Do you think the Next Expansion will be Gated Behind HW?

I'm just curious: Do you think SE will gate 4.0 behind Heavensward?

From a story perspective, this makes sense, we need a reason to go where ever SE is going to send us coughcough Ala Mhigo cough. Plus, Heavensward's MSQ isn't as long as ARR's and didn't have as much fluff.

However, from a the perspective of getting newer people into XIV or bringing back older players who left, this might be bad. Both will have to go through ARR and HW's story, which will be bad for those who want to see the new things SE introduces in 4.0.

That are all your thoughts?

IIRC, they stated 4.0 will NOT be gated behind 3.0. I think it was said it'll still be gated behind 2.0, but don't remember exactly.

Yoshi mentioned it already that the story will be continuous and to please wait and see how it unfolds. But I'm sure other content such as zones and jobs will not be locked behind story.

4. A lot of people are assuming that the 3.x cycle is going to mimic 2.x and end with Patch 3.5. Is this the plan? Can you tell us what patch you plan on ending with?

The official answer has not been revealed yet (laugh).

If we were to announce it, people would start debating about when the next expansion pack will be released. It will be heavily linked to the main scenario, so if you could please stand by until Fan Festival for more information (smile).

E3 2016

Main Scenario Progression to Access 4.0 Content

Though it’s still a bit early to talk about this, you’ll be able to access and accept quests for Patch 4.0 even if you have not completed the main scenario for the Patch 3.x series.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3263909

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

IIRC, they stated 4.0 will NOT be gated behind 3.0. I think it was said it'll still be gated behind 2.0, but don't remember exactly.

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good, keep the bots out forever.

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Originally Posted by MaethusXion

IIRC, they stated 4.0 will NOT be gated behind 3.0. I think it was said it'll still be gated behind 2.0, but don't remember exactly.

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Originally Posted by Anzaman

Main Scenario Progression to Access 4.0 Content
Though it’s still a bit early to talk about this, you’ll be able to access and accept quests for Patch 4.0 even if you have not completed the main scenario for the Patch 3.x series.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3263909

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Didn't he say that last year though?
That's a lot of time for him to go back on his word... >w>()

I was sorta expecting it to be a sort of optional thing.

Like, choose to head to Ishgard, or choose to head towards *redacted.*

The carnage that occurs at the end of 3.5 could allow for the choice as the story has a heavy emphasis on the refugee issues of Ul'dah.

They mentioned something about having a "Previously on FFXIV..." type deal when 4.0 hits. After people complained about HW and its jobs being gated behind ARR, it may be in their best interest to follow through with it.

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

Didn't he say that last year though?
That's a lot of time for him to go back on his word... >w>()

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IMO, he needs to stick through it.
There's far too many people just sick and tired of MSQ and being locked behind it, so it's deterring new faces.
I rather have new people playing the game and running content with me just to have more people in the pot
than worry whether not they care about the story of the game. A lot of people care for the actual
content than the story anyways, doesn't really hurt anyone.

Well, if it's going to not be behind 3.x Storylines... There is one storyline they probably need to take to a close before 4.0 comes out, the stuff with the Warriors of Darkness which is most likely worth a patch or two of storyline... Unless they really want them to just pop up from nowhere for people who didn't go through all the HW story...

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Originally Posted by LalafellDown

good, keep the bots out forever.

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There are bots in HW areas. Gil generating bots. Not spam bots.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Well, if it's going to not be behind 3.x Storylines... There is one storyline they probably need to take to a close before 4.0 comes out, the stuff with the Warriors of Darkness which is most likely worth a patch or two of storyline... Unless they really want them to just pop up from nowhere for people who didn't go through all the HW story...

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I can see it now. It's not resolved by then, we go into 4.0, and someone who never did the HW stuff sees the WoD and go, "Who?" and complain about how SE's story just threw these random 5 dudes trying to kill us.

Assuming the expansion will come in late Spring/ Early summer like HW, we still have a good 10 months to go. Only having one more patch in that time would be a killer for a game that lacks content like FFXIV does.

Honestly, I think it would be more important to remove the gate for HW and instead gate 4.0. IMO, that would be the logical step to take. I just leveled an alt at the 2.x-3.0 gate was killing the process so much that I couldn't continue for a long time. All the fetch quests.....

Yes it will be gated behind HW, but if what there trying to do pays off, HW won't be gated behind RR.
There's talk about them adding a lving potion to the MogStaton that lets you jump one job to HW and by pass all of RR story(jump to LV 50 for 1 Job pre toon & 2.55 Patch)
Again it just talk, but will see.

From what I can recall on people from twitter saying about the devs stating that the expansion would be new and old player friendly alike. My best assumption is when 3.0 is finished, then so is that particular story and 4.0 will be some sort of transition story much like the transition from 1.0 to 2.0. The story will continue but will have a gap in it that will allow new players to come into it. That's my best guess.

What I want to know is how will be. If people don't complete 3.X (or not buy it) will be under level 60, or level 50. How the hell they will do? 4.0 seems wil lbe 60-70 on levels. People which dont' buy Heavesnwar how wil llevel? Only doing leveling roulettes till have level 60 and go 4.0? Or they will get auto level 60 only for buy the expasion (ahem, stupid idea, ahem).

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Originally Posted by Chessala

Assuming the expansion will come in late Spring/ Early summer like HW, we still have a good 10 months to go. Only having one more patch in that time would be a killer for a game that lacks content like FFXIV does.

Honestly, I think it would be more important to remove the gate for HW and instead gate 4.0. IMO, that would be the logical step to take. I just leveled an alt at the 2.x-3.0 gate was killing the process so much that I couldn't continue for a long time. All the fetch quests.....

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All you're doing is moving one gate to another. People that can grind through the MSQ now have to do all of 3.X to reach 4.0.

For a game that emphasises story, I worry how it could continue to make sense to people if they haven't done Heavensward's - if we have the WoDs show up, and more Ascian stuff that was touched upon in 3.0's lifetime but never fully explained, people who completely skip HW and go straight to 4.0 after finishing 2.0's storyline will be more than a little confused.. and I don't know how they'd even explain it, either, since the final story patches of 2.0's lifetime were very clearly leading people towards Ishgard and thus to Heavensward's storyline.

Even if 4.0's storyline differed slightly depending on whether Heavensward was finished or not, the 2.55 storyline will still be a little confusing, for it to shepherd people to Ishgard only for them to be able to completely ignore it and go to wherever 4.0 leads (Gyr Abania, more than likely).

I'd like a scenario in which 4.0 (and beyond) does both;

Give us an entirely new plot development, lets say 4.0 we can go to Thavnairia and it has its own story, completely independent from the current MSQ, and that's where all new Jobs are, as such people can pick up the expansion and just play that part. You can go there and enjoy it without even doing 2.55, although for this example that might create some conflicts, given some of the Scions were hiding out in Thavnairia.

Meanwhile, 3.5s plot developments are also continued elsewhere, presumably Ala Mhigo. Could even eventually tie the two together, have a point in the MSQ where the Thavnairian story is a requirement, and bring in those characters to the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

For a game that emphasises story, I worry how it could continue to make sense to people if they haven't done Heavensward's

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I'm personally conflicted about the storyline focus and having all players experience the full story themself vs the capability of a growing and persistent world. From a world building standpoint - life continues to go on whether the player is present or not. The world is capable of changing. I'm actually a little bit disappointed at the focus on the player character being the center of everything vs a living and changing world that the player is part of.

For the sake of this game I hope it won't be gated.
Too many new players have problems with the gates already.

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Originally Posted by aesteval

I'm personally conflicted about the storyline focus and having all players experience the full story themself vs the capability of a growing and persistent world. From a world building standpoint - life continues to go on whether the player is present or not. The world is capable of changing. I'm actually a little bit disappointed at the focus on the player character being the center of everything vs a living and changing world that the player is part of.

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Difference in opinion. This is a Final Fantasy game though, so I guess overall a focus on story makes sense given that's a major draw for Final Fantasy games in the first place. But personally, one of the major reasons I've continued playing as long as I have is because of the story, I'm very invested in it and personally sort of like it being so central and important to other parts of the game :/ But as I said, I understand how others may dislike this.

But with the game how it is, my point still stands in how they'd keep the storyline cohesive if they allowed people to completely bypass 3.0 and go into 4.0 without knowing anything about Heavensward events that may or may not show up in 4.0 (Ascians, WoD stuff, etc). There's also a confusion as to level... like someone above mentioned, wouldn't the expansion possibly be taking us into level 60-70 territory? How would fresh-out-of-2.0 people deal with that..

Nalien's suggestion is nice though, and could work well. Hopefully they're planning to do something along those lines!

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Originally Posted by aesteval

I'm personally conflicted about the storyline focus and having all players experience the full story themself vs the capability of a growing and persistent world. From a world building standpoint - life continues to go on whether the player is present or not. The world is capable of changing. I'm actually a little bit disappointed at the focus on the player character being the center of everything vs a living and changing world that the player is part of.

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The main scenario is actually kind of going this route, I think... Spoilers, duh;

While we've been busy with the Dragonsong War, it would seem the Warriors of Darkness have been taking down Primals for us... The sort stories they posted recently hinted that they've slain enough to gain some acclaim, and 3.4 is taking us to Xelphatol to try and stop Garuda once more (and I'd bet anything we bump into the Warriors of Darkness once more there), so it would see the whole Primal threat has continued to happen regardless of our presence... We're not the center of the world in that regard... It's a shame SE didn't do more to kind of highlight this, having some dialog kicking around like "Titan has been summoned again!", while we had no involvement with that... That would have created a sense that events are going on in the background regardless of our involvement... Instead we're retroactively learning that, and it's not nearly as impactful like that...

The Garlean stuff kinda happens without us as well, obviously we have direct confrontations with Regula van Hydrus, but the Empire is expanding out there without us noticing, them showing up in 3.0 was even meant to be a surprise...

Then there is the Ala Mhigan resistance, of course... Yda and Papalymo are involved in that of course, and it seems we'll be pulled into it with 3.4, but it's still a set of events that we've not been at the center of... It's a shame SE doesn't do more to highlight these kinds of things, I guess... We retroactively hear about all this stuff, Doma is a great example... We learned about that place after it was destroyed, and then we learned about a war of succession in Garlemald... All this stuff was going on, and we had no idea until after the fact...

If it not gated by how HW was gated with step of faith you will still need to do HW content as the quests in 4.0 will be 60+ to the level cap mean will still need to HW content in order to do them if you still leveling up doubt there will be 50-59 quest there

My prediction:

4.0 areas will, unlike Heavensward, be open as soon as the expansion is available. Players will be able to go to those areas, but will probably have difficulty surviving if they aren't at level 60, as they will be tuned for progression from level 60 to 70. NPCs will offer sidequests that are available to all, regardless of main scenario progression - in particular, sidequests for unlocking new jobs will be easily accessed, and likely possible to complete even with a level 50 job. However, Main Scenario quests will depend on full completion of both ARR and Heavensward. Most endgame activities will also depend on Main Scenario progression. So, while the expansion will still offer stuff for folks to do whether or not they've completed Heavensward, anyone who wishes to participate in the new endgame will still have to progress through the whole story.

That's what I believe to be the most likely case. However, there are a few alternative paths they COULD take that would make the expansion more robust. While I don't consider them likely to happen, consider the following possibilities:

- There's no reason why endgame raids NEED to be locked behind MSQ. Crystal Tower, Void Ark, Coil, Alexander - NONE of them tie directly into the Main Scenario storyline. The decision to lock them behind Main Scenario progression was purely arbitrary. In the new expansion, there's no reason they couldn't simply slap a level 70 requirement on them and call it a day, allowing folks to access them regardless of MSQ progression.

- MSQ for the new expansion could be a parallel storyline to the MSQ for Heavensward. Set it up so that a player has the option of doing Heavensward MSQ OR the new expansion MSQ first. Give the player a choice: after the events at the Ul'dah banquet, they have the option of seeking refuge in Ishgard OR hiding out for a time in Ala Mihgo. If they choose the latter, they encounter Yda and Papalymo, and assist in the struggle to retake the nation from Garlemand. Once that's finished, they can journey to Ishgard to deal with the Dragonsong War. Both paths will eventually need to be completed, but they can be done in either order.

- While everyone expects it to happen, and it probably will, it doesn't have to be the case that the new expansion MUST include another level jump. The new expansion could also be a level 50-60 jump. Gear ilvls could take care of all the vertical progression we need; there's no real reason why our characters have to level up, too. Particularly since folks are already straining under the bloat of job skills; adding another ten levels and five skills would be horrific. If they did make the new expansion cap at level 60 just as Heavensward does, level 50ish ARR players would have no trouble moving into the new areas.

Would be interesting, how they want to solve it.

If the story of the next expansion woud start with the expansion, it could be easy to make a clear cut. But the story for the next expansion is already starting with 3.4 in some weeks (like the heavensward story started with 2.4).

If you are playing right now, and can't clear 3.0 before 4.0 drops, you need to step up your game.

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Originally Posted by Konata

If it not gated by how HW was gated with step of faith you will still need to do HW content as the quests in 4.0 will be 60+ to the level cap mean will still need to HW content in order to do them if you still leveling up doubt there will be 50-59 quest there

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As someone who plays with a few alts, it's not that hard to get to 60 before HW content. By not even trying to level, one of my alts got to around 58 by the "Before the Fall" storyline so not being required to do 3.0 content to access 4.0 content isn't exactly unbelievable.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

My prediction:

4.0 areas will, unlike Heavensward, be open as soon as the expansion is available. Players will be able to go to those areas, but will probably have difficulty surviving if they aren't at level 60, as they will be tuned for progression from level 60 to 70. NPCs will offer sidequests that are available to all, regardless of main scenario progression - in particular, sidequests for unlocking new jobs will be easily accessed, and likely possible to complete even with a level 50 job. However, Main Scenario quests will depend on full completion of both ARR and Heavensward. Most endgame activities will also depend on Main Scenario progression. So, while the expansion will still offer stuff for folks to do whether or not they've completed Heavensward, anyone who wishes to participate in the new endgame will still have to progress through the whole story.

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This is what I sort of what I expect as well, or at the very least that some of the new areas are immediately accessible (and that the new job quests will start there).

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

MSQ for the new expansion could be a parallel storyline to the MSQ for Heavensward. Set it up so that a player has the option of doing Heavensward MSQ OR the new expansion MSQ first. Give the player a choice: after the events at the Ul'dah banquet, they have the option of seeking refuge in Ishgard OR hiding out for a time in Ala Mihgo. If they choose the latter, they encounter Yda and Papalymo, and assist in the struggle to retake the nation from Garlemand. Once that's finished, they can journey to Ishgard to deal with the Dragonsong War. Both paths will eventually need to be completed, but they can be done in either order.

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Giving Ala Mhigo as another option to flee to after 2.5 actually sounds pretty plausible, and might be the explanation for why Yda and Palpalymo have been absent in 3.x besides a few short scenes that show us that they survived. While 2.5 does set up HW pretty obviously, there is no reason we couldn't head to Ala Mhigo instead. Of course, it looks like 3.4/5/6(?) will be the start of the 4.0 story so doing HW after 4.0 would probably feel a bit awkward.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

My prediction:


- While everyone expects it to happen, and it probably will, it doesn't have to be the case that the new expansion MUST include another level jump. Gear ilvls could take care of all the vertical progression we need; there's no real reason why our characters have to level up, too.

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Now that would be an interesting situation. We are going to have to level 2 or 3 more jobs from level 30 anyway so it's not like there wouldn't be enough levels to gain.

The main scenario going concurrently with Heavensward could also work. Maybe it can be explained away that once you complete one you just go back in time with the Echo and do the other. This could also explain where Yugiri have been ever since you broke out Raubahn from Halatali. Or what Alisae has been doing between sending Bernhardt to rescue you and girlpants in 2.5 and spying on Elidibus in 3.2 . They were with the WoL on the other side of Aldenard.

The MSQ will probably be gated, but everything else like the location, the jobs and the non MSQ related content will not be gated, atleast this is what I think will happen.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

The MSQ will probably be gated, but everything else like the location, the jobs and the non MSQ related content will not be gated, atleast this is what I think will happen.

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It will most likely be this way since Yoshi touched on it at E3. They learned from 3.0 not to lock things behind the story but he wanted the story to be continuous, I see no issues with this at all.

Sure hope not, that decision was dumb as hell. Turned a lot of people away from the game.

I'm going to go all the way and actually start supporting the idea of a leveling potion. Gating the new experience just feels wrong on so many levels. I'm probably going to be jumping back into WoW because I've enjoyed the changes, and one of the biggest things for me is that once I buy Legion I can up a class to 100, and also jump right into Demon Hunter with virtually no restriction. I don't need to spend months missing the new expansion hype and start with the old busted. That's not fun, and you have got to be kidding yourself if you believe the ARR story is worthy of that. If I want to fully explore the game after the hype has gone down I'm more than able to with an alt, and will probably enjoy it more because I won't feel rushed to get caught up.

Also0 as far as keep the story relevant they can just use a movie reel. Show the highlights, tell the narrative, and be done with it. Unlock all previous content, and just let the people have fun.

As far as player skill, just got into DF. There's no helping lazy, unmotivated, or stupid. And if they do trim the fat for 4.0 with our skills and abilities it'll be all the more easy to jump in at level 60 and ready to go.