Can't Access 3.0 until you complete 2.0-2.55

Was anyone else extremely happy when they announced this? I was very very happy when I read that!

I'm not surprised this happened so I can't feel much over this when I was partly expecting this as a possible way they will handle Main Scenarios.

People can use FFXI as a example but that is a different game and each of its expansion storyline were separate stories except for 1 expansion if I remember right.

Though the bigger question is if this will be how they handle future expansions since as the game moves forward there becomes a larger gap between Main Scenario for each Expansion between a new character that has to start in 2.0 and burn through the story to reach 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and etc.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

I'm not surprised this happened so I can't feel much over this when I was partly expecting this as a possible way they will handle Main Scenarios.

People can use FFXI as a example but that is a different game and each of its expansion storyline were separate stories except for 1 expansion if I remember right.

Though the bigger question is if this will be how they handle future expansions since as the game moves forward there becomes a larger gap between Main Scenario for each Expansion between a new character that has to start in 2.0 and burn through the story to reach 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and etc.

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I would thought they will start adding shortcuts they give a summary of the story so far, but allow players to go on to the new content.

FFXIV is a story-heavy game. That's how the developers designed it. Expect content to revolve around stories.

If you are not a fan of this type of MMO,*you may want to try another that is less story-centric.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

I'm not surprised this happened so I can't feel much over this when I was partly expecting this as a possible way they will handle Main Scenarios.

People can use FFXI as a example but that is a different game and each of its expansion storyline were separate stories except for 1 expansion if I remember right.

Though the bigger question is if this will be how they handle future expansions since as the game moves forward there becomes a larger gap between Main Scenario for each Expansion between a new character that has to start in 2.0 and burn through the story to reach 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and etc.

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The only way I'd see them releasing expansions that wouldn't need ARR/Heavensward to be completed beforehand, would be for them to finally allowing us to defeat both, the Garlean Empire and the Ascians (given they're pretty much the major threats the world is facing right now). Permanently.

Until then, I'm not counting on future expansions being "stand-alone" any time soon...

I've already expressed my thoughts on the matter, and I feel that the areas should at least be explorable (it's something I have always appreciated from the beginning of ARR, to be able to explore any area at any level) without requiring mission progression, excluding of course endgame areas. I also hope that jobs won't be gated behind 2.55 as well, which would be also odd of an expansion (games I've played with expansions never had jobs requiring main storyline progression to unlock, if we exclude Summoner's particular case with Egis. You can unlock the job at any time, but must have fought Ifrit before accessing Ifrit egi, and so on).

Regarding Ishgard's story, I understand WHY it is so heavily connected to the 2.0 MSQ, but then I do not understand Yoshida's statement when he says that he projected Heavensward with in mind the idea to make the players feel like "a whole new game has come out". Feels more like an extension of ARR now. *shrug*

I have mixed feelings about it, to be perfectly honest. I follow the story like a hawk so every patch day, I tend to clear out the MSQ first. I enjoy the direction it's going in, but it does get rather clunky from time to time with some rather unnecessary "click this item and go here" quests before it actually gets to the point. So while I'm happy that the lore actually matters and it's continuing on, I don't really see the benefit of not having a condensed version of some of the more clunky/unneeded parts. Seems like more of an unnecessary gate imo. Then again, if Yoshi says so the lore team will make up some reason for this or that, and will just look the other way for the sake of gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Velox

FFXIV is a story-heavy game. That's how the developers designed it. Expect content to revolve around stories.

If you are not a fan of this type of MMO,*you may want to try another that is less story-centric.

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It's actually the other way around. The developers design the content and then the lore team fills in the lore. They've said as much during the Dev lore panels. So while the lore team has done a good job fitting in what the developers want, the lore tends to come after the developers state their intended goal with a piece of content.

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Originally Posted by ScarletDawn

I would thought they will start adding shortcuts they give a summary of the story so far, but allow players to go on to the new content.

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Well another way is to add new prologue quest for players that choose to start in 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, or etc era of Main Scenario. Altering a few dialogues to reflect that your character became a adventurer during the 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, or etc era of Main Scenario while making the rest follow mostly the same dialogues.

They can also make 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, or etc era of Main Scenario separate stories like they did with FFXI but have some slight relations to past Main Scenario to show a type of connection between main scenarios and why things are in certain main scenarios.

Though that my best guess if they choose to provide a short cut for later X.X era Main Scenario once they make the game's MSQ very long.

Personally, I didn't have any problem with it. However, if I took the perspective of someone that hasn't yet touched ffxiv but saw some heavensward trailers and thought I might pick it up, I'd be kinda bummed I can't jump right in. Especially when you consider that a big draw from the trailers is riding on flying mounts in these huge areas; finding out you can't even touch any of that until you finish the entirety of the 2.xx storyline could possibly put me off.

It does make sense though, since you would be kinda lost in the MSQ of the expansion and would be missing out on a lot of the lore if you didn't complete the 2.xx story first.

I expected this and think it would be really quite weird if it were otherwise. Maybe they could shuffle some things around so people could get more of a taste, sure. I'd have no problem with new players accessing flying mounts and being able to go into level 51+ areas and what not, but Ishgard itself becomes a bit of a problem since the main scenario tells you repeatedly that they're staying out of all conflicts that don't have to do with dragons and have gone so far as to ban any non-Ishgardian from entering their city. It seems like that would get messy if you could just enter Ishgard at will while all the NPCs are telling you that their gates are sealed.

In the future I'd expect that they'll likely use Praetorium as the jumping off point for expansions that don't deal with the Garlean/ Ascian threat. There's just too much stuff tied to the main scenario, though I suppose they could untangle it if they wanted. It doesn't seem worth it though. Allow people to no do the main scenario and then what? They level off of FATES and the few dungeons that don't unlock from MSQs until they get up to the new content? And then they have to backtrack and do the MSQ anyway if they want to, for instance, get into Heavensward or fight Bahamut?

I think the Gate is being used as a heavy means of preventing RMT action. Think about it, for the most part aspects which can be seen as lucrative in 3.0 can only be gained through Ishgard and if the only way to go through Ishgard is via completing up to 2.55 that means RMT would have to complete the whole plot just to progress. That's a lot of work to enter Ishgard and then on top of the risk of being banned for RMT activity. On top of that the fact it's tied to FC in the sense of airships and such which could be the most lucrative means of making gil might also suggest that they can nab RMT whom make a FC for the sheer efforts of making gil to sell.

Ishgard is obviously gated by ARR MSQ for story reasons. I don't remember SE ever mentioning that the other zones are gated by 2.55, however.

I have mixed feelings about this one.

It really doesn't matter for me anyway because, like most everyone else here on the forums, I'm caught up with the story and can jump right in.

On one hand it is nice that they're so focused on the story that they couldn't see a way around this - you have to witness the events of the previous quests, such as with Midgarsormr, Iceheart, and Aymeric, for Heavensward to make sense to begin with. In so many MMOs there is a lot of negativity amongst players toward the story (they only care about endgame lootz) and the developers play into that by making the story less important, and it's nice to see FFXIV stick with it, as it's a core component of the Final Fantasy name. Perhaps most importantly, they clearly intend to continue with some long-standing plot points such as what primals and ascians really are, and it's incredibly difficult to try and present progress on those mysteries out of order.

On the other hand, people don't want to pay $40 to be locked out of content, and not everyone is a diligent forum-goer who finishes all their story quests. In MMOs people enjoy things in different ways, and it's tough to tell people to just deal with it because the story quests are easy anyway. Additionally, it may become more difficult to get through them as time goes on; roulette bonuses only go so far to keep old content alive. There are also sometimes ways to "cheat" at separating out story content if you plan ahead for it. Not that it directly applies to what's going on with Heavensward, but in FFXI the expansions were absolutely intended to take place in order, especially the first two. But you could still play them out of order and they used some tricks to make them make sense that way too (most notably, Esha'ntarl "filling in" for Kam'lanaut even though you know he's dead if you did them in order). Finally, there's a ton of other areas in the game where they clearly said screw the lore because they wanted to add something, for something to be more accessible, or to use lore as an excuse for game functions - female chocobos were supposed to be locked away by Ishgard but there sure are enough for the Gold Saucer suddenly, Yugiri was added to introduce both Au Ra and Ninja but players can already be ninja without story progress and most likely we be able to be Au Ra as well, ridiculous quest text like for the Crystal Tower weekly, etc.

I think the best solution is to attempt to balance things as time goes on. Allowing people into old instanced content solo and separating out some of the utterly ridiculous filler quests into side quests are two of the biggest and easiest ways to do this. That way even if people have to play through an original game plus two expansions worth of story to get caught up with everyone else, it would at least be possible and reasonably quick to do.

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Originally Posted by Airget

snip [RMT hurdle]

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While I think the motivation is largely or even solely story based, this could be a very happen consequence.

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Originally Posted by Sove92

Ishgard is obviously gated by ARR MSQ for story reasons. I don't remember SE ever mentioning that the other zones are gated by 2.55, however.

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I don't even expect that all of the areas will be gated by the MSQ. It just depends on how you get there. If, for instance, Coerthas Western Highlands is accessed exclusively by cutting through Ishgard, then yeah they might be. However, if there's a way to physically get to one or multiple new areas from existing areas (not going through Ishgard) then I believe they'll be accessible.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

People can use FFXI as a example but that is a different game and each of its expansion storyline were separate stories except for 1 expansion if I remember right.

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Vanilla main scenario is tied to Zilart, which is tied to Chains Of Promathia. Yet you didn't need to finish Zilart to start CoP, which is...kind of silly.

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Originally Posted by Tsukino

On the other hand, people don't want to pay $40 to be locked out of content, and not everyone is a diligent forum-goer who finishes all their story quests.

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The way I see it, people who haven't done the MSQ...have a lot of things to do before going into Heavensward. As long as they have access to content, it's not a big deal.
And since the MSQ already unlocks lots of content, people will complete it even if they don't care about the story.

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Originally Posted by Sove92

Ishgard is obviously gated by ARR MSQ for story reasons. I don't remember SE ever mentioning that the other zones are gated by 2.55, however.

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Right, but unless SE is planning to cut and change pieces of certain maps, my best bet on the matter is that you first go to Ishgard, then get your first flying mount, and with it reach the other areas. As of now, I really do not know where the connections to other areas could be, other than Ishgard's.

Im not surprised by this as XIV's a very story driven game and in that story Ishgard has been sealed for 1000 years (or something, I cant remember lol) so been able to just start there without knowing why/the events leading up could be a problem. Also we'll assume that HW main storyline is going to make reference to events in ARR (Primals, defeat of the Empire, Bahumat etc) at least making new players go through that saves on needless recaps/exposition in cutscenes for the newbies (and driving us mad screaming "I know that already!" at the TV).

Besides forcing new players through ARR keeps old content in use longer allowing for testing our new classes in old dungeons quicker, quicker leveling (for both of us) and hopefully a better breed of player by time they hit 3.0
Also I dont think getting through 2.0-2.55 should take that long these days given the roulettes, quest exp and other helps the Devs have built in.

I believe the only thought I had was

'Eh, makes sense.'

Then I went back to grilling the fish my retainer brought me.

A an MMO with linear progression, they will likely nerf the grinds and difficulty of 2.0 content.

Can't have an MMO without players after all. And if they just kept it the same, it would eventually bottleneck. That would mean less players and less income from expansions.

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Originally Posted by Bluevann

Regarding Ishgard's story, I understand WHY it is so heavily connected to the 2.0 MSQ, but then I do not understand Yoshida's statement when he says that he projected Heavensward with in mind the idea to make the players feel like "a whole new game has come out". Feels more like an extension of ARR now. *shrug*

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I think he was referring just to the volume of the content presented in the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Velox

FFXIV is a story-heavy game. That's how the developers designed it. Expect content to revolve around stories.

If you are not a fan of this type of MMO,*you may want to try another that is less story-centric.

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I agree with you and love the idea that people will need to be up to date in the main story

it also gives me a resin to push others in my FC to complete the story because most of the guys in there are still very low level even tho they've had the game for longer then me and I'm up too Before the fall stuff :?

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Originally Posted by Tsukino

I have mixed feelings about this one.

It really doesn't matter for me anyway because, like most everyone else here on the forums, I'm caught up with the story and can jump right in.

On one hand it is nice that they're so focused on the story that they couldn't see a way around this - you have to witness the events of the previous quests, such as with Midgarsormr, Iceheart, and Aymeric, for Heavensward to make sense to begin with. In so many MMOs there is a lot of negativity amongst players toward the story (they only care about endgame lootz) and the developers play into that by making the story less important, and it's nice to see FFXIV stick with it, as it's a core component of the Final Fantasy name. Perhaps most importantly, they clearly intend to continue with some long-standing plot points such as what primals and ascians really are, and it's incredibly difficult to try and present progress on those mysteries out of order.

On the other hand, people don't want to pay $40 to be locked out of content, and not everyone is a diligent forum-goer who finishes all their story quests. In MMOs people enjoy things in different ways, and it's tough to tell people to just deal with it because the story quests are easy anyway. Additionally, it may become more difficult to get through them as time goes on; roulette bonuses only go so far to keep old content alive. There are also sometimes ways to "cheat" at separating out story content if you plan ahead for it. Not that it directly applies to what's going on with Heavensward, but in FFXI the expansions were absolutely intended to take place in order, especially the first two. But you could still play them out of order and they used some tricks to make them make sense that way too (most notably, Esha'ntarl "filling in" for Kam'lanaut even though you know he's dead if you did them in order). Finally, there's a ton of other areas in the game where they clearly said screw the lore because they wanted to add something, for something to be more accessible, or to use lore as an excuse for game functions - female chocobos were supposed to be locked away by Ishgard but there sure are enough for the Gold Saucer suddenly, Yugiri was added to introduce both Au Ra and Ninja but players can already be ninja without story progress and most likely we be able to be Au Ra as well, ridiculous quest text like for the Crystal Tower weekly, etc.

I think the best solution is to attempt to balance things as time goes on. Allowing people into old instanced content solo and separating out some of the utterly ridiculous filler quests into side quests are two of the biggest and easiest ways to do this. That way even if people have to play through an original game plus two expansions worth of story to get caught up with everyone else, it would at least be possible and reasonably quick to do.

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very much agree with the section I set to bold

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

very much agree with the section I set to bold

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Just a friendly reminder. All bold is hard to read. If you feel so strongly about something, just quote it, and delete everything else. All bold and all caps just make people want to turn away. :3

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Originally Posted by DefendPopPunk

... the perspective of someone that hasn't yet touched ffxiv but saw some heavensward trailers and thought I might pick it up, I'd be kinda bummed I can't jump right in...

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That's the reason for "expansion" word, you will be picking an expansion of something existing, so you have more to expect to clear content first, before go to new one, than a "start from scratch" of the new shinies. WoW too, had expansions with starting area picking from older level cap. It were the Lich King? I just remember that any random drop green gear were better than my old epics :)

I was definitely very happy with it. I was upset when I learned that new players could play rogues/ninjas just like anything else when they reached level 10, when neither ninjas nor rogues nor Domans had been introduced yet in their storyline at all. Picking up rogue should've required completion of 2.3 imo.

My philosophy is that new players shouldn't be barred from everything but they shouldn't able to just dive into everything with no regard for whether or not it makes sense. FFXIV is an amazing, story and lore filled game, and you should experience that. Sadly, I've met a few people who disregard that completely and just want to beat stuff up. As long as those people don't change the game, I don't care about them.

Are they not expecting to get any new players once expansion hits? Or do they simply expect the new players to go through all the old content before getting into any of the expansion??

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Originally Posted by Gillionaire

Are they not expecting to get any new players once expansion hits? Or do they simply expect the new players to go through all the old content before getting into any of the expansion??

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I'm also a little confused, so for example I go and create a char from beginning, i make him au'ra and a rogue - it doesn't have much sense till the late main scenario.

BUT I do understand that I can't do quests before I finish the 2.X quests to go on; I'm more confused on, so if I don't do 2.55 (I will when it comes out as I finished story till now) then I can't go into the "heavensward" part of the game till I do that? Or is that just about the main story?

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Originally Posted by sayafrost

... create a char from beginning, i make him au'ra and a rogue - it doesn't have much sense till the late main scenario....

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Rogue have sense, it were existing from the beginning. About Au'ra it needs more details about lore. Hardly SE had made it avail to scratch without thinking to fit that into lore. Will that avail from scratch? I remember had read about some kind of 'unlocks' on characters.

Im pretty sure SE will make the fetch quest parts of the MSQ route less tedious as we all know
Too well how much they like
-find npc A
-npc A gives u a list of things/ ppl u need to find
-find npc/items
-talk/ collect
-go back to npc A
-go back to other npc or to new npc
Repeat a few times
Unlock dungeon
Finish dungeon
Repeat or hit level roadblock and resort to fates to level up.

Its good they r making it a requirement as we all know how awkward it'd be if they haven't met titan ifrit or garuda lol.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

Rogue have sense, it were existing from the beginning. About Au'ra it needs more details about lore. Hardly SE had made it avail to scratch without thinking to fit that into lore. Will that avail from scratch? I remember had read about some kind of 'unlocks' on characters.

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Yeah actually, forgot about the rogue lore, you are right :)
In the end we just need to wait and see, and we'll get our answers

I don't see the problem...new players will already have lots of things to do with ARR alone, why would they need to go to Heavensward right away, especially, if the areas are designed for lvl51+ ?

We can be sure that we'll still have incentive to replay old content, so that there will always be enough vetran to join new players in dungeons and trials.

And, frankly, without the needed wait for updates, the MSQ is pretty fast to complete.

If you skip over all of the v2.0 series you're going to be at a serious disadvantage as a player.

I am sure in the privet live letter they said you couldn't enter ishgaurd (where most of 3.0 MSQ will start) until you complete the quest 'into the new dawn' which is a 2.55 quest

(this info was gained from the translation thread on reddit)

personally, i'm glad they decided to go this route (it only makes sense, the way the story is going), however, they should change some of the earlier msq come 3.0 and get rid of the requirements for low level dungeons and leves (i believe this is in the 2.1 story?). other than that, i see nothing wrong with this.

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Originally Posted by Nutz

While I think the motivation is largely or even solely story based, this could be a very happen consequence.



I don't even expect that all of the areas will be gated by the MSQ. It just depends on how you get there. If, for instance, Coerthas Western Highlands is accessed exclusively by cutting through Ishgard, then yeah they might be. However, if there's a way to physically get to one or multiple new areas from existing areas (not going through Ishgard) then I believe they'll be accessible.

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There is a glacier between central highland and western highland (snowcloak). I think there will be a NPC that bring you to the other side of the glacier if you have Heavensward and completed the 2.55 storyline.

It doesn't surprise me all that much when you think about it FF is a more heavy game series and Isgaurd is locked to us outsiders.

We also had to play diplomat after our starting city story's so we doing the same thing here.

I doubt if they will lock out the new areas besides Isgaurd but if they do we could just storm the city and demand access while we point our pointy weapons ( or books ) at the arch bishop and demand we be let in lol.

I'm not happy or sad about it. But it also mean the new areas won't be flooded with bots, So thats great

if you are a new player, you better finish the story line before go to ishgard or you will not understand a lot about the world.
if you don't want to do story line quest, i will be blunt, maybe you need to reconsider to play FF14 since it's heavy story oriented.

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Originally Posted by hallena

I'm not happy or sad about it. But it also mean the new areas won't be flooded with bots, So thats great

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it could be that's a big reson as to why they doing this.

I don't think its gonna stop bots at all - they increased the main story requirement for Job changes to like level 20 main story stuff and after a while the bots had adjusted.
They will most likely bot the main story as well. (see all those BLM spamming dungeons, which is why they stand in town and disappear/reappear every now and then)