New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

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You are basically suggesting getting carried by duty finder. That works fine for one person, but when you have half the party with 3.5k HP in titan, not so much. Plus no levi weapons at ~ilvl60, they drop from EX. And when all the geared players are doing fun new expansion content, you end up with 2-3 people trying to carry 5-6.

If you're going into 2.4 content with a weapon below 90, and 2.5 content with a weapon below 100, you are getting carried. Try a crystalis some time with all dps weapons below 90, see how well that goes.

You can have an average ilvl of 100 and be less useful to your party than someone with an average ilvl of 40 (130 weapon/body/pants). Hitting the minimum ilvl with the weakest slots leaves your party better off with you getting locked out of the fight.

Plus with expansion, there likely will be no soldiery tomes, and poetic tomes will likely be significantly decreased from where soldiery tomes are now for a month or two.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You are basically suggesting getting carried by duty finder. That works fine for one person, but when you have half the party with 3.5k HP in titan, not so much.

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How much HP do you think people had when we were clearing Titan? If you've got an i55 or better weapon (GC, any Primal) and pretty much anything more than "base AF gear and fresh 50 jewelry", you're geared enough to clear Titan. An i120 belt and jewelry plus an i55 weapon is enough.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Plus no levi weapons at ~ilvl60, they drop from EX.

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My mistake.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

And when all the geared players are doing fun new expansion content, you end up with 2-3 people trying to carry 5-6.

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Which, for most of the primals, is enough. And that's if the 5-6 new people all die.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you're going into 2.4 content with a weapon below 90, and 2.5 content with a weapon below 100, you are getting carried. Try a crystalis some time with all dps weapons below 90, see how well that goes.

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By the time you get to Chrysalis, you can for a minor detour have gotten your Zenith. I left it out of my earlier post, but it's not much of a detour at all.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You can have an average ilvl of 100 and be less useful to your party than someone with an average ilvl of 40 (130 weapon/body/pants). Hitting the minimum ilvl with the weakest slots leaves your party better off with you getting locked out of the fight.

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That's hyperbole and you know it. I know that the ilvl algorithm needs a lot of work, but a half-competent but undergeared person does not put out *negative* numbers, which is what would be required for your last sentence to be true.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Plus with expansion, there likely will be no soldiery tomes, and poetic tomes will likely be significantly decreased from where soldiery tomes are now for a month or two.

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We don't actually know what will happen to poetics. It's an expansion, not just another patch, so we don't know what their plans are. *If* the pattern holds, you're right that tomes will be harder to come by. If the pattern does not hold, there's no telling what they'll do.

And my earlier post almost entirely ignored hunts, which are also a valid method of getting gear. Even with no S ranks, a few hours of hunting can get you an i100 chest piece. And that's if they don't move the i120 pieces to the hunt vendor. And if 3.0 lowers hunt participation, that makes it even easier for a fresh 50 to hunt. Especially since hunts don't require good gear as long as you have some tanks and healers for aggro.

And that's *still* ignoring cheap crafted gear.

Face it, when you add all the ways to get gear easily in this game, there's no reason it should take long to hit i90.

I'd like to share also my opinion about the lock out of jobs, as well as for the rest of the game, behind these story content. And all I can say is that I truely feel depressed that such choice was taken for the expansion.

Don't take me wrong here: I wouldn't mind if the story quests were simpler and quicker to do, with possible "solo modes" to do and basically quick content that wouldn't last a day or two, but requiring to finish the entire 2.0 game content just for unlocking the new jobs? And quests? And even duties, eventually? I'm sorry but I really don't like this decision, especially if a new player wants to join in and simply want to have fun: I wanted to invite my sister to play with me again and she has not completed any 2.0 content yet. Meaning, she is stuck at doing the old content until she can finally reach the expansion, which will require a whole lot of dungeons and trials to do and gear to actually "enter" those dungeons and trials. Oh and it will also require people to do that content, which may or may not be present since I assume most of them will be doing the actual endgame content of the expansion.


And all for what? The "story"? Does it mean that the story is more important than the game itself? Whether I like it or not, locking content behind a story "because it makes sense" doesn't make sense to me in terms of fun factor: if I was a new player I don't know If I'd stay until the end, since I'm forced to do old content (with old gear, most likely) before even reaching the expansion landscape. It's not fun.

Granted, fun is highly subjective here and what's fun for me MIGHT not be for someone else, but this is flatout "locked out content" for the sake of the story: as a new player I want to play the new class, I want to play the new quests, I want to play the new zone. And if I didn't follow the previous story? Well so be it, but at least I'm having fun and if you really want to follow the story from the previous content, why not making it optional?

As of now I don't know if I will continue, nor I know if I will be able to recommend the game to those who I hoped to play with: how am I supposed to tell my sister (or my friends) that "you must complete the original content before entering the new zone and unlock the new jobs"? It's not a good incentive to buy the game nor the expansion, and that is why I don't agree with such decision.

I apologize, but I really had to tell what I thought about this.

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

And all I can say is that I truely feel depressed that such choice was taken for the expansion..

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I apologize you do feel that way about it. My only thing is that as the "Veterans" we are supposed to be helping the new people get through. But a lot of people are very selfish and only care about getting through themselves. I personally don't mind helping people get through something, you just need to ask. I've had fun being silly in older content and I try to make the experience fun if the group allows me to(I like to tank with tanks in Titan as a Healer for lols). The case for your sister falls upon her enjoyment on the game as well your assistance with getting her through things. You can make that experience fun for her if you want with in mind, "I'll earn the right to finally get into Ishgard and everything", you can simply take the neutral route and go along with it, or be upset and discontinue while the game pushes forward. The game and story is both important. But everyone wants to toss away the "Meaningful Journey" for "Convenience".

Now I don't mean this to say this is your case. I understand that you would want to play these jobs. So why not give it everything you can so you can just play those jobs? That's the issue I see. A lot of people wish for it to be given to them and not earned.

In fairness I don't think gearing to i90 will be too difficult simply because doing the main quests from 1-50 does net you around 200k which should allow you to gear up with crafted gear, not to mention if you buy a set of i49 accessories for cheap and then spritbind them while working through castrum and praetorium you could net a bundle too. That's assuming that the prices of crafted gear go down or a whole bunch of new sets appear and the materials needed to make them are not so rare.

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Originally Posted by Viridiana

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You skipped the main point, which is that it requires being carried while having an effective ilvl 10 levels below the minimum, while the people that would be doing the carrying are enjoying the new content.

An undergeared person can definitely have a negative helpfulness in an instance, when they are sucking up so much healer mp/time from being kept alive and raised. Many fights have a dps and HP check, that you won't meet at the minimum ilvl met by high level accessories. Zenith at crystalis is still being carried.

And this is still 200+ hours to reach the content that you bought the game to play when you have to grind hunts/dungeons/relic to reach that point.

The "cheap" ilvl90 crafted gear is going for 300k+ per piece on my server. The also cheap 110 gear is closer to 1.5M per piece.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

You skipped the main point, which is that it requires being carried while having an effective ilvl 10 levels below the minimum, while the people that would be doing the carrying are enjoying the new content.

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The only way you can be 10 ilvl below the minimum even as a fresh 50 is if you're talking about Leviathan onward. And if you're keeping up with your weapon, not even Levi.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

An undergeared person can definitely have a negative helpfulness in an instance, when they are sucking up so much healer mp/time from being kept alive and raised. Many fights have a dps and HP check, that you won't meet at the minimum ilvl met by high level accessories.

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I focused more on the accessories for a number of reasons. Yes, it's the biggest ilvl increase for most fresh 50s. It's also (on Balmung anyway) the most gil-friendly way to level up.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Zenith at crystalis is still being carried.

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No. Having a weapon that is the same as the required ilvl average is not being carried.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

And this is still 200+ hours to reach the content that you bought the game to play when you have to grind hunts/dungeons/relic to reach that point.

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You bought the game only to play the expansion? You dropped $40 or more on the base game with no intention of playing it at all? Because that seems like a waste of money.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

The "cheap" ilvl90 crafted gear is going for 300k+ per piece on my server. The also cheap 110 gear is closer to 1.5M per piece.

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For NQ? And how much are the mats? And how much is it to buy NQ and meld it to have the same primary stats as the HQ? Because these are all valid options that I somehow doubt you looked into.

Has it occurred to you that people might join this game on hearing about being, say, a dude with a gun or a guy with a big sword that uses DARK MAGICK and then want to play that through all this stuff post 50? Cause that's what's being talked about here.

I agree completely I don't want to see something like what wow did with their asks. Always thought it was so dumb that they just started at 50

I honestly think they are doing the right thing here. I mean if you look at other mmos they are now making it where you get a max lvl or just under when you buy their expansions. Which the cause There to be a massive influx of people playing content that they don't know the story or the mechanics for which in turn makes it where we have tons of people complaining that the content is to hard and in the end cause the game to get watered down. Personally I like the feeling when I have to work to win and not having the fight nerffed to the ground a week after it comes out.

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Originally Posted by Verdan

Ah, pedantry. A fine spice to terrible posts.

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I said class instead of job, my point is invalid :(.

I don't seem to understand the problem at all. When FF 14 2.0 started you did not have access to all the other Classes, you had to at least reach level 15 to get access to the airship and then you could travel to the individual schools, no? Like I said, maybe I'm not understanding this right but what exactly is the problem? So someone who starts the game does not have access to ALL of the classes that are in the game, is that it? I don't see why that is bad, isn't it like that in many other games :O? Also, makes you look forward to things :D And it's not like the existing starter classes will be outdated or "uncool" just because there are 3 new ones
For all we know they will tweak the new jobs anyway, just like they did almost every other job, so all of us who swarm them will likely first get a little patchhammer after a few weeks and wouldn't THAT be depressing to a new player?

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you skip all the reading and cutscenes, play as a tank or healer for faster queue times, and have gear waiting at level 50 that's unreasonable to expect a non gil-buying noob to have, then the time through the end of the MSQ would still be longer than going 1-30 in XI ignoring everything but leveling.

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That is simply not true. I started out as an Arcanist (dps) read every quest, watched cutscenes, did nearly every side quest I found, leveled Thaumaturge (dps) and Archer (dps) to at least level 15 (I actually think I leveled Thm to 20something or 30), leveled up to 50 Smn (dps)and completed the MSQ that 2.0 had to offer which at the time ended with Praetorium basically, and that took a month roughly. Every single new update that added MSQ after that it only took a few hours to complete and sometimes I would stretch that out just so I didn't zoom through it all and made it last a few days doing parts here and there, but they only took a few hours at most. 2.55 took about 5-6 hours with all the cutscenes, roughly, though perhaps slightly less. And that's reading and listening to everything and sometimes rereading lines to make sure I read and heard it correctly. - ((Not to mention I never had any issues with gil. I hadn't even started leveling any crafting jobs until 2.4. We didn't even have the challenge log or duty roulettes that spew free gil at you for just playing the game. Nor did we have retainers that go off and basically give you gil when they return. There are so many ways to get easy gil these days it's not even funny.))

In FFXI it took me probably about 6 months to a year from NA launch to level up Warrior to 40 (because I wanted to) and Monk to 20 before I unlocked Dark Knight initially while questing and completing some early rank missions. It took roughly another year before I hit level 75 on Dark Knight finally (add in leveling thief to 40 and ninja to 20), actually it might have taken longer. I remember I finally hit 75 in a ToAU zone so that expansion (#3) had already been out. So after looking up some info that means it took me actually over 2 years to finally hit 75 on my Dark Knight, and I played A LOOOOT.

Don't give me that "You didn't have to level subjobs" bs either. Anybody that actually wanted to be invited to an exp party leveled subjobs that were desirable so that they could be useful in a party and so that party leaders would actually choose you over someone else who didn't have what they were looking for. Initially starting out as a noob, you'd think Warrior would make the best sub for Drk, at least I did because it looked like that would give me great buffs that would be useful and help me do more damage. Imagine my surprise when /thf eventually became the required sub if you actually wanted to be useful or invited to a party at all. Later on I leveled Samuria and just happened to try it out as a subjob and fell in love with it's utility (imo the best SJ there was for Drk).

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.n...31216931_o.jpg
https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...22619569_o.jpg

At that point I still had not beaten RoZ (though I eventually did). Sadly RoZ was the only expansion story I was able to fully complete. When CoP came out people started using the Static mentality to beat the difficult content and much like BCoB,SCoB, and FCoB without one you pretty much aren't going to complete it.

The main point I'm making here is that XI required so much more time to get things done. Can you imagine if the new jobs were gated behind completion of expansion in that game? It would have been unfeasible to have a requirement like that because the game was set up in such a way that it required enormous amounts of dedication and time to accomplish anything and everything.

Honestly, I've played a huge amount of varying MMO/MMORPGs and leveling up normally my first time through as a fresh character in XIV took me roughly 1/3 of the time to level up to the level cap and complete the main story as it had taken me in other more relatively recent MMORPGs (WoW - Cataclysm era, Tera, SWtOR, GW2). I think the only MMO I ever played that I beat all the story in faster than XIV (and I wasn't trying for any kind of speed completion in any game) was Defiance. I think it took me 2 weeks to play through that game's whole available story after it launched... I was highly underwhelmed with that one to say the least.

Personally I'm not a fan of how all MMORPGs are trying to be super casual, quick and easy things these days. I mean, I get it that it make sense with how fickle a lot of gamers are these days. But if I'm paying a subscription to a game I'm darn sure going to be playing it as often as I can. Which for me is pretty normal. I play almost whenever I have time off and am not doing something else like watching movies, tv, anime, playing another game or hanging out with friends.

I kinda wish there was a /playtime command to see how many hours you've logged because I know I've got a lot.. I like to get my monies worth and play as often as I can.

I wonder if they will ever treat us to fun info like this:
https://scontent-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...11&oe=55A1A7DB
(No idea when that was.)

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

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And again, you ignore the time spent between the major patches gearing up.

How long it took you to get to 40 in XI has nothing to do with how long it would have taken a new player to get to 30 when CoP came out (which is essentially where we are in XIV at Heavensward).

The only real problem i see with gating it behind the story completion, is even right now on Famfrit it is difficult to get people to do the "Steps" trial. and god forbid if someone says they are new.Imagine how its gonna be in 2 months.

one of my friends has had a group abandon 3 times in the last 2 days when he has tried to put a group together after just 1 wipe.

Has it occurred to anyone that SE may well be reducing the amount of XP needed to level 1-50 as well as adding new equipment rewards to the old quests to assist new players in gearing up?

I've never seen an MMO that didn't ease the previous progression curve when releasing a vertical expansion. For all any of you know getting to 50 and clearing the main scenario may be far far easier to do once 3.0 launches. It's useless arguing over this as no one yet knows how it's going to be handled. Hell the whole 'jobs gated in Ishgard' thing is even in contention as the statement is characteristically vague and gives no real specifics.

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Originally Posted by Rgbg

I don't seem to understand the problem at all. When FF 14 2.0 started you did not have access to all the other Classes, you had to at least reach level 15 to get access to the airship and then you could travel to the individual schools, no?

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There is a massive difference between leveling to 15 and leveling to 50 and doing a large amount of story content post 50 in order to play the class you want. If someone joins the game because they want to play one of the new classes, they're not going to want to level something they didn't want to play up to 50 and gear them up just so they can play the class they actually wanted to. They're going to want to play that content with that class, not play that content to get to that class. I understand a lot of you people are at a point where all this is behind you, but you gotta think about how daunting it will be for a new player to come in, exited about the prospect of something they added, only to realize that they'd have to play an enormous amount of stuff in a class they weren't interested in playing just so that they can try the class that got them interested. This is not a proposition that will fly.

It looks like SE is just doing their own interpretation of the Hero Class as shown in WoW. In WoW, to unlock Death Knight, you have to be lv.55 on a class and have purchased the WoTLK expansion, then the class was open to play. Looks like SE's method of gating it is the expansion itself, be lv.50 and complete 2.55. Also, yes 50 because you have to be at least lv.49 to participate in Praetorium and have ilvl requirements for the main scenario. So in a sense, at least one lv.50 job to unlock these.

I am cool with this. A lot of MMO's have practiced this in the past and the reward factor for unlocking them feels pretty great. My guess is they will start at lv.30 to start alongside other jobs. What I do wonder is how you are worked into the job. My guess is there will be a questline at the level it starts to teach you the abilities you have on your bar then let you go from there. Have a hard time imagining SE would throw the job at you and expect to figure it out on the spot.

At a bare minimum you will need to have level 30 and that is IF they decide to put the job trainers in the ARR areas. Why such pushback anyway? Heaven forbid you actually have to work towards something you want in an RPG... (ya, that last part is something so many people seem to automatically drop off the MMORPG acronym, glad to see SE bringing it back!)

As FFXIV is a lore driven game. I accept this completely.

I commend them for gating content behind old content.

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Originally Posted by Verdan

If someone joins the game because they want to play one of the new classes

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Fixed that for you. People have many reasons to get a game but the core reason is to play the game.

Only a 'special' few want immediate handouts of everything that normally must be earned, this is no exception.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

Fixed that for you. People have many reasons to get a game but the core reason is to play the game.

Only a 'special' few want immediate handouts of everything that normally must be earned, this is no exception.

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The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

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Originally Posted by Magis

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

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I hadn't thought about it this way until I read this. I can see this point. If you say, "well jobs/classes are a core concept of what they're marketing this mmo as" I would argue the same thing about the story and lore of it. Hell they made a big deal about splitting 2.5's Main Story Quest into 2 parts because it was so long (The cutsceeeenes) and it is the push into Heavensward.

I don't like comparisons to FFXI (pre abyssea) to FFXIV, I remember the time I spent in FFXI getting jobs to 75, in fact the majority of the time spent in FFXI back then was WASTED time WAITING for an exp party that didn't suck.

I don't see the exp curve being lowered pre-50 as it is currently easy enough, what they could do is raise FATE exp back up to what it used to be. At the start of ARR fate exp was much much higher than dungeon exp (they buffed dungeon exp a lot and nerfed fate exp) This would spread the players more evenly between FATE's and Dungeons potentially easing the queue times for some who would rather take the dungeon route.

You then have the 50 barrier which leads to other questions:

1) is 50 cap going to be gated behind ishgard or can people just level to 51 straight from 50, this COULD* completely bypass any difficulty in completing the main story to get to ishgard.
2) Currently the best gear in the game is i130/135, is level 51-59 gear going to be better or worse, If there is not a level 50 quest gated behind the main storyline I could envisage square putting new i90+ gear for 51-59 either dropping from quests or easily craftable with standard easy to get materials. This would completely remove any need to grind for any gear as it would be as easily obtainable as all previous gear to 50.
3) If the cap is gated behind ishgard, I could also envisage square appointing some side quests for level 50's to get some of the ancient gear pieces the previous dungeons dropped which you could immediately convert into the original job specific mythology gear from release, alongside ifrit/garuda/titan to get your relic it wouldn't be such a task to be i90 for steps anymore I could imagine if you sped through it all your biggest road block would just be waiting to do the trials in duty finder if you was a dps class.

After reading through this thread and coming to some conclusions of my own I don't see the Ishgard barrier being as high as I once believed it to be

Y'all are crazy.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

And again, you ignore the time spent between the major patches gearing up.

How long it took you to get to 40 in XI has nothing to do with how long it would have taken a new player to get to 30 when CoP came out (which is essentially where we are in XIV at Heavensward).

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You make it sound as if gearing up is a difficult thing. It's not. It can be a little rough at first, sure, but once you get going and accumulate tomestone currency it becomes that much easier with each new piece you get and once your ilvl is high enough run some CT instances on the side to fill in as interim upgrades. Normal "Hardmode" dungeon drops can also help fill the void until you get better gear that replaces it.

Sure, okay, it takes a little extra time to gear up. So take the time and do that and then unlock the story. Considering the requirement is only i90, that's a piece of cake.

A new player reaching level 30 when CoP came out would have still taken them at least a few months and that is without bothering to do anything else the game informs you of, like unlocking and leveling subjobs or unlocking your chocobo. Personally I can't imagine starting the game and not leveling up a job properly. You'd be such an ineffective player until you finally did the right thing and worked on a subjob that would benefit you. Nobody leveled a job without a subjob unless they were specifically trying to do that as a personal challenge just to say they did it. Otherwise it made you undesirable and unwanted, not to mention nowhere near as good as other players of your same job.

Ultimately it still would have taken about the same amount of time, and even more likely that it still would take less time unlock the new jobs in XIV than it would have in XI (new player at CoP launch, like you said).

I don't see the problem. It's called an expansion for a reason...
I don't even know why most of anyone here is complaining because most of us finished the MTQ.
If you're that concerned help the newbies out and level them up so they can get the new jobs then.
:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Ecks007

snip snip FFXI

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Funny you mention this...cuz FFXI actually does almost exactly what FFXIV is doing with the new jobs.
Certain jobs require certain expansions to unlock. This is, of course, a given and inconsequential to new players since you have to buy the full pack to get access to the game now anyway.
However, within the game, certain jobs are ALSO locked behind certain content.
Going back as far as RoZ, you had to access new expansion zones and get to a city called Norg to unlock Ninja and Samurai. This...was not an easy journey at the minimum level, and it could take MONTHS to reach the minimum level required (it takes about two days in the current game. Tops. Because of adjustments to make the lvl 99 cap actually conceivable to reach)
Then there were the WoG classes, which required accessing the WoG zones and traveling through VERY high level zones to complete the quests.
And then there's Geomancer and Rune Fencer, which require going through a very high level area to reach the new city.
In short, FFXIV's new jobs will be content gated, but FFXI's new jobs were beef gated.
I'll take content gates over beef gates any day. because content gates don't lie to you.

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Originally Posted by Magis

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

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Well. When I made my character I chose to be a Hyur Foestriker jacket, but through hard work and many hours of enjoyable story and questing I managed to turn into a High Allagan jacket. It was great.

My mum (a cavalry cuirass) is incredibly proud.

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Originally Posted by ExKage

I hadn't thought about it this way until I read this. I can see this point. If you say, "well jobs/classes are a core concept of what they're marketing this mmo as" I would argue the same thing about the story and lore of it. Hell they made a big deal about splitting 2.5's Main Story Quest into 2 parts because it was so long (The cutsceeeenes) and it is the push into Heavensward.

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I wouldn't say the 2.5 story was so big it had to be split. More like the devs split it to give something within the 5 month waiting period for the expansion.

I thought the split was a decision to not have us do the depressing end of 2.55 and then get told, "Now go play in the Gold Saucer!"

As it is, the XIV Tumblr community had a hard time getting into the Easter event last week.

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Originally Posted by Magis

The "what if a new player wants to play DRK" comparison is pointless. What if a new player wants to wear the 2nd Coil gear cause it looks cool? Should SE give that also at level one?

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I don't think anyone (outside of people who have misunderstood everything that's been going on in FFXIV news) is arguing for the jobs to be available from level 1. Jobs are jobs and not classes, even if these are classless jobs (and even Rogue wasn't available at lvl1). But there's a huge difference between 'unlocks by having a class/job at level 30' as Yoshi P said and 'unlocks by levelling up to 50 and going through ALL the main story up to date' as his statement was corrected to.

The fact that Yoshi P even mentioned getting the jobs and doing the MSQ with them doesn't make things better, either. Even if he had misunderstood the information he'd been given. Like several people have said, if I buy the game+expansion because the Machinist looks awesome and I want to play one -- or at least try it out -- I don't want to level up as a class/job I'm not nearly as interested in, gear them up and go through hours of quests that I won't be able to do again, just to get a chance to try it out.

As for 'these are advanced jobs that you should know the game in order to play well'.... even if you gain the job at level 30-ish, you're still going to have to go through all those MSQ, which will give you time to learn your job. Just because someone has levelled up SMN and learned that job/role doesn't mean they're automatically a superb SCH. I main WAR -- I'm a craptastic PLD. And despite having experience with those two jobs, I will still have to learn Dark Knight from basics. So I'm not entirely sure what the point is.


As a side-note, however, I have several alts who haven't gotten far at all in the MSQ. I have a Lala who's still working on unlocking his chocobo. It'll be interesting to see how far towards lvl60 the MSQ will take that Lala XD

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Originally Posted by Noxifer

if I buy the game+expansion because the Machinist looks awesome and I want to play one -- or at least try it out -- I don't want to level up as a class/job I'm not nearly as interested in, gear them up and go through hours of quests that I won't be able to do again, just to get a chance to try it out.

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Exactly this: the strength of an expansion is the new things that people want to try out, but locking them behind a ridiculously long quest chain doesn't make the new player want to try it at all, resulting in them not even bothering at all unless they're patient or have a lot of help, and even then it requires a lot of time and people (who will most likely be busy with new content) to even complete them. A new player will most likely buy the game with expansion, yet they are essentially going to be blocked as soon as they reached 50 because "they still have to complete the previous content", and this is the main issue that everyone should focus on: the new players.

As a new player myself - I will say that I felt completely rushed leveled through the dungeons. I started a month ago. If I never had any help (people literally buying me gear and doing stuff for me.) the rush would of been miserable. The story is absolutely dull and boring but I love playing with my friends.

However, having to pretty much "skip" through all the quests just to get to the ones you want to do isn't fun. The story shouldn't start at 2.0 for new players it should start after 2.55 if they choose.

They can be "related" to main heroes some how, however it is a pain. If I had a work or job It would of taken me months to do the main storyline quests, I basicly did them by just playing every day for 14 hours a day.

A normal average player does not have that time. So yes its a HUGE issue!

You want to play a game because your friends play it, however if your going to have to play for 14 hours a day for days trying to play unfun "catch up" your not going to sell your game.

Its 20$+Expansion Cost+Sub Cost (Especially if your a casual player.)

When I learned I had to do even more quests after 50 I took a break from the game, frustrated with playing "Catch up" I just want to play with my friends, not hear them discuss how awesome they are or what they are doing. You say you have to "work" for it, but why work for it when I can work in real life and get payed for it? Why should I give people money to work?

And your concern is what everyone should understand here: this will hinder new players and those who simply hoped to play the expansion's content. As a veteran player that started on 2.0 I can't really say much and infact this situation doesn't stop me from progressing at all, but if I was a new player I wouldn't even bother starting the game, even with full help of my friends, because I would just pester them constantly in order to "finish my main quest, so I could get into heavensward".

I'm not saying that nobody can help but, again, people will most likely do new content (because they want it, and because they paid for it), while you WILL be left out until you either finish your story, or until someone comes out and helps finishing your part of the story. And remember that you'd still need to pay the subscription for it.

And all of this could be simply resolved by making the 2.00 story optional to follow, making those new players after in 3.00 to start from where they left off in a sort of "recap" from the previous content. I would actually be "wanting" to complete that content even more knowing that it's tied to the expansion, if it wasn't completely mandatory to complete.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Voltyblast

I'm not saying that nobody can help but, again, people will most likely do new content (because they want it, and because they paid for it), while you WILL be left out until you either finish your story, or until someone comes out and helps finishing your part of the story. And remember that you'd still need to pay the subscription for it.

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Because SE doesn't have the foresight to keep the roulettes relevant, right? I mean, the roulette is what's keeping the low-level dungeons doable even now. I see no reason to believe that the roulettes will die off just because an expansion launches.

Soooo I had to play the full story, pay my monthly subscription, level up other jobs to 50, couldn't move on until I beat certain dungeons, and I still have to wait a few months until I can play the new content. You expect new people to access to the jobs and new content right off the bat, yea ok. They need to work for it like everyone else did. What makes them so special that they get skip content when I couldn't. That would be a slap in the face to everyone else who to had to work for it. Sure they can make things easier so it will be faster to catch up, like they do with patches. But skipping the story, heck no. If they want to play the new stuff then they can buy it and start working on it and be caught up by June.

/facepalm

/10char

Well, from the Letter, it seems they're going to be adjusting 2.0 content when 3.0 launches. No details yet, but I don't doubt they'll be facilitating new players' completing the story. We do know that 3.0 is when they'll be letting people queue with fewer people, which will already help with the queue times.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

As a new player myself - I will say that I felt completely rushed leveled through the dungeons.....
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The story is absolutely dull and boring

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That's your opinion and fine but...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

However, having to pretty much "skip" through all the quests just to get to the ones you want to do isn't fun.

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Why bother continuing if it isn't fun for you? You already deemed the story boring and dull so why do you have an issue with skipping through quests to catch up with your friend?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

You want to play a game because your friends play it, however if your going to have to play for 14 hours a day for days trying to play unfun "catch up" your not going to sell your game.

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You made the decision to play the gotta-go-fast-rush-and-catch-up-to-everyone mode which isn't really how FF14 is intended to be play for people new to the game, genre or the franchise itself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

You say you have to "work" for it, but why work for it when I can work in real life and get payed for it? Why should I give people money to work?

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The game is an RPG that heavily emphasizes player progression. You have to follow the order to a good extent. If you feel like the game is making you do such laborious "work" then the game is probably not for you and you should convince your friend(s) to play something else that you all can enjoy.