Auto-pathing in quests

The feature was introduced at "FINAL FANTASY XIV Fan Festival 2026 in Berlin" and is planned to be implemented during Evercold (not on release).

I'm a little bit disappointed. A few years ago, when I first downloaded the game I was impressed by the environment. I enjoyed exploring the world and had so many deviations along the way to my quests just to see what else the game has to offer. The story(MSQ) is one of the strongest selling points of the game. Part of it is traveling and exploring the world, getting lost, interacting with players, doing things out of curiosity etc.

As of now the game is on easy mode anyway. There is no constant threat of being killed by another player in the open world like in World of Warcraft. There are no hand-breaking mechanics as well. The game is primarily being played for the story.

The market is flooded with cheap korean/chinese idle games where everything is on auto mode. A few months ago I downloaded such a game and for 8 straight minutes I did not have an opportunity to play the game. It was playing itself: auto-pathing, auto accepting quests, cutscenes, auto combat etc. I got annoyed and deleted it.

My point is - yes, you can definitely automate the whole game but what will be the consumer experience? The game will be open on the second or third monitor. The players will not explore the world, they will auto travel from quest to quest. The dungeons will be completed easily because of the slow mechanics where the player has 3 business days to dodge the attacks. Being on the second monitor the players will not be engaged in the story because they do something else on their primary monitor or chores at home.

I don't understand why FF14 will shoot itself in the leg by neglecting their strong selling points - exploring the open world and story engagement. The transition from place to another contributes positively to the journey and builds up to the culmination of events. Imagine doing chores at home and seeing your character randomly appearing in front of NPCs or mob zones. You just fast click to skip the dialogue or click some spells to kill the mobs and continue with your chores at home or some other stuff unrelated to the game. Will you feel engaged? Will you feel satisfied? Did you spend quality time playing or talking with your family, for example doing both activities at once?

I always thought SE is targeting people who are willing to follow FF14's story and feel engaged. However it feels like they are shifting their focus to people who will neglect most of what was built with love and passion.

What does the community feel and think about this new feature?

Edit: It was mentioned during the event a lot of resources (time, money and personal) will be needed for this feature and that's also a reason for the delayed implementation. Is this distribution of resources justified?
It was mentioned a toggle option will be available. I wrote my thought with this in mind.

imo this is a mobile slop feature and it is disappointing that it is being put into an actual game. But Japan and Asia in general go hard for mobile slop so it's not too suprising it made it in even if it is disappointing.

I'm reading the Reddit thread about this topic. The opinions are split, however the ones which are against it have much better argumentations. Some people said the game will feel lifeless and it's better to watch the game on YouTube at this point.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...quest_markers/

I remember the days when NPCs had no markers even to note a quest was available, let alone the quest target NPC or area. It was fun to work out, but if you couldn't be bothered or were stuck, you asked your linkshell and often people you'd never met would accompany you to show you and you'd help them out a later date or pay it forward. And if you did it solo, you felt like you'd worked it out and earned it.

And if no-one in your LS knew, you or a helpful player looked on the wiki, also community sourced, to find out where to go.

You had to put effort in, socially or mentally, and were rewarded with progression, loot or, most valuably, connection to other players.q

The slow progression to the reduction of "questing" started in 2007 and this ultimate end, removal of the content entirely, hit mobile games a good few years ago.

No matter what language S-E wants to put on it, this is no longer "quest" content. They should rename "quests" to "brrrrrr" from 8.0 and be done with the facade.

It's optional. You don't have to use it.

Actually, it's not. Once implemented it will become the "optimal" way to play the game in terms of efficiency.
For example - you can travel from Germany to China by car, but 99.9% of people do it via plane.
By the time all newbies reach the endgame they will not understand a lot of the story due to playing semi-afk.
I(we) do not have a choice. This will be the future community players. Even if I disable the option for myself what will become of the community overall?
The guys which support this feature on Reddit are saying this will be good in terms of "accessibility". Is it worth it to trade engagement and interactions for accessibility? Because it's exactly that.

This is why i agree that some people shouldn’t be allowed to voice their opinions, especially when they aren’t fans of the genre in the 1st place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Infindox

It's optional. You don't have to use it.

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It’s also optional to list valid complains vs a pathetic defensive ones, only using 8 words.

It's completely optional to use and there are an extremely small number of reasons to be exploring the world outside of initial un-fogging of the map.

The FATE system is largely not relevant, Hunts are Point A to Point B as you travel, and there's not any other real overworld content to speak of. The exploration you think is being lost already largely does not exist and never has. The ability to fly on mounts alone ended exploration as people go direct to the end over everything now anyway once they unlock the mechanic.

As the game exists today already kills the notion that these are things that even exist, let alone things to be lost from auto pathing for some quests.

Optional or not, it is a very bad idea. Never put such a feature. We don't need this game to be automated. Just go and explore!