people want to skip story for more story, only to make an alt and go back for more story

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

Very Very Very bad idea let players skip stuff or give them level 60 by the face. Games starts form the beggining, not from the end. Sorry but the XXIth century "gamer" mentality of "please give me all here and now without time and effort" is the worst thing hapenning in the videogame world. So, I won't support such thing. Games start form the beggining.

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THIS.
Here's a what-if:

Instead of another level bumper expansion with new tomestone tiers and crazy repeated gearboosting, Stormblood is an entirely independent story parallel with ARR/HW, with a completely integrated 1-60 progression instead of 1-50 + 51-60 - with just base classes and with different/alternative jobs to ARR.

You come into Stormblood, you can start there. Hey you can cross over later into ARR/HW. Hey you're from ARR/HW and you can start on a new class using the SB MSQ to levelup and get to the new jobs. Or if you're in a hurry you'll leverage your ARR classes.

Hmm ?

I definitely think that players should take the time to enjoy the story properly. That said, though, I fully understand the frustration that comes from locking all the content for each expansion behind the MSQs from the base game and previous expansions. It's just not a sustainable system. It may have been doable in Heavensward, and it may be dubiously tolerable in Stormblood, but what about the next expansion? And the one after that?

An MMO NEEDS an influx of new players. How many expansions will it take, before the majority of potential new players - even ones who actually DO love the storytelling - see how much the have to wade through before they can participate in meaningful raids and other endgame activities, and just shake their heads and look for a different MMO to play?

One thing I appreciated about FFXI is that many - possibly even most - endgame activities were separated from Main Scenario, or required only minimal progress. HNMs, you could do right off the bat. Dynamis required completion of the base game's MSQ, which was pretty short. You could do the Alexander stuff (Salvage, Nyzul Isle) as soon as you could access the Undersea Ruins. Skirmish, and Delves I think you could access as soon as you got the expansion - and Delves I'm pretty sure still provide among the best obtainable gear in the game.

So, why do MSQs at all? Aside from the storyline (which, imo, is its own reward) the MSQs provided unique equipment drops or other benefits that stood the test of time. The Adoulin MSQs awarded extremely powerful rings, along with a situationally useful neckpiece (one of which provided permanent auto-reraise when participating in Reives, one Adoulin activity). Promathia awarded rings, equipable at level 30, with stats that grew stronger and stronger as you leveled, making them viable leveling gear from levels 30 to 75. The important thing, though, was that players could pursue these rewards at their leisure while still participating with their friends in the toughest content the game had to offer.

Sadly, the itemization used in this game makes it difficult to provide lasting equipment rewards, but surely there could be some other benefit provided by MSQs that would make them desirable WITHOUT making them a requirement to participate in endgame (at least, not in all of endgame).

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Originally Posted by St0rmchild

Here's a what-if

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It could be...if the latest 3.4 didn't already tease something about the Mhigan resistance.

They could, however make a later expansion with its own starting zones and jobs, without any connection to the Ascian or Garlemald.
For example, in XI, City ranks, ZM and CoP were direct sequels to each other, whereas ToAU made something totally unrelated (But without low level zones).

But since so much central points are developped in ARR and HW storylines, I don't know how it could fit in the lore...

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

An MMO NEEDS an influx of new players. How many expansions will it take, before the majority of potential new players - even ones who actually DO love the storytelling - see how much the have to wade through before they can participate in meaningful raids and other endgame activities, and just shake their heads and look for a different MMO to play?

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And what these new players really don't need is having only one expansion to do while ignoring everything else. That would make them quit.
What SE needs to do is keep reviving old content, unless they design a way for new players to do instances solo.

Endgame is where the grind and the infuriating repetition come...the later it is, the better.

I can understand that if you see something cool that you want to go there as soon as possible and if you dont enjoy the story that you dont want to go through it. They could take some of the ARR quest out of the main story because they were kinda boring but I dont agree that there should be something to skip all content so that you can start with the new expansion right away..

Sometimes we get quite the questions from new people that they could have found out on their own if they had at least paid some attention to the text messages...how much worse will this become if you are able to jump over all the old content and start at the new expansion?

We already have a lot of bad people in duty finder...how much worse will it be to have people in stormblood dungeons that have no single glue about their job? How can they even start to raid and do savage if they have no equipment?

I had some new people in our FC that wanted to reach end game really fast..(and they managed to be there after not even one month..really thats not long in terms of MMO) Well a lot of them are not playing the game anymore since they kinda found out that endgame is not that great..they were not good enough for savage and running dungeons all the time to get the next equipment was not that funny for them. I can already see a lot of new people that bought all the games and a jump potion only to see how bare bone the endgame is..and since they dont care about the story, every new patch might not entertain them long enough.

It would be the best to get a compact ARR story with no filler quests and maybe dont barricade the new jobs behind the expansion..I mean the HW jobs mostly played in the ARR zones anyway..other than that the new players could always just ask someone from their FC to do the content unsynch with them or help them out but I am against a jump potion for new players..(maybe an option for someone that has one character at lvl70) In the end a MMO is a longtime investment, especially if you pay a sub.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

What SE needs to do is keep reviving old content

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Please god, no.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Ignoring how little "filler" there is in the 2.x series and how there's zero of it in the 3.x series (stuff not directly related to the MSQ events were moved into their own side stories)...how about we don't remove content from the game, yeah?

Advocate for a way for it to be skippable for those that just don't want to deal with story in a story heavy MMO, but don't ever advocate for removal of content.

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What kills me is that this method, which is an expenditure of development time, money, and resources, is somehow considered the go-to solution rather than an OPTIONAL 60-dollar skip potion that takes minimal development process at all AND makes the company a hefty chunk of change, to boot.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

- Remove the filler BS from MSQ (2.x and to a lesser extent 3.x)

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Ignoring how little "filler" there is in the 2.x series and how there's zero of it in the 3.x series (stuff not directly related to the MSQ events were moved into their own side stories)...how about we don't remove content from the game, yeah?

Advocate for a way for it to be skippable for those that just don't want to deal with story in a story heavy MMO, but don't ever advocate for removal of content.

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

Please god, no.

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If you don't want to run old content, just don't. Plenty of people will still do it to help new players.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Ignoring how little "filler" there is in the 2.x

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There are a lot of fillers in 2.x...quest that makes you back and forth between 2 NPC...or worse, quests where Minfilia contacts you by linkshell because she wants to see you, only to send you somewhere..."You couldn't tell me that directly, you idiot ?!"

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

There are a lot of fillers in 2.x...quest that makes you back and forth between 2 NPC...or worse, quests where Minfilia contacts you by linkshell because she wants to see you, only to send you somewhere.

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Filler quests are those that send you off to do something and when you return you're right back where you started without having progressed any other element of the plot or story. The only one that actually truly fits that criteria are the quests you do with Tataru (where she tries the different jobs/professions), and even those have some character development for her going forward, and also serve to create a sense of pacing and a calm moment before the storm at the end of 2.5 (so technically filler, but still useful as a story-telling element).

Fetch quests, talk-to quests, etc., are NOT filler IF they move the plot forward...and most of 2.x does exactly that. What keeps getting called filler is based on a misconception created by impatient players who want little more than to get to the next exciting action set piece and skip anything they find boring (what they find boring usually being labeled as filler).

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

If you don't want to run old content, just don't. Plenty of people will still do it to help new players.

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No, they won't, which is why the development team is constantly coming up with carrots-on-sticks to shove us back into that tired old content. This is precisely what I'm advocating against with my support of things like optional skip potions. Why do you think the relic questline shifted from a cool series of unique trial battles to the leveling-content-revival it is now? Sure, some of it was because people complained about the HM primal difficulties, but I guarantee a lot of it was a sneaky way to bolster activity in low-level areas while helping the devs cut corners on development costs. This is the game direction I don't want to see.

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Originally Posted by Berethos

Filler quests are those that send you off to do something and when you return you're right back where you started without having progressed any other element of the plot or story.

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Ok, let's not call them "filler" then. But it's still quests where you spent 90% of the time going back and forth between locations. This could easily be compressed without losing any plot point and skipping no real "content".

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Originally Posted by loreleidiangelo

This is the game direction I don't want to see.

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Saddly, this is the best way to be new player friendly. Giving a new player a jump or potion will just make them totally ignorant on how to play.
And the higher they are, the less forgiving other players will be.

The problem with the relic is not the usage of old content, it's that people thought it would be an elite weapon, worthy of the name "Relic", judging by the difficulty of the first step.
And by offering other idea like Wondrous Tails, they can have many different ways to revive old content.

curios question. HW will not be required for entry into storm blood. Does anyone know how SE will bridge the gap between level 50 ARR and level 60 (I presume) Stormblood for those who do not do HW?