Yoshi-P's "new starting point of 6.1" and an alternative idea?

So, we're looking at a potential story skip for new players that puts them at the beginning of Endwalker, effectively bypassing ARR and everything else along the way.

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We are currently creating a system where you can view each character, lore, and world setting up to patch 6.0 in-game, and we are making preparations to skip up to patch 6.0 and start the adventure from 6.1. However, if I were to compare it to a TV drama, rather than saying, ``Watch from Season 6,'' I would say ``Start from Season 1, because (previous content has been revised) and it's easier to watch and catch up.'' I think it's more natural.

So, although we are making preparations, we are still unsure whether to actually implement it as a measure in 7.0.

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My thought is this does a lot of negative things. People have no idea of what led up to Endwalker, very little practice, and you'd end up with sprouts regularly getting a faceful of content designed for much more experienced players. Rather than something that basically skips most of the game so far, why not have a new starting point for Dawntrail at the starting city for the new continent?

An Adventurer inspired by the stories of a hero(ine), who ends up following the path of the Warrior of Light across the countries and worlds they changed in their passing as a Wandering Minstrel tells them tales of an age before a humble adventurer who would find themselves in a chocobo carriage, heading for their dates with destiny, faraway worlds and the gods themselves...

The Adventurer would be seeing things as of a post-Endwalker world- the alliance of the three nations with Ishgard, an uneasy peace with the dragons, a free Doma with it's trade enclave, thriving Kugane and reviving Ala Mihgo. An experimenting Y'shtola that drops the Adventurer into the First and meetings with the old friends of the Warrior of Darkness, a window to the Ancient past from a fateful meeting with a lunar Watcher, and finally ending up a veteran Adventurer who gets called upon to deal with a small matter of who's going to rule back home...thereby coming full circle to Dawntrail.

It'd allow for some content to be turned into Minstrel's Ballads for our Adventurer- after all, the Adventurer isn't (probably) going to be kidnapped into battling tempering primals, sorcerers of eld or the lord of sin eaters. But he'll hear about them (and it'll slot them into those duties via this alternative method) as he goes through The Adventurer's Tale rather than the Warrior of Light's journey, while whatever dungeons and such along the 1-90 chain can be given either "so, this happened" entries that don't require doing or alternative reasons to visit them, while shortening the effective time of story/character building a bit since the quest chains for them are also un-needed.

And of course, people who would rather be the Warrior of Light (a somewhat ceremonial title after Endwalker) can do things the original, longer way instead.

I still see 6.1 to 6.5 as "post Endwalker" instead of "Newfound Adventure" because it was the aftermath of level 83 trial that allowed Golbez to do what he did. I see 6.1 as a bad starting point. If they want to do it, they should start at 6.55.

I think that, if you're doing an alternate start, 6.1 is the best one you could have. It's not perfect, nothing is, but 6.1 covers every base I could reasonably think of for a good place to start, especially with story:

1. Introduces you to all the Scions in ways that get across their whole thing. (Especially helpful for Thancred and Urianger going into Dawntrail, where they're not taking a typical role.)
2. Is an enclosed 'bottle episode' that doesn't really need additional reading to function.
3. ...but at the same time, does show a glimpse of other stuff that's gone on in the meantime that you might be interested in going back to.
4. Has some pretty solid spectacle and FF references, without being entirely reliant on spectacle and FF references.

With something of a Runescape-style 'tutorial island' to get people up to pace on mechanics, you're looking pretty good. Yeah, as lore-heads we're by nature gonna want people to play the whole thing because we just can't abide by people skipping our precious story, but if you're going to? Yeah, 6.1 is the best choice.

The concerns for me are more in the difficulty. Alzadaal's Legacy and Troia are probably pretty solid 'first dungeons' after a tutorial, but... wow, their first trial is Barbariccia, that's gonna be a handful. Their first alliance raid being Aglaia will probably be fine even if I wish that raid was harder (but then, maybe being the new first alliance raid will mean Nald'thal gets to do their scales mechanic).

But the first normal raids being Pandaemonium? Hoooo boy. It's not even just mechanical difficulty making that one hard, imagine a newbie being faced with that story without context. It's already hard for some people to understand with context!

The whole arguement for wanting to 'skip' everything up to this point is for one reason: end game. Many new players just want to be where "the cool kids are" and are not interested in running errands for the three cities at the start, or throwing in their lot with the Scions, and so couldn't care less for the story anyway (an attitude unfortunately fostered by too many MMORPGs whose stories are usually little more than window dressing at best and excuse plots at worst, and so these players cannot understand why and how FFXIV is so story centric and focused.).

And this leads to my belief Yoshi probably will not end up going through with such an idea: they already sell story skips on the Lodestone, and so allowing players to skip to DT would completely invalidate a lucrative income stream to SE (no doubt the actual revenue gained from the story skips probably will play a part in Yoshi's decision).

And one last thing to remember, we already have players complaining they missed out on 1.0's story and requesting 1.0's story be brought back somehow "to get the full story", and yes, there has been incidences here on this very forum from players who bought a story skip, then eventually regretted it due to missing out on context, just like how Cleretic mentioned above. If Yoshi did implement this, I can only imagine the complaints from players who wanted to skip ahead to endgame, then found it fleeting and realized everything they'd missed out skipping ahead in the first place, and wanting it to be reverted, and being unable to. It's just easier to keep it as is, personally.

The "6.1 as a skip point" was raised ages ago and has only just floated up from the depths of the internet this week. I am not aware of it having been newly stated by the devs.

I suspect the whole idea came about before they actually wrote 6.X and/or was not communicated well to the writers, because the story is not suited to the idea.

6.55 would be a better starting point (even for the official paid skip) to properly introduce the important characters for Dawntrail before it kicks off.

I think 6.1 is a relatively strange entrance point to the story for a new adventurer. The 6.x patch series storyline seems to be relatively self-contained, ramps up to a world-ending threat rather quickly, and seems much more connected with Meracydia than it is with Tural. It's good that they're putting some thought into it.

The alternative could be to wait until 8.0 to roll out the system and give players the option of setting their starting city to Tuliyollal after arriving by ship, while giving them aetheryte access to all the major cities for jobs. Add in a historian NPC who lets you experience each previous expansion in a sequential, modular fashion, so that you can work your way through them during downtime periods (like now). 8.0 will also be the point when they will need to look into potentially revising the levelling system (i.e. after level 100) as well, so it makes sense to roll out both together.

Then you need to look at the unending codex. Many entries are ok and then there's Emet-Selch's that practically says oh he was just some dude that existed. I feel skippers would need to have a slightly alternative start for their 6.1 unless they did get an introductory zone that by the end of it Tataru shows up and asks them to come to the Rising Stones. It's not as if we lore nerds don't get or see that just like leveling there will need a way for newer players to hop into the game at a closer spot than what a story skip would give them. I don't want to be in Yoshida's shoes. As we all know no matter what he decides there will be people who will be unhappy about it.

Lol im already against the skips we have...

I would think that 6.55 would've been a better new start. They could make it work quite easily too.

You're a veteran adventurer sailing back to Sharlayan after completing a guildship commission, you come across your old friend Erenville, who introduces you to Wuk Lamat. Then you come across the Scions while walking with them, then the story plays out much the same as normal (without the more intimate scenes with the Scions because you barely know them).

Maybe in this timeline, the WoL died on Ultima Thule with Zenos, which means Wuk Lamat would just be searching for strong people to support her claim to the throne instead of searching for a specific person (WoL).

I think this would work pretty well aside from minor changes being required for the DT story as you're not exactly friends with the Scions yet.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

You're a veteran adventurer sailing back to Sharlayan after completing a guildship commission, you come across your old friend Erenville, who introduces you to Wuk Lamat...

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No. No, definitely no.

I don't want them to go anywhere near a full-on alternate entry point with a changed narrative about who the WoL is, who they know and what they've previously been through. It can only lead to the old players' experience being hamstrung to make it better for some people who are sufficiently disinterested in getting the full story that they were willing to start playing the game from its sixth/seventh instalment.

Any skip offered should be explicitly that – a skip – and should come with the warning that the writers will not hesitate to continue writing scenes between your character and people that they know, even if the player has opted to skip over the part of the story that introduced them.

I hoped to, that the 6.1 part would be a story, where a completly new chara could go into, similary to the start of 2.0.
That is even a reason, why i dislike it, that the scions are sonmuch involved in the new story.
6.0 has ended them very good. The organisation has ended and everyone started to do there own thing. The perfect moment for a new start with new people to meet. And the scions would only be guest, who would showing up for special moments for fanservice (like, in the pokemon specialmanga, where each story is with new chara, and old ones showing up for special events).

But, there would be probally be a problem with a completly new start point and the option to not be a/the WoL.
Azems crystall.

At the moment whe obtained it, was that crystall allways the explanation, where the other players are coming, for the trials. A new chara shouldnt have that stone.
That mean, the writers had to write again, where the new people are coming from (before that was it mostly simplyfied, that it are other people, who was there or was recruited for that fight). And it would question, why the WoL doesnt use that stone anymore.
Having a start point, where ypu simply know, that you has skipped most of the story, make it easier for the story writer (i think).

Actually, that's a misconception based on players not watching the full scene and taking note of all the dialogue, the Scions didn't disband at all at the end of EW, they merely spread stories they did, in order to work more clandestinely moving forward (given a whole lot of trouble and bloodshed that was inflicted on them over the years was caused by them being out in the open and various competing forces trying to manipulate them for their own ends), just like they did when they were still the Path of the Twelve before the Calamity, when they pretended to be a weird Twelve-worshipping cult but were really a safe haven and research guild of the Echo and those possessing it's power.

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn still exists, they're just working independently behind the scenes.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Actually, that's a misconception based on players not watching the full scene and taking note of all the dialogue, the Scions didn't disband at all at the end of EW, they merely spread stories they did, in order to work more clandestinely moving forward (given a whole lot of trouble and bloodshed that was inflicted on them over the years was caused by them being out in the open and various competing forces trying to manipulate them for their own ends), just like they did when they were still the Path of the Twelve before the Calamity, when they pretended to be a weird Twelve-worshipping cult but were really a safe haven and research guild of the Echo and those possessing it's power.

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn still exists, they're just working independently behind the scenes.

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There's also sort of an element of 'on-paper truths'. The organization known as the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have disbanded, because the purpose of said organization ('deal with that primal problem and its root causes') had run its course; they preferred to dissolve the body rather than leave it without clear purpose. That doesn't mean the group as a more nebulous group of allies stops existing, they just shut down their Facebook business page and moved out of the office.

At this point I wish the devs would outright address the public disbandment of the Scions again either in or out of context given how tiresome its endurance is, to speak nothing of its propensity to derail every discussion with semantics as though the intention wasn't outright textually stated. I'm reminded of the first hour in Sharlayan which included conspicuously straightforward dialogue dedicated to dispelling years-old misconceptions such as having completely closed borders. To the topic at hand, though...

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Originally Posted by Iscah

The "6.1 as a skip point" was raised ages ago and has only just floated up from the depths of the internet this week. I am not aware of it having been newly stated by the devs.

I suspect the whole idea came about before they actually wrote 6.X and/or was not communicated well to the writers, because the story is not suited to the idea.

6.55 would be a better starting point (even for the official paid skip) to properly introduce the important characters for Dawntrail before it kicks off.

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This seems to me like the most likely scenario on all accounts; in my opinion spending the entire 6.x development cycle making 98% of MSQ battle content playable solo would be a strange move if the ultimate plan was to just drop new players straight after all of it. Like Enkidoh said, it would also be doing away with a very valuable revenue stream, but with SE's track record it may be unfair to assume that the 6.1 start wouldn't be monetized.

I'm not sure whether or not the article from last week that everyone's buzzing about is new or a republish, but having read it to the best of my ability it's still rather wishy-washy and lacking in specific details, even outright stating that they're unsure if they'd implement such a thing in Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Vallavia

I'm not sure whether or not the article from last week that everyone's buzzing about is new or a republish, but having read it to the best of my ability it's still rather wishy-washy and lacking in specific details, even outright stating that they're unsure if they'd implement such a thing in Dawntrail.

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The only article I've seen quoted recently is the one still talking about something that is clearly the Unending Codex in vague future terms, so dates back to pre-6.X.

The way I'm seeing it is if this is allowed then the new player character would have to be someone entirely different, and the WoL to you would be someone who just saved the world (which means you're a random adventurer watching from the sidelines) & you were a background character for the Scions (meaning you're just a random adventurer working for the scions) OR you just joined the Scions after Endwalker was over.

The problem here is if the New Player ever decides to go back the older stuff the narrative really gets screwed up for your character and it stops making sense.

So logically there probably isn't going to be a alternate storyline.

Honestly this is on the players that are too damn impatient with the attention span of a gnat which is all too common with gaming now, I'm sorry I gotta be blunt about it.

I agree. I think it could also lead to this weird cognitive divide between some players' characters being the universe-saving heroes and somebody being just... someone. A lot of our prowess seems to be tied to our being a shard of Azem because the Azems of different shards always end up as some kind of key figure for their world. (I'm not sure if we still possess Hydealin's blessing after defeating her and if the Echo is still a thing but if we still possess either or both then this probably adds even more layers to the lore-based power difference.)

Of course it could be fun to make the deliberate choice to play a "normal" person instead of a hero in Eorzea. To be a lot more like the scions and the allies that helped the WoL along the way, since the WoL is essentially a Chosen One story.

But if you are a completely new player then you are not making this deliberate choice. You probably don't know what this game is about except on the surface and then when you are already in it you notice that you could have been the chosen one and now you are just one rando when you'd like to have been the former.
(And I'd argue that even if you give people the option in the character creator to either hop right into Dawntrail or start with ARR you probably still can't really make that decision.
You don't know how the world, the characters, the story, the magic/sense of adventure feel since you haven't played and gathered any personal experience with the its atmosphere and setting yet. Perhaps after getting to know the world, characters and feel after a bit of playtime you'd come to the conclusion that you would have made a different decision as to where you'd like to start the story.)

So I don't think alternative storylines are necessarily a good idea.

What Yoshi-P is mentioning in terms of "start with season 1" and "making it easier to catch up" could be a good middle ground - in theory of course because somebody already brought up the very good point that story skips are an important revenue stream.

But hypothetically speaking I think it would be better if everyone is the WoL and newcomers in Dawntrail can decide whether they want to go through the entire (but hopefully a little revamped) experience or if they want to get a very condensed version of the events (I don't know if this should involve active gameplay or be more on the cutscene-heavy side with new players getting the choice to mostly passively consume some form of "lore summary") at the self-imposed risk of missing nuances and experiences for a faster entry into the WoL's new adventures.
At the same time, they could also get something like a "new game plus light", i.e., if they decide after the condensed catch up that they'd actually like to play through everything before hopping into Dawntrail they can still return to that path despite having spoiled the story for themselves (the "price" they paid for their previous decision so to speak).

Just make it that instanced content only check party leader's story progression for entrance.