A serious discussion about abridging the story quest 1-50 (discouraging new players)

Asides everything, I think upon later expansions...
They should do away with it after a while.
This one is fine, but 5 expansions down the road and you having to complete EVERY SINGLE EXPANSION for the next does kinda seem annoying.
Not every single thing needs to be done if you finished the expac. Again, this route is fine for now, but later on I'ma start getting tired of it lol.
I'm already annoyed that every dungeon in 3.0 has to be unlocked by the MSQ.

Hate to ask, but how did WoW go about expansions?

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

The fact is, a suggestion to change something can be considered on its merit regardless of how many cries of "BUT CHANGING THINGS IZ BAD!!!!11!" arise.

In this case, there's no reason to not make the MSQ optional. No one gets hurt by it, and some people who don't want to do it don't have to.

It's win/win, especially for SE who will rake in more money.

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This in bold is incorrect. This will hurt the game for all of the players who care about the story, to just be able to walk into an isolated nation like Ishgard with no explanation behind it. To just go right into dungeons without even a reason as to why. The problem with MMOs nowadays is they make everything accessible to everyone right off the bat. You may think this is good design, but it's not. It greatly shortens the life cycle of said MMO, and people leave because they find themselves without things to do and get bored. Achievements end up feeling hollow because they are not achievements at all since they had to do no work whatsoever, just had it handed to them on a silver platter. Having finished absolutely everything the player believes the game has to offer to them currently, they unsub until other content comes out.

I shudder to think what a lot of MMO players of today would've done in a game like FFXI(the old FFXI) where you had to REALLY work for your rewards. Getting a relic weapon in that game was actually an accomplishment. The face of what the MMO genre is has changed drastically. There is such a thing as being too accessible, too casual, too easy.

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Originally Posted by Jayjohn

What you said here is pretty stupid. If you are going to have it level gated anyways, why not put a story into it that actually levels you more efficiently than the additional content in the game. Which by the way is the MSQ.

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Are you even reading the thread? The entire point of this is giving people the freedom to CHOOSE how they want to level.

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Originally Posted by Zabuza

Making MSQ optional, starting over with each expansion... this is a large reason why no other MMOs match HW in story. It's a breath of fresh air to actually play an MMO that cares about their story.

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Once again, another person is confusing "opinion" with "fact"...

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No matter how much you plead for it, SE is not going to make the entire MSQ optional for you.

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And you know this...how? Are you Yoshi-P?

This blatant and annoying SE fanboyism really needs to die in a fire, already.

Seriously, the most limp-wristed argument I've ever seen anyone make is "BECAZE ITS FF!!!!"

Because it's FF, we should stop money at the door in the name of "tradition" or some other such nonsense? Again, it's the same narrow-minded logic that people used in defense of "traditional" marriage.

If other people don't have to play through the MSQ, HOW does that affect YOU?!

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Originally Posted by Zabuza

This will hurt the game for all of the players who care about the story, to just be able to walk into an isolated nation like Ishgard with no explanation behind it.

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You do realize that a huge chunk of people do this anyway because they've mashed ESC the entire time, right? They have NO idea why they're going to Isgard, or what Isgard even IS...

Yet, they're still playing the game and they'll enjoy the raids JUST fine.

Funny how that works...

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Are you even reading the thread? The entire point of this is giving people the freedom to CHOOSE how they want to level.



Once again, another person is confusing "opinion" with "fact"...



And you know this...how? Are you Yoshi-P?

This blatant and annoying SE fanboyism really needs to die in a fire, already.

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I know this because it's clear how much Yoshi-P and crew care about the lore of this game. You don't have to believe me, by all means keep trying to protest to make the entire MSQ optional, but it won't happen. So I am a fanboy because I am defending one aspect of the game? Does that then make you a hater?

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Seriously, the most limp-wristed argument I've ever seen anyone make is "BECAZE ITS FF!!!!"

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I did not mention anything about it being FF as the reason to keep it mandatory. Caving to this demand will begin a vicious cycle of overcatering to the customer if they do, watering down their entire game to easy mode. Next thing you know they'll be allowing people to start at 60, because hey, why not? Let people choose how they want to play right? Why do we gate raid gear behind a challenging boss fight? Isn't that unfair for players who just want the gear now? Why are we denying them that choice? This is really no different. To new players, this entire ARR story is new, so I still don't see the problem, seriously. Instead of spending so much time on these forums complaining about it you could've been completing the quests.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Because it's FF, we should stop money at the door in the name of "tradition" or some other such nonsense? Again, it's the same narrow-minded logic that people used in defense of "traditional" marriage.

If other people don't have to play through the MSQ, HOW does that affect YOU?!

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See above.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

You do realize that a huge chunk of people do this anyway because they've mashed ESC the entire time, right? They have NO idea why they're going to Isgard, or what Isgard even IS...

Yet, they're still playing the game and enjoying the raid encounters JUST fine.

Funny how that works...

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That's cool, I have a friend who is exactly what you described, and she hasn't once complained about having to do these MSQ, she just did them. They're certainly denying themselves of a great story, but to each their own. You already have choice in the ability to do this. If we made the entire MSQ optional, however, you would be destroying the lore for people who cared about it. You may think it's stupid for me to say that, but it's completely true.

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Originally Posted by RichardButte

Are you even reading the thread? The entire point of this is giving people the freedom to CHOOSE how they want to level.

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I am reading the thread. It sounds like you want to revert everything back to 1.0 where you had had freedom of everything. I wonder how that went for them ... oh wait pretty sure 2.0 was made in the aftermath of that 1.0 debacle.

But seriously the issue isn't with the MSQ from 1-50 its the post 2.0 MSQ that's the problem and should be trimmed to get you HW faster.

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I say this because I've literally been unable to coax two of my friends past the amount of story quest that this game has.

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All of the people I tried to introduce to FF14 made it to the inane filler quests just before Titan before they walked away. I like that FF14 is a story driven game. I like that it immerses players more deeply in it's lore and story than other MMOs. But a ~lot~ of the Main Story Quests aren't doing anything to tell the story. They are just there to fill out the level range or the release, and when new players are faced with the backlog of pointless fedex or kill five rats quests they just move on to something that doesn't foist such mediocre non-voice acted filler on them. The writers themselves even poke fun at this as they make you waste time running all over the world doing everyone's mundane chores.

And since this forum has a ridiculously low character limit:

This makes for a very poor business model as well. Right now FF14 is quite full of people returning to play Heavensward, as well as new players who just found out that they will not be playing Heavensward. But already queue times have started coming back down, and attrition will once again be culling the population. Because of the massive barrier to entry significantly fewer new players will be replacing players lost to attrition.

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Originally Posted by RedShipRaider

And since this forum has a ridiculously low character limit:

This makes for a very poor business model as well. Right now FF14 is quite full of people returning to play Heavensward, as well as new players who just found out that they will not be playing Heavensward. But already queue times have started coming back down, and attrition will once again be culling the population. And because of the massive barrier to entry significantly fewer new players will be replacing players lost to attrition.

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Dunno why they even have the character limit to begin with when you can simply bypass it by editing your post. Their game is amazing and polished, but their forums are from like 10 years ago still. Anyways, doing away with the mundane fetch quests is fine, making entire MSQ optional is not. Not every game is for everyone, and simply having the largest amount of people playing your MMO does not make it the best MMO. This MMO is focused on story, if people cannot accept that, there are other MMOs waiting for you. Thanks to a certain MMO, people have become preconditioned to think they should get everything handed to them. The true meaning of what an MMO is has been lost. I so much agree with this decision to keep MSQ mandatory. MMOs were never meant to be an instant gratification genre.

If you want freedom of choice, play a sandbox mmo. They are designed so that there is no linearity and everything is optional. There arent even classes! Progression is what you make it.

This is not a sandbox but a themepark mmo. The only choices you have are the rides privided, and some rides have lines that one cannot simply bypass. If you want to hop on Ishgard then get in line like we all had to do.

As a side note, sandbox rpgs have yet to do nearly as well as their themepark counterparts. The idea that freedom of choice is a better business model is false

I just started an alt and within a week I cleared all of 2.0 story and Ramuh (2.3)while leveling her from 1 to 50. And I did that reading all the story dialogue so if people are still complaining. STOP if I did it it what is a week and a few days for a new player if they want to catch up all with the added benefit of blue gear every 5 or so MSQ. Personally, if I have a friend playing with me I would have started an alt with them instead of enjoying HW rubbing it in their face.