Forced to finish Before the Fall, dumb design.

It's pretty next level stupid of SE to force players to complete the original story quests up to and including before the fall in order to step foot into Heavensward. Got a few friends that bought the game and pre-ordered Heavensward but it looks like we wont be able to start the expansion right away since they dont have the time to finish all of the long and tedious quests leading up to it. I'm sure I'm not the only one having a problem with this. A new expansion should mean a new start and an equalization between the player base and gear. Everyone should be on equal footing.

It's the continuation of a linear story. Sure they should probably cut out the filler missions (like the rediculously tedious fetch quest) but it's way too late now anyway.
The reality is you have to finish the MSQ or don't play the expansion.

It's just a damn shame, sure this is a story driven game but the fact is, it has difficult endgame progression content for hardcore raiders as well. Most of which, at least the ones I've raided with, don't care for story.

Joins thread to suggest putting tired complain in tired threads that are the same qq. Sees name, sees number of posts, backs away slowly...

Got a problem with the fact that I've just started posting? My opinion is still the same.

Maybe i'm off base here, but if you have expert roulette unlocked it's only a skip and a jump to finish out the main storyline....with almost no content that is difficult anymore. How come we are ok with tiers of coil being blocked off my progression, but not mainline content.

At the end of the day the only people readily affected by this are new players, and they need to play through quests to help them attain that first lvl 50 anyway. If your complaint is one that concerns not wanting to do story missions then I think that you need to look at the success in this game. Alot of that success is attributed to its visual style and the story that it is crafted around. SE knows that the market loves this aspect of the game and is pushing people to experience the world that they have painstakingly crafted.

Is that so horrible?

Not to sound overly blunt, but if you are someone who "doesn't really care for story," then you should probably stay away from a story-centric MMORPG. There are countless MMO titles out there that all cater to different player preferences. Some are raid-centric, some are PvP-centric, some are RP-centric, whilst others are sandbox-centric. FFXIV caters to the story-loving player. If this is not your forte, you're just going to suffer more and more with each expansion.

I mean you wouldn't really be able to do any content with these friends had they not completed the 2.0 story either way. So there has always been a wall between new players and endgame. It's like complaining you can't do garuda with your friends because they aren't level 44 yet and have to go thru the story to unlock garuda. HW is really not any different. It's a story centric rpg. It's pretty par for the course.

So it's pretty next level stupid that you have to finish a storyline in order to continue the storyline? Sorry buddy, you can't simply skip chapters here.

I keep seeing these posts pop up. Srry about your friends luck it is the way it is. It isn't thrown in as a surprise, they told us months ago the requirements to access the expansion. Don't like the story? You can run through the whole thing in a few hours of you skip scene's... Deal with it.

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Originally Posted by qqmoarploxify

It's just a damn shame, sure this is a story driven game but the fact is, it has difficult endgame progression content for hardcore raiders as well. Most of which, at least the ones I've raided with, don't care for story.

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You don't have to do any of the difficult raids. Just the easy mode of the primals. You don't have to do coil or the extreme primals or even crystal tower.

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Originally Posted by qqmoarploxify

It's just a damn shame, sure this is a story driven game but the fact is, it has difficult endgame progression content for hardcore raiders as well. Most of which, at least the ones I've raided with, don't care for story.

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There's really not a ton of 'extra' story to worry about. The majority of it is pre-50 and grinding your first character without the MSQ would be way beyond tedious. There may be an extra few days to a week between hitting 50 and being able to enter Ishgard depending on how much one plays, but in all likelihood going through those missions after registering the expansion will net you exp to catch up on the Heavensward content faster anyway.

If you're worried about getting into raiding content sooner, at least consider that none of it will be available in June anyway. If your friends play relatively quickly they may even be able to join you when it's released, though we'll have to see how long the HW storyline really is.

Also, you can help your friends speed through some of the more annoying bits of the story by going in overpowered and slaughtering story mode primals and dungeons without level sync and without subjecting them to long que times.

You have to level to 50 (soon, 60) to get to the end game content. The MSQ is the easiest way to get to level 50, and fastest, too, if you skip all of the cutscenes, especially considering that MSQ will provide twice as much exp in less than a week, now.

Toss your friends 50k to cover teleport costs and help them rush through it. I've been helping one of my friends this way and she's gotten through more than half of the 2.0 story(with cutscenes) playing a few hours a day for the last few weeks. We just cleared Stone Vigil last night, looking forward to helping her with castrum and prae, and all of her other duties. It's fun to just tag along and help her clear out trash mobs, too.

The MSQ is an extremely easy gate to clear, it just takes a little bit of effort and time. If you queue up with them on a tank or healer you'll expedite the process that much more. FFXIV is a game based around progression, progression requires gates. The MSQ is a logical, and simple gate to overcome to get to HW, and literally all of the content will be "new content" to your friends. Have fun with it.

If you're skipping the cutscenes it will only take a week or two to catch up. The horse is already dead dude.

The Main Story (2.0) takes 2-3 Days if you start fresh with tons of Grinding.
I have done it in a Week if not even less.
2.1 ~ 2.5 takes a Day if you know what to do else you can expect 2-3 Days if you won't fail Duties or you're doing something else wrong. (Damn you SoF Pre-Nerf <_<)

Without the Story at all, what are you playing for? There are no Instances to unlock, No Primals, No Coils. You have to Quest here else you will not even leave your Starter City ...

I could Qoute several People but .... if you play FFVII you ain't on Second Disc at the beginning, right? If you play FFX, you ain't on the Airship before Bevelle, right?
Final Fantasy was always Story Driven, hence why People love the older ones and FFXIV ARR does it right.

(INB4 someone says, you should enter T13 immediately being Level 1 *LOL*)

Without a Story... I couldn't imagine the Game at all, it would honestly suck.

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Originally Posted by qqmoarploxify

It's pretty next level stupid of SE to force players to complete the original story quests up to and including before the fall in order to step foot into Heavensward. Got a few friends that bought the game and pre-ordered Heavensward but it looks like we wont be able to start the expansion right away since they dont have the time to finish all of the long and tedious quests leading up to it. I'm sure I'm not the only one having a problem with this. A new expansion should mean a new start and an equalization between the player base and gear. Everyone should be on equal footing.

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If your friends are new players, they will need to level up, anyway. The Main Scenario quest progression offers a fair chunk of XP and guides players through content that they'll probably need to revisit later on. It's actually kind of difficult to manage to XP to 50 as a new player without utilizing the Main Scenario quests at all since SO much in the game is linked to them.

In short, it's not that big of a deal, especially since other new players (as well as existing players wanting to XP new jobs) will be going through the same content. Even if you put story considerations aside, it makes sense from a new player orientation standpoint. From what it looks like, there is nothing in the new areas for low-level characters, anyway; all the new dungeon content and presumably the open world content there is geared towards 50-60 progression.

Have they said anything about the ilvl80+ MSQ content? It's not super hard or anything, but players going through the MSQ especially post-Heavensward probably won't meet the ilvl requirements as it is now.

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Originally Posted by Inconcern

Have they said anything about the ilvl80+ MSQ content? It's not super hard or anything, but players going through the MSQ especially post-Heavensward probably won't meet the ilvl requirements as it is now.

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How so? Its not like you are locked at lvl 50 until you complete the 2.55 msq. There will be crafted gear and other options avalible. If anything they should be well overgeared for it.

I thought I read somewhere about the higher/recent MSQ past 2.0 giving gear drops after HW to help give new people a boost so that they are not stuck farming old content to get to the required item level. I doubt that will be an issue. Am I happy about leveling my Au Ra through the MSQ again? Not really but yeah, its a done deal. I just hope the changes they made (exp doubling etc) will make it less of a grind. Though I do agree a lot of the 'go get us some flowers warrrior of light' quests could be removed.

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Originally Posted by BroodingFicus

Am I happy about leveling my Au Ra through the MSQ again?.

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They give you a free fantasia if you bought CE Heavensward, so you can change this dapper gent you have now into an Au Ra, no re-leveling through the MSQ required. See, the great thing about this game, is you don't have to play alts, and frankly aside from small side things like desynth and whatnot, there is literally no benefit from playing alternate characters. I mean, on the back of the box ARR is sold in, one of the selling points is the ability to do everything on one character -- so the game was designed to leverage this aspect.

I only have to be thing to say to this

http://i.imgur.com/WTDnnwE.gif

I could but I like my alts. XD. I'm one of the unfortunate individuals in FFXIV who actually likes having designated alts depending on class. I keep a character for tank roles and one for dps. So yes, I know I could fantasia one of my existing people but I'm rather fond of them. There are some benefits though. Inventory space, being able to farm multiple sets with tomes without capping for the week and needing to sit on my hands, not worrying which piece to roll on when things like WoD had lockouts etc. So unfortunately for me I will be leveling through the MSQ again in order to make an Au Ra AST sot that I have a healer. Small price to pay I suppose for horns and a tail. MSQ lock never bothered me that much to be honest. I do wish you could be the new classes at 30 rather than play others all the way to 50 but *shrug*.

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Originally Posted by Causality

I only have to be thing to say to this

http://i.imgur.com/WTDnnwE.gif

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ROFL..........so true

I have to agree with the OP,

I'm a logical guy and I'll try to explain my point of view;

1 - It's heavily time consuming, now I know what you'll say "But it's a Mmo, they are time consuming" - Correct, but for other reasons. Sitting in a Queue for 45 minutes as DPS to do one scenario is a huge time investment purely because of the Queue timers.

2 - So.. much.. padding, it's just dull quite frankly..

3 - Gating players at the front door is really poor form for an expansion, you want to entice new players/existing players back, this is NOT the way to do that.

4 - The story is in my opinion pretty bad, the story doesn't compete with most other story driven games so why force it down our throats?


I completely respect peoples opinions and of course you may love the story, but making us sit in Queues for what is likely 6 hours all together ( Plus running, teleporting, boss fights etc ) is just outright poor design.

Hey Buddy. The writing has been on the wall for months. Not my fault your friends couldn't read it.

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Originally Posted by ZodMel

Hey Buddy. The writing has been on the wall for months. Not my fault your friends couldn't read it.

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I don't think it's necessarily a case of not being able to read, I think it's more a case of why is it a necessity.

i bet you think reading a book page by page is a stupid design as well huh?

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Originally Posted by Pterois

i bet you think reading a book page by page is a stupid design as well huh?

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If FFXIV was a story book, there would be like a book where the main character has ADHD because it is all over the place. There is a lot that could be condensed.

*2 years ago*
"Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn? Psssht! Looks like garbage. I don't wanna play it."

*2 weeks ago*
"Heavensward? Whoa! These trailers look epic. Flying mounts!? Dark Knight!? Badass!"

*2 days ago*
"Aaaand the Bundle is officially pre ordered :)"

*2 hours ago*
"What!? I have to complete the main story line I'm the first game to play Heavensward!? Soooo stupid! SE, you fail! Rabble! Rabble rabble!"

So, providing freshly-made level 50's with a way to catch up to people actively levelling up to 60 is poor design. Okay.

I guess I can understand not being able to access new content as an adventurer, but it saddens me that my gatherers can't. I rarely adventure (just enough to open content for my gatherers). What would be the harm in allowing gatherers access? It would of course be more challenging being under level, but that can be fun. Used to do that in EQ2. Trust me this resulted in multiple deaths, but it was exciting. I will of course finish the main story line now in order to go to new content, but I am still disappointed that ffxiv ties crafters/gatherers so tightly to adventure level. Not everyone wants to adventure. I like supplying those who do, and enjoy "playing" the market board. /shrug Just my two cents I guess.

~Whyllo

Im not as much frustrated with having to do story as with everything Being gated for said story.

story is fine. I like story. I dont' mind having to catch up on my early release. that's OK. what bugs me is:

1) Forcing you do deal with raid level content as part of the story. especially when half of the groups are new (as they haven't done those instances before), and its long wait/difficult group to deal with. Now, all things considered, I wouldn't be bugged as much if #2 weren't also a reality.

2) all the new content is gated with said story. I could be off here, but from what I've read (and what i'm seeing), I can't even ACCESS the new areas, story, new classes...unless I finish the old story first. THAT is what bugs me. Everything I paid for I pretty much cannot do anything with,

and i have to sit here waiting for queues watching people head into the new areas. IF they just dropped the group portions from the story, I would have no issues. or give us a story mode that is as easy as pie....I don't care. it's the story for pete's sake, and its no longer even level cap, so forcing people to run content designed to challenge geared and experienced players isn't the best approach.

They need to either drop the group content from the lvl 50 story progression, or open up at least the bulk of the NON STORY content to those who purchased the expansion. I want to check out the new areas...now im waiting on queues for old instances to pop...when most players aren't running those....

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Originally Posted by Temjiu

Inow im waiting on queues for old instances to pop...when most players aren't running those....

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Bingo, my biggest complaint in one.

I've had to spend at-least 2 hours in queues in 6 hours worth of playtime. There's no logic in that what so ever.

Thankfully, I'm persistent and I can't wait to try the new classes etc.. but this is poor design without question.

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Originally Posted by MajesticGazelle

Bingo, my biggest complaint in one.

I've had to spend at-least 2 hours in queues in 6 hours worth of playtime. There's no logic in that what so ever.

Thankfully, I'm persistent and I can't wait to try the new classes etc.. but this is poor design without question.

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Exactly. This has affected low level dungeons too as I'm trying to level up I've been sitting in a queue (as a tank) for over five minutes. I suppose on the plus side by the time I reach 50 the problem may have fixed itself by then but, gating new content we paid for behind content that nobody wants to do anymore seems stupid to me. Yeah I know join a FC, make friends, every problem has a solution. But why should there be this problem in the first place? At this moment in time it's extremely frustrating to get the old mandatory content finished when people are playing the new content, SE has effectively separated the community.