Solutions to the main scenario problem

It’s too long, simple as that. New players will easily outlevel the main scenario as they are leveling up. I’ve a friend who I brought to this game and he started months ago and has hit level 70 and is barely halfway through Heavensward. It’s way too long, and I’m not interested in arguing that. This thread is going to assume you agree with this and is purely for discussing possible solutions to this assumed problem, and I’m not interested in arguing if it’s a valid problem.

Some ideas to get things started:
1) Cut out the 100+ quests between ARR and HW down to 10 or so composite quests that remove all of the unnecessary parts.
2) Create composite quests for everything from ARR to Stormblood that greatly increase XP and greatly lower the number of quests.
3) Start Shadowbringers players in a special story arc in which the WoL loses their memories and strength and have a special questline parallel to the 70+ msq in which they recover their levels and memories of the past, until at level 80 they have fully recovered and unlocked all past cutscenes at the inn.

More ideas!

Purchasing a story skip potion and using New Game+ to replay any quests you wish is an alternative solution.

The main way you outlevel the main scenario is if you start on a Preferred World where you get double the XP from quests, causing you to be, on average, twice the level of the MSQ. You may also outlevel it if you are trying to, by doing roulettes and FATEs and such things, instead of focussing just on the MSQ.

They will eventually condense the ARR quests when the time is right to invest in it, but they said it will be expensive.

The best solution is not getting hung up on overleveling the MSQ. A lot of the more interesting parts tend to be instanced and level synced anyway.

Though I think condensing them is a fine solution, I feel that skipping and doing them again later would be better. Perhaps certain new rewards for doing them, or titles.

I feel like the skip now just makes it feel too strange, new players aren’t going to be invested because they can’t find a way to connect to the situation because too much has happened that isn’t explained, and they are being asked to just know it immediately.

If there was some kind of story justification for a skip potion, like a quest where the WoL also doesn’t know anything that happened in the past, I think new players would find the option a great deal more appealing, because not knowing anything previously is actually expected of them.

Just a thought.

Condensing all the needless fluff in ARR? Sure. Cutting down the story to a "F I N A L F A N T A S Y" game as a whole? Nah fam.

Also realistically I highly doubt they'd ever add any form of skip mechanic due simply to the fact that it would harm sales for skip pots and would most certainly be a poor business move.

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Originally Posted by Vanitas

Condensing all the needless fluff in ARR? Sure. Cutting down the story to a "F I N A L F A N T A S Y" game as a whole? Nah fam.

Also realistically I highly doubt they'd ever add any form of skip mechanic due simply to the fact that it would harm sales for skip pots and would most certainly be a poor business move.

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If SE thought with Ff14 like Activision does with WoW then you might have a point, but SE doesn’t a a history of monetizing problems with the game like that

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

Though I think condensing them is a fine solution, I feel that skipping and doing them again later would be better. Perhaps certain new rewards for doing them, or titles.

I feel like the skip now just makes it feel too strange, new players aren’t going to be invested because they can’t find a way to connect to the situation because too much has happened that isn’t explained, and they are being asked to just know it immediately.

If there was some kind of story justification for a skip potion, like a quest where the WoL also doesn’t know anything that happened in the past, I think new players would find the option a great deal more appealing, because not knowing anything previously is actually expected of them.

Just a thought.

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You story skip potion specific ques idea isn't practical if you want it to actually work. Having the WoL not understanding what's going on and who everyone is won't change the player feeling lost unless you add a lot of exposition to the point where you essentially have two versions of the MSQ; one for story skippers and one for everyone else. The former will either be much longer or sacrifice a lot in order to fit in the required extra exposition. It would also be a much greater development cost than condensing the existing MSQ by cutting out the unnecessary parts of ARR.

It's ultimately the more awkward solution and more likely to make new players feel less invested in the story.

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

If SE thought with Ff14 like Activision does with WoW then you might have a point, but SE doesn’t a a history of monetizing problems with the game like that

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except for the fee for extra retainers to fix the inventory issues people have with crafting and glamour.

First, explain why outleveling MSQ is a bad thing.

The problem is that it's too long if you're new or behind, but if you're doing it in the moment, it's actually short - or at least, gets shorter with each expansion.

Personally, when I started playing I was too engaged in the story to care about outleveling it. That said, I do agree they could weed out a few quests *has PTSD of 2.1-2.55*

HW 3.x part isn't long tho, it's 44 quests (ARR 2.x is 100 quests in comparison, and SB 4.x is 40). Even 2.x isn't that long. Just when you make all of these quests in one step it's... as if you came to the restaurant and they served to you the complete set of dishes at once instead of serving it partly, I suppose.

On the other hand, if you are attentive, you will actually notice that after every update people complain "why story patches are so short!?" (well guys... because you begged to not repeat ARR situation?) I bet that if they will do a golden middle for ShB 5.x (let's say 70 quests) to make story patches a little bit longer there will be whining in 6.0 "why so loooong" again. Fail&fail situation in any case. /shrugs

Anyway, they stated that they do some adjustments on ARR story as far as I remember so I would wait until they release it. HW and SB do not need adjustments, they are already short enough.

It's not blasphemy to want to skip the arr stories, but it is an attempt to skip your hazing. You can do it with a skip potion, but then you will always be "that skip potion guy". You won't have the joy of experiencing the existential angst of 'Tataru's Big Adventure'. You aren't "one of us". So, the general concensus is, "Get your level 14 subligar on, drink the spiked punch, and wait for us to write things on your face in permanent marker." We did it so you should do it too.

If you go back on this board to when skip potions were introduced nobody wanted them, at least not for new players. If you had already done the story on one character, you could buy them. That was ok...unless you are one of those anti-alt people. Personally, I don't get paying for a game twice so you can avoid playing the game, but hey whatever floats your boat. There are lots of games that don't have plotlines worth mentioning.

Now that i think more on it, the skip potion is not a real solution at all.

If you think about it, lets see how much it cost overall.

You have to buy the game, buy the expansion, buy the story skip, AND a job boost. Sure you can skip all the MSQ, but doing that will leave you at a low lvl. You will need a high lvl job to start playing the new content.

So game + expansion + story skip + job boost.

And somehow this is a solution and the answer to those that want to skip ahead to get to the newer content?

I know people reuse those tired comebacks like "The story is important" "Its a final fantasy game" "Why play if you are going to skip the game?"

People play for different reasons. Do people not realize this is an mmorpg and there are MANY different types of players that play this game.

I just find it absurd how people on this forum can be so jaded, and think just because they had to eat dirt, all the new players years later should have to eat dirt too.

I wrote a bit on a few vague sketches of an optional accelerated start in another thread, if you care to read them I could find them in a bit but that's personally how I think it could work. So something like #3. Of course it wouldn't recap everything because that's too long and potentially very boring (exposition city) but it would spark note you up to some basic speed (if painting in massive brushes the game isn't that complex to explain, lots and lots of nuance lost though). Things to be sure to touch upon would be who is bad (main ones), some of your friends, what you are going to do next, where are you starting, some general combat/system intro, stuff like that. More info and direction than you get from the start of a Bethesda games, much less than you'd get from playing the game for 100+ hours of MSQ lol. If the player after starting out accelerated then wanted to learn more in depth they could new game plus.

There existing a growing list of reasons why I think it's better than just a skip potion or no option but you said this thread isn't for that sort of discussion and honestly thats probably a good thing. The discussion is just going to be a circular argument of people disagreeing on core concepts and how the game has to or has not to be in the eyes of other players.


It'll be interesting to see how streamlined the ARR story will be after they go over it though. May help waylay this issue.

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Originally Posted by Wynn_Storm

Now that i think more on it, the skip potion is not a real solution at all.

If you think about it, lets see how much it cost overall.

You have to buy the game, buy the expansion, buy the story skip, AND a job boost. Sure you can skip all the MSQ, but doing that will leave you at a low lvl. You will need a high lvl job to start playing the new content.

So game + expansion + story skip + job boost.

And somehow this is a solution and the answer to those that want to skip ahead to get to the newer content?

I know people reuse those tired comebacks like "The story is important" "Its a final fantasy game" "Why play if you are going to skip the game?"

People play for different reasons. Do people not realize this is an mmorpg and there are MANY different types of players that play this game.

I just find it absurd how people on this forum can be so jaded, and think just because they had to eat dirt, all the new players years later should have to eat dirt too.

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Call me jaded or whatever, but I see it as sort of a filter. A LOT of people leave the game before reaching max level because they don't like the MSQ. Sometimes I agree, that is the MSQ's fault (thinking ARR mostly) because the story is boring and largely non-consequential. Other times however it gets rid of people that don't really appreciate the story focus, and in the long run probably wouldn't like the game anyways for a sustained amount of time, thus saving them some time (and money) before coming to this conclusion anyways.

I also speculate that it might have something to do with the sort of community we have, and why its generally considered pretty decent in the larger scheme of things.

Naturally this view is completely anecdotal and my personal belief not backed by any hard data.

TLDR; I think the MSQ should be refined at some points, chiseled down at others, but should not be skipped under normal circumstances.

Biggest issue is how many pointless msq arr(pre and post 50 ones) had that could be moved to side quests and would not affect the msq. That part by far needs the most refinement.
Heavensward and Stormblood had far less pointless fluff that wasn't even part of the msq in the msq quests.

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Originally Posted by kamikrazy

It’s too long, simple as that. New players will easily outlevel the main scenario as they are leveling up. I’ve a friend who I brought to this game and he started months ago and has hit level 70 and is barely halfway through Heavensward. It’s way too long, and I’m not interested in arguing that. This thread is going to assume you agree with this and is purely for discussing possible solutions to this assumed problem, and I’m not interested in arguing if it’s a valid problem.

Some ideas to get things started:
1) Cut out the 100+ quests between ARR and HW down to 10 or so composite quests that remove all of the unnecessary parts.
2) Create composite quests for everything from ARR to Stormblood that greatly increase XP and greatly lower the number of quests.
3) Start Shadowbringers players in a special story arc in which the WoL loses their memories and strength and have a special questline parallel to the 70+ msq in which they recover their levels and memories of the past, until at level 80 they have fully recovered and unlocked all past cutscenes at the inn.

More ideas!

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In all fairness, the MSQ is for story progression. My brother is at the end of Heavensward, and he finds that he has to level other classes to get EXP now (70 Monk, 66 PLD). That's really fine. Dungeons sync you down anyways, and any major instances aren't exactly difficult at the level they are designed for anyways.

People already have to suffer though 100s of quests, I don't think forcing them to do sidequests to suffer through more is a good idea.
Levels aren't really hard to get in FFXIV, gear progression and learning skills is more important.

The quest bloat at 50 needs some pruning, there are too many filler quests that aren't relevant to the story.

They just need to fix ARR thats it. The problem is alot of the minfillia fetch quests need to be removed, and they cant be turned into side quests due to story reasons.

Remove the fetching quest. And nothing else story wise.
Thise game is still called FF after all. And it's a numbered.
There is still the option to buy the story skip potion for those that hate the story too much.

if you wanna go fast find a game thats fast paced with no story or content. eso could be your solution.

easy fast dumb no content and you always are outleveled.

1- dont cut content because players are to used to skyrim questing mode
2- dont fall for the wow mode of questing style
3- dont listen to players who obviously are way to lazy to work their stuff from ground up

"Remove" things isn't the right way, because all the work and effort behind things you want to remove will go to waste.

I'd better "move" to sidequests some parts that won't add to the main story but still in MSQ line anyway, if I want shorten the path.

I don't think they would take it down to 10. Condensing or getting rid of all that stuff in between ARR an HW would probably be too time consuming. From a business perspective I guess. Just how I feel.

delete ARR

They have things that have you skip the main story content in their shop while that seems gimmicky if you want to be into the end game quick and easy that's your way. I will say though however you're missing out on the game as a whole as it has a good amount of ground to cover and story as well. The plot while be simple in turn there's always the twists that you encounter that make you watch. I think the issue though that people are griping about is that they look at how many they have to do as a list and then they get stressed out. Well you're getting stressed about over nothing to be frank and should pace yourself accordingly to get through it. If you really don't like the story that much then you most likely don't like the game at all , or at least cheating yourself. The msq is fine the way it is, just pace yourself through it and enjoy it. My two cents about it all.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Call me jaded or whatever, but I see it as sort of a filter.

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Except the general skill or lack thereof proves jump potions accomplish little when it comes to filtering out players. The issue is, indeed, ARR. Not only is it saturated with far too many fetch quests, many of the jobs aren't remotely complete at those early levels. So stuck with only a handful of abilities while killing rats. That's what turns away a lot of people.

As for not appreciating the story focus. If I may be blunt. Who cares? Some of the best players in this game couldn't tell you half the Scion's names. They play for different reasons.

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Originally Posted by LalaRu

"Remove" things isn't the right way, because all the work and effort behind things you want to remove will go to waste.

I'd better "move" to sidequests some parts that won't add to the main story but still in MSQ line anyway, if I want shorten the path.

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To be fair, the dev team already said if/when they ever condense ARR, this is the route they aim to take.

I cannot see them cutting story content just over a complaint or gripes in it's length. They'll do things to accommodate these sorts of things- like with what they did with the Mog station potions, or remove certain quest requirements (which they have done), but cutting actual story content is so unlike them.

Making certain story-progress content optional feels more the way to go, especially if it's something that may not fully contribute to the overarching story. But cutting it feels hasty; so not really a great suggestion.

Idk, they sell job and story skips in the store so I'm 100% sure they're aware it takes a long time and aware people have asked for ways to skip or shorten ARR already. I think they could condense parts of the ARR quests and do less of the "return to the Waking sands" trope, honestly. Personally, I haven't been rushing the MSQ at all because I know I will burn out. I have been dilly dallying with other jobs and side content like beast tribes, as well as hanging out chatting with FC while crafting or gardening. It took me 4 months to do ARR and less than 1 month to do Heavensward, just because the pacing was so slow in ARR and post ARR. I can see why some new players don't make it to Heavensward, because the story time grind isn't for everybody. But the people that do make it, they're normally fans of FFXIV's story afterwards.