New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Snip

Ask your friend to start playing now, so he can catch up and become a machinist when the expansion hits. If he doesn't like it because he can't do it right away, well, that's his problem. We still don't know how things are going to be when the time comes, since Yoshi-p is always modifiying stuff on the go, we're still almost 3 months away from the expansion. I've waited for like 2 years to become a DRK...

And the "No MMO did this before" argument is something that I completely ignore when people state that. If I ever mention it, it's under request or to use it as a counter-argument when mentioned. People critize things because either "Every MMO does it and sucks" or "No MMO does it and they should". What about letting them have their own politics?

The expansion is not only "3 new classes", it's a lot of content bundled together, which includes new classes or jobs... or whatever they call it. Lore-wise (Because this is a Final Fantasy game. It implies it's a story-driven MMO), it makes sense. Why would you be trained in a job that doesn't belong to your lands? You need to migrate there and the story will lead you through said path. You'll unlock plenty of stuff on the way.

/edit: Silly character limit. Remove that pls.

[KodiHivaer]

You'll unlock plenty of stuff on the way.

[SpookyGhost]

Why would you be trained in a job that doesn't belong to your lands?

To be fair, NIN, WAR, MNK, DRG... all not native practices. DRG is especially important here as it's an Ishgardian job.

[Aeyis]

Also some of the posts in this thread just appall me. Requiring a month and a half of work for new players to get to actual relevant content or to get to play the only class they may care about doesn't strike you as bad design AT ALL?

Despite my earlier comments on the MSQ not being as fast to complete as others have claimed, a month and a half is a very large overstatement of how long it would take.
It would not take anywhere that long.

That said, I remember when simply leveling to max level took much longer then that in WoW...and it was an extremely fast leveling game at the time, compared to other MMOs.

Honestly it makes me worry about this game's future. There's no way it'll last as long as say, WoW, with this design choice.

From start to current WoW has made very nearly only poor design choices. Yet despite that (or because of that?) it lasted this long.

No other MMO has ever locked a new class behind anything.

You've not played many MMOs I take it. To give Ragnarok Online as example. Transcendant classes were only available once you maxed your level (level 99), which took an exceeding amount of time.

As I said, I have a friend who won't play this game unless he's able to use guns, and now he won't play the game at all

Maybe he should play a different game then. Because at current this game has no gun classes at all, and it doesnt sound like a game he would enjoy playing.

[Magis]

Doing the main scenario is now "gating content"? lol. This is the equivalent of complaining you don't get your chocobo/retainers at level 1 or that you aren't given all your skills right away.

It seems SE is going with "advance jobs" like FFXI did with anything post ARR. Like how many of the job quest unlocks were in higher level areas, the new ones in FFXIV will be in level 50 Ishguard.

These new jobs require some investment to get them unlike the base jobs, so if a player wants to get it then they'll have to do the SUPER HARD MSQ.

It's normal for things to be gated behind expansions:

WOW: want to experience this awesome stuff? TOO BAD! get WOTLK <some other expansions> and level 55!
GW1 wanted to get to Elonia? TOO BAD! Get GW: Eye of the north!
FFXI: Wanted to get to these snazzy places with new jobs? TOO BAD! Get COP, TOAU, WOTG <insert other expansions here> and get level 30 to unlock the quests

I don't know if you're new to the mmorpg scene but this has been the norm since MMORPGs existed.

It doesn't even take that long to get through the main story nor level, at least a month 1/2 or so.

Forgot WoW locked Death Knight too. This isn't even a new thing!

[Fleur]

Hmm, I guess it must just be me that finds the many quests that require the duty finder to be the main hurdle to MSQ completion.

Pretty fun: doing eleventy zillion story quests
Oh please no: having said story quests include ~20 waits in the DF queue for instances that may or may not be difficult for you that you must do at specific points in order to progress the story

Then again, I'm not as big on grouping as some folks are. I certainly do enjoy group instances, but not every darn time I fire up the game, y'know? ^^;

It is a disappointment, but I can live with not being able to pick up Astrologian as soon as I'd like. I'll just continue to plod along and look forward to, at least, playing an Au Ra. <3

[Omegakiyohime]

To be fair, NIN, WAR, MNK, DRG... all not native practices. DRG is especially important here as it's an Ishgardian job.

Well, you know the saying FFXIV is a story driven MMO....until it's not and the lore team works around the lore for the dev team i.e. new players as Au Ra, us even having male chocobos for racing, dyeable artifact gear dropping etc.

It was said at the fanfest that lore comes second to the whims of the developers. The dev team decides what they are going to do and then the lore team fills in the blanks. Sure, as of now/that last interview, the jobs/ishgard access is being gated, but if the dev team wanted to open them up, lore would be the last thing to keep them from doing it. Especially when they can throw a "Machinist Guild Envoy" somewhere in Coerthas and call it a day.

I do feel like XIV has its base jobs set and will probably keep these extra jobs in Ishgard as a goal for new players though.

As for the gate, meh I could go either way. I'm not affected yet. I'm sure they'll look into ways at making the DF dungeons more accessible though, be it requiring us to re do them for things (a la roulette and the relics) to the FC squad thing they briefly talked about.

[Stormrider]

This will be amusing to see how this plays out. All the people who defend the story gating of certain content. Will you all be happy when at 60 you have to run Toto-rak for the 1000th time.

Because they are going to have to force you to go back and do story dungeons or add NPCs. You have never seen any thread or actual player complain about being forced into low dungeons through books or roulette. Also how much community good will are 60s going to have when they have to run the praetorium because its in the level 60 story roulette. You think anyone in df is going to wait for a CS.

We also don't know what level the new jobs will be if they are over 30 they will skip that awesome content. So no influx through that means to carry people for the first couple months.

It is fine to defend the Lore of the game. But also have to look forward to how to grow the player base. I have seen enough Lore defenders obliterated any hope of pvp taking any hold in this game.

[ThusFarJay]

What?!

This will be amusing to see how this plays out. All the people who defend the story gating of certain content. Will you all be happy when at 60 you have to run Toto-rak for the 1000th time.

Because they are going to have to force you to go back and do story dungeons or add NPCs. You have never seen any thread or actual player complain about being forced into low dungeons through books or roulette. Also how much community good will are 60s going to have when they have to run the praetorium because its in the level 60 story roulette. You think anyone in df is going to wait for a CS.

We also don't know what level the new jobs will be if they are over 30 they will skip that awesome content. So no influx through that means to carry people for the first couple months.

It is fine to defend the Lore of the game. But also have to look forward to how to grow the player base. I have seen enough Lore defenders obliterated any hope of pvp taking any hold in this game.

Trying to find the relevance here.

I have a Zeta and PvP heavily. I know a thing or two about revisiting old content. The essence of this game is indeed returning to old content. Nothing new, nothing loss. I already run Praetorium and CM, so again nothing new. People already do not wait for those watching cut scenes. Again, nothing new. It's bad, but if you're new you are going to watch them anyway. 10/10, you will be back to actually participate.

tl;dr

I'd much rather have a player who cares for the story line than one who does not. This is not your pick up and go Call of Duty DLC ( which I also play). A player who commits is often one that will stick around which is good for the community/player base and generating revenue. Someone who only intended to level one job ( which happens to be one of the new ones) it likely to be around for a short period of time.

[Magis]

This will be amusing to see how this plays out. All the people who defend the story gating of certain content. Will you all be happy when at 60 you have to run Toto-rak for the 1000th time.

Because they are going to have to force you to go back and do story dungeons or add NPCs. You have never seen any thread or actual player complain about being forced into low dungeons through books or roulette. Also how much community good will are 60s going to have when they have to run the praetorium because its in the level 60 story roulette. You think anyone in df is going to wait for a CS.

We also don't know what level the new jobs will be if they are over 30 they will skip that awesome content. So no influx through that means to carry people for the first couple months.

It is fine to defend the Lore of the game. But also have to look forward to how to grow the player base. I have seen enough Lore defenders obliterated any hope of pvp taking any hold in this game.

What does this have anything to do with gating jobs? A new player isn't going to do anything in Ishguard because everything there is level 50+! Them having a DRK or not isn't going to change that lol.

WoW gated content and they didn't seem to have the problem. Heck, TBC was probably one of the most gatey (besides vanilla) and was where their playerbase grew them most. Then they gated a job in the expansion after. FFXI also gates jobs and didn't run into problems.

This isn't a new thing.